Write in a conversational tone. Marketese and business-speak do not work in blogs. Write as though you are having a casual conversation with a friend. Say it out loud as if speaking to someone before writing it down. If you have trouble writing conversationally this may help immensely. As silly as it may sound, some people find holding a telephone handset to their head helps.

Write like yourself, not anyone else. You might love Dan Brown or Stephen King but you can’t write like them and they can’t write like you. You have to find your voice, your individual tone and style, and then you will be able to write with a greater sense of confidence.

Inject Your Own Voice into Your Blog Writing |

So, What’s Article Spinning anyway?

Article spinning is a technique used to create a unique version of a base piece of content. Put another way, article spinning is the process by which a copywriter or blogger creates a new article out of an existing article by rewriting it. Often times this process is used to create dozens of unique articles from one article for the purposes of article marketing.

Article Spinning is most often associated with the use of spinning software that automates the process of creating multiple articles.

How does article spinning work?

Article spinning requires “spintax.” Spintax (or spin syntax) is the list of text, sentences, or synonyms that are embedded into an article. The article spinning software then randomly substitutes your synonym choices into the article to create new, unique variations of the base article.

Consider the following sentence:

Fido is a {green|blue|yellow} stuffed {doggy|dog|puppy}.

In this example, curly braces enclose the text which can be chosen at random. For example, {green|blue|yellow} means that when you read the sentence, you can choose to substitute one of the three colors listed in the sentence. When a sentence is spun, article spinning software can generate a unique version of the sentence (see below).

Fido is a green stuffed dog.
Fido is a green stuffed doggy.
Fido is a blue stuffed puppy.
Fido is a blue stuffed doggy.
Fido is a yellow stuffed dog.

Why Spin Articles?

Spinning your original article is a good way to avoid Google’s duplicate content penalty (which really isn’t a penalty). For example, if Google comes across two identical articles, it will only index one of them into the main index, which are the results we all see after we do a search on Google. The winning article will be the one Google sees as being the original content – which 99% of the time is the article that was written (and indexed) first. Thus, simply copying a bunch of previously written articles and posting them on your blog is going to do absolutely nothing for you in terms of SEO as most if this content won’t even get indexed.

What if I’m using content for article marketing?

Well, many marketers have found great success with article marketing; including me. One of the main reasons for doing this is to create backlinks to our site(s). The concept is rather simple. Creating more backlinks to your site will ultimately help you improve your search rankings for your targeted keywords. Ranking in the top three for these keywords gives you a much better chance of making money with your site than sitting on page 2 or 3. This is an over-simplification as quality of backlinks, anchor text used, link-diversity and the like all play a role; but you get the point.

This duplicate content issue is a constant debate and many marketers fear the wrath of Google and smartly err on the side of caution with their article marketing & content creation techniques. Thus, when they submit articles to dozens of article directories, they submit unique articles. Whether they take the huge amount of time it takes to rewrite an article a dozen times, higher someone to write their articles or use an article generating software to spin an article, they ultimately want to spread unique content across hundreds of sites.

Another, vastly lazy technique, is to simply take one article and blast it across hundreds of sites in order to increase your backlinks. This can get you into trouble however, as Google will see hundreds of backlinks to your site all coming from sources of identical content. That screams of SPAM! I highly recommend not using this lazy approach to marketing as it can get your site in the Google sandbox, which you do NOT want to be in.

Instead, work smarter not harder.

You can easily pay content writers to write articles for you. This can be a very effective way to create unique content as it allows you to spend your time performing other marketing tasks. The big drawback to this method is that it can become rather expensive.

Your alternative is to find a great article generator that can automate the process of spinning articles for you. For a one time charge of less than a $100 dollars, you can have the ability to spin hundreds of articles in minutes.

Basic Benefits of Article Spinning

Opportunity cost – The time it would take you to sit down and write a dozen articles can be done in seconds with spinning software. This frees up your time to concentrate on other marketing activities.

Saves Money – It is far cheaper to employ article marketing software than it is to hire someone to write the same amount of content that can be generated from good spinning software.

Scalability – Having the ability to generate unique content – whether for article marketing or creating multiple websites – using spinning software allows you to grow your online business.

Reduced frustration – No longer having to spend hours to rewrite articles or even create original content from scratch for a new site can reduce your boredom and frustration level. Trying to make some descent money online is hard enough and spending your weekends doing nothing but writing can take the wind out of your sails.

Hope this shed a little light on what article spinning is.

What is Article Spinning |

The Best Spinner is the most popular software in the industry and for good reason. The value you get from this software is unmatched.

The Best Spinner Review

Every successful website/blog that generates revenue has compelling content. There a many aspects to online marketing (SEO, website navigation, social media, etc) and content is arguably your best investment in both time and money for your online ventures. Unfortunately, creating compelling, original content doesn’t come cheap. Your time is valuable and spending hours every day writing blog posts and articles can become expensive.

Opportunity cost is defined as the value of the next best alternative. Put another way, what could you be doing instead of spending hours upon hours creating unique content from scratch? SEO, email marketing, creating another money-making website?

Managing your time is essential to your online success. Let’s face it; there’s only so much time in a day and spending too much time writing articles and blog posts is going to keep you from being able to market your website. If you could find a way to create unique content without having to write it all yourself, I bet you would be interested.

One solution is to use an article rewriting software to generate unique content. Unfortunately, finding one that is worth pulling out the Paypal for can be a frustrating process. I’ve personally used several “article rewriters”, which do nothing more than “automatically” spit out some junk articles that aren’t even readable by humans. David Watson’s Website Content Wizard comes to mind when I think of worthless article spinners/rewriters. It’s a complete waste of $197.

Enter The Best Spinner

Jon Leger’s The Best Spinner (TBS) software is the industry standard. It will drastically reduce the amount of time your spend creating articles. It has the ability to generate 100s of unique versions of your base article that can actually be read by people. Many of the features The Best Spinner provides are not offered by any other spinning software or service; including those that are worth buying.

Jon Leger created the industry standard in article generators when he came out with The Best Spinner.

SEO is a huge part of any successful online business. Article marketing (despite what a few marketers say) is still a successful aspect of online marketing. It’s been a successful technique for years and remains highly successful when employed properly. If article marketing wasn’t creating value for me I wouldn’t waste my time doing it.

Unfortunately, many naysayers who claim article marketing didn’t work for them, simply didn’t do it right. They picked up a cheap article spinner, found a PLR article and used the “quick spin” feature of their software that spit out garbage. Then they spread their misguided opinions on forums and blogs.

Many spinners have a poor thesaurus and synonym database that turns well written complete sentences into strings of words which no longer make any sense.

The Best Spinner has a built-in thesaurus that is constantly being refined and added to by actual users of the software – the more people who TBS, the more refined and powerful the thesaurus gets.

John has a great video on his site that explains his software much better than I can. Watch the video.

Some basic features of The Best Spinner

• NEW! German, French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish and Portuguese (both Brazilian and Portugal) language thesauri.
• NEW! Support for building a custom thesaurus for any language.
• Simply & user friendly interface allows for spinning articles and creating unique content with ease.
• Advanced spinning techniques such as nested spinning, which allows you to go as many levels deep as you want.
• Fast individual article rewrites with the built in “word replacement” functionality and the “Auto-Rewrite” function.
• Spin more than singe words – TBS has ability to spin full-sentences and paragraphs.
• “Favorite” synonym lists for terms you commonly use — and replaces them ALL with one click of a button.
• Quickly generates up to 1,000 spun versions of your article at a time.
• Built-in “TBS Check” or the Copyscape integration in order to double check your article’s uniqueness on the Internet.
• Compare any two articles side-by-side to see how unique the two articles are when compared to each other, and have duplicated text highlighted.
• Export spun articles to other submission software such as SENUKE X and Article Marketing Robot.
• Displays uniqueness percentage to quickly show you how good your spinning is.
• The thesaurus is constantly being updated and added to.
• Built-in spelling and grammar checking.

Learn more about The Best Spinner

The Best Spinner Review |

The Magic Article Rewriter is one of the best values you can find. It allows you to create truly unique articles in minutes.

Magic Article Rewriter Review

There has been a steady growth of competition in the article spinning market in recent years. The Best Spinner (TBS) was released a few years ago to much fanfare and it truly is respectable article spinner. With that said, one of the many thing I like about Alexander’s Magic Article Rewriter is that he is perpetually improving Magic Article Rewriter. In fact, a good sign that a piece of software may be worth it’s price is the consistentcy of its updates, which shows a desire for its developers to make an ever-improving product.The latest version of Magic Article Rewriter came with some fantastic additions and improvements.

The Synonym Database Includes Phrases

This is a welcome new feature that makes Magic Article Rewriter infinitely more useful. Instead of just single words in its database, the software has now added multi-word phrases in its synonym database. MAR also includes a new button in the toolbar called Define Synonyms. If you press this button, the software will analyze your current article and highlight all the phrases in the text that have entries in its database. Click on the highlighted phrase and it will automatically get selected which makes it easy to add your variations.

More Efficient Manual Content Spinning

In the Spin Window, there are now buttons to navigate back and forth between each word in your article. For people who like using keyboard shortcuts, you can press the TAB key to move forward and SHIFT-TAB to move back as well.

Also in the Spin Window, you can now select variations with a single-click (instead of double-click) and your selected variations also remain highlighted. Deleting a variation is now just a matter of deselecting it with a simple mouse click. These are simple usability changes, but I love how much faster I can spin my articles with them.

Improved Tokens Support

In earlier versions, you could only add single words as tokens. Now, Alexander has added the ability to add phrases and sentences as tokens as well. The ‘Remove Tokens’ feature has also received a makeover where you can now remove individual words from a token instead of the entire token.

These are just some of the new features of Magic Article Rewriter 1.8 that I’ve tested so far, but there are several other additions that I haven’t played around with yet like the new templates function. Anyway, if you are an existing MAR user, make sure to download the free update and upgrade right away. The new features make article spinning a whole lot easier and I’m very happy they got added.

Watch this video for a more detailed overview. Keep in mind, english is not Alexander’s native language. It may come across as bland but I assure you his software is excellent!

Learn more about Magic Article Rewriter

Magic Article Rewriter Review |

The Content Professor Article Generator is arguably the best Web-based spinner available today!

The Content Professor Review

The Content Professor Article Generator is an innovative product used for spinning content and whipping up tons of unique articles within minutes. In fact, creating 50 or more articles from a base article can be done in as little as 30 seconds. It is a fantastic tool for article marketing, blog content creation and affiliates looking to make the most of their valuable time.

Like many formidable article spinners/generators, one of the biggest benefits of the Content Professor is it’s ability to save you time and money. With the time it takes to do proper keyword research, setup and design a website, anytime you can save creating content is time you can spend concentrating on that which brings in the money!

Content spinners/article generators are by no means new to the Internet marketing arena. These tools have been around for years. Unfortunately, many are buggy and do not provide the value they claim to. I’ve used several content generators, which can do much more the simple article spinning. Content Professor is one tool that leaves many other article spinners in the digital dust.

With a try-before-you-buy plan, you can see just how good it is without paying a cent!

Get the Content Spinner FREE trial!

Here’s some common frustrations many people come across when creating unique content. Any look familiar?

Frustration 1 – A common practice for many marketers is to write a base article, then rewrite a handful of different versions. This can be a very dull and dreary activity that can really do some damage to your motivation. Creating good content is only party of the Internet marketing game, and spending too much time rewriting articles by hand can leave you with mush brain! Avoid mush brain!

Frustration 2 – Writing content yourself is undoubtedly the best approach. However, the time it takes you to write each article from scratch can take up a vast amount of your time. While you are typing away manually, those competiting in your same niche are using article spinning software, thus have more free time for SEO, other forms of marketing, linkbuilding and/or creating their next niche site. Sometimes, you just can’t beat someone who is using spinning software when you are writing by hand. The name of the game is getting the most from your limited time.

Frustration 3 – The cost to outsource your content writing can add up. Outsourcing articles can be risky if not done properly and you often times get what you pay for. If the content is bad, it can potentially cause more damage than good. Poor content is a great way to bore visitors and ensure they never come back. This can cost you tons of lost revenue when your content is being used to sell products or services.

Years ago, marketers began to circumvent these frustrations with basic spinning software programs. Unfortunately, many spinners did a horrible job, creating articles that were unreadable to humans. This was due to the poor use of synonyms and the replacement of words that turned sentences into nothing more than a string of unrelated words. Additionally, the search engines began to catch on and were able to identify and remove these poorly written web pages, which were seen as duplicate content resulting from hoards of marketers spinning the same PLR articles with the same spinning tools.

So how can you regain the ease of spinning articles and save valuable time and money, all while maintaining high quality content?

The Content Professor Article Generator is a great option.

One of the coolest features of the Content Professor is that it’s Web-based. No need to download a desktop application. You can access the Content Professor anywhere you can access the Internet.

Check out this video for a more complete review.

Check out the Content Spinner

Content Professor Article Generator Review |

Everyone Likes Free Stuff! An ever-growing list of free blogging tutorials and resources awaits you below!

This list of free stuff is a great resource for many bloggers and Internet marketers. I highly recommend that you bookmark this page as it is constantly being updated with free stuff. Enjoy!

WordPress

Free WordPress Installation Service

Free WordPress Ebook

Internet Business Tips

25 Surefire Ways to Capture More Clients, Get More Done in Less Time, and Make More Money — in 90 Days or Less

Search Engine Optimization

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO

2011 Search Engine Ranking Factors

7 Day to SEO Success

The Website Marketing Mind Map

The Secrets to Building Relationships Online

Social Media

10 free Twitter ebooks (this page is full of Twitter resources)

Using StumbleUpon for Traffic Growth

The Facebook Page Marketing Guide -2010

Using Facebook for Business

How to Use Facebook for Business

20 Free eBooks About Social Media

Free Blogging Tutorials, eBooks and Guides |

How to Blog Tutorials and Guides |

Part II of this guide to starting a blog with WordPress will cover the wonderful world of WordPress plugins – plugins are blogger candy!

WordPress plugins are add-ons for WordPress that plug into the core WordPress application and add extended functionality for blogs. What each plugin has in common is that they add to the power of the WordPress platform by either replacing or adding features. This is functionality is similar to the “apps” which can be uploaded on iPhones and Android phones.

There are a few core plugins which are developed by WordPress but most are written by third party developers. Many of these plugins are offered for free – with the original developer asking for small donations – and some more advanced ones are paid or premium plugins. The WordPress team does a great job of maintaining a list of nearly 11,000 plugins and each plugin is ranked or rated based on the community’s feedback.

10  Essential WordPress plugins for new bloggers

All of the plugin links below go to their respective WordPress download pages. However, if you already have a WordPress blog then the easiest way to get these plugins installed is to search for them in the plugin database from your user interface. See below.

1. Akismet – is a great comment spam plugin. This one comes highly recommended.
2. All in One SEO Pack – is a plugin that helps to optimize a blog for search engines. It gives easy ways to set up title tags, descriptions, keywords and a variety of other settings that have an impact upon SEO.
3. Contact Form 7 –is a powerful contact form plugin which is simple yet very flexible. It allows you to flexibly design the form and mail. You can even manage multiple contact forms as well.
4. Google XML Sitemaps – is a plugin to help Google and other search engines to find every page and post on your blog – good for getting a new blog indexed quickly.
5. CommentLuv – is a great plugin that allows people who take the time to comment on your blog to leave a link back to their latest blog post. This is a great way to show appreciation to your readers and encourage them to leave comments.
6. Digg Digg – is an all-in-one plugin that integrates popular social vote buttons easily on your blog. There are dozens of social media-related plugins available but Digg Digg is perhaps the most flexible and dynamic, and currently includes 19 different social sites such as Twitter, Facebook (like and share!), Digg (of course), Stumbleupon, Delicious, and more. I use this plugin and have been a happy camper ever since.
7. Subscribe To Comments – is a WordPress plugin that allows those leaving comments to check a box and be notified when other people leave a comment on that thread.
8. W3 Total Cache – is a plugin that helps to speed up the load time of your blog’s pages. Waiting for a pages to load can be annoying for visitors and will often times move on to another website as a result. Don’t let slow load times negatively impact your readership.
9. Broken Link Checker – is a great plugin that scans your blog for broken links. Nothing is more annoying than clicking on a link that sends me to the dreaded ’404 error page’. This plugin will help you to prevent your readers from this same experience.
10. WP Database Backup – is an invaluable plugin that all bloggers should be using. Too many novice bloggers learn the hard way that consistently backing up their blog can reroute some future headaches. Don’t lose your blog’s data, install this plugin!

These are just a few plugins that you can use to quickly and easily expand the functionality of your blog and get you started in the right direction. Part 3 of the series will cover the basics of how to use WordPress such as creating your first blog post, uploading images and videos and more.

A Guide to Starting a Blog with WordPress, pt 1

A Guide to Starting a Blog with WordPress, pt 2 |

Are you ready to start your first blog but don’t know exactly where to begin?

This 3 part series will guide you in how to start a WordPress blog and get your first blog post published!

The popularity of blogging is at an all time high and shows no signs of slowing down. Not only does this popularity bring more soon-to-be bloggers to this growing industry, but it also ferries in an additional wave of competitors who are vying for the opportunity to earn your business and get you to use their blogging-related products. This competition is great for end users cause it creates choice and promotes the creation of more advanced and user-friendly products, but it also can cause a little ‘head-scratchin’ as to exactly how to get your blogging show on the road!

Perhaps I can help.

In this 3 part guide to WordPress I will cover the basics of using WordPress and provide some links to additional resources in order to help you get heading in the right direction. This blog series will cover the following:

• How and why to start a blog with WordPress
• Finding blog themes and plugins to meet your needs
• Publishing blog posts and uploading pictures and videos

Using WordPress

With a growing number of people and businesses looking to the Internet to setup blogs, the options for blogging platforms have increased dramatically. If you are a frequent flyer of the Internet like I am, then you have undoubtedly come across many different blogs and larger websites that run on blog platforms. Therefore, you have surely stumbled upon two of the most popular choices out there; Blogger and WordPress. I, like many professional bloggers, am a big advocate of WordPress and I highly recommend it to bloggers of all experience levels use it. Here’s a few reasons why:

• WordPress is an Open Source software which allows it to be used free of cost.
• User friendly interface means you don’t have to be an experienced blogger to use it
• Great theme support. You will never run short of templates when using WordPress.
• Plugins, plugins, plugins! WordPress plugins allow you to do just about anything that you want and can be installed easily.
• Great Community. The large WordPress user community backing the development of this software is very helpful.

Who uses WordPress? Darren Rouse of Problogger.net, Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com, Chris Brogan of ChrisBrogan.com, eBay, Yahoo, Wall Street Journal, NYTimes, CNN and millions more.

Ready to get started?!

Step 1 – Get a domain, web hosting and install WordPress

Haven’t got that far yet? No problem. Check out this video tutorial on how to intall WordPress.

Step 2 – Install WordPress theme

Flexible WordPress Themes

The WordPress theme you choose for your blog will go a long way to establishing the look and feel of your blog in the eyes of your readers. Regardless of content, many readers will make an almost immediate decision about your blog simply based on its layout and design. Having a generic blog design that is hard to navigate through may discourage people from reading your blog despite your wonderful content. By taking the time to find an appropriate theme that meets your needs and goals, you will save yourself some potential, future headaches and get your blogging started on the right path.

Once you have WordPress set up on your server the first thing you will need to do is find a theme for your blog. There are literally thousands of WordPress themes to choose from. I personally use the Atahualpa theme on my blog and it is free. This theme is the most advanced, free theme I have found and continues to serve me well. If you are interested in creating a business with your blog you may want to consider using some more advanced themes that will extract a few bucks from your wallet but will be well worth the modest investment. In order to help you out with your search I have provided a few links to some great themes that are used by novice and professionals bloggers alike. Below is a short list of some of the more popular WordPress themes.

• Atahualpa WordPress Theme (free)
• Directory of free themes from WordPress.org
• The Thesis Theme for WordPress (aff). This is a very popular theme used by many blogging professionals.

Here is a quick video tutorial created by iThemes on how to upload WordPress themes to your blog.

After you choose your theme, the next step(s) you should take is to download some basic, yet vital plugins that will help you enhance your blog and make it a more highly functional platform. In the next part of this WordPress guide I will cover plugins and why they are the best thing in blogging since sliced bread!

A Guide in How to Start a Blog with WordPress, pt 1 |

This four-part blog series will cover just how important foundation articles are to your blogging success. It is not enough to randomly create blog posts without any strategical direction. In my opinion there is no point to blogging if there is nobody out there to read your wonderful writing. In order to gain success with your blogging efforts you must gain readers. And once you gain these readers there needs to be some organization in how you post or they will simply leave you for another related blog, and I assure you that the competition is stiff no matter what niche you are in.

My hope with this blog series is that it will allow you to view blogging from a different perspective and give you some insight into how you should structure your blog. In addition, there are several topics that I cover, which are important for learning how to drive traffic to your blog and become more search friendly in the eyes of Google ‘n company.

For those of you who are interested in making money with your blog, however large or small, the name of the game is readership. In other words, the more eyeballs you have looking at your blog, the greater your chances for making money through your blogging.

Enjoy the series!

Part I – Know the Difference Between Pillar Articles and Foundation Articles

Part II -Structuring Your Blog Around Foundation Articles is Key

Part III – Gaining Blog Traffic with Foundation Articles

Part IV – Portal Pages are Becoming Increasingly Important for Bloggers

Importance of Foundation Articles for Blogs |

In the first three parts of this blog series we talked about what foundation articles are, how to build your blog around them, and use them to drive readers to your blog.

In this final installment we will discuss the use of portal pages as a means to drive readers to your blog. A portal is essentially an entrance or gateway that connects two locations. With respect to the Internet, a portal page is a Web page that links back to the desired page of your blog that you want potential readers to visit. It is no longer enough to spend all of your time on your blog, writing wonderful content and optimizing it for search engines.

With the increased popularity in social media, more and more Web surfers are spending time on sites like Facebook, Digg and Twitter. People are increasingly using these social media sites to find content and if you are not spending a good chunk of your time utilizing the power of these Internet ‘hot spots’ then you are missing out on a large chunk of your potential audience. I personally recommend that bloggers spend at least half of their time away from their blog. This time should be spent creating content on external sites and engaging people on Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and the like.

Places to create your Portal Pages

Ezine Articles. This was one of the earliest websites people used to create external content, and is still very popular. I have created several articles on Ezine and have seen very good results in terms of driving traffic to my blog. Ezine has great authority with search engines, thus the backlinks that come to your blog from Ezine have excellent value.

eHow. This is a great site for writing step-by-step tutorial articles that can cover anything from how to fix a leaky faucet to how to market a blog. eHow also allows people to upload videos which is becoming a more common theme among user-generated content sites. With more and more people looking to the Internet to find information and problem-solving solutions, eHow has become a great resource and I strongly encourage bloggers to take advantage of this trend. Oh, and you can even make some money by posting your articles and videos on eHow.

Squidoo. This Website was the brainchild of Seth Godin and takes a more unique approach with respect to content that people can create. People can build what are called lenses (Web pages), using text, pictures, videos, polls and more. Squidoo also offers users the ability to get paid from creating lenses through affiliate programs with eBay and Amazon as well as with Google Adsense advertising. I personally think Squidoo is a great site for bloggers to utilize because it fosters a more engaging environment and allows readers to actually get involved with lenses through ratings, commenting, voting and even uploading their own content to your lenses. I have created several lenses with Squidoo and will use one of them as an example in the next section.

Examiner.com. This is a fantastic local online news source that uses local writers, bloggers and journalists to generate its content. Most major cities have a local Examiner.com site and becoming a writer for them is an easy process. The topics you can write about are vast, so if you have an interest in health, the arts, local news, politics, sports and more, then I strongly encourage you to check this site out. In addition, they pay you for your writing services. Write for Examiner.com (aff)

For more opportunities on how bloggers can make money, check out my post 22 Ways to Get Paid Blogging.

The importance of using anchor text

Use targeted keywords in your anchor text. It is frustrating to see so many Web pages and blog posts with the ‘click me’ link, because they are missing out on the value that comes with putting specific keywords into their links. Search Engines put a higher value on the anchor text used in links than they do on regular page text (anchor text is the visible text in a link which you can click on; usually a blue, underlined string of text).

But you don’t have to take my word on it. SEOMoz.com is one of the leading authorities in SEO, and they listed the top 5 search engine ranking factors, and keyword anchor text from external links is number one. I have only briefly addressed half of this factor with the importance of using keyword-rich anchor text. The importance of external links will be addressed in the next two sections.

So, what kind of anchor text should you use in your links?

Well, this is where your keyword research we talked about in Gaining Blog Traffic with Foundation Articles comes into play. When you find anywhere from six to a dozen keyword phrases you want to focus on, then begin to strategically insert these phrases into the anchor text. By doing this, you are telling the search engines that these keyword phrases are important and they best convey what the content of your blog post is about.

Do Not – To learn more about how to make money by blogging, click here.

Do – Learn more about how to make money by blogging.

For further illustration, go to my Squidoo lens, Paul Revere, Squidoo and the Benefits of Blogging. As you read that lens you will come across the links, make money by blogging and learn how to start a blogging right now in 5 steps under the ‘benefits of blogging’ section of the lens. This is an example of specific keyword phrases I am targeting and obviously using as the anchor text.

Page Rank & authority of external sites

The page rank and authority of a website, as deemed by search engines, is extremely important in search engine results and getting it seen by as many people as possible. These are two factors which Google weights heavily when ranking websites. Youtube is the second largest search engine in the world, believe it or not. For example, in the eyes of the search engines Youtube has a great deal of authority, and links to your blog that come from Youtube are like gold. In addition to the above Website options, I highly recommend that bloggers open a Youtube account and put up some meaningful videos related to the topic of their blog. By creating videos that people enjoy watching and/or learn from, they will be more apt to click on the link to your blog, which you can set up on your own Youtube page. Over time, as the search engines see more and more Youtube backlinks to your blog, you will gain more authority and trust in the eyes of Google ‘n company.

From SEOMoz.com

Big pimpin’ summary

When you first start out blogging, your blog will have very little authority and trust in the eyes of search engines. This is, in part, why it is extremely important to take advantage of the authority of these external sites I have talked about. This is, in part, why it is vastly necessary to spend a great deal of time creating content on external sites if you want to increase the popularity of your blog and make some descent money with your blogging efforts. This is why you need to essentially ‘pimp’ these already established websites in order for your blog to take advantage of their value. Begin to get in the frame of mind that Googlin’ for content is not the only game in town. Although Google continues to dominate search activity, people do use sites like Youtube, Facebook, Ezine and Twitter to find relevant content. These sites should be at the top of your priority list when deciding where to spend your off-site time.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions or ideas please feel free to leave a comment as I would be grateful to hear from you.

Part I – Know the Difference Between Pillar Articles and Foundation Articles

Part II -Structuring Your Blog Around Foundation Articles is Key

Part III – Gaining Blog Traffic with Foundation Articles

Portal Pages are Becoming Increasingly Important for Bloggers |

Would you like to know the many ways to make money by blogging?
According to the 2009 State of the Blogosphere report by Technorati, 77% of all Internet-users read blogs and this number is increasing. What this means for bloggers and those yet to make the jump is the opportunity to make real money from blogging is becoming more attainable for more bloggers.       

 Unfortunately, these opportunities are not always easy to find, which is why I decided to compile a list of 22 ways to get paid blogging. The purpose of this post is to inform bloggers about the various ways to make money as well as point them in the right direction. I have worked with many of the companies below and have seen some great overall benefits in doing so.       

If you are serious about wanting to turn up the dial on your blogging and find ways to get paid doing so, then check out a few of the opportunities below.       

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate programs are setup so bloggers and website owners can promote other merchant’s products/services and earn a commission at the time of sale. One of the earliest examples of this came in the form of banners being placed on websites. For example; An Internet surfer went to website X and clicked on a banner that sent him/her to website Y. If said surfer makes a purchase at website Y, the owner of website X would get paid a commission for sending said surfer to website Y. Essentially, website Y is willing to pay others to send them business.       

Affiliate marketing was one of the initial ways bloggers began to make money and it is currently a huge money generator for many bloggers.       

1.

Amazon was a pioneer in affiliate marketing and runs the most popular single affiliate program out there. They provide its members access to promote their entire product catalog (books, dvds, clothing, electronics, etc ), and have some of the most innovative marketing tools available. You can promote Amazon products with rotating banners, product links, widgets, and even create your own online store using their products!       

2.

eBay has an excellent affiliate program and has tons of marketing tools that can help you make money with your blog. This program can also supplement and enhance the business model of any current eBay sellers. This program allows you to market your eBay products on your own blog; increasing your exposure. If you currently sell products on eBay and you do not have a blog you are missing out on tons of money.       

3.

Commission Junction is an affiliate network that brings advertisers and publishers (bloggers) together. Instead of having to go to an individual online business to sign up for their affiliate program, you simply sign up with commission junction to get access to thousands of products from hundreds of different Companies.  companies you can promote include: WalGreens, Expedia, Match.com, Reebok, Travelocity and more.       

4.

Share-a-Sale is another affiliate network and they are currently boasting over 2,500 merchant offerings. Merchants who sign up with Share-a-Sale create their own marketing tools and allow you to promote them on your blog. In addition to your usual banner and text ads, many of the merchants create video advertisements which is a new and great way to convert watchers into buyers.       

5.

Linkshare is one of the more evolving affiliate networks and it shows in their emerging media tools. With these tools bloggers can use flash video, promote products via Twitter, RSS feed ads, Mobile commerce and more. Linkshare allows you to make money by promoting some of the most recognized brands in the world including: WalMart, OfficeDepot, Enterprise, iTunes, Orbitz and more.       

6.

ClickBank offers some of the highest commissions in the affiliate marketing world with many products yielding bloggers 50 – 75%. One of the unique aspects about ClickBank is that all of the products you promote are electronic; non-tangible products. Examples of these types of products include videos, memberships, eBooks and other products that can be downloaded immediately upon purchase.       

 7.

PepperJam is a relatively new affiliate network that is quickly becoming an Industry leader. PJN has a wide selection of both advertiser offers and marketing tools, which gives bloggers of all niches the ability to make good money. From contextual ads to eBay listings to CPA, you are bound to find something that fits your needs. In addition, they have fantastic customer, which goes a long way with me.   

8.

 Click2Sell offers some of the highest commission splits in the affiliate marketing arena. Many merchants allow bloggers and other promoters to earn up to 95%! Another great aspect of Click2Sell is that they allow you to promote digital (videos, eBooks, etc), tangible, and subscription (membership) products. This kind of variety allows bloggers with different business models to find the right product for their needs. 

Contextual Marketing

Have you ever noticed small text-ads on the various Websites and blogs you visit? The ones that somehow match the content of the page you are viewing? Those ads are more than likely contextual ads and they are probably coming from 1 of 2 places; Google AdSense and Chitika. The cool thing about contextual advertising is that there is relatively little effort needed to set this up on your blog. Once set up, AdSense and Chitika essentially crawl the current page and tailor the advertisement around the content so it is, in theory, targeted to what the reader is interested in.       

9.

Google Adsense is the most widely used and seen advertising platform on the Internet. In fact, many Internet marketing experts believe Adsense single-handily created a new era in making money online. It is the flipside to AdWords and can be a great way to monetize your blog. All you have to do is insert some code into your blog and AdSense takes care of the rest.       

10.

Chitika has arguably taken what Google did with AdSense and made it even better. Due to the way that Chitika formulates the ad results it shows, many people argue that the advertising is more targeted, thus yielding higher conversion rates. Another cool feature with Chitika is that it can work in conjunction with AdSense, which can create a great 1, 2 punch! Contextual advertising is not for all bloggers but it should strongly be looked at due to its simplicity.     

Paid Blogging Networks

These networks are becoming increasingly popular with bloggers for several reasons. First, it is another way to make money by blogging. The general idea behind each of these networks is relatively the same; you get paid to write content for them and their affiliates. Many of these opportunities include writing product reviews for companies who will pay you for that review. Second, these networks are a good way to generate exposure to your blog and help to drive your personal branding efforts. If you are looking for additional ways to make money by blogging and increase traffic to your blog then definitely check out a few of these networks.       

11.

PayPerPost is one of the more popular paid blogging networks. It is an online marketplace that essentially connects bloggers with advertisers. You get paid for writing sponsored reviews about products, services and websites on your blog. The more appealing part of PayPerPost is that bloggers have total control over which advertisers they work with and can negotiate prices. If paid blogging sounds appealing then start here.       

12.

Smorty has two ways for bloggers to make money but for purposes of this post I will only cover one. With Smorty you can write opinion articles on your blog and get paid for doing so. Each day Smortys offers hundreds of new tasks to write about, which covers a vast array of topics. You simply pick the task you want to write about, submit it for review once finished, and get paid directly to your PayPal account.       

13.

A LinkPost is a paid blog post written by a blogger within the LinkWorth community. Where LinkPost differs from other paid blog networks is how much control they give their advertisers. In order to get paid for writing a review, you have to meet specific requirements provided by the advertiser. Although reviews are scrutinized more closely, the payout is relatively higher with blolggers earning up to %70 for each LinkPost written.       

14.

ReviewMe has a similar business model in that it pays bloggers for reviews but it differs in a couple areas. First, anybody who posts a review on their blog has to reveal that it is a paid review. Second, you do not even have to write a positive review in order to get paid. So long as you are honest with your review, whether it ends up being positive or negative is irrelevant. Current payouts are anywhere from $20 – $200 per review.       

15.

About.com has two ways for bloggers to make money. You can become an About.com Guide, which essentially gives you more of an editorial role. The other route is to become a Contributing Writer where you write about subtopics underneath larger topics. Both options give you two ways to get paid; a monthly salary and incentives  through pageview growth. This process is more formal than the other sites but the rewards are greater.       

16.

eHow allows bloggers to chose from an array of topics including: fashion, business, sports and more. Most writers for eHow span a spectrum of backgrounds from the professional journalist to the stay-at-home mom. The articles written for eHow are bit unique in that they are informative and instructional; the idea being to write content that helps solve a person’s problem or help them with a project. Most writers earn about $20/hr when writing these articles.       

17.

Shvoong brings a bit of a twist to its business model. Shvoong is only interested in bloggers writing abstracts and reviews of previously published content such as books, articles, existing website, academic papers and even movies. In fact, they do not even accept original content. So, if you love to read books or watch movies, you can make some good money and gain exposure to your blog.       

18.

BloggerWave runs the same “write reviews on your blog and get paid” business model as many of the other paid blogging networks. Bloggers can chose between jobs at hand, read the descripiton for each job and write the reveiw. One benefit with BloggerWave is that, unlike many paid blogging networks, bloggers do not have to submit a bid and wait for a response. This allows bloggers to claim the opportunity and start blogging.
 

Web 2.0 sites

These sites are relatively new on the scene and put a unique twist on the paid blogging networks concept. Web 2.0 sites are unique in that they are more community-oriented. These sites encourage two-way communication and interaction between writer and reader, using various rating systems so members can rate each others’ articles. This is valuable because the community controls what content becomes popular. When you write a piece that the community likes, they reward you by rating your wonderful article and are now more likely to check you out further, including your blog.       

19.

Squidoo is a relatively new way for bloggers to make money and promote their blog. Squidoo is the brainchild of Seth Godin and offers a unique mix of opportunities: ability to make money, platform for personal branding, and networking. The genius behind Squidoo is that it really promotes community-building and interaction. Squidoo is a brilliant concept which will continue to flourish, and I highly recommend it to bloggers.       

20.

HubPages is similar to Squidoo in how you can make money (Google Adsense, Amazon, eBay, Kontera, etc), but lacks the community-building aspect which is very important to beginning bloggers. With that said, HubPages is still an excellent place to get noticed. Bloggers need to establish a prescence on the Internet outside of their blog, and HubPages is another legitimate way to do this.

21.

Helium writers have the opportunity to make money in several ways. They can write for other businesses, enter writing contests, earn upfront payments, earn bonuses by writing essays to “empty”titles or titles provided by the site that have no articles yet written, and more. Helium, in my opinion, is a bit of a cross between HubPages and many of the paid blogging networks, which makes it comparatively unique. 

Create your own way

More and More bloggers are creating their own products to sell. Some of the more common products being made are informational videos and eBooks. In fact, with new eBook readers like Amazon’s Kindle hitting the market, eBooks are quickly becoming a popular alternative to the traditional book. People can now aggregate hundreds of books on a single device and this trend has not been missed by professional bloggers. Creating an eBook is easier than most people think and is quickly becoming a great way to make money from your blogging efforts.       

22.

eBooks. Learn how to turn your blog posts into an eBook. If you have been blogging for a while then you probably already have enough content to create your first eBook; it’s just not in eBook form yet. This is a great way to leverage content that you have already written, and get the most out of your blogging efforts. 

      
 
 
Again, these are just a few options on a growing list of ways to get paid blogging and the list is growing. The opportunities for bloggers to make six figures are real, and becoming more realistic for more bloggers. If you have not checked out some of these sites then I strongly encourage you to do so.       

Have you had some good experiences with any of the above opportunities? Perhaps you have another site that is making you tons of money. If so, please share as I would love to add to this list.       

Thanks for reading, now go make some money!

22 Ways to Get Paid Blogging |

So what is RSS anyway? 

RSS is a fantastic way to cut through all the ‘noise’ on the Internet and get constantly updated content from your favorite blogs and Websites delivered to you.

Subscribing to RSS feeds is like having the paperboy perpetually deliver your favorite newspapers. However, with RSS the paperboy comes at all hours of the day and these subscriptions are absolutely free.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger says: 

What if you could tell a website to let you know every time that they update? In a sense, this is what RSS does for you. 

RSS flips things around a little and is a technology that provides you with a method of getting relevant and up to date information sent to you for you to read in your own time. It saves you time and helps you to get the information you want quickly after it was published. 

According to Wikipedia: 

RSS (most commonly expanded as “Really Simple Syndication”) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. 

Here is a cool video by CommonCraft that illustrates what RSS is. 

Where can I find RSS content? 

Most blogs and websites have an RSS option for subscribing to updated content. Being that bloggers want you to subscribe to their RSS feeds they will make it very easy for you to find, and common places include the top of left/right sidebars, at the end of posts and in the footer of the blog. 

The most common icons are variations of the little orange pic at the top of this post. The collage below shows some more examples of what to look for. 

Image from ProBlogger.net

For those who use Internet Explorer 8, there is even a useful RSS icon on your toolbar that automatically searches for any RSS feeds on the page you are currently viewing. 

So How Do I Use RSS? 

The first thing you need is an RSS reader. I use Google reader, mostly because it was the very first reader I came across, but also because it is simple and convenient for me as Google is my search engine of choice. A couple other popular readers include Bloglines and Newsgator. 

Once you find your reader of choice (If you search with Google I highly recommend their reader) make sure you sync it up with your browser. Just go to the settings on your browser, or preferences section and choose the reader you want. 

Update: Although I am loyal to Google Reader I wll be checking out the new FeedDemon 3 (it’s Newsgator’s version for Windows users) because it now syncs up with Google Reader and has some other cool features people have been telling me about. Once I test it out I will write up a little review post and insert a link here.

What is RSS? |

Image from Freakingnews

I realize Mondays are not the most motivating of days. For me, I needed a little boost as I looked outside my window this morning to gaze at the pouring rain. These videos definitley helped!

Tweetables?

It’s my series on finding articles that are, in my opinion, tweetable. The idea is really simple; just spread wonderful ideas. With so much noise on the Internet, finding consistent, quality content can be frustrating. This is just my attempt to help you out a little. Each Tweetables post will have between 3 – 5 articles covering the same topic. I do my best to only select content from blogs; both big and small. I will Tweet these posts every morning (usually), so feel free to follow me on Twitter to get updates.

Tweetable videos:

If you do not at least think about crying after watching this, then you have no soul! – Check out Nick Vujicic’s blog

Posted by The Mind Guru

Uploaded on YouTube by this blogger

Tweetables: Inspiring Videos for Bloggers |

This review in the Make Money Blogging with… series, will cover ShareASale – one of the more popular affiliate marketing network programs. ShareASale has been around since 2000, boasting more than 2,500 affiliate products that bloggers can promote and earn commissions on. Other similiar affiliate networks would include Commission Junction and Linkshare.

In Their Words

There are currently over 2,500 Merchants plugged in to the ShareASale Network. Each of these merchants has a different type of product that they are selling – and each is ready to commission you on that sale if you bring a customer to them.

The idea – and the implementation – are simple. You decide which merchants to promote and how to promote them, and when commissions are generated, you can see your stats in real-time. All payments are consolidated from the programs you participate in, and are paid with one check or direct deposit by ShareASale.

In My Words

One of the things I like about ShareASale is its variety. ShareASale provides many different ways to track your ad campaign including; monthly summary, daily stats, merchant timespan, traffic reports, etc. They have variety in the types of merchants you can advertise for; spanning many different markets: Computers/Electronics, Clothing, Books/Media, Financial, Education, Sports, Real Estate and more.

ShareASale, unlike many affiliate networks, also has variety in the types of programs affiliates can promote. The ability to promote merchants who offer Pay-Per-Lead or Pay-Per-Click is a great alternative for us bloggers.

Perhaps the most appealing part for me, is the variety in the marketing tools ShareASale provides its affiliates. Long gone are the days when we are restricted to posting banners and simple text links in order to entice people to click and buy. ShareASale has several options including:

1. Banners/Links. (still gotta have the basics)

2. Custom Links. Simply pick a merchant that your are an affiliate with, pick a page on their website that you want to direct your readers to, and click on the ‘create custom link’ button.

3. Widgets. I am a big fan of widgets because they are a great way to actually introduce products/services without being too intrusive like other advertising methods. Here is an example:

4. Videos.You can even find merchants who have video ads for you to use. Below is a video example for ClickTale.

In Other Words

Affiliate marketing is not for everybody, but for those bloggers out there who have specific niches you cater to (golfing, food recipes, traveling, busines-to-business, etc…), ShareASale can provide you with many merchants to promote using some of the marketing tools I mentioned previously. This can be a great way to turn up the profit dial and make money by blogging!

[Rating: 4/5]

How would you rate ShareASale?

Make Money Blogging with…ShareASale |