As we all know, there are some “classic” things to include as additional elements to your blog’s offering. I’m sure you’ve heard about email lists (newsletters), social media integration, video posts, guest posts and so on.

However, there’s also a nice set of not-so obvious things that can help you strengthen your position in the niche and make your blog more popular. And that’s exactly what I want to focus on today.

Starting with:

1. Membership site

Membership sites are a fairly common business model online. But more often than not, they are portrayed as something only the big players can do. When in fact, it’s not true.

These days, launching a membership site (or a membership module) is not that difficult from a technical standpoint. Essentially, you have two possible approaches to choose from:

• A blog module.
• A stand-alone membership site.

If you like to keep everything in one place and make your blog the center of your membership program then consider plugins like: Membership (free plugin by the WPMU team), WishList Member (premium plugin starting at $97) or aMember (premium plugin – $180).

Each of these plugins has a slightly different set of features and both pros and cons. I, personally, would advise you to start with Membership (the free one) and then later on, if necessary, check out the premium plugins.

There are only two small issues left: what would you publish on your membership site and how to promote it?

Essentially, membership sites are like any other product on the internet, which means that some common methods of promotion will work for membership sites too.

The approach I actually advise is to steal good promotional strategies. Start by checking out what your competitors are doing to promote their programs and then try to mimic those methods in one way or another. It’s always easier to use a method that’s already proven to work, rather than search for something completely new and groundbreaking.

Now, content is the only element that has no specific one-size-fits-all blueprint. This is something you’ll have to figure out on your own for your specific niche and audience. However, the general rule is to provide content that can’t be seen anywhere else on the internet. Hence, making it the value of the program.

Some examples: good sports betting insights, currency market predictions, lists of websites (as a resource) where you can get paid to write, lists of websites that accept guest posts, templates and strategies for effective guest blogging. The possibilities are truly endless, but you have to start with good research.

2. Freelance services / “hire me” page

Freelancing is a great income stream for many blogs, yet not that many people take the possibility into account.

This is mostly due to the fact that freelance services are not the most straightforward blog monetization model. Things like advertising, affiliate marketing, paid posts publication, cheap e-books (more on that in the next section) are way more popular.

Do note that depending on your niche, you can offer many different services. But the one most likely to work with most of them is freelance writing. Trying to get paid to write articles indeed is the approach with the best success rate. Bloggers usually do a great job at writing communicative articles that many companies seek. As a blogger, you have one more advantage – your writing can be seen publicly on the internet. It can turn into a kind of portfolio/resume and your prospective clients can get a good insight into your style and abilities.

Offering this kind of freelance services has some very significant advantages. Such as:

• Once a client pays for your work, the refund rate is 0% (something impossible to achieve for any tangible or digital product).
• You can set your rates at whatever level you wish and different clients can pay different prices.
• You can do as much work as you like, which gives you the ability to find the perfect “work-time to money” balance.
• It strengthens your brand as an expert; if later on you’ll be trying to score some big contract, you can use your previous writing works as proof that you’re kind of a big deal, so to speak.

Now, joining the freelancing world is not that tough. Start by creating a “hire me” page on your blog and list the services you’re willing to offer. Try to be detailed and answer the most important questions, which are:

• What (what is your offer)?
• Why (why are you offering it)?
• Why you (why you are the person to choose)?
• What for (what are the benefits you can offer)?

3. No crappy e-book products!

Let’s focus for a moment on one thing you shouldn’t introduce on your blog. I’m talking about all those crappy e-book products.

And unfortunately, they are fairly popular on the internet.

Here are some characteristics of a crappy e-book product:

• 20 pages or less,
• costing money (free ones are okay),
• low-budget presentation and composition,
• created from a standard Word document,
• providing advice that can be found everywhere for free,
• marketed as the best thing ever.

Really, those things are not helpful at all and even if you manage to make some money with them, the thing still won’t be worth the effort because your brand will suffer in the long run.

These simple e-books are often described as the holy grail of online business. Tell me if this sounds familiar:

“Hey, you only need to publish this short 15-page e-book and if you just get a sale a day, you can make even $3,000+ per month and your readers will thank you for it!”

Reality check…this isn’t always true. Your audience doesn’t care about over-hyped e-books created in haste bringing no unique value. If you’re going to release an e-book, do it like it should be done. Make it at least 40,000 words or more. Release it in the Kindle store. Prepare a whole marketing approach. Oh yes, it won’t be easy.

4. Proofreader

Depending on your skill and experience, proofreading has different levels of importance for your blog publishing. For me, personally, it is an essential practice. I’m not a native English writer, so I need to proofread the hell out of my articles.

However, proofreading is also very time-consuming especially if you want to make your articles perfect.

More than that, you will never do a better job of proofreading your own articles than any other person (a stranger to your writing).

The reason is simple. Since you’ve written the article, your brain will naturally see what it wants to see, not what’s actually on the screen. A stranger doesn’t have this problem. They see things as they are.

That is why I encourage you to hire someone to do your proofreading. You can go to a place like oDesk or Freelancer.com (an interesting turn of events considering that just a minute ago I encouraged you to offer freelance services yourself) and find someone willing to work on a per-project basis or even per-word basis.

The price can vary, but it’s always good to do some research and check what’s possible. If you’re making money with your blog, speeding up the publication process might be worth the investment in the end. You can always find a better use for your time than doing proofreading yourself, right?

That’s it for my list. Feel free to comment and share what you’re planning to introduce into your blog in the near future. Is there anything interesting waiting in line?

4 Things Your Blog Needs that You’ve Never Thought About is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

Got a new blog or struggling blog?

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Blogging is the act of maintaining or adding content to a blog.  Sounds simple, right?  However, most helpful resources on the subject tend to give us advice on what to do, and not so much assistance on what NOT to do.  Therefore, I want to use this post to list some tips concerning some of the “don’ts” of better blogging.  While not an exhaustive list, hopefully these points will help you focus more on the content and less on the distractions.

1. Don’t Sell Yourself Short

Success is a state of mind as much as it is a goal that is achieved.  Believing that you can’t or won’t be successful will eventually become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Basically, if you believe you will fail, then you will fail.  The natural progression, then, from believing that you will fail, is that you won’t even try.  If you are already certain that your plan won’t work or that your blog is a waste of time, then you have already defeated yourself.  Only after you believe in yourself will others believe in you as well.

2. Don’t Be Like Everyone Else

This is probably one of the hardest of the blogging don’ts, but also one of the truest.  I mean, you don’t want to reinvent the wheel, right?  No need to fix what’s not broken, correct?  Many bloggers start out with the same traffic generating and link building techniques.  But as we all know, doing those things simply isn’t enough.  As a blogger, one of the most difficult things to do is find your niche and stand out from the crowd, so don’t be afraid to try something new.  You won’t know if that new idea or strategy will work unless you give it a try.

3. Don’t Care About What Others Think

Now, I’m not saying you should NEVER care what others think about you and your blog.  After all, you want to attract readers, followers, members, customers, and the like.  But what I am saying is this — create your own perspective and don’t tie yourself down to only those things that others think of you.  This will be a natural progression if you follow points #1 and #2 above.  If you believe in yourself and work on making your blog stand out, then you won’t have to rely on the opinions of others.  Because, trust me, the critics will always be there.  You just can’t let them get to you.

4. Don’t Act Like You Have All the Answers

Yes, part of building a better blog and growing your community of readers and subscribers is creating a sense that you are an authority in your niche.  But that doesn’t mean you have all the answers.  It’s OK to keep it real and admit that you don’t know something.  In fact, a good way to build your credibility and earn the loyalty of your readers is to admit that you don’t have all the answers, but that if someone asks you a question to which you don’t have the answer, you’ll find the answer and get back to her within a specified time frame.

So now it’s your turn.  Let me know with which blogging “don’ts” you agree or disagree, and also what other “don’ts” would you add to this list.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Getting it Wrong: 4 Don’ts of Better Blogging is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

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It’s giveaway time!

I’m excited to announce that we’ve teamed up with WebHostingBuzz to giveaway some great prizes!

Read on to find out how you can win a year of free hosting with 750 GB Disk Space, 10,000 GB Bandwidth, a free domain name, with free account transfer, plus more!

In the spotlight: WebHostingBuzz

WebHostingBuzz is an established web hosting service operating in North America and Europe, aiming to bridge first-rate customer support with excellent hosting services internationally. Hosting over 30,000 clients, WebHostingBuzz deliver fast and reliable web hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated servers, WebHostingBuzz provide packages for all needs and budgets.

Giveaway Prizes

We’ll be giving away three 1-Years free WebHostingBuzz’s “Hosting Standard” package subscriptions:

• 750 GB Disk space
• 10,000 GB Bandwidth
• Free Account Transfer
• Unlimited Websites
• 1 Free Domain
• Unlimited Email & FTP Accounts
• Pixmac Coupon (10 photos)

Win!

For a chance to win:

1.  Answer one or more of the following questions in the comments section below:

• What will you do with a free year of hosting?  
• How will this free year of hosting help you improve your blog?

2.  Tweet this post.   Use the Tweet Button at the top of this post or simply copy and paste the following:

WebHostingBuzz Giveaway: Win a Year of Hosting http://weblogbetter.com/2013/05/20/webhostingbuzz-giveaway-win-a-year-of-hosting/ via @weblogbetter

Winners will be chosen from the comments and tweets! Please ensure you enter a valid email address so we can contact you if you win!

Deadline:  Entries will close on Monday, June 3, 2013 at 11:59 P.M. EST.  Winners will be announced on Wednesday, June 5, 2013.

WebHostingBuzz Giveaway: Win a Year of Hosting is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

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When I was still in college, I remember searching my college’s catalogue for the perfect course that might help me learn to blog.  The closest I ever got was an advanced writing course taught by an instructor who briefly talked about a friend she knew who blogged as a way to keep in touch with friends and family while she was overseas.

It was nothing more than an internet diary and family photo album.  Back then, no one thought a blog could ever become the business vehicle that it is today – it was just a fad, after all.  But something told me that things would change and I was eager to learn all I could about blogging.  I saw so much potential.

Unfortunately, my search for blogging knowledge led me down so many rabbit holes.  I drank so many different guru magic potions that I didn’t know if I should be writing or fudderwacking.

I sifted through so many different ebooks, courses, videos, webinars and who knows what else – most of which ultimately turned out to be crap!  I had been bombarded with so much information that it paralyzed me.  I couldn’t make up my mind – I didn’t know what I wanted to blog about!  I didn’t know where to start or what to believe!

That’s why I really feel for new bloggers who are daring for the first time to learn to blog and get their name out there.  My hope is that you won’t have the same experience that I had – I would’ve given up before I’d gotten started if I wasn’t so stubborn!

Fortunately, now that people have come to realize the endless opportunities and possibilities that a blog can provide, there are sites that you can join to learn how to blog at your own pace from the comfort of your own home.

The Niche Optimizer University to the Rescue!

The Niche Optimizer University is an awesome membership community that is all about teaching you how to find your niche and creating a successful blog or website.  It’s an interactive community that gives its members direct access to coaches and valuable information that you can immediately put into action.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a complete beginner – even if you don’t exactly know how to use a computer, they’ve even got a quick training session for you!

I liked how intuitive and easy to navigate the site is.  My eyes were immediately drawn to the Live Q&A sessions that are scheduled every week and recorded for later viewing.  When I was searching for blogging knowledge, I would’ve loved to be able to talk to a real person and get answers to my pressing questions.  It would’ve saved me so much time.

Inside the Niche Optimizer University, you can choose from various training modules that include:

•  Where to begin
• Niche site profits
• WordPress tutorials
• Email List profits

You can start with these modules if you wish or you can skip to the audio and video series that address awesome topics that you can listen to while you work out or walk the dog.

Here are few of the series that are offered:

• OSP 012: On-Page Optimization Tips
• OSP 011: They Must Trust You!
• OSP 010: Increase Trust & Sales with Videos
• OSP 009: Committing to Success
• OSP 008: Sharing on Facebook
• OSP 007: Increase Your Conversions
• OSP 006: How Not to Fail
• OSP 005: Link Building in 2013!
• OSP 004: You Are an Expert
• OSP 003: Out of the Box Thinking
• OSP 002: How to Make Money Online (Starters Guide)
• OSP 001: Online Success Podcast

Check out this sample lesson:  Finding Your Audience Using Facebook:

Interactive Forum

In addition to all of the great information that is presented in the modules, podcasts, and Live Q&A – if you need more support, there’s an interactive forum with even more lessons.   There’s so much information that you could literally just submerge yourself into this one site and never have to go anywhere else.

Your biggest challenge won’t be finding answers; it’ll be making the time and commitment to put it all into action.

If you’re serious about establishing a successful blog, but know you’re lacking the knowledge, it’s worth the investment to educate yourself.

Want a closer look at the site to see if it’s what you need?

Stop by and set up a free start account or check out this video for an inside tour of the site that was shot live with an actual student:

If you’re a new blogger, share your greatest challenges in the comments section. Let us know what’s holding you back from achieving the results you want. Feel free to post your questions below.

Learn to Blog at Niche Optimizer University is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

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Your video description is one of the most important parts of your video marketing process. This is how people will find your video and one of the determining factors of whether or not they want to watch your video. People will look at titles, thumbnails and the description to help them know if the video they have found is the right one they are looking for.

Video descriptions provide the viewer with even more information about your video. You will lose a lot of views without this additional step in the video creation and publication process.

The description is always shown to the viewers when they see the video show up in their feed or search.

So what should you include in your video description? YouTube is helpful in giving some guidelines for this process and suggests you make your description clear and specific, give credit where appropriate and categorize correctly. But let’s look at this in more detail.

What Your Video Description Needs

You should be sure the first few lines of your description are concise and explain exactly what the video is about. It should be very accurate or you’ll end up with angry viewers who leave nasty comments and ratings. Don’t try to trick people into viewing your video by making them think it’s something it’s not.

You can get more info about getting YouTube views here but know that creating a great video description is the first step in the process of getting your videos found.

You can use the video description as an opportunity to place links, such as links back to your sources or to your own website. You can also use it as a place to add your other social networking links such as to Facebook and Twitter. This could also help you get extra views to your videos if they follow you on other networks. They will see your new video updates and come watch.

Finally, your descriptions need to have proper tags and keywords. In the same way that keywords in your title is important, keywords in the description are important. Take the time to do it in the video creation process and you will reap the rewards later with lots of views.

Here’s some info on why the video description is so important to the process. In video marketing, you can’t afford to skip out on a proper description. You will literally be throwing away views if you do.

Brittany Clark is a YouTube fanatic who loves to share her experiences with others through blogging. You can ask her questions about YouTube.

Creating A Great Video Description is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

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More than half of the people browsing the World Wide Web does not use English as their native language. This is why translating your website to cater to a foreign audience is one of the best ways to help your business or organization compete on a global scale. By making your website more accessible to people around the world, your site will get more views, which can translate to more profit. However, having your website translated can be trickier than you think. Breaking the language barrier takes more than just translating text.

Here are a few important tips that you should remember when translating your website.

Pay attention to international SEO

Remember that most people that will visit your site used popular search engines to get there in the first place. You have to make sure your website shows up as one of the top search results if you want significant web traffic from your target market. Make sure you communicate the target keywords to the translation company in detail and verify that the translated content reflects this. If done right, the increased web traffic will help maintain your website in the top search results for those keywords.

Respect the cultural differences

A good part of website translation involves adding or removing elements of your website to make it more appropriate for your target audience. For example, you have to make sure you don’t include product offers and other services that are not available to a specific region. Otherwise, viewers may think that your website is full of incorrect information and ignore it altogether.

Adopt a fluid design

Some words in your native language will change into bigger or smaller words when translated. If you don’t pay attention to the translation, your website might end up cramped with poorly-spaced walls of text. You can avoid this by adopting a fluid design which will accommodate varying text length. If your target languages include right to left or vertical scripts, you will need to adopt secondary layouts.

Internationalize the code base

Nobody likes viewing a buggy or perpetually unavailable website. Translating the text alone is not enough, different regions use different formats for writing dates, digits and currencies vary between countries. Make sure you pay attention to all these differences as you may hurt your brand if you provide a partially localized experience.

Be ready for the extra attention

Since translating your website helps increase the number of people visiting your website, you must be prepared to accommodate them. Make sure your hardware can handle the increased traffic volume to prevent slower loading times or server crashes. Of course, having more viewers usually translates to more customers, so you must also make sure you can handle requests and inquiries from your new potential customers. Keeping these tips in mind not only helps you increase the number of site visitors; it also helps you cut down cost by avoiding things you don’t really need to invest in. This way, you can allot more resources on improving your products or making your business more efficient.

This post was written by Emre Akkas.  Got questions? Ask our guest blogger Emre Akkas and he will be happy to respond to your website translation questions. He is a language technologies expert and serves as the Chief Localizer at Globalme.

5 Helpful Tips On Translating Your Website is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

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The year 2012 has taken a revolutionary turn in the world of SEO. Not only did Google exercise the powers of Panda and Penguin algorithms, it was also the year social media went into full bloom. Almost every brand crossed over to the realm of social media, looking for real audiences that they can turn into customers. And yes, SEO also became more humanized thanks to reduced emphasis on keywords, LSI tactics, and the push for better quality articles.

True, many experts see 2013 to be a just a continuation of the year that was. However, because of Google’s more stringent pursuit of quality SEO, there are just some strategies that you can no longer use this year.

Among the tactics that you have to let go to survive the SEO jungle this year are:

1. No more social media flooding.

When the social media trend exploded, almost every brand created a profile in just about everywhere. There was Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. But while indeed they expanded their online presence through these platforms, not all of these served the purpose they expected. By the end of the day, these profiles were empty and looked just like blank web pages which Google always loathed.

Thus, 2013 looks forward not to a massive online presence, but rather a quality reputation especially on social media. Among many things, social media syntaxes are already ranked in search engines, and they are likewise included in keyword search results. The focus now here is to improve your social network visibility, and that is by getting more fans, likes, tweets and retweets, recommendations and +1s.

2. Goodbye positive PRs, hello honest to goodness reviews.

If there’s one thing that was abused in SEO last year, that would be the overhyped positive press releases brands published in different sites just to give a good name to their business. While they weren’t under keyword fluff, Google also saw that not all these positive write-ups proved true to their word, and were just published to spread their brand.

Nowadays, it’s no longer safe to send out PRs to just about every press release site available online; it should rather take in the form of honest reviews. They should not only tackle the good, but also see the bad side of things, as this will increase the quality of information your target audiences will use.

3. Get rid of local data inconsistencies.

Because of the surge of smart phones and mobile internet, brands have made it a point to include their local listings in their websites to make them more legit. However, problems about local data inconsistencies arose, which made many online brands look rather bad to their target markets, as they could not be easily found when searched locally.

With that said, companies may want to get rid of local data inconsistencies on their sites and as well as in online listings, so that they can be easily accessed and located on the web. It’s not only to make their business legitimate, but also to help their potential clients find their offices using mobile phones and GPS.

You may want to start improving your local data by placing your business address on your website, in online directories and listings. It is also important to add a map of your office location so that you can be easily accessed via mobile. These simple details increase brand’s reputation online, primarily because you make it a point to be transparent to your audience.

You can also subscribe to network listings to further increase your reputation, such as Google+ Local, Bing Business Portal, and Yahoo! Local, as these not only include your brand and address to their directories, but as well optimize and manage your data to be distributed to the right niche categories.

4. Opt for a simple site map.

One big mistake several brands made back in 2012 was that of a complicated site map. They took advantage of the social media boom and they worked on site maps that focused more on social network connectivity and less of the search.

This also became a major hurdle for search engines, as it became more difficult for them to crawl into the site pages due to the preference for social networks. Many websites were banned, penalized and even blacklisted due to a poor structural framework.

Thus in 2013, it’s back to the basics. Work on a simpler site map, the kind with easy navigation, no metatags and reduced anchor texts, as these are the factors that make the pages less usable and prone to penalties.

5. Utilize author ranking.

Since guest blogging became a hot topic in 2012, many brands sought for high-ranking authors to provide guest posts for their blog sites, just so to increase their credibility. However, because they opted for already established names in the industry, guest posts became more of positive write-ups and less of the informative ideas.

While guest blogging is still useful these days, it may be better to shift to tier 2 influencers, such as bloggers who are part of the audience, rather than those that have already reached the niche elite. For one, these bloggers offer more honest and informative articles about the topics you give them, as they are more concerned about building the community and not necessarily support a particular name in the industry.

These tier 2 bloggers also have their own communities already set up, and their members consist of your target audience. By being able to reach out to them, the more organic exposure and support your get.

Tips to remember

The same rules of SEO still apply this 2013, except that you have to invest more on transparency and local search optimization, as well as high quality content. Of course, the golden rule of avoiding black hat SEO still matters, as Google’s algorithms can easily track your tricks and bring your site down before you know it.

So, are you all set to pursue SEO success this 2013?

This post was written by Kaylee Prentice, a freelance fashion journalist and frequent contributor to Domeru. She’s a sucker for a good cup of coffee and a quiet corner to read in. When she isn’t writing she spends her time at used book stores and road trips with friends.  Follow here on Google+.

5 SEO Tactics That Worked In 2012 But You Must Avoid In 2013 is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

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Here it is again..that dreadful phrase:

“You have to have a presence on Facebook.”

I am sure you are probably wondering what social media can do for you. Sites like Facebook and Twitter can really take your blog to soaring new heights.

I know that it is easier to just write your posts and send it into the wonderful world of cyberspace. However, you have to expose your blog to as many people as possible. You worked really hard on your blog..why keep it to yourself?

So how do you delve into this frightening new world of social interaction?

One of the most important things you want to do is interact with your fan base. Try to make yourself as available as possible to your readers. They want to know the person behind the story so you also want to share a few of your activities outside of blogging or writing.

While you don’t want to get too personal, you may want to do a Facebook check-in at your favorite restaurant or tweet about your favorite dish. What this does is show a bit of your personality and show that despite your presumably well-written words, you are a real person.

Social media is one of the fastest ways to build your brand and also to get feedback from your fans. Social media can also help build partnerships with other writers and people in the industry. The most important thing with regard to social media is consistency. You want to post to your social media site at least three times a week.

People do not want dead sites or accounts that are never updated. Whether you prefer Facebook or Twitter ( I would suggest both), the most important thing is to get your blog in front of as many faces as possible in order to increase your blog traffic and build your brand.

Happy Blogging

The Importance of Social Networking is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

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Do you remember the times when you’d only see banner advertisements on the websites?

Most ads were around 720×90 px – that was in the 90s! Since the new millennium began, the matter has changed- people spend more time on the internet; companies spend more money on promotions and all the possible methods of advertising on the web. (If you’ve been looking for places to post your own ads, then Ads in India could help you.)

Web advertising is usually the easiest way to earn revenues for bloggers.  It takes the least amount of effort to post a banner or text ad and if the site’s traffic is high enough, it could produce a nice passive income.

Of course, whatever ads you place should be relevant to your site and should compliment your content so that it will be of value to your readers – and not an annoyance.

Here are some quick tips for getting started with web advertising:

Register for a Publisher Account

You don’t have to have a relationship with advertisers.  No cold calling is necessary.   This is possible because there are ad sites that can get bloggers connected to the big advertising companies. It is usually a simple process that starts with registering for a publisher account.

Google Adsense is one example, Chikita and Kontera are others.  These sites will provide ad codes to place on your site that will analyze your content and present relevant ads based on what you already have written on your site.  Whenever someone clicks an ad, you’ll earn anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars.

Find Sponsors or Local Advertisers

Other ways to generate ad income are through sponsorships. You can find sponsors by approaching local businesses in your area or other bloggers who are interested in forming a partnership.  A partner can sponsor with cash, services or products in exchange for being listed or having their logo displayed prominently on your site.

Securing sponsors is a great way to fund contests and giveaways that will benefit everyone involved including the blog community.

If your site has a large audience, you could just skip sponsorship and sell ad space to those same local businesses for a flat monthly or yearly rate.

These are two ways to bring in advertising revenue, combine this with the right amount of affiliate marketing and sponsored reviews and you’ll be on the right track to bringing in a steady flow of advertising revenue.

How Does Web Advertising Work? is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

Got a new blog or struggling blog?

Take your new blog from set up to top ranking in 10 weeks or less - bit.ly/PHsRFD

One of the tasks in building your reputation online is to create guest blog posts that will direct your target audience to your webpage.

If used effectively, you can increase your reputation, web traffic, leads, and sales. As an important part of services from an online reputation management agency, you must know how to use it effectively instead of just aiming for higher page ranks.

The Benefits of Guest Blogging

Writing for your own blog is blogging, writing comments in other blogs and forum sites is blog or forum commenting, while writing for a blog that another individual or company owns is guest blogging. This marketing strategy has been around for many years, but it has been valued for a more important reason these days.

Who benefits from effective guest blogging?

• The Blogger

When the blogger gets new unique content from another expert in the field, the blog gains a lot. Variety of content is added instead of consistent contents which can be boring to read.

• The Audience

The audience will be able to read new and exciting contents in different views and styles.

• The Guest Blogger

Guest blogging will let you expose your business or webpage to a new set of audience. This is your chance to have more traffic in your webpage by adding direct links.

Traffic lead is not the only reason why guest blogging is applied by a reputation management agency. It is done to improve your reputation to a wider and newer range of audience of reputable blogs or websites. As authority figures in your niche or business field, these blogs have a greater number of followers where you can expose yourself and gain reputation in the long run.

The Authority in Your Niche

Establishing a relationship with an authority in your niche is in fact, the real goal of guest blogging. This is what a reputation management agency provides along with other reputation development services. Instead of creating web traffic which may change in time, having ties with reputable blogs and websites improves your reputation. Being acknowledged in the contents you made have long-lasting results compared to unstable traffic-lead posts.

There are many publishers on the web specializing in different types of niches. These authorities haven’t gained their reputation just by putting up keyword-rich contents. They see to it that the contents made are informative and relevant to their niches. Instead of focusing on keyword placement, create “quality” contents in the area of your expertise.

Dealing with Negative Comments

In guest blogging, you are sharing your knowledge in a different kind of audience. Although some would appreciate the information you provide, it’s possible to have negative comments from “trolls” and people with spiteful opinions about your content. A reputation management agency is great at controlling these comments before spreading like wildfire across different web platforms. It’s very important to know how to react to these comments to avoid hurting your reputation.

A reputation management agency usually ignores comments from obvious “trolls” on the web. These people use hateful or spiteful comments just to create traffic in their websites. Obvious “trolls” are easy to find since their websites or blogs aren’t so popular on the web. Another thing that you must know is that an authority might find your content false or offensive, which may lead to negative comment published in another web platform.

When negative comments are already hurting your reputation, you must bury these comments with even greater content in the future. This is what a reputation management agency does to manage negative comments. Keep reading blog such as Weblogbetter to learn how you can create better blog posts that will help to develop your positive reputation on the web.

Establishing a Relationship with an Authority: The Real Goal of Guest Blogging is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

Got a new blog or struggling blog?

Take your new blog from set up to top ranking in 10 weeks or less - bit.ly/PHsRFD

Facebook’s Graph Search is here, and it’s here to stay. Since the feature was announced in January 2013, early adapters have been testing its functionality while Facebook fine tune’s its algorithms. Although it will take years to finalize, Graph Search is transitioning Facebook from a social network to a social search engine.

Graph Search returns results based on a user’s social connections and a page’s level of engagement. Web search results are also shown and are powered by Bing. Take advantage of the developing social search engine by optimizing your blog’s Facebook Page with these three tips.

1. Start Using Threaded Comments

If your page is eligible (if it isn’t, the feature will be rolled out to all pages in July), you can opt-in to the new threaded comments and replies feature through your admin panel. Facebook launched this new feature at the end of March. Both small and large brands and companies are using threaded replies to increase their page’s social engagement.

Threaded replies and conversations facilitate more personal interactions between page owners and page fans. According to Facebook’s Journalism Program Manager, Vadim Lavrusik, these comments give “you and your readers [the] ability to reply directly to comments left on your Page content and start conversation threads, which will make it easier for you to interact directly with individual readers and keep relevant conversations connected.”

Since social interaction is the glue behind Graph Search, implementing these threaded replies (with close moderation, especially at the beginning) should be a no-brainer. They will help you increase engagement and build real relationships with your readers which will in turn increase your Graph Search rankings for both your Facebook page and blog.

2. Make Sure You’re Asking Questions

This tip is more of an extension of the first tip about threaded comments, but I think it deserves its own section.

When sharing your blog posts with your Facebook page members, make sure you’re adding personalized commentary. The best way to this and increase engagement is to ask questions. Social media users always love to talk about their feelings, opinions and ideas. Instead of simply copying and pasting the URL to your latest post or using an integrated sync feature between your blogging platform and Facebook, share your posts and ask users what they think.

Developing quality conversations will help you use the threaded comments feature, build relationships with your users, improve your Graph Search ranking and drive traffic to your blog.

3. Find Out What People Are Searching For

This is an advanced tip and focused on your blog rather than your Facebook page, but well worth it for further insight into your audience and Graph Search activity.

When Facebook users deploy searches on Graph Search, Facebook is likely to return relevant, internal page results. However, if a user is searching for a longer, more specific phrase, Facebook will show web results powered by Bing.

This is where your blog will appear, especially if you’ve taken extra steps to optimize your blog for SEO purposes. To monitor traffic coming from Graph Search using Google Analytics, follow these step-by-step instructions created by Glenn Gabe on The Internet Marketing Driver blog.

Analyzing these results will help you discover what people are searching for on Facebook related to your blog. With this information, you can refine your Facebook page to target more specific keywords and topics.

And if you’re lucky, the data might even help you generate ideas for future posts!

3 Ways to Optimize Your Blog’s Facebook Page for Graph Search is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

Got a new blog or struggling blog?

Take your new blog from set up to top ranking in 10 weeks or less - bit.ly/PHsRFD

Blog traffic is one of the most sought out aspects of succeeding in blogging.

It appears on the To-do list of every blogger:  generate blog traffic every day.

Driving traffic is the key to gaining more subscribers and the readers that will interact with your content.

But,

“I am having a hard time generating enough traffic!” many bloggers scream at their computers.

No worries!  This problem is a common occurrence among bloggers – you are not the only one.

There are many resources on the internet that will teach you how to generate traffic along with many paid courses.  Because generating traffic is a common issue, most of the resources you’ll find won’t be free.

That’s why I want to announce a recent update from a blog called: Internet Dreams.

The owner just finished his first eBook:  How to Get Blog Traffic and it is now available for a free download!

What’s nice about this eBook is the fact that its topic covers a challenge all bloggers face: Driving Traffic.

The eBook will teach you exactly how to generate traffic to your blog, the way every blogger is supposed to.

The techniques in the book are all quality techniques that the owner of Internet Dreams follows.

The traffic that can be gotten from just following the instructions of the eBook will be based on the amount of work you are willing to put into following exactly what it recommends.

And if you follow it exactly, you will see great amounts of traffic begin to flood your blog.

Here is a short taste of what the eBook talks about:

Chapter 1: Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is one of the single most important techniques of driving traffic.  Samuel expresses this plainly in this chapter and has made sure to write a very well-detailed chapter about it.  Guest blogging is hard to work on but following the steps in this chapter, it will teach you a smarter way to tackle the task and see results.

Chapter 2:  Social Media Engagement

Samuel talks about using social media to generate blog traffic and using the engagement activity of social media to lead people back to your blog.  Social media is a very important key to adding more traffic to whatever audience you already have.

Chapter 3:  Long Tail Keywords (SEO).

I would recommend reading this chapter very closely since it will show you how to gain the best results from Google.  With all the craziness going on in the SEO world and Google, following quality advice is the difference in succeeding or failing with SEO in today’s search engine marketing.

Chapter 4:  Blog commenting.

Blog commenting is one of the best forms of driving traffic to a blog. Still is!  There is the right way to do and Samuel teaches how to get the best results through blog commenting.

I totally recommend that you go to: Internet Dreams and download the eBook today.  You have nothing to lose! It’s free!

If you have any comments or questions about Internet Dream’s new eBook, write below your comment or send Samuel an email.

How to Get Blog Traffic is a post from: We Blog Better. © 2013. Share it freely with your friends, but please don't duplicate this content without expressed permission.

Got a new blog or struggling blog?

Take your new blog from set up to top ranking in 10 weeks or less - bit.ly/PHsRFD