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What is Forex?

2008-07-01T01:43:00.001-07:00

FOREX - the foreign exchange market or currency market or Forex is the market where one currency is traded for another. It is one of the largest markets in the world.
Some of the participants in this market are simply seeking to exchange a foreign currency for their own, like multinational corporations which must pay wages and other expenses in different nations than they sell products in. However, a large part of the market is made up of currency traders, who speculate on movements in exchange rates, much like others would speculate on movements of stock prices. Currency traders try to take advantage of even small fluctuations in exchange rates.
In the foreign exchange market there is little or no 'inside information'. Exchange rate fluctuations are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as anticipations on global macroeconomic conditions. Significant news is released publicly so, at least in theory, everyone in the world receives the same news at the same time.
Currencies are traded against one another. Each pair of currencies thus constitutes an individual product and is traditionally noted XXX/YYY, where YYY is the ISO 4217 international three-letter code of the currency into which the price of one unit of XXX currency is expressed. For instance, EUR/USD is the price of the euro expressed in US dollars, as in 1 euro = 1.2045 dollar.
Unlike stocks and futures exchange, foreign exchange is indeed an interbank, over-the-counter (OTC) market which means there is no single universal exchange for specific currency pair. The foreign exchange market operates 24 hours per day throughout the week between individuals with forex brokers, brokers with banks, and banks with banks. If the European session is ended the Asian session or US session will start, so all world currencies can be continually in trade. Traders can react to news when it breaks, rather than waiting for the market to open, as is the case with most other markets.
Average daily international foreign exchange trading volume was $1.9 trillion in April 2004 according to the BIS study.
Like any market there is a bid/offer spread (difference between buying price and selling price). On major currency crosses, the difference between the price at which a market maker will sell ("ask", or "offer") to a wholesale customer and the price at which the same market-maker will buy ("bid") from the same wholesale customer is minimal, usually only 1 or 2 pips. In the EUR/USD price of 1.4238 a pip would be the '8' at the end. So the bid/ask quote of EUR/USD might be 1.4238/1.4239.
This, of course, does not apply to retail customers. Most individual currency speculators will trade using a broker which will typically have a spread marked up to say 3-20 pips (so in our example 1.4237/1.4239 or 1.423/1.425). The broker will give their clients often huge amounts of margin, thereby facilitating clients spending more money on the bid/ask spread. The brokers are not regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (since they do not sell securities), so they are not bound by the same margin limits as stock brokerages. They do not typically charge margin interest, however since currency trades must be settled in 2 days, they will "resettle" open positions (again collecting the bid/ask spread).
Individual currency speculators can work during the day and trade in the evenings, taking advantage of the market's 24 hours long trading day.

Forex ArticlesRead the most popular and helpful Forex articles. All these Forex articles are written by the talented Forex traders, analysts and strategists. You can submit your own Forex article on our Forex article submission page

How to Prevent Colon Cancer (and Never Need a Colostomy)

2008-06-28T04:30:00.000-07:00

In a previous column, we talked about a checkup you may have missed, and how a colonoscopy is important for the diagnosis of colon cancer. We talked about how national celebrities such as Tony Snow are survivors of colon cancer.
What many people fear about colon cancer is the possibility of needing an operation which sometimes results in having a colostomy: a condition where the rectum is removed and the bowel empties through a hole in the abdominal wall ("a stoma") and stool collects in a bag which much be disposed of daily. Not to mention, everyone is afraid the doctor will find an incurable cancer that may cause weakness, pain, and death. These can be avoided by cancer prevention!
Step 1 in preventing colon cancer is a colonoscopy. This procedure can prevent colon cancer by removing polyps, and can detect colon cancer at the earliest stages when it is most curable. Check on this website for the previous column on "A Checkup You May Have Missed" which describes colonoscopy and its benefits in your life.
Step 2 is getting the right diet. For preventing colon cancer (and many other cancers as well), a healthy diet is important. The foods you eat which contribute to colon cancer are excess fat (which can contain cancer-producing chemicals), as well as insufficient fiber. So, shop carefully for your foods so that your diet consists of a low fat diet with red meat at most once per week (you can substitute chicken, fish, and even vegetable proteins such as soy proteins for red meat). Your diet should have five helpings of fruits, vegetables, or fruit juices per day. How much is a helping? A helping is about the size of your fist or for juices, at least 4 oz. (half a cup). The diet should be controlled in calories so that you don't gain weight, but instead maintain a healthy weight for your height (your doctor and the nurses can tell you what this is for your height, or you can find this in a future column on Health News). The best diets in the world have included olive oil in place of other saturated fats, margarine in place of butter, plus a healthy quantity of nuts. Fiber is very important, so be certain that you not only have five helpings of fruits or vegetables, but that you use whole grain breads and even consider adding bran to salads, or low fat bran muffins.
In Step 3. You should consider adding medicines. The medicine I recommend for my patients is.... plain old aspirin. Large studies have indicated that a full-strength aspirin daily will reduce the frequency of colon polyps and colon cancer by about one-third. Prescription medications such as Celebrex can also do this, but concerns have been raised regarding Celebrex and a possible increase in heart disease. In serious situations, such as severe colitis, I prefer to use Celebrex in my patients. If you have colitis, discuss this with your physician.
Should everyone start aspirin? I take aspirin daily, but you should discuss with your doctors or nurses whether you have illnesses that make aspirin dangerous: stomach problems, ulcers, aspirin allergy, other medications with which aspirin interacts badly, bleeding disorders, or kidney problems. When you are starting aspirin, be certain to check with your doctor, and each follow up visit with a doctor or dentist, remind them and the nurses that you are taking aspirin!
Step 4. Now consider adding some over-the-counter medications. In my patients, I recommend calcium (one to three calcium and vitamin D combination pills daily, unless you have kidney stones or high blood calcium which makes calcium supplements dangerous). I also recommend selenium 200 mcg daily (the usual size of a selenium pill). Although large studies are still underway to determine how effective selenium truly is, the balance of evidence in my evaluation suggests that selenium is helpful. Check with your doctor.
There are many nutrients and vitamins which have been suggested by some people to prevent colon cancer. I am not convinced about these yet. These include folic acid, curcumin, vitamin C, pomegranate juice, and fish oil. What do I tell my patients about these? "The evidence is just not in about preventing colon cancer. If you need them for other condition, such as blood clots or prostate enlargement, take them. I recommend that you read HealthNews each week, because when any of these are proven to be helpful it will be a flash news item in this important website".
These four steps which you can take will help avoid a cancer that is overall the #2 cause of cancer in this country. Start today because "four steps a day keeps colon cancer away."

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2007-10-22T00:05:00.000-07:00

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2007-10-21T02:20:00.001-07:00

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Shrek the Third

2007-10-21T02:19:00.001-07:00

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Shrek the Third has Shrek and Fiona watching over their kingdom of Far Far Away, now that King Harold is a frog, yet Shrek feels that he never cares about his friends. When King Harold falls ill and is dying, Shrek and Fiona determine that if they can find a suitable heir to the throne of Far Far Away and bring him back, they can leave their current lifestyles behind and return to their swamp. The most promising candidate for the position of king is Fiona's cousin, Arthur (Artie) who proves to be much more of a problem than Shrek, Donkey, and Puss had bargained for...

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2007-10-21T02:16:00.000-07:00

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Ratatouille ("Rat-a-too-ee") is a traditional French Provençal stewed vegetable dish which can be served as a meal on its own (accompanied by rice, potatoes, or simply French bread), or as a side dish. Tomatoes are a key ingredient, with onions, courgettes (zucchini), aubergine (eggplant), bell peppers, a little herb de provence, and sometimes basil. All the ingredients are sautéed in olive oil. Adding plenty of fresh coriander adds much flavor to the dish.
The movie Ratatouille tells the success story of an unlikely hero; a rat named Rémy who finds himself in a Parisian restaurant made famous by an eccentric French chef, Auguste Gusteau. Rémy is not only a gourmet (so quite an outsider among his kinfolk), but aims to become a fine chef. This far-reaching ambition, incredibly enough, he achieves.
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2007-10-21T02:15:00.000-07:00

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2007-10-21T02:07:00.000-07:00

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2007-10-21T01:58:00.000-07:00

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What Makes a Good Blogger?

2007-10-20T01:03:00.000-07:00

I've been blogging for a while now and one thing I noticed while reading
other blogs is that some of them suck. There - I said it! It's not hard to find a blog that has either died (that is, the author doesn't update it anymore), provides the wrong information, has spelling and grammar mistakes or the theme itself makes you sick.
I've compiled a list of 5 traits that a good blogger should have.

Be Personal
A good blogger should provide insight and a touch of their personal side while
writing. The information offered should not be recycled, but fresh and
informative (especially on a marketing blog). A blogger should be responsive to
their audience, be easily accessible, respond to comments and provide dialog
that's easy to make sense of.

Have a Personality
The blogger personality is a huge key when it comes to having your audience like
you or hate you. This is where it gets tricky - you want to be somewhere between
'liked' and 'hated'. You want to be hated enough to cause a little controversy
and discussion amongst your readers, but likable enough that even those that
hate you will come back to read more. Make sense?

Be Passionate
If you're not passionate about what you're writing about, it shows and your
readers will know it. You shouldn't have to struggle when writing a post - it
should come naturally. If this isn't the case, you're writing on the wrong
subject. Have fun while writing and don't force yourself too much.

Post Pictures
Every now and then post a photo to go along with your post. It doesn't have to
be a photo of yourself (although you could do that too), but a photo related to
whatever your post happens to be about. For example, I try to post at least one
photo along with each post I make, but sometimes I don't post any. I like to
switch it up a bit.

Stay Focused

If your blog is about detailing cars, don't write about your
political opinions - it's pretty straight forward. Most blogs I visit like to
freestyle on the weekends and break a few of the rules. This is good because it
gives the reader a chance to see what else you can write about. But remember,
99% of the time your content should match your title. Your readers were
attracted to your blog in the first place because of its subject; try to keep
their focus (and yours) as much as possible.

Eight Steps To Amazing Success

2007-10-20T01:02:00.002-07:00

Amazing life's success and prosperity is your birthright. You were designed for mind boggling success, born for outstanding accomplishments and gifted beyond the highest human thoughts can reach. Your life was planned; your birth was not an accident. Everything you have passed through at this point in your life is a series of synchronistic events positioning you for the fulfillment of your destiny. Divine intelligence has an exciting plan for your life - a plan for amazing success. Here is an eight-step pattern that can assist you to manifest all that you have been dreaming to become, do or have.
STEP I - Dream! Dream! Dream big dreams.
STEP II - Set Some Specific Goals
STEP III - Develop A Practical Plan Of Action
STEP IV - Get Lost In Enthusiasm and Excitement
STEP V - Exercise Faith In Your Plan For Amazing Success
STEP VI - Take Massive Action
STEP VII - Develop An Attitude of Persistence
Thanks for reading and may all that you have ever dreamed of being and having be yours in the fullness of time.
This is C.W. "Terrific" Roberts reminding you that today is the best day of your life. You are the very best of God's creation. You are loaded with mind-boggling potentials and possibilities. You have what it takes to be, do or have what you desire. Get up and get it going!

The influence of bloggings

2007-10-20T01:02:00.001-07:00

Blogs have increased popularity over this past months. Many people have started to create their personal blogs to express their thoughts and feelings. Internet companies have also started their blogs to inform consumers on the latest product news and reviews.
Because of this, blogs are also being used as internet marketing media. Before, internet marketing is done by placing banners and links on popular websites, such as news and information sites. Links were also included on newsletters and marketing letters sent to the members of their mailing lists.
Many people spend time reading blogs. People read their friend's blogs, their favorite author's blogs, blogs on topics that they are interested in, and blogs on product reviews. With the increasing popularity of blogging, it is even feared that people rely on blogs to get the latest news.
While getting news reports from blogs isn't reliable, some people look for product reviews through blogs. In some cases, this is more dependable. While it is true that some media persons are being paid to write good reviews about a certain product, blog writers write about their actual experiences on products and services from a company.
Since there are many people who read and start their own blogs, blogs are a good medium to market a product. With the increasing blog traffic means increase in product sales.
Blog traffic can be increased by joining affiliate programs and sites, which will list your blog under a certain search category or name. You can also have your blog advertised in popular websites. This, however, will cost some money and is not advisable if you have just started blogging.
A writer who has just launched his/her blog will want as much traffic as possible to increase advertisements on the site. Also, some advertisers pay every time their link is clicked or the page that has their link is viewed.
When you have increased traffic on your blog, you should try to keep you visitors coming back and recommending your blog to friends and colleagues.
This can be done by having informative or amusing content and good blog layout and design. You may develop your blog's content or you can also acquire the services of a web content writer to provide you with the blog articles.
The blog's layout and design also plays a big role. While most of the companies offering free blog hosting offer pre-selected templates, there are also some that allows customization that if you utilize this feature correctly can increase your blog's traffic.
Here are a few tips to make your blog stand out from the millions of blogs out there that have standard designs.
* Customize the banner
The banner usually has the most generic designs that are common to the blogs from a blogging company or service.
You can personalize this banner by having a graphic with the dimensions of the banner. You can also edit the graphic so that it will also include the title of your blog.
In this case, you can create your own graphic or you can purchase professional looking graphics online for less than $10.
* Personalizing photos
Of course, most of the photos that you will be posting will be your own. However, if you don't customize the photos before posting them, you may miss maximizing the enhancing benefits graphics can add to the page. Adding photo borders can help the photo stand out from the page.
It can also add to the design of your blog. You can choose a standard border or you can also create your own border which can be associated with your blog's templates.
* Add a favicon
Don't you think sites with icons on the address bar before the website's URL are cool? Many people do. These favicons add a professional look to the URL. These easy to do using photo or graphic editing softwares.
* Check out blog templates, layouts, backgrounds, textures and skins from sites
There are sites that offer free blog templates, layouts, backgrounds, textures and skins. You can make use of these so your blog will not look generic like most of the blogs hosted by the service provider.
* Include RSS feeds
This is a cool way to inform people with newsreaders about your blog headlines. Tutorials on RSS feeds are available on the internet.
* Audio makes your blog more personal
Not only does audio personalizes the blog; it can also keep your visitors coming back. You can try having streaming radio stations, mp3 file or playlists loading with your blog.
* Advertisements
If you have signed-up with Google Ad-Sense, which I am sure you would like to do, make sure that the ads are conveniently placed that these will not hinder your readers' ease in accessing the information on your blog.
Try using these tips and you can definitely increase and retain traffic on your blog.

7 Days to a Better Blog

2007-10-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

Blogging has become a popular way to make a bit of cash and make yourself known as an authority in your particular niche. But too many bloggers think they can just put up any old site, write a couple of posts, and watch the money come rolling in. This is not likely to happen for most people.
In order to really make money with your blog, it needs to be organized and well-written. Do you want a few tips on how to make your blog shine? Read on to find out how you can have a better blog in just 7 days.
Day 1: Get Organized. Get a notebook that you can keep handy to jot down possible topic ideas as they come to you. Start a folder on your computer that's dedicated to your blog writing. You may even want to make special bookmark folders in your internet browser for different websites that can help you (e.g. one for sites about blogging, one for other blogs in your topic, one for research related to your topic, etc.)
Day 2: Think about your audience. Who is reading your blog? Men or women? What age? Where are they from? These factors should all affect the style of your blog and your writing. For example, certain people may not like an informal writing style, while others may be put off by a professional style. If you know your audience you can cater to them. Also, think about what types of things these people need and what type of information they don't have. Knowing this can help you come up with topics to write about or affiliate programs that you should think about promoting. Make sure you're writing all of this down either in a notebook or in a file on your computer. You don't want to lose your notes.
Day 3: Find similar bloggers. Spend about an hour looking for other blogs that are in the same niche as yours. Pay attention to what sort of style they use. What are you going to do to make your blog unique? Can you create a niche-within-a-niche? Bookmark all of these blogs in a special folder so that you can visit them often. It's good to keep tabs on what other same-topic bloggers are writing about. You wouldn't want to miss a time-sensitive piece such as a news story. You also can use these blogs to study what affiliate programs others in your topic are promoting.
Day 4: Keyword research. Today you should research keywords. Do this using a keyword research tool. Your goal is to find keywords within your topic that are broad enough that people are searching for them, but small enough that there isn't too much competition already. Make sure that you write down all of these keywords, even if you may not use them for awhile. You never know when inspiration might strike.
Day 5: Brainstorming. Get out that notebook (or open that Word file) and start dumping your ideas out onto the paper. Don't censor yourself. Everything is OK here. Nobody but you is going to see this. Once you've got your main ideas down, see if you can break them down any further. For example, with this article, I thought "How can I make my blog better?" then I jotted down each of the ideas. This made it much easier to actually sit down and write the article.
Day 6: Do your research. Do your blog posts need additional research? Today's the day to focus on that. Take a look at your work from yesterday. See where there are holes and fill them in with a bit of research. It's going to make tomorrow much easier.
Day 7: Get writing! Today, write several blog posts and save them on your computer. These should be very simple to write because you have followed the steps in the previous days. If you write a couple of articles in one day, you can post them throughout the week without spending much time each day. This streamlines the process and makes it much easier.
Some of these suggestions may seem unnecessary to some people, but I assure you that doing each of them will only make things easier for you. In just 7 days you can get organized and start writing the blog masterpiece that I know is inside you.

Blogging as a marketing tool
5 Reasons Why Blogging is the New Internet Marketing Tool
Blogging is a concept that started in late 90s. It used to be a way to comment an existing webpage, an opportunity for visitors and readers to react or voice out one's opinion on the said page. What started as a single-sentence commentary has evolved into pages of personal take on just about anything and everything under the sun. As it continues to move forward, online advertising has tapped into the blog's potential. Here are 5 reasons why you should use blogging as an Internet marketing tool.
1.Blogging is simple. The simplest way to get your piece on the net is through blogging. No skills are necessary... an average adult can read and type, or at least click a mouse. It's like having a virtual piece of paper and you just write your ideas, experiences, new products, and hope that the truth behind your articles comes out and entice your reader to also try your product. If you have a PC and an Internet connection (who doesn't?) then you can blog and advertise.
2. Blogging is authentic. In this day and age where advertising saturate our lives, we question the credibility of promoters' claims. However, in blogs, real people share their real-life experiences, unscathed by paid advertising. Reading blogs about first-hand product use is like talking to people about their first-hand experience. You definitely want to buy a tried and tested product.
3. Blogging is free. Because blogging is yet to be proven as a mainstream online advertising media, most sites see it as something to augment current marketing tools and thus offer it for free. Any opportunity for free webtime is definitely a bonus especially to businesses that are starting up. Needless to say, paid blog pages can generate more income for your seriously growing business.
4. Blogging builds credibility. As you get more and more into writing your experiences on a particular product or industry, your readers come to realize that they can depend on your posts for their own information needs. As such, you become an expert on it; as a consequence, more readers visit your site and more bloggers link to your blogs. As companies and professional organizations notice the growth of your readership base, they may soon get in touch with you for advertising on your blog page, or make you an affiliate, which pays for every referral generated from your blog site.
5. Blogging builds your market. Unless you are a Hollywood star, chances are, only your Mom reads your posts. Mom has a lot of friends, so she lets her friends know how interesting your blog site is. But you need not depend on Mom to increase your readership base. Look into the following ways to build your market through blogging:
-By using your e-mail. Today, blogging is overcoming the e-mail's popularity in quickly and effectively reaching and expanding a market. In this age of speed and quick access, logging in and downloading e-mail is simply taking longer than clicking into a blog site. Let them explore your site by using a short e-mail message as teaser to your blog site. If your e-mail is on an entirely different subject, use your e-mail signature to give a link to the site.
-By using subscription. An easy way to get your readers e-mail is to give them an opportunity to subscribe to your blogsite. Keep some exclusive information for your subscribers to entice readers to subscribe and give their e-mail address. Just be responsible in using their e-mail address, as the last thing you want is a comment on your blog that you are a spammer.
-By understanding your readers. Conduct a simple survey for your readers to understand their profile and advertising preferences. Ask consumers to give you feedback on a post, an ad link, or a trial that you shared. In this way, it is like interviewing your readers without the commitment and intrusion of a face-to-face interview.
-By joining a blog network -A network of blogs maybe a collection of blog sites that share the same industry, interest, readership base, payment mode, etc. Consumers find credibility and convenience in clicking one link to several real bloggers about a single subject. Clearly, more bloggers are better than one.
-By using RSS. RSS is the fastest growing technology on the Internet today. As such, having RSS feeds to your blog is definitely another means of generating awareness for your readership base. Having a variety of feeds can add interest to your blog site.

Hey, How Can People Subscribe to my Blog?

2007-10-18T05:57:00.000-07:00

I want that little e-mail thingy everyone else has!

You will find what you're looking for at FeedBurner or FeedBlitz. Here's how they work:

FeebBurner and FeedBlitz are websites that will e-mail your posts to your readers who want to sign up for the service. Once you sign up with one of these sites, they will give you a bit of code for you to put on your blog. All you need to do is add a HTML/JavaScript module to your blog's layout (and you can do that on the Page Elements page) and drop the code into this box!

It's as easy as that. And now your readers can subscribe to you via e-mail!

Um, How do I get a Photo on my Blog?

2007-10-18T05:56:00.000-07:00

There are two ways you can add an image to your blog posts. Blogger has a built in system for this, where you can upload your photos to Blogger while you're writing. All you do is click on the little photo icon (that you see here) and follow the directions for how you want your text to be formatted around your image.

Also, you can add images that are already uploaded to sites like Flickr and PhotoBucket. These sites will automatically generate the code you need. They will provide you with the text and all you need to do is copy and paste it directly into your post!

Easy. That's all there is to it!

Because there's no room for all I want to say!

2007-10-18T05:54:00.000-07:00

Okay, get out your calculator. It's time for some math!

Right now, if you have the Minima template installed on your blog, the maximum width of your blog is probably set to 660 px (pixels) wide. If you were to break this down: 410 px have been given to the main body text of your blog, 220 px are set aside for your sidebar and the remaining 10 px are dividing the text of your blog entries from the sidebar (called "padding"). Playing around with these numbers will change the look of your blog.

One thing to note, however--there are still some people who have 800 x 600 resolution monitors. If you decide to change the dimensions of your blog to 1000 px (because this looks great on your monitor, which is 1280 x 800) then the content of your blog is going to run off the right side of their screen. That's not very professional looking...

Probably the widest you should go is 780 px. Just divvy this number up between your main body text and your sidebar: 550 px for the text, 220 px for the sidebar and 10 px for the gutter.

Where do you enter these magical numbers? Click on Edit HTML on the Page Elements page and follow these directions:

1) Scroll down to where you see the title Outer-Wrapper. You'll see that here is where the numbers are entered in!

2) Change 660 px to 780 px. Change the "main wrapper" from 410 px to 550 px. The sidebar wrapper and "padding" you can leave as is (220 px and 10 px).

Now, one more thing has to be done so that your pretty banner will be perfectly centered over your text:

3) Scroll up a little to the section entitled Header. Change the width from 660 px to 780 px. Now Blogger knows the right number with which to center your banner and everything will be lined up perfectly!

3 Columns Blogger Templates

2007-10-18T05:46:00.000-07:00

This is a list of all 3 column blogger template have been so famous on the blogging world. all provided with the link download, screenshot and the demo blog site.

You can download all this template here, I compress it into one zip file. don’t worry, it’s only 32kb

3 Column Blogger Template Download Here

update:

some readers reported that the template #3 is not working, so here i upload a separated xml for you. Template #3: BloggingPro Blogger Template Download Here

3 Column Blogger Template #1

This template is created by Amanda from BloggerBuster. So girly isn’t? dominant by pink, this template would be perfect for you if you are an active blogger girl
Click on the image on the left or click here if you want to see the demo site.

3 Column Blogger Template #2

This is 3 column blogger template, called: Plantilla Blogy-Cultivado blogger template. this template is originally designed by freetemplates.org and created for blogger by blogandweb.com

Click on the image on the left or click here if you want to see the demo site .

3 Column Blogger Template #3

This is 3 column blogger template, originally is a wordpress theme created by bloggingpro.com, and then it’s created for blogger by blogandweb.com

Click on the image on the left or click here if you want to see the demo site.

3 Column Blogger Template #4

Dark Green 3 Columns Blogger Template Download, Dominant by dark green background, this 3 column blogger template is also originally designed by freetemplates.org and created for blogger by blogandweb.com

Click on the image on the left or click here if you want to see the demo site.

3 Column Blogger Template #5

This is the most beautiful 3 column i’ve ever seen, well at least for now
Also designed by freetemplates.org and created for blogger by blogandweb.com

Click on the image on the left or click here if you want to see the demo site .

3 Column Blogger Template Download Here

update:

some readers reported that the template #3 is not working, so here i upload a separated xml for you. Template #3: BloggingPro Blogger Template Download Here

Do you think there’s any other beautiful or popular 3 Column Blogger Templates I should include here? please feel free to add your suggestion or anything on the comment form below.

thanks

Important Notes about Installing Blogger Template

1. If you failed on installing this template, read this guidance first How to Install the blogger template?
2. If your images gone? fix it here
3. If your date format error, fix it here.

Additional
1. You cannot install the comment form under post?

Join our community and get a free backlink

2007-10-13T06:08:00.001-07:00

Collectedpages is very grateful to all the people who loved
this blog and being sincere to them our blog has launched a new section which is
known as COMMUNITY AND BACKLINK section. Those bloggers or mybloglog members
who joined our mybloglog community they will be given a free backlink .This
section will help all the community members in the increase of their blog
traffic.

Join our community

Top 300 Highest Paying Keywords on Google Adsense

2007-10-12T04:53:00.000-07:00

What are the highest paying Google keywords on Adsense? The answer is here and it seems to dominated by lawyers . Followed by loans and insurance. (Values are in Canadian Dollars)
1. $78.30 chicago personal injury lawyer
2. $73.01 chicago personal injury attorney
3. $69.17 lasik new york city
4. $64.27 new york personal injury lawyer
5. $64.17 new jersey car insurance
6. $63.10 new york personal injury attorney
7. $61.64 chicago personal injury lawyers
8. $61.17 mesothelioma lawyers
9. $60.74 atlanta personal injury lawyer
10. $60.29 new york personal injury lawyers
11. $59.00 lasik dallas
12. $58.68 new york personal injury lawyers
13. $58.38 miami personal injury attorney
14. $58.25 what is mesothelioma
15. $58.08 best equity loan
16. $57.95 lasik new york
17. $56.88 whole life insurance quote
18. $56.75 new york car insurance
19. $56.55 the lasik vision institute
20. $56.40 what is mesothelioma
21. $55.98 mesothelioma attorneys
22. $55.39 peritoneal mesothelioma
23. $54.81 new york personal injury attorney
24. $53.74 lasik nyc
25. $53.46 whole life insurance quotes
26. $53.42 car insurance in new jersey
27. $53.12 las vegas personal injury lawyer
28. $53.12 term life insurance quotes
29. $52.57 mesothelioma treatments
30. $52.41 equity loan rate
31. $51.78 equity loan
32. $51.50 new york personal injury lawyer
33. $51.29 equity loan rates
34. $51.15 fixed rate equity loan
35. $50.54 causes of mesothelioma
36. $50.16 asbestos lawyers
37. $49.88 manhattan lasik
38. $49.38 whole life insurance quotes
39. $49.12 miami personal injury lawyer
40. $48.79 auto insurance in new jersey
41. $48.64 lasik nj
42. $48.52 beverly hills plastic surgery
43. $48.52 new jersey auto insurance
44. $48.39 apply for mortgage
45. $47.36 laser eye surgery new york
46. $47.35 [refinancing mortgage]
47. $46.90 tampa personal injury attorney
48. $46.61 cheap car insurance
49. $45.93 mesothelioma symptoms
50. $45.61 safe auto insurance
51. $45.51 hair removal new york city
52. $45.33 los angeles botox
53. $45.07 new lasik
54. $44.86 fixed equity loan
55. $44.51 san diego personal injury attorney
56. $44.19 125 equity loans
57. $43.58 mesothelioma cases
58. $43.57 car insurance in new york
59. $42.97 equity refinance
60. $42.70 asbestos and mesothelioma
61. $42.52 auto insurance quote
62. $42.06 homeowners insurance quotes
63. $41.99 lasik san diego
64. $41.86 mesothelioma is
65. $41.63 lasik new jersey
66. $41.05 mesothelioma
67. $40.47 [cosmetic surgery los angeles]
68. $40.04 personal injury attorney atlanta
69. $39.67 car insurance california
70. $39.66 oregon personal injury lawyer
71. $39.43 auto insurance
72. $39.35 albany personal injury lawyer
73. $39.21 fixed equity loans
74. $39.11 personal injury lawyers
75. $38.84 ameriquest mortgage
76. $38.31 auto insurance quotes
77. $38.19 mortgage refinance
78. $38.17 lump sum settlement
79. $37.43 cause of mesothelioma
80. $36.46 mesothelioma activists
81. $36.31 mesothelioma diagnosis
82. $36.12 mesothelioma diagnosis
83. $36.10 lasik connecticut
84. $36.04 pictures of mesothelioma
85. $35.95 personal injury lawyer los angeles
86. $35.83 insurance auto florida
87. $35.80 equity loan interest rates
88. $35.67 equity mortgage
89. $35.46 equity line loan
90. $35.41 lucerne hotel new york
91. $35.19 san francisco dui
92. $35.01 personal injury lawyer
93. $34.99 pennsylvania personal injury lawyer
94. $34.59 laser eye surgery seattle
95. $33.97 refi mortgage
96. $33.94 mesothelioma texas
97. $33.78 mesothelioma treatment
98. $33.61 personal injury lawyers in
99. $33.56 lasik san antonio
100. $33.51 mesothelioma treatment
101. $33.51 mesothelioma treatment
102. $33.46 boat insurance
103. $33.19 mesothelioma research
104. $33.18 malignant mesothelioma
105. $33.15 asbestos attorneys
106. $32.90 lucerne hotel new york
107. $32.66 symptoms of mesothelioma
108. $32.62 malignant pleural mesothelioma
109. $32.32 lasik orlando
110. $32.31 los angeles messenger
111. $32.28 sarcomatoid mesothelioma
112. $31.98 15 year mortgage rates
113. $31.86 detroit mortgage
114. $31.74 mortgage refinance rate
115. $31.67 new york accident
116. $31.62 125 equity loan
117. $31.48 laser eye surgery san francisco
118. $31.42 personal injury attorney
119. $31.38 whole life insurance
120. $31.21 the lasik center
121. $31.14 massachusetts personal injury lawyer
122. $31.07 personal injury attorney los angeles
123. $30.83 ny lasik
124. $30.66 equity lender
125. $30.52 lasik denver
126. $30.49 american equity mortgage
127. $30.34 oregon personal injury attorney
128. $30.24 philadelphia personal injury lawyer
129. $30.17 personal injury attorneys
130. $29.86 pleural mesothelioma
131. $29.00 champion mortgage
132. $28.76 massachusetts personal injury lawyers
133. $28.74 florida personal injury attorney
134. $28.67 asbestos claim
135. $28.67 sell mortgage
136. $28.65 mortgage loans
137. $28.36 [mortgage financing]
138. $28.34 syracuse new york real estate
139. $28.31 los angeles attorneys
140. $28.17 los angeles lawyer
141. $28.10 new york moving companies
142. $27.91 individual health insurance new york
143. $27.82 allstate new jersey insurance
144. $27.81 san diego personal injury lawyer
145. $27.78 equity mortgage calculator
146. $27.74 san francisco insurance
147. $27.55 tampa personal injury lawyer
148. $27.42 lasik financing
149. $27.38 new york city personal injury lawyer
150. $27.06 term insurance
151. $26.90 liposuction new york
152. $26.76 insurance companies new jersey
153. $26.73 lasik kansas
154. $26.71 insurance companies in new jersey
155. $26.56 new york city personal injury lawyer
156. $26.39 lasik hair removal
157. $26.32 [w hotel san francisco]
158. $26.30 lasik surgery milwaukee
159. $26.28 lasik vision
160. $26.22 michigan personal injury lawyer
161. $26.21 equity loan information
162. $26.06 california personal injury attorneys
163. $26.01 equity mortgage rates
164. $25.91 equity lenders
165. $25.78 new york auto insurance
166. $25.78 new york auto insurance
167. $25.78 new york auto insurance
168. $25.63 2nd mortgage loans
169. $25.53 mortgage loan
170. $25.51 lasik surgery chicago
171. $25.44 mortgage application
172. $25.40 california personal injury lawyers
173. $25.39 california personal injury attorney
174. $25.21 no equity loans
175. $25.18 no equity loan
176. $25.11 insurance
177. $25.02 auto insurance in new york
178. $24.94 california personal injury lawyer
179. $24.77 asbestos survey
180. $24.77 florida personal injury lawyer
181. $24.77 lasik kansas city
182. $24.73 refinancing a mortgage
183. $24.72 new york city personal injury lawyer
184. $24.72 new york city personal injury lawyer
185. $24.56 mortgage companies
186. $24.50 lasik oregon
187. $24.49 lasik boston
188. $24.33 new york state car insurance
189. $24.32 san jose lasik
190. $24.23 asbestos lung cancer
191. $24.05 [countrywide mortgage]
192. $24.02 low mortgage rate
193. $23.96 lasik cincinnati
194. $23.92 lasik san francisco
195. $23.86 lasik plus
196. $23.70 allstate insurance
197. $23.69 lasik atlanta
198. $23.64 bay area lasik
199. $23.63 asbestos lung
200. $23.51 renter’s insurance new york
201. $23.47 abatement technologies
202. $23.37 mesothelioma law
203. $23.26 lasik los angeles
204. $23.25 cheap lasik
205. $23.23 mesothelioma california
206. $23.19 equity loan calculator
207. $23.12 mesothelioma victims
208. $23.05 california asbestos
209. $23.04 equity mortgage company
210. $22.93 gmac mortgage
211. $22.89 life insurance
212. $22.88 no closing cost mortgage
213. $22.85 mesothelioma lawyer texas
214. $22.85 mesothelioma lawyer texas
215. $22.81 dallas personal injury lawyer
216. $22.74 houston personal injury lawyer
217. $22.73 personal injury attorneys los angeles
218. $22.66 invisalign
219. $22.56 mortgage rate quote
220. $22.55 asbestos claims
221. $22.53 lasik eye surgery canada
222. $22.52 mesothelioma law firm
223. $22.35 chicago lasik
224. $22.34 texas homeowners insurance
225. $22.27 california mortgage rates
226. $22.26 [homeowner’s insurance]
227. $22.15 lasik center
228. $22.02 asbestos lawsuit
229. $21.97 pericardial mesothelioma
230. $21.94 mortgage notes
231. $21.93 boston personal injury attorney
232. $21.86 lasik california
233. $21.80 low cost health insurance new york
234. $21.72 asbestos cancer
235. $21.71 affordable health insurance new york
236. $21.71 lasik eye surgury
237. $21.67 lasik eye
238. $21.64 lasik prices
239. $21.56 lasik eye surgery
240. $21.56 lasik eye surgery
241. $21.52 all laser lasik
242. $21.48 lasik pricing
243. $21.48 lasik surgury
244. $21.48 mesothelioma settlement
245. $21.39 lasik treatment
246. $21.35 mesothelioma settlement
247. $21.30 [house insurance]
248. $21.28 lasik doctor
249. $21.27 mesothelioma memorial scholarship
250. $21.27 utah personal injury attorney
251. $21.20 los angeles asbestos
252. $21.17 dallas personal injury attorney
253. $21.10 laser eye surgery
254. $20.95 homeowners insurance new jersey
255. $20.91 insurance company in new jersey
256. $20.87 commercial vehicle insurance
257. $20.85 eye surgery los angeles
258. $20.85 eye surgery los angeles
259. $20.76 allstate new jersey
260. $20.72 lasik surgery
261. $20.72 lasik surgery
262. $20.69 lasik surgery houston
263. $20.65 lasik indianapolis
264. $20.62 lasik doctors
265. $20.61 san francisco party bus
266. $20.59 safeco
267. $20.54 utah mortgage
268. $20.52 homeowners insurance new york
269. $20.46 [mortgage lenders]
270. $20.32 mortgage rate comparison
271. $20.28 mortgage note
272. $20.27 lasik eye surgery washington
273. $20.22 new jersey life insurance
274. $20.19 mortgage in new jersey
275. $20.17 wavefront lasik
276. $20.16 new jersey personal injury attorneys
277. $20.15 lasik eye surgeons
278. $20.14 trip insurance
279. $20.08 fort worth personal injury lawyer
280. $19.97 boston personal injury lawyer
281. $19.95 metropolitan hotel in new york city
282. $19.91 connecticut mortgage rates
283. $19.90 asbestos lawsuits
284. $19.88 lasik tampa
285. $19.85 idaho mortgage
286. $19.80 texas asbestos
287. $19.74 los angeles movers
288. $19.63 lasik milwaukee
289. $19.63 new jersey insurance
290. $19.61 lasik phoenix
291. $19.55 cost lasik
292. $19.51 laser lasik
293. $19.51 san diego asbestos
294. $19.41 va mortgage rate
295. $19.38 www mesothelioma
296. $19.36 investment property loan
297. $19.32 wavefront surgery
298. $19.28 new york automobile insurance
299. $19.23 lasik sacramento
300. $19.23 renters insurance new york city

How to get high paying Adsense Ads running on your site?

2007-10-12T04:37:00.001-07:00

Finding High Paying Ads is not as easy as it sounds (is anything?). Do a search for Google on High Paying Adsense Ads and you won’t find too many sites listing the best keywords for Adsense. The top Adsense users in Adsense discussion forums tend to be pretty secretive about not only what keywords they focus on, but also what sites they run. I don’t blame them either - its good business sense really.

Having said this there are a number of strategies and tools that you might like to employ to help find high paying keywords.

1. Buy them - Finding high paying keywords for your blog is possible by yourself for free - but as with everything a few entrepreneurial types are willing to do the leg work for you to save you some time and give you a comprehensive result.

2. A simple way to check is to head to Google and do a search for the key words you’re wanting to blog about. The results page will bring up not only a list of other sites writing about that key word (they are you competitors) but on the right hand side there will be a list of ads - these are the same sorts of ads you’ll get on your site if you write on the topic. If there are ads there, it is a good sign. If there are not - maybe its worth finding another topic to write on if you’re hoping to attract ads.

3. Google Adsense’s biggest competitor are Overture (they run the ads on Yahoo) - they offer a service where you can enter your keywords and they will not only tell you how much advertisers are paying for the words but also how many people are searching for the term. This is a very useful tool.

4. Word Tracker is the best tool I’ve seen to help in finding keywords that people are searching for in the major search engines. The excellent thing about Word Tracker is that they also tell you how many other sites out there are targeting the same words! This is very handy as it will stop you targeting ‘Britney Spears’ as a Keyword phrase even though its one of the most searched for keywords on the web because literally hundreds of thousands of other sites have beaten you to the punch. Word Tracker has a free version to trial it and their paying version is even better - well worth the investment.

3 Columns Blogger Templates - Blogohblog

2007-10-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

This is the newest beauty 3 columns blogger template on the house. With beautiful designed and powerful ability, this template is definitely worth a try. You can see the demo here: Blogger Demo | Wordpress Demo.
Or you want to see the screenshot? Here it is.

Click on the image will enlarge in a new window.

This template is originally created by blogohblog, Now we have converted it into blogger template for your use.

You can download it here;

Wordpress Theme Download

Downloaded a total of 181 times

Demo Site

Blogger Template Download

Downloaded a total of 1046 times

Demo Site

Log

Version 1.2:
Some widgets don’t work on the page elements control.
Now it’s fixed.

version 1.1:
some style error, mistyped. now it’s fixed.

version 1.0:
Just released

ColorSchemer Studio

2007-10-11T00:45:00.000-07:00

ColorSchemer Studio is a professional color-matching application that will help you build beautiful color schemes quickly and easily!

Use ColorSchemer Studio to explore color using a dynamic visual color wheel, actually see harmony relationships, mix colors, create gradient blends, and even analyze contrast and readability.

» Download

ColorSchemer Studio Screenshots

Click on any of the thumbnails below to pop up a full sized screenshot:

Color Wheel View

This is the main window with the Color Wheel tab selected. A color wheel is created starting from your selected base color.

Color Harmonies View

This is the main window with the Color Harmonies tab selected.

Select the type of harmony you would like to display from the dropdown box and ColorSchemer Studio does the rest!

Suggested Colors View

This is the main window with the Suggested Colors tab selected. ColorSchemer Studio can suggest a color scheme for you based on a number of different styles!

NEW PhotoSchemer

Use the PhotoSchemer tool to build unique color schemes based on any picture, image or photograph.

Color Mixer

Use the built-in Color Mixer to create a single mixed color or a gradient path between two colors.

Color Scheme Analyzer

Use this tool to find the best text & background color combinations from among your Favorite Colors!

Select a background color and the Color Scheme Analyzer will automatically tell you which text colors would provide sufficient contrast and readability.

QuickPreview Window

Drag and drop colors onto the elements in the QuickPreview to test color combinations in a web page setting.

NEW Print Your Color Schemes

Use the built-in Print utility to print your color schemes and their color values. Great for making hard-copy reference sheets or showing to clients.

NEW Import Wizard

Use the Import Wizard to import colors into ColorSchemer Studio from a number of different sources, including:

Any web site or style sheet
GIF images
Photoshop Color Palettes (.aco)
Color Table files (.act)

Export Wizard

Use the Export Wizard to export your color schemes to a number of popular applications and formats:

HTML color chart
CSS style sheet
GIF image
Photoshop Color Palette (.aco)
Illustrator Color Palette (.ai)
Macromedia FreeHand/Adobe FrameMaker
Corel Painter Color Set
Color Table file (.act)

Even More Goodies

ColorSchemer Studio also features a number of other tools and utilities to help you build impressive color schemes, including:

NEW Color Blindness Simulation
See what your color schemes will look like to users with any one of 8 different types of color deficient vision.
NEW Convert to nearest WebSafe or WebSmart color
Convert colors to their nearest WebSafe or WebSmart palette match at the click of a button.
Screen Color Picker
Grab colors from anywhere on your screen with the built-in screen color picker.
Randomize!
Stuck on inspiration for a new color scheme? Just click the "Randomize!" button to flip through random color schemes you might not have even thought of before!

Choosing the Right Colors for Your Web Site

2007-10-11T00:42:00.000-07:00

Do colors influence web site visitors?

Several years ago, having a web page (as a business or as an individual), was an indicator of prosperity, and required a certain amount of financial power. Nowadays, almost everybody has one. They are easy to create (thanks to instant web page generators), even if they are not always works of art.

The main problem resides primarily in choosing the right colors for the web site. It is not always easy to properly assort the background color with the text color. The readability of a page can be influenced negatively if the color contrast is badly chosen. The background of web pages is white by default, like a sheet of paper.

Colors for Web Site Visitors

Researchers agree that colors greatly influence the human psychic. Consequently, the color scheme that you use on your web site can entice the visitor to engage in the goal of your site (i.e. make a purchase or request your services) or leave it after the first few seconds. It is the human nature to yield to the concept according to which "the first impression counts".

Even if they are not aware of it, your visitors will be greatly influenced in their decision to keep browsing your site or to leave it because of the poor choosing of colors and other visual displayed elements. On a psychological level, they will respond to the stimuli offered by the web site.

When viewing a web page, people will get excited, happy or bored. All this depends on the color selection. You need to be aware of the audience to which you're addressing and make the right choices. Color is a great means of communications, and it is best to make sure that you are saying the right thing.

Here are a few tips that you should consider

Use a palette of colors found in nature. They are more pleasing than any of their artificial counterparts. Combine them in order to get the emotional response that you want to get from your visitors. Unnatural colors, such as bright greens, blues or reds usually cause eye fatigue and chase visitors (i.e. prospects) away
Create a strong contrast between a page's background and its text. The best combination for readability is black text on white background, but there are other excellent combinations also. Besides white, other effective web site background, colors are dark blue, gray and black.
Avoid pairing blue and red, or blue and yellow. Green text on red background or red text on green / blue background are also choices that you shouldn't make, because such combinations usually cause eye fatigue.
Select up to five (some say seven) different colors and use them consistently throughout the web site.
Avoid using the blue color for small texts and diagrams with thin lines. Apparently, the specialized eye receptors for blue are the least numerous.
Be aware that there are lots of people with color perception problems, so it might be quite difficult for them to perceive the message transmitted by your site the way you want them to.
While some colors are dull by themselves, such as black, or gray, their juxtaposition with, for example, orange, can create outstanding effects.
Use white spaces to balance the other colors from your site. It will make web pages easy on the eyes.
Make sure you always perform a readability test for your web site. Use different shades of one color and, above all, pay attention to the harmonization of the different colors you use.

Colors and People

Keep in mind that responses to colors vary according to factors such as gender, age, or cultural background. You need some serious market research in order to make your site appealing for the exact category you're targeting.

Old vs. Young People
People of different ages have different reactions to colors. People past a certain age will find web sites with more sober and restrained (and therefore relaxing to the eye) colors more attractive. Youngsters, on the other hand, will appreciate more vivid and brighter colors, in keeping with their general attitude. Make the distinction between mature and young audience by using the appropriate colors for each category.

Men vs. Women
People also have preferences according to their gender. Thus, men tend to prefer blue and orange to red and yellow, while women prefer red to blue and yellow to orange. Also, remember that it has been proven that women are able to perceive considerably more colors than men.

Nations and Colors
If your website addresses an audience larger than your country of origin, or it is meant to attract prospects from a specific country, invest some time in researching the specific meanings of colors. For example, while white is a symbol of purity in Western cultures, it stands for bad luck and unhappiness in China, Japan, and India. While very appreciated in Japan, pink is frowned upon in India and East-European countries, where it is regarded as a "non-manly color".

Purple is associated in certain Arabic cultures with prostitution (the same as red in the European and North-American cultures), and globally, it is generally associated with mysticism and beliefs that are not in keeping with the precepts of Islamism, Judaism and Christianity. Green, if used for the web site of a financial institution from the USA, will support the implication that the institution deals with the "almighty green dollar", but it may bear no such significance in a country where bills (paper money) are multiple-colored.

On the other hand, there is a globally accepted "safe" color: blue. It can be used for almost any kind of site, no matter its audience, location or goal. It would be therefore safe to say that blue is an international color.
In order to avoid embarrassing (and even costly) issues, you have the option of mixing colors.

This can lead to a complete change of meanings, significances will be changed and negative implications will be at the very least diminished, if not eliminated altogether (e.g. red becomes more powerful when combined with white). It is up to you to obtain creative colors that will be internationally accepted, but you have to do your homework quite well.

Common Colors and Their Most Common Meanings

Red: energy, passion, excitement, power; also implies aggression, danger.
Blue: coolness, spirituality, freedom, patience, loyalty, peace, trustworthiness; can also imply sadness, depression.
Yellow: light, optimism, happiness, brightness, joy.
Green: life, naturalness, restfulness, health, wealth, prosperity; in certain contexts, can imply decay, toxicity.
Orange: friendliness, warmth, approachability, energy, playfulness, courage.
Violet: wisdom, sophistication, celebration.
White: purity, cleanliness, youth, freshness, peace.
Black: power, elegance, secrecy, mystery.
Gray: security, maturity, reliability.
Pink: romance a feminine color.
Brown: comfort, strength, stability, credibility.

Using Colors for Web Site Elements

It is a good thing to differentiate between the elements of your web site by using various colors. You can use colors for identification, grouping or emphasis. For example, groups of related web pages can be identified by some particular color scheme, thus making it easier for a visitor to identify their place in your web site's architecture.

Certain information that needs to be brought to the visitor's attention can be highlighted by means of color. This improves scanning and can help reduce visual fatigue.

An important factor in the development of a web site is the use of various colors for hyperlinks, in order to help users distinguish between pages they have already viewed and pages that they haven't visited yet.

How to Attract More RSS Subscribers - For Real

2007-10-11T00:33:00.000-07:00

Building a loyal RSS readership is the most difficult part of blogging. Driving traffic, hitting the Digg front page and building links can all be fluked by being in the right place at the right time; but impressing somebody enough for them to want to read your blog every day is far harder.

Most of the worlds 50 or 100 million blogs will go through life with just a handful of readers before the writer decides to call it a day. Have you ever wondered how some blogs seem to attract new readers like a moth to a flame? Do you look at sites with thousands of readers and wonder how they do it?

Blog posts and tutorials designed to help you increase your readership focus on basic elements such as positioning your feed link above the fold etc. I’ve included these points in a basic checklist at the end but will be focusing on the more advanced methods of readership building in this article.

Citations from other bloggers

The first thing I did when starting BlogStorm was to sit down in front of my Netvibes RSS reader and look through all 200 feeds to try and figure out how I found them and why I subscribed to them. The results were very revealing and I found that most of the feeds added in the past 12 months were added after a personal recommendation from another trusted blogger. Only about 3 of the feeds were discovered after spotting the site on Digg or a similar social network.

Making use of this statistic is simple - you need to make sure lots of trusted bloggers with large readerships recommend your new blog. Of course this is easier said than done.

My method was to make sure the blog had something different to offer my readers and to use this as a marketing strategy. The internet marketing blogosphere is so saturated that for a new blog to start from nowhere offering unique advice was refreshing and a lot of people were happy to link to it.

I also spent a lot of time emailing all of my Gmail address book contacts to individually introduce the blog to them and make sure they knew all about it. Don’t beg for links, just make sure they know about your blog and who you are.

Gaining citations is a hard process and involves interacting with bloggers one at a time over periods of weeks, months or years. Sometimes you won’t ever get a link from them but if you know a blogger and have communicated by email they are much more likely to recommend you to their readers at some time in the future.

Pillar articles

The first five articles on a new blog are without doubt the most important. You need to establish a theme for your blog so that people know what type of posts to expect and prove to people that not only are you a great writer but that they really should subscribe to your blog.

Get these first few articles right and you can gain a few hundred readers in the first week.

Linkbait

Linkbaiting is a great strategy but it needs to be done in the right way. There is little point in hitting the Digg front page with a “Top 10″ article as thats not going to earn you any citations from popular blogs, unless you are just wanting to drive traffic. The key aspect of linkbaiting is to craft your linkbait in a way that is likely to gain you links from authority blogs and news websites. Hitting the Digg front page will send you a nice traffic boost and probably give you link from hundreds of sites that scrape the Digg feed, but unless your content is linkable you won’t see a boost in readership from it.

For me the main benefit of linkbaiting is to gain citations from other bloggers but its also a good strategy for driving what I call brute force traffic.

Traffic Bait

At the start of my promotion I wanted to raise awareness of my blog so I set about trying to drive as much traffic as I could in the hope some of it would stick. I call this brute force traffic and it’s a fun but not very effective strategy.

300,000 visitors later the fact that most of it doesn’t stick is only too apparent. Visitors from Digg and other social networks don’t subscribe to your feeds for the simple reason they visit maybe 50 new sites every day and can’t possibly subscribe to them all.

The main benefit of traffic bait is to drive natural citations and build brand awareness. If somebody doesn’t subscribe the first time they come across your site maybe they will the next time.

Your content

Regular readers don’t normally like to read loads of linkbait posts all the time. It’s very important you publish a mixture of very high quality posts and linkbait posts to keep your regular readers happy.

Give people a reason to read

People subscribe to blogs for a whole variety of reasons. Before you can attract a new reader you need to be able to understand why they might want to read what you have to say. If you write about the latest gadgets you need to break the news before Gizmodo and offer better reviews than Engadget if you want to be noticed. Internet marketing bloggers need to produce tips and articles that will help their readers make more money online.

Persuade your visitors their lives would be better if they subscribed to your blog.

Checklist: 7 easy ways to increase your readership

Use a large RSS button in a prominent area on your page
Offer email subscriptions
Email people who forget to confirm their subscriptions
Hold contests only for RSS readers
Add a note to the bottom of every post pointing out your RSS feed
Show off your stats with FeedBurner
Include a link to explain what RSS is for your non internet savvy readers

11 Principles to Design a Great Wordpress Theme

2007-10-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

After a couple weeks of reviewing Wordpress themes (and countless weeks prior judging designs in general) I have established the following guidelines for creating an awesome Wordpress theme. At the very least, following these guidelines will get a stamp of approval from picky designers.

At the same time, pay attention to these things when choosing a theme. If the author went through the trouble to follow certain standards, I’ll bet it is quality work.

1. Validate your code

I can’t emphasize this enough. Honestly, for how easy it is to validate your work, the lack of proper validation is evidence of a lazy theme author that doesn’t bother to run a couple checks. Validate your HTML. Then validate your CSS. Think of it as using good grammar. Everyone will appreciate it.

2. Make it work across browsers

Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera…the big boys are important. According to Jakob Nielsen in Prioritizing Web Usability, best practice is to wait six years after the release of a new browser before ignoring an old one. Thankfully we can forget about IE5. But IE6 is still out there. Prepare for all browsers, and if you can’t make it work, add in fixes so your theme degrades gracefully. A very useful tool for this purpose is Browsershots.org.

3. Comment your code

For some themes this is not a big problem. If you don’t modify much from the default WP theme, it probably isn’t a big deal. Use this principle: if you won’t be able to follow your code in two years, no one else will be able to tomorrow. Comment more than you think you should.

4. Be yourself. Be unique

Nothing is more annoying than to hit that Test Run link and see, basically, the same default Wordpress theme wrapped in a big image. Go through the trouble of making your theme original. More people will use it.

5. Prepare for the test run

The Test Run is extremely important. Format your content code to be able to handle all of the default content the Wordpress Theme Viewer will drop into it. If your theme looks bad in the test run, very few people will think it will look good on their site.

6. Make the content king

Sort of goes with the above. Leave plenty of room for people to dump content into your theme. Yes, you are an artist. And yes, your work is (sometimes) beautiful. But no one else is concerned with displaying your art on their site. They are concerned with their stuff. How will your stuff make their stuff look. Make their stuff look good, and you will have a popular theme.

7. Make it widget-ready

If your theme isn’t widget ready it’s way behind everyone else. Get into the habit of including this with every theme you make. Users love Widgets because they’re easy. So do the work for them.

8. Customize the 404 page

It’s amazing how many themes either don’t bother formatting this page or completely leave it out of the theme files. This is (aside from the landing page) the most important file in your theme. A user experience can be made or broken by the “404″ experience. A more in depth look at this, over at Theme Playground.

9. Customize all the easy-to-forget pages

Start a checklist. Start with the easy ones. Main index template (check). Page template (check). Single post template (check). Attachment page template (whoops). Search results template page (whoops). You get the idea. Don’t leave anything out, or it will frustrate your users down the line.

10. Provide quick response and support

Anyone who installs your theme is a customer. Treat them that way. Subscribe to your pages on the Theme Viewer. Pay close attention to user response. Your goal is to keep your tag in the footer on their site as long as possible, right? One way to do that is to make servicing your theme a priority.

11. Would you use it?

Probably the easiest test of all. Some of the most successful themes downloaded today are those that were once used by the big guys (for instance, DailyBlogTips). There’s a reason for this. If your theme is tried and true, people will see that. Using it yourself, you will work the kinks out. You treat your own design very well. do the same for the themes you create, and you will see a huge response.

The Best Website Taglines Around the Internet

2007-10-11T00:23:00.000-07:00

A tagline can make or break a website (well, maybe not, but it is cool to be dramatic). Below you will find a collection of the best taglines around the Internet. Some of them are funny, some are clever; but all of them deliver the message! Hopefully it will serve as inspiration.

The Straight Dope: Fighting Ignorance since 1973 (It’s taking longer than we thought).
Maxim Philippines: The best thing that ever happened to men … after women!
The Consumerist: Shoppers bite back.
Random Acts of Reality: Trying to kill as few people as possible…
Joshuaink: Same old shit, different day.
The Superficial: Because you’re ugly.
Smashing Magazine: We smash you with information that will make your life easier. Really.
The Best Page in the Universe: This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong.
Scaryduck: Not scary. Not a duck.
The Art of Rhysisms: Chronologically inept since 2060.
Needcoffee.com: We are the Internet equivalent of a triple espresso with whipped cream. Mmmm…whipped cream.
Ample Sanity: Life is short. Make fun of it.
Rathergood.com: The Lair of the Crab of Ineffable Wisdom - a load of stuff by Joel Veitch that will probably crush your will to live.
The Breakfast Blog: In search of the best eggs in town.
Dooce: Not even remotely funny.
Pink is the new blog: Everybody’s business is my business.
Shoemoney: Skills to pay the bills.
Oh No They Didnt’t!: The celebrities are disposable, the content is priceless.
YouTube: Broadcast Yourself.
Waiter Rant: Do you want Pommes Frite with that?
Newshounds: We watch FOX so you don’t have to.
Sabrina Faire: All the fun of a saucy wench, none of the overpriced beer.
Defective Yeti: A maze of twisty passages, all alike.
All About George: All about George Kelly… you know, if you go in for that sort of thing.
Go Fug Yourself: Fugly is the new pretty.
kottke.org: Home of fine hypertext products.
Slashdot: News for nerds. Stuff that matters.
Gawker: Daily Manhattan media news and gossip. Reporting live from the center of the universe.
Get Rich Slowly: Personal finance that makes cents.
hi5: Who’s in?
Fotolog: Share your world with the world.
Jezebel: Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women, Without Aribrushing.
Autoblog: We obssessibely cover the auto industry.
Boing Boing: A directory of wonderful things.
Perez Hilton: Celebrity Juice. Not from concentrate.
DumbLittleMan: So what do we do here? Well, it’s simple. 15 to 20 times per week we provide tips that will save you money, increase your productivity, or simply keep you sane.
Lifehacker: Don’t live to geek, geek to live!
Gizmodo: The gadget guide. So much in love with shiny new toys, it’s unnatural.
John Cow Dot Com: Make Moooney Online with John Cow Dot Com
WebWorkerDaily: Rebooting the workforce.
The Simple Dollar: Financial talk for the rest of us.
TrafficBunnies: Making your hits multiply like rabbits.
Mighty Girl: Famous among dozens.
The Sneeze: Half zine. Half blog. Half not good with fractions.
Buzz Marketing: Because everyone is entitled to my opinion.

Top 10 Underrated Wordpress Plugins

2007-10-11T00:22:00.000-07:00

There are several lists of “Top 10” Wordpress plugins around the Internet. Most of them, however, refer to the best or most popular plugins. Guess what, I’ve had enough of Akismet, Adsense Deluxe, Related Entries and company!

Jokes apart, those plugins are certainly awesome, but there are many others out there that can be life savers, and people often neglect them. Below you will the Top 10 Underrated Wordpress plugins; if you think there is a plugin missing on the list just post a comment.

1. Custom Querry String

Wordpress is a very flexible platform, but regulating the number of posts that are supposed to be displayed on the different pages is quite difficult. Most of the times you will want to display a limited number of posts on the Homepage while displaying a larger list for the categories, archives or search results pages, and this is not possible through the control panel. The solution for this problem is the Custom Querry String plugin, which allows you to configure this number individually for each page type.

2. Head Meta Description

While the Meta Keywords Tag is no longer used by most search engines, the Meta Description Tag still has some influence. Having the same Description Tag on all your pages, however, might be inneficient and send part of your website to the supplemental hell. This plugin is extremely easy to install and it will create a dynamic Meta Description Tag for every page on your blog, based on post excerpts or on the first words of the page.

3. Clean Archives

Most blogs have a “Monthly Archives” section on their sidebar, displaying a huge list of months and wasting some precious space. A more efficient structure for your archives would be a single page where all the posts are displayed, month by month. That is exactly what this plugin will do (you can see an example here). Notice that you might need the plugin below to install this one successfully.

4. Exec-PHP

Many plugins or Wordpress features require that you run some PHP code. When you need to use those features or plugins inside static pages or posts, however, Wordpress will not recognize the code. The solution for this problem is the Exec-PHP plugin. Once installed the plugin will enable PHP code on virtually all the pages of your blog. There are similar plugins available, but this one is the most reliable.

5. Enforce www. Preference

If your site can be accessed through http://www.domain.com and http://domain.com you might have some problems over the long run. Most search engines treat those addresses as two different domains, spliting your backlink count. In order to solve this issue you need to setup a 301 Permanent Redirect. The are several ways to setup this redirect, but if you are not familiar with PHP or if your host is not Linux based (for the .htaccess file) this plugin represents the simplest one. You just need to activate it and all the visitors and search bots will get redirected to the address that is specified on the Wordpress control panel.

6. Chunk URLs

Ever experienced someone posting a huge URL on your comment section? Those long strings are not only ugly, but they might also break the design of your website on certain browsers. This plugin will trunk those long URLs into smaller ones, and you can even specify the amount of characters that the output should contain.

7. Sig2feed

Sploggers are feed stealers are spreading out like fire. The first measure to protect your content is to add a copyright notice to your feed, possibly with a link pointing to your site. Sig2feed is a very light plugin that will do just that.

8. FeedSmith

This plugin used to be called Feedburner Feed Replacement. It was so popular and efficient that Feedburner itself decided to buy it from the developer. Basically it will forward all the requests for your Wordpress feed to Feedburner. It is very useful if you started using Feedburner after having some subscribers, or if you want to make sure that your feed statistics are completely accurate.

9. Jerome’s Keywords

This plugin is very similar to the Ultimate Tag Warrior, but it is much more user friendly. Once the plugin is installed you will be able to tag individual posts and to create an internal tag system and tag clouds. Secondly you can also use it to generate a dynamic Meta Keywords Tag.

10. WP-Cache

WP-Cache is a very robust plugin that will increase the responsiveness of your website and reduce the server load. It is also very useful to handle sudden burts in traffic coming from social bookmarking sites. The plugin basically creates static versions of your pages and serves them without querrying the MySQL database.

How to Find Advertisers for Your Website: The Ultimate Guide

2007-10-11T00:18:00.000-07:00

Direct advertising sales is arguably the best method to monetize a website. Finding advertisers for your site and actually closing the deals, however, is not as straight forward. Over the past 6 months I had more than 10 high profile companies sponsoring Daily Blog Tips, and through out this article I will share what I have learned along the way.

The Pros

More money: The first advantage of selling your own ads is the fact that you will cut the middlemen out, increasing your revenue potential. Suppose you sell text link ads on your sidebar through a certain company, and the text links sell for $50 monthly. Since you are using the company network to sell the ads, they will eat 50% of the price, and you will end up earning only $25 monthly for each text link. If someone is willing to pay $50 for a text link on your site, though, it means that they are getting $50 of value out of it. Why, then, should you share that with someone else?
Independence: Sure, large advertising networks have access to a wider pool of advertisers, and they have more credibility to close the deals. But if you have all the requirements in place (see the section below) and spend some time looking at the right places, I am sure that you will be sell your own ads just as efficiently as the larger networks.
Flexibility: The third advantage of selling direct advertising is that you will have much more control over where and how the ads will be displayed (i.e., you can avoid intrusive advertising). Google Adsense is nice, but unless you blend it with the content – annoying some of the readers – you will get terribly low click-through rates.
Credibility: Finally, having sponsors and direct advertisers on your blog might help your credibility. Even small and poorly crafted blogs can stick some Adsense units here and there. Having established companies that are willing to partnership with your site, on other hand, can signal that your content has quality and that the site is somewhat professional.

The Cons

Time consuming: While selling your own ads has many advantages, it is no panacea. The first drawback of this monetization option is the time that it will consume. This time will be spent optimizing your website for the ads, finding potential advertisers, negotiating with them, and handling the administrative matters (e.g., making payments, tracking statistics, delivering reports and so on).
Many requirements: Selling direct adverting is not as easy as making money from Google Adsense. As you can see from the section below, you will need to have a popular blog, a professional looking design, special software and the like.
Unstable: Unless you close deals for very long periods, which is unlikely, you will find your self looking for new advertisers or optimizing your website to attract new ones every other month. The opposite is true for most advertising networks, where you just need to plug some code and they will do the rest of the work. (If your site or blog is just a hobby, therefore, direct advertising might not be the best option)

What You Need to Have in Place

A popular website: Before landing direct advertising deals you will need to have a good amount of traffic on your site. There is no “magical” number here, but a good rule of thumb would be 1000 daily unique visitors. If you are below that mark you should focus on building traffic instead of looking for advertisers. Other factors like Google Pagerank, RSS subscribers and Alexa rank might also help. (Notice that small websites might also be able to sell direct advertising, but usually the time spent on that will not justify the results)
A clear focus: You might have the most popular site on the Internet (well, not as extreme as that, but you get the point), but unless your site also has a very clear niche and a defined audience, advertisers will not find it very attractive. This means that you should avoid rambling about 100 different topics on the website. Advertisers want to deliver a message to specific people, and the more specific the better.
A professional looking design: If you are planning to monetize your website through sponsors, you probably should invest some money into a professional looking design. Advertisers will be associating their product or service with your website, and not too many of them would be willing to get mixed with an ugly, MySpace looking site.
Give visibility to the sponsors: This point is connected to the previous one. Not all templates and themes will be suitable for selling direct advertising. Preferably you want to have an idea of what kind of advertising you will sell (e.g., 468×60 banners, 125×125 banners, text links) and design your website according to those objectives. Advertisers want visibility, so reserve a good spot for them.
Adserver software: In order to serve your ads, rotate banners and track statistics you will need to install an Adserver. If you are looking for a simple solution you should try WP-Ads. This Wordpress plugin will serve ads for specific ad zones that you create. The only drawback is that it does not count clicks (only impressions). If you need a more sophisticated solution check OpenAds. You will need to spend some time learning how to use it, but it offers virtually all the features you will ever need.
“Advertise Here” page: It is very important to have an “Advertise Here” page. On this page you want to give some details about the website, like audience, traffic and any other factor that might be of the interest of potential advertisers. Secondly, make sure that you have some link to that page on the navigation bar and if possible close to the zone where the ads will be displayed. You can see a perfect example of such layout on Copyblogger.com.
Standard letter to approach advertisers: While some advertisers will contact you after reading your “Advertise Here” page, the rest of them will need to be directly approached by you. In that case, it is a good idea to create a standard letter to contact the advertisers. There is no “one size fits all” solution here, but you can follow some general guidelines:
1. Introduce yourself and quickly explain what the email is about
2. Explain why you decided to contact them and what they have to gain
3. Give details about your site (traffic, subscribers, topic, audience)
4. Give details about the advertising options (location on the site, max number of advertisers, monthly price)

That is it, after that information the advertisers should be able to decide if they are interested or not. If they reply, then you will fix the details. Bear in mind that all the info I mentioned should be contained in 2 or 3 paragraphs. If you send an essay to potential advertisers they will just skip it altogether.
Accepting payments: You might have everything in place, but if you are not able to cash payments – or more importantly, if advertisers are not able to pay easily – you will end up losing deals. PayPal is the best option here. Notice, however, that a personal account will not suffice. You will need at least a premier account to be able to accept credit cards.

Where to Find the Advertisers

Once you have your direct advertising program established, you will start to receive inquiries from people. On the beginning, however, you will need to hunt advertisers down. Do not get discouraged if get turned down initially, provided you have all the aforementioned requirements, sooner or later you will find someone willing to take a shot on your site.

People linking to your site or articles: If a company is willing to link to your articles or to add your website under its “Links” or “Resources” section, it is also probably willing to discuss about advertising on your site. Keep track of those incoming links.
People leaving comments/e-mails: The same principle applies to people leaving comments on your blog or sending you e-mails. If among them you see an employee or the owner of a company that could be interested on your website, bingo! Contact him or her and get the conversation going.
AdWords advertisers: Through out your search for advertisers you will notice that most of the established companies are not aware of the benefits of online advertising. If a certain company is already spending money on Google AdWords, however, it is very likely that it would also be open to other forms of online advertising. Think about some keywords that are related to your topic and Google them. Check the sponsored links that will appear and contact them. (You can also check the advertisers that appear on the Adsense units of related websites)
Other advertising networks: While Google AdWords is by far the largest advertising network on the Internet, there are many others that could be useful. Check the companies that are spending money on AdBrite, Text-Link-Ads, BlogAds, SponsoredReviews and so on.
Banner advertisers on similar sites: Check out popular websites on your niche and see what companies are advertising there. Provided you offer them an interesting deal (i.e., a reasonable price for your size), I am pretty sure they will be interested.
Create a “Potential Sponsors” bookmark folder: This technique produced outstanding results for me. I have a bookmark folder on my browser called “Potential Sponsors.” Every time I come across a company or website that could be interested in sponsoring my website, I bookmark it. Currently I have over 100 bookmarked sites on that folder, and I have not approached half of them yet.

How Much to Charge

You need to provide value: It is all about value. A potential sponsor or advertiser will want to see some returns for the money he will be spending on your site, and this can be seen as visibility (impressions) and leads (clicks and possible sales). Make sure, therefore, that your advertising deals will deliver.
The numbers: Remember that there are some pretty cheap advertising options out there (e.g., Google AdWords), and you will need to be competitive. Provided you reserved a good spot for the sponsors (sidebar or header, preferably) you could start charging a $0,5 CPM (cost per 1000 impressions). If your blog is generating 100,000 monthly page views, therefore, a banner spot on your sidebar should cost around $50. Start low and build your way upwards. Popular blogs (e.g., TechCrunch) have a higher CPM, sometimes as high as $10, but you will need a huge credibility to arrive there.
Cross-check: You can easily check if you are charging a suitable rate by using Adsense units on the places where you will sell direct advertising. Analyze how much you would gain with Adsense, and adjust your rates accordingly. Secondly, you can also check similar sites that are already selling direct ads.
Be flexible regarding the terms: Flexibility is key. First of all make advertising agreements on a month-to-month basis. People don’t like to commit to something they are not completely sure about. If someone proposes you a longer deal, offer a discount in exchange.
Offer test periods: Unless you have a very popular website, you will find potential advertisers reluctant to spend real money. If you are confident that the deal will create value for both parties, however, you can use that on your favor. Offer a free test period whenever needed. Some of the times the advertiser will turn you down after it, but other times they will confirm the deal. Either way you have nothing to lose.

Blog Project: 30 Traffic Generation Tips

2007-10-11T00:16:00.000-07:00

First of all a big “thank you” for every one who participated. As I said before the number of entries surprised me (and the quality as well, I will definitely apply some of those tips myself).

Now, without further delay, the 30 Traffic Generation Tips:

1. Sridhar Katakam
Keep track of blogs and leave comments on them. A good way to keep the conversation going is to install a MyBlogLog widget and visit the blog of people visiting your site.

2. Ian Delaney
Nothing creates long-term traffic more than value. Consider writing posts with resources or explaining how things work. Useful things get linked to and they get onto del.icio.us, which is far better long-term than a digg front page.

3. Scott Townsend
Inform search engines and aggregators like Technorati (using the ping functionality) when your blog is updated, this should ensure maximum traffic coming from those sources. (check the List of Ping Services)

4. Kyle
Simplify. Pay attention to complex issues in your field of work. It may be a big long publication that is hard to wade through or a concept that is hard to grasp. Reference it and make a shorter “for dummies” version with your own lessons learned and relevant tips. When doing this, I have been surprised to find that the simplified post will appear before the more complex version in search results. Perhaps this is why it results in increased traffic; people looking for more help or clarification on the subject will land on your blog.

5. Grant Gerver
Try to be polemic. I write obsessively about all-things political from the left-wing perspective in the form of humorous, sarcastic one-liners.

6. Daniel
A simple tip that will probably boost your page views: install a translator plugin. I decided to use a paid plugin for this, but if I am not wrong there are some free ones as well. The translation is not very good, as you can imagine, but it helps to attract readers that are not fluent in English.

7. Rory
Submit articles to blog carnivals (http://blogcarnival.com) that are related to your niche. Your article almost always gets posted, and it must generate a handful of visitors, at least.

8. Ramen Junkie
Newsgroups. I always see a spike when I post a review to a newsgroup.

9. Eric Atkins
Create a new design for your website. Not only will it be more attractive to your regular readers, but you can submit it to some CSS gallery showcase sites that feature great designs. This will give you exposure on those sites while generating a lot of traffic and backlinks from those types of sites.

10. Megan Taylor
Participate in conversations on related blogs. Start conversations on your own blog. Don’t just post about a story and leave it at that, engage your audience, ask questions and call to action.

11. Guido
Comment on blogs, write useful content and make good friends on forums.

12. Brian Auer
You must be active to generate traffic. I post comments on other blogs that are related to mine, and I post my site link in my signature at the forums. Spread the word about your blog and it will certainly attract readers.

13. Shankar Ganesh
Just browse around MyBlogLog.com and you will surely get visitors to your blog. Also try to join as many communities as possible that are related to your topic.

14. Andrew Timberlake
A great tip for generating traffic is off-line by including your url in all your off-line liturature from business cards, letterheads, pamphlets, adverts through in-store signage if applicable. I even have our website on my vehicle.

15. Cory OBrien
Read lots of other blogs. Leave trackbacks. Make sure your blog is optimized for search engines. Leverage social bookmarking sites like digg (both for new ideas and for traffic).

16. Jester
Leave comments on other blogs. If you’re already reading them, it takes
just a couple of seconds to leave a message agreeing or disagreeing
with the author, you get to leave a link to your site, and you will almost
ALWAYS get traffic from your comments.

17. Goerge Manty
Post 3-5 times a day. Use ping services like pingomatic or set up wordpress to ping some of the ping services. Engage your readers. Put up polls, ask them questions, give them quizes, free tools, etc. Make them want to come back and tell their friends about you.

18. Engtech
Community. It’s one word but it is the most important one when it comes to blogging. The only “blog metric” that makes sense is the vibrant community of readers it has. Building a community around your blog will bring you increased traffic, but how do you start? The boilerplate response to building traffic is always “SEO, social networking sites, and commenting on blogs” but it can be simplified to “be part of a community”. The easiest way to seed your blog is with an already existing community. But the only way to do that is to be part of the community yourself.

19. Chris
Squidoo Lenses are a good way to generate traffic. By using a lense,
you can generate your own custom “community” of webpages, including some
of the more popular pages in your “neighborhood.” Including your own
webpage in such a list is a good way of generating traffic.

20. Splork
I’ve had good success writing articles and submitting them to EzineArticles. Articles that have been written from well-researched keyword phrases and accepted by EzineArticles tend to rank very high in Google for that search term. Placing anchor text in the footer of those articles so the reader can visit my relevant website has always increased my site traffic.

21. Jen Gordon
I came upon some unexpected traffic when my blog popped up on some css design portals like www.cssmania.com and www.webcreme.com. If you can put some time into the concept behind and design for your blog, I’d recommend submitting your site to a design portal not only for
additional traffic but to build an additional community around your site.

22. Kat
I’ve recently gotten involved with several “MySpace-like” community sites that focus on my target audience. I share my thoughts in their forums, post intros to my real blog on their system blog and I’ve even created a group for my specific niche. It’s been very, very successful for me.

23. Inspirationbit
Well, obviously everyone knows that social bookmarking sites like Digg, del.icio.us, etc. bring lots of traffic. But I’m now submitting some of my articles to blogg-buzz.com (a digg like site for bloggers), and I always get not a bad traffic from there.

24. Mark Alves
Participate in Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers where you can demonstrate your expertise, get associated with relevant keywords and put your URL out there.

25. Tillerman
Be the first to write a post about the ‘Top Ten Blogs’ in your niche. The post will rank highly in any general search for blogs in your niche and other bloggers in your niche write about the post and link to it.

26. Nick
Participating in forums is a great way to get loyal readers. Either link baiting people in your signature or posting great advice and tips will give you high quality traffic, which will result in return visitors.

27. Brandon Wood
A simple trick I’ve used to increase traffic to my blog is participate in group writing projects. In fact, that’s what I’m doing right now.

28. Alan Thomas
Don’t forget your archives. I just posted a roundup of all interviews I did over the past seven months. One of them generated a new link and a big traffic spike from a group of users that look like they will be loyal readers now.

29. KWiz
Write something controversial. I don’t think it’s good to write something controversial just for the purpose of getting traffic necessarily (especially if it’s only for that purpose and you’re being disingenuous), but it works.

30. Dennis Coughlin
Find the best blogs on your niche and contact the authors. Introduce yourself and send a link of your blog. This might help them to discover your blog, read it and possibly link to it.

43 Web Design Mistakes You Should Avoid

2007-10-11T00:15:00.000-07:00

There are several lists of web design mistakes around the Internet. Most of them, however, are the “Most common” or “Top 10” mistakes. Every time I crossed one of those lists I would think to myself: “Come on, there must be more than 10 mistakes…”. Then I decided to write down all the web design mistakes that would come into my head; within half an hour I had over thirty of them listed. Afterwards I did some research around the web and the list grew to 43 points.

The next step was to write a short description for each one, and the result is the collection of mistakes that you will find below. Some of the points are common sense, others are quite polemic. Most of them apply to any website though, whether we talk about a business entity or a blog. Enjoy!

1. The user must know what the site is about in seconds: attention is one the most valuable currencies on the Internet. If a visitor can not figure what your site is about in a couple of seconds, he will probably just go somewhere else. Your site must communicate why I should spend my time there, and FAST!

2. Make the content scannable: this is the Internet, not a book, so forget large blocks of text. Probably I will be visiting your site while I work on other stuff so make sure that I can scan through the entire content. Bullet points, headers, subheaders, lists. Anything that will help the reader filter what he is looking for.

3. Do not use fancy fonts that are unreadable: sure there are some fonts that will give a sophisticated look to your website. But are they readable? If your main objective is to deliver a message and get the visitors reading your stuff, then you should make the process comfortable for them.

4. Do not use tiny fonts: the previous point applies here, you want to make sure that readers are comfortable reading your content. My Firefox does have a zooming feature, but if I need to use on your website it will probably be the last time I visit it.

5. Do not open new browser windows: I used to do that on my first websites. The logic was simple, if I open new browser windows for external links the user will never leave my site. WRONG! Let the user control where he wants the links to open. There is a reason why browsers have a huge “Back” button. Do not worry about sending the visitor to another website, he will get back if he wants to (even porn sites are starting to get conscious regarding this point lately…).

6. Do not resize the user’s browser windows: the user should be in control of his browser. If you resize it you will risk to mess things up on his side, and what is worse you might lose your credibility in front of him.

7. Do not require a registration unless it is necessary: lets put this straight, when I browse around the Internet I want to get information, not the other way around. Do not force me to register up and leave my email address and other details unless it is absolutely necessary (i.e. unless what you offer is so good that I will bear with the registration).

8. Never subscribe the visitor for something without his consent: do not automatically subscribe a visitor to newsletters when he registers up on your site. Sending unsolicited emails around is not the best way to make friends.

9. Do not overuse Flash: apart from increasing the load time of your website, excessive usage of Flash might also annoy the visitors. Use it only if you must offer features that are not supported by static pages.

10. Do not play music: on the early years of the Internet web developers always tried to successfully integrate music into websites. Guess what, they failed miserably. Do not use music, period.

11. If you MUST play an audio file let the user start it: some situations might require an audio file. You might need to deliver a speech to the user or your guided tour might have an audio component. That is fine. Just make sure that the user is in control, let him push the “Play” button as opposed to jamming the music on his face right after he enters the website.

12. Do not clutter your website with badges: first of all, badges of networks and communities make a site look very unprofessional. Even if we are talking about awards and recognition badges you should place them on the “About Us” page.

13. Do not use a homepage that just launches the “real” website: the smaller the number of steps required for the user to access your content, the better.

14. Make sure to include contact details: there is nothing worse than a website that has no contact details. This is not bad only for the visitors, but also for yourself. You might lose important feedback along the way.

15. Do not break the “Back” button: this is a very basic principle of usability. Do not break the “Back” button under any circumstance. Opening new browser windows will break it, for instance, and some Javascript links might also break them.

16. Do not use blinking text: unless your visitors are coming straight from 1996, that is.

17. Avoid complex URL structures: a simple, keyword-based URL structure will not only improve your search engine rankings, but it will also make it easier for the reader to identify the content of your pages before visiting them.

18. Use CSS over HTML tables: HTML tables were used to create page layouts. With the advent of CSS, however, there is no reason to stick to them. CSS is faster, more reliable and it offers much more features.

19. Make sure users can search the whole website: there is a reason why search engines revolutionized the Internet. You probably guessed it, because they make it very easy to find the information we are looking for. Do not neglect this on your site.

20. Avoid “drop down” menus: the user should be able to see all the navigation options straight way. Using “drop down” menus might confuse things and hide the information the reader was actually looking for.

21. Use text navigation: text navigation is not only faster but it is also more reliable. Some users, for instance, browse the Internet with images turned off.

22. If you are linking to PDF files disclose it: ever clicked on a link only to see your browser freezing while Acrobat Reader launches to open that (unrequested) PDF file? That is pretty annoying so make sure to explicit links pointing to PDF files so that users can handle them properly.

23. Do not confuse the visitor with many versions: avoid confusing the visitor with too many versions of your website. What bandwidth do I prefer? 56Kbps? 128Kbps? Flash or HTML? Man, just give me the content!

24. Do not blend advertising inside the content: blending advertising like Adsense units inside your content might increase your click-through rate on the short term. Over the long run, however, this will reduce your readership base. An annoyed visitor is a lost visitor.

25. Use a simple navigation structure: sometimes less is more. This rule usually applies to people and choices. Make sure that your website has a single, clear navigation structure. The last thing you want is to confuse the reader regarding where he should go to find the information he is looking for.

26. Avoid “intros”: do not force the user to watch or read something before he can access to the real content. This is plain annoying, and he will stay only if what you have to offer is really unique.

27. Do not use FrontPage: this point extends to other cheap HTML editors. While they appear to make web design easier, the output will be a poorly crafted code, incompatible with different browsers and with several bugs.

28. Make sure your website is cross-browser compatible: not all browsers are created equal, and not all of them interpret CSS and other languages on the same way. Like it or not, you will need to make your website compatible with the most used browsers on the market, else you will lose readers over the long term.

29. Make sure to include anchor text on links: I confess I used to do that mistake until some time ago. It is easier to tell people to “click here”. But this is not efficient. Make sure to include a relevant anchor text on your links. It will ensure that the reader knows where he is going to if he clicks the link, and it will also create SEO benefits for the external site where the link is pointing.

30. Do not cloak links: apart from having a clear anchor text, the user must also be able to see where the link is pointing on the status bar of his browser. If you cloak your links (either because they are affiliate ones or due to other reasons) your site will lose credibility.

31. Make links visible: the visitor should be able to recognize what is clickable and what is not, easily. Make sure that your links have a contrasting color (the standard blue color is the optimal most of the times). Possibly also make them underlined.

32. Do not underline or color normal text: do not underline normal text unless absolutely necessary. Just as users need to recognize links easily, they should not get the idea that something is clickable when in reality it is not.

33. Make clicked links change color: this point is very important for the usability of your website. Clicked links that change color help the user to locate himself more easily around your site, making sure that he will not end up visiting the same pages unintentionally.

34. Do not use animated GIFs: unless you have advertising banners that require animation, avoid animated GIFs. They make a site look unprofessional and detract the attention from the content.

35. Make sure to use the ALT and TITLE attributes for images: apart from having SEO benefits the ALT and TITLE attributes for images will play an important role for blind users.

36. Do not use harsh colors: if the user is getting a headache after visiting your site for 10 consecutive minutes, you probably should pick a better color scheme. Design the color palette around your objectives (i.e. deliver a mood, let the user focus on the content, etc.).

37. Do not use pop ups: this point refers to pop ups of any kind. Even user requested pop ups are a bad idea given the increasing amount of pop blockers out there.

38. Avoid Javascript links: those links execute a small Javascript when the user clicks on them. Stay away from them since they often create problems for the user.

39. Include functional links on your footer: people are used to scrolling down to the footer of a website if they are not finding a specific information. At the very least you want to include a link to the Homepage and possibly a link to the “Contact Us” page.

40. Avoid long pages: guess what, if the user needs to scroll down forever in order to read your content he will probably just skip it altogether. If that is the case with your website make it shorter and improve the navigation structure.

41. No horizontal scrolling: while some vertical scrolling is tolerable, the same can not be said about horizontal scrolling. The most used screen resolution nowadays is 1024 x 768 pixels, so make sure that your website fits inside it.

42. No spelling or grammatical mistakes: this is not a web design mistake, but it is one of the most important factors affecting the overall quality of a website. Make sure that your links and texts do not contain spelling or grammatical mistakes.

43. If you use CAPTCHA make sure the letters are readable: several sites use CAPTCHA filters as a method of reducing spam on comments or on registration forms. There is just one problem with it, most of the times the user needs to call his whole family to decipher the letters.

Top 25 Web Design Blogs

2007-10-11T00:12:00.000-07:00

The “Top 25 Blogs” is becoming a trademark around here. We have already created the “Top 25 Blogs About Blogging” and the “Top 25 SEO Blogs.” Now it is time to cover the web design niche.

I have a lot of fun compiling these lists because it allows me to discover a bunch of new blogs, most of them with excellent content. It is also interesting to see how the different blogs on a specific niche perform under the parameters. Once again we based the analysis on Google’s Pagerank, Alexa rank, Bloglines subscribers and Technorati authority. The details about the algorithm can be found below the table.


#1	A List Apart	8	10	10	10	38
#2	Smashing Magazine	6	10	10	10	36
#3	456 Berea Street	7	8	10	8	33
#4	Meyer Web	8	7	9	7	31
#5	Simple Bits	7	7	10	6	30
#6	Pearsonified	7	6	7	10	30
#7	Tutorial Blog	5	8	7	8	28
#8	CSS Beauty	7	8	7	5	27
#9	Snook.ca	7	7	7	6	27
#10	Bartelme Design	7	6	9	4	26
#11	The Man in Blue	7	5	10	3	25
#12	Andy Budd	8	3	10	4	25
#13	Particle Tree	6	6	8	5	25
#14	Warpspire	7	4	3	10	24
#15	Brian Gardner	6	7	1	10	24
#16	Sitepoint Design Blog	6	10	4	4	24
#17	The Undersigned	7	3	3	10	23
#18	Bitt Box	5	7	5	6	23
#19	Fadtastic	5	3	5	10	23
#20	Colour Lovers	0	9	5	8	14
#21	David Airey	4	7	3	8	22
#22	Design Meltdown	5	6	7	4	22
#23	Clagnut	7	3	8	3	21
#24	Dev Lounge	6	6	4	5	21
#25	Smiley Cat	6	4	7	3	20

Blogs considered: the list considers only blogs that have a high percentage of web design related content.

Google Pagerank (0 to 10): the actual Pagerank was used on the algorithm.

Alexa Rank (0 to 10): Ranges were determined based on the Alexa Rank (i.e., 150k and up, 150k-100k, 100k-75k, 75k-50k) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).

Bloglines Subscribers (0 to 10): Subscriber ranges were determined (i.e., 1-50, 50-100, 100-150, 150-200) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).

Technorati Authority (0 to 10): Ranges were determined based on Technorati’s Authority rank (i.e., 1-100, 100-200, 200-400,400-600) and each range was assigned a number (1 to 10).

What makes people click on the ads

2007-10-10T23:34:00.000-07:00

In order to make more money from blogging one has to know, what really makes people click on those ads? I have been doing some research on this and found the following reasons why people click on those adsense ads.

Why people Click on those Ads

People click on those ads when the website or blog is boring and there is little information. Now this does not mean if you a bloggers you should create boring blogs with little info, its better having a visitor click on those ads more than once than clicking once and never coming back. For this reason bloggers should not build sites for adsense, but build sites with a lot of information and content.
Most people click on those adsense ads , if the ads provide them with information they might use. This is the most common reason. This does not mean if you provide your visitors with a lot of information they wont click on your ads, Remember one thing you can never provide all the info on a specific topic, you can find adverts that might provide the same info but slightly different making visitors click on those ads

Although this might sound strange some people don’t know why they click on those ads and they also don’t know that they are actually clicking on ads. Take me for an example before I knew about adsense i use to click on those ads but now I don’t click on them that often, only if I’m stranded. So the trick is for bloggers is to blend the ads to look like the blog or site.
People who know about adsense often click on other bloggers site to support them; if they feel that they have been provided with good information. You can call this a donation if you may.

Now that we know some of the reasons why people click on those ads its time to find the reasons why they don’t and their feelings towards those ads.

Make Money from fairadsnetwork

2007-10-10T23:26:00.000-07:00

Looking for an alternative to AdSense and YPN?
Then be a FAN of the best alternative yet.

Subject: [Brothers], there's a new AdSense and YPN rival!

Hey [Brothers], I just came across it today and had to tell you right away.

It's called Fair Ads Network. And it makes sense considering everything they've done to ensure not only the advertiser benefits as much as possible, but also the publisher. There's no more unfair practices where the publisher gets the boot every so often without warning and there's no more over-populated ads from the advertiser and wasting their money.

I predict, in just the next several weeks, you'll hear about people becoming a FAN and not because they're some popular rock band or well known celebrity, but because everyone is falling for their fair treatment. It's undeniable.

http://fairadsnetwork.com/957214470542

FAN introduces the first ad network of its kind. You can earn an income regardless of whether you sign up as a publisher or an advertiser. In fact, you can register as both! They didn't stop there though, you can even transfer your funds back and forth as you please! They give you total control of everything.

FAN is a very unique species in that they MAKE you be active without putting a gun to your head just so you can continue to make money every single month. The strategies and concepts applied to this ad network is beyond human and should be investigated by NASA. Before they do though, perhaps you should scurry on over there first.

Another reason to go now is because they are only accepting a limited number of members! They are partnered with 2 multi-million dollar companies and backed by a handful of millionaires. They would not have that kind of support if the potential is not there.
From one FAN member to a soon-to-be FAN, see you on the inside!

Sincerely,
[Dinesh]
http://fairadsnetwork.com/957214470542

The Best Keywords to use for SEO

2007-10-10T05:15:00.000-07:00

Good search engine optimization and marketing includes several factors that are explained in these SEO articles to help you achieve better search engine placement. Most of the advice given can be achieved almost immediately, where as other factors explained will take a lot of your time and effort. If you are serious about search engine optimization then you’re on the right track. Please note that the tips mentioned in these SEO articles are used by SearchBliss and some of the information stated is merely our opinion.

Before you begin reading these articles, please keep this in mind. The most important advice I can give you is to build your web pages with your visitors in mind. We have all been to sites that “don’t make much sense” as a result of webmasters targeting keywords that they have trouble placing into readable text. You can have thousands of web site visitors each day, but it is useless traffic when they exit your page out of frustration, and they may never return.

Targeting the Right Keywords

Choose the right keywords. This is extremely important and should be done before your marketing campaigns start. Optimizing a site takes a lot of time, patience, and hard work. Doing this targeting the wrong keywords can be devastating. Find relevant keywords that are searched for often. Make sure you target “phrases” rather than single keywords. For example, targeting “hosting” alone will not help you. There are too many search results. But targeting “web hosting provider”, “web hosting service”, and “hosting business” will get you more realistic results (and a ton of traffic). Plus you are still targeting “hosting”. I would suggest targeting ONE “reach phrase” and TWO “realistic phrases”. Three phrases may seem like a lot, but not when one or two key terms is in all three phrases. When this occurs, things don’t get watered down, giving better results.

Let’s begin with the “bare bones” of SEO. Title tag and meta tags. Most search engines give little to no relevance to some of these, however, since no one really knows how they are factored by each engine, they are still important steps in optimizing any web site.

1: The TITLE tag

Here is an example Title tag which should appear in-between the tags of your web page(s):

My Business Title

The title tag is very important. Why? Because search engines not only give it value in relation to optimization, SE’s use it in their search results. Search on ANY search engine, and you’ll see the content of this tag used in the anchor text of the links for each web site. Here is a little experiment. Follow the Google link (opens in a new window) and take a look. Google Experiment

There are 28,100,000+ pages in Google with the title tag Untitled Document So most of the web page links displayed are Untitled Document. Why? Because who ever built these web pages used an editing program that adds the title tag, and they never changed the title text which is certainly poor marketing.

So what should be in the title tag? The name of your business or web site with the “keyword phrase” you are targeting. For example, your business sells “watches”. This is a broad search term and using it alone my not work out for you. There are 42,500,000 estimated search results in Google. However searching for the term “Swiss watches” I get 2,760,000 estimated results. The likelihood of your site appearing in the first 3 pages of Google is much more realistic using “Swiss watches”. Plus, the keyword “watches” is still present, so you are actually targeting and marketing both terms.

Here is a good title tag using this example:

Search Engine Optimization Inc, SEO Tools

Keep it short and to the point. Targeting too many keywords can “thin out” your website’s relevance.

2: The DESCRIPTION Meta Tag

Here is an example description meta tag which should appear in-between the tags of your web page(s):

The description meta tag is less important for optimization, but it is still utilized by the search engines. Google for example, will use the web pages body text, image alt tags, and yes even portions of the description meta tag will show at times. The body text and alt tags will be discussed later on in these articles.

So in my opinion, it is important enough to use. The best way to use it is to place your keyword phrase inside this meta tag “once”, then split up the phrase and add the keywords again separately. But keep it readable, and avoid too many comas. This can be viewed as “spam”, so don’t do it or your site could be black listed and ignored by search engines all together. Also, use two sentences maximum and avoid “sales pitches” like “The best shop ever”, and so on.

Here is a good description meta tag marketing the term “SEO tools” from the example above:

Notice that “SEO” and “TOOLS” appear twice, but the second time is split with the term “SOFTWARE” (SEO software being a secondary targeted keyword phrase).

3: The KEYWORD Meta Tag

Here is an example keyword meta tag which should appear in-between the tags of your web page(s):

The keyword meta tag is believed one of the LEAST recognized meta tag by search engines. It carries very little weight when it comes to search engine optimization. However, it is not ignored by all engines. For example, through my own experiment, I have used a single keyword (like spaloof - which means nothing) that had very little if any results when searching for it. After being indexed, SearchBliss had appeared at the top of MSN. The keyword was NO where else on SearchBliss. Only in the keyword meta tag. This says to me that some search engines DO give the keyword meta tag some weight. So as a result, I still use the keyword meta tag.

I suggest adding your target keywords 3 to 4 times without REPEATING THE SAME TERM. This is viewed as “spam”. Spam example: Swiss watches,Swiss watches,Swiss watches,… This is more commonly know as “keyword stuffing”. It also applies to everything else being covered is these articles.

Here is a good keyword meta tag using the “SEO Tools” example:

Notice that the keywords listed 3 times (SEO & tools) are not only split up using other key terms, but are also never too close together. I do this by adding other keywords/phrases in-between the ones with the target terms. The term “SEO tools” only appears together one time.

Do You Make These Blog Rush Mistakes?

2007-10-10T05:11:00.000-07:00

There’s no question in my mind that Blog Rush is a great service - which is going to succeed in a big way.

Having said that, those who use Blog Rush will not necessarily gain much value from it - because they don’t understand how Blog Rush fits into their Business Blogging Strategy.

So let me break down what Blog Rush does, and then, how to gain maximum benefit from it.

First of all, Blog Rush is clearly a part of a traffic generation strategy. Not to be confused with lead generation. Lead generation is what you do once you get the traffic - but you have to gain people’s attention FIRST.

To get someone’s attention with Blog Rush, the primary thing you need to do is write COMPELLING 7 WORD HEADLINES (or approximately no more than 40 characters including spaces). This guarantee’s your whole headline will be syndicated in Blog Rush’s widget without getting cutoff.

Several common mistakes I’ve seen already is people who are:

Writing LONG headlines which get cutoff before you can understand the topic of the post.
Crafting headlines which only make sense if you’ve read the post before you’ve read the headline.
Not taking the time to create interesting headlines that people care about.

To write a good “I’VE GOTTA READ THAT” Blog Rush headline, you must follow these simple rules:

Keep it simple. Don’t use “slash” multi word variations of the same thing like “authority/expert”. This is not only confusing to read, but it also takes up valuable character space.
Appeal to everyone’s ADD. People are clicking on Blog Rush story links because they are goofing off and want to be distracted. So play to that and write things that sound juicy and entertaining.
Never forget that everyone cares about themselves. Try and make all your headlines relevant to the readers self interest. People who want to be distracted can then rationalize that they are REALLY learning something if they click on a link which is supposedly work related *wink* *wink*
Don’t lie in your Blog Rush headline. People will not only hit the “back” button faster then greased lightning if your story doesn’t deliver on what the headline promised, but they will be FAR LESS LIKELY to click on your future headlines.

Ok, so once you’ve gotten some traffic from Blog Rush, you want to turn that traffic into leads. That is, people who keep reading your blog and eventually buy something from you.

Sadly this is much harder than it sounds. As most people who are successful with social “stimulus” media will attest, many people who read your story are Social Media Stimulation Sluts who will be off to get their next hit before you can get the words “RSS Button” out of your mouth.

So, we must play to the readers stimulus seeking nature to keep them on our own blogs.

To do this, we need two things:

The “Related Posts” Plugin, and
Other Post “Crack” (like the drug “Crack”) stories.

If you follow the same formula I just gave you on how to write Blog Rush headlines, to write your Blog Headlines, you’ll be going in the write (hehe cheesy I know) direction. Some more places to get good headline idea’s is This Gary Halbert Newsletter.

Then, just keep going at it until you get traction.

Also, in closing here are some other mistake’s to avoid:

Don’t make your blog’s advertising look like The Strip on Vegas. It pisses people off and keeps them from liking you as they feel you are putting your revenue ahead of your usefulness.
Don’t offer paid blog reviews. Seriously I can’t understand why people do this. It makes you look like a prostituting beggar who is unable to monetize with something legitimate.
Don’t put the Blog Rush widget above your own site’s navigation. If you can’t understand why, you’re beyond my help.
Get rid of those RIDICULOUS social media links at the bottom of every post. The only people who have the power to get any of your posts ranking well in Social Media Networks don’t need the little buttons to do it. If they think you’re worthy, they’ll submit regardless. And those 2 Diggs you got could have been other actions which resulted in a MUCH BIGGER payoff. It’s a waste of blog real estate to have those buttons.

Hope you found that helpful

47 Simple Ways to Build Trust in Your Website or Blog

2007-10-10T05:09:00.000-07:00

If your website does not create a sense of trust in your visitors, all your efforts will be in vain. Your online business will never succeed. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it is very easy to create and build trust in your online visitors. Below, I have listed all the techniques used by the hundreds of websites I have helped launch. If you have additional techniques, please add them to the list.

As the old saying goes, you have only one chance to make a first impression. Building trust cannot be achieved by one single action. Trust is achieved by hundreds of little things you do throughout your website that, when taken together, give readers a sense of honesty, legitimacy and stability.

The other bit of good news is that few website owners focus on building trust in the minds of their visitors. If you do it well, it can become a real and sustainable competitive advantage.

Here are 47 simple actions you can take to get started.

1. Trust is built by lots of small actions on every page of your website.

2. Your website design is the first impression. Make sure it is professional and relevant to the subject matter.

3. Navigation must be intuitive. If visitors can’t find what they are looking for easily, they will question your competence in providing what they want.

4. Make the website personal by giving it its own tone and voice. People buy people.

5. Follow the HEART rule of creating online content. (Reminder: HEART stands for Honest, Exclusive, Accurate, Relevant and Timely.)

6. Use language that is appropriate to the audience. It will build empathy.

7. Regularly add new content to your site. It shows that the business is alive and kicking.

8. Check all links. Doubts will quickly form in your visitors’ minds if links don’t work or, worse still, take them to error pages.

9. Good grammar and spelling matter. Errors give the impression of sloppiness and carelessness.

10. Never make outrageous and unbelievable claims, like “Read this blog and you’ll be a millionaire by the end of the week.” People are used to scams, get-rich-quick schemes and rip-offs.

11. Publish REAL testimonials and third-party endorsements. Try to always use real names and link to websites where possible. Some sites show images of letters sent by happy customers.

12. Publish case studies about customers you have helped, who use your product, etc.

13. Don’t put down, curse or insult competitors. It’s unprofessional. It is better to offer an objective comparison of competitive services or products.

14. Focus on building your long-term reputation, not on making quick sales.

15. Write articles for humans, not search engines.

16. Make your ‘About Us’ page personal and comprehensive. It plays an important part in making visitors feel comfortable that real people are behind the site.

17. Publish your photo or the photos of the key people involved with the site. Again, this reinforces the fact that there are real people behind the screenshots.

18. Clearly identify who is behind the site. Nothing creates more suspicion than a site that tries to hide the identity of its publishers.

19. On the ‘Contact Us’ page, provide an email form, phone number, fax and address of the company. In Europe, it is a legal requirement for sites taking money, but even sites driven by advertising will benefit from openness.

20. Provide a telephone number that people can call and talk to a person.

21. Provide Web addresses linked to the website domain, not addresses from free webmail services such as Hotmail and Gmail.

22. Never lie to make money. The most common way is to write a glowing report about a product or service to earn affiliate revenues. It is very short-sighted to lie to visitors to sell them rubbish. They’ll never come back or, worse still, they’ll actively condemn your site on forums and blogs.

23. Think carefully about reciprocal links. If your site is about organic food and you have links to Party Poker, people are going to question your integrity.

24. Think carefully about the adverts you display on your site. Ensure that they are relevant to your subject and audience.

25. Be explicit when you are being paid to endorse a product or service. An advertorial is fine as long as it is transparent. Paid-to-post is corrupting the Web and will experience a user backlash. I never read websites that accept payment for posting.

26. Write and publish your privacy policy. Be clear about what you will and will not do with any personal data you collect. State that you adhere to all data protection laws. Make it easy to read and don’t use legal gobbledygook.

27. Write and publish a security policy. State what measures you take to ensure that all transactions are secure.

28. Ensure that you have a security and privacy policy which is linked from the footer on every page. Make the link more prominent on all the order pages.

29. Clearly publish your guarantee. I would recommend making it a 100% money-back guarantee if possible.

30. Clearly state your refund and returns policy.

31. Piggyback off reputable brands. If you use PayPal, put the PayPal logo on your site. If you have a merchant services account with a major bank like Citibank or HSBC, put its logo on your site.

32. Use Google search on your site for two reasons. First, it is a great search solution which will help your visitors find what they are looking for. Second, having the Google name on your site instills trust.

33. If there are well-known industry associations for your subject, join up and put their logos on your site.

34. Have a forum on your site and respond quickly to questions. Have the attitude that you are happy to help others without receiving immediate reward. As the old saying goes, ‘Givers always gain.’

35. Allow people to comment on articles. Interactivity and an exchange of views build community and a sense of involvement.

36. If people provide constructive criticism or comments in the forum, don’t delete them, but respond with your point of view.

37. Put photos on the website of the owners, publishers and/or team. Let visitors know there are real people behind the business.

38. Put images of the credit cards you accept on every page of the order process.

39. Use the words ‘secure website’ whenever you try to get any information from visitors, including newsletter sign-ups, forum input and payment.

40. On every page, state, “We take your privacy and security very seriously.” Link the statement to the security and privacy policy.

41. Remember, reputations take years to build and seconds to destroy.

42. If you are selling a subscription, offer a low-cost, entry-level option. This could be a one-day taster, ‘a week before billing starts’ or a monthly trial.

43. Use a high level of security when processing credit cards. Make sure you make your clients aware of all the steps you are taking.

44. Never send credit card information or personal details over the Internet unencrypted. Tell your customers that their data will be encrypted.

45. Only ask for information from customers that you really need. For example, for an email newsletter sign-up, the only information you REALLY need is an email address, so that is all you should ask for

46. If you have pricing on your website, make it transparent. I recently went to buy a book which was advertised for $10. When I checked out, they added tax, post and packaging, and the final bill was $19.50. I didn’t buy it as I felt they had deliberately tried to mislead me.

47. Keep your SSL certificate up to date. Let people know you are using SSL encryption and who the provider is.

You can never do too much to build trust. Most of it comes down to common sense and good business practice. To ensure that you are continually improving your trustworthiness, every time you go to a website, ask yourself whether you trust it or not. Then ask yourself why you have formed the opinion you have. Continually try to learn what makes a site trustworthy or untrustworthy and implement the relevant changes to your site.

If people trust you, the money will follow!

Using Your Blog for Fast SE Rankings

2007-10-10T05:06:00.000-07:00

If you run a site and are looking to get it listed quickly on search engines, there really is no easier and quicker way than to also put a blog on the site. It is a known fact that search engine spiders from sites like Google and Altavista list new blogs much faster than they list new sites. However, it’s not as simple as just creating a blog and letting it sit there. You have to also use tactics like pinging, linking and the use of keywords. We’ll go over each so that you are able to effectively use your blog for a quick site listing. We’ll also briefly go over how to host your own blog on your site.

So how do I host my own blog, anyway?

The easiest way to do this is to install and run a blogging software from another company on your web site’s server. One such software that is popular is WordPress. It’s fairly easy to install and works pretty good on your site. Other blogging software options include:

Apache Roller
Blosxom
Geeklog
Textpattern
LifeType

Whatever one you choose, be sure to follow the instructions provided by the company so that the installation goes smoothly.

Where should I put my blog on my site?

Most people who host their blog to help their site get listed quickly don’t put the blog on the main page of the site, because the site isn’t all about the blog. Instead they put it in its own folder at mysite.com/blog/. But you can really put your blog anywhere on your site, so it’s your call.

What is pinging?
It’s a question that many ask, so don’t feel silly if you don’t know what pinging is. Pinging is essentially a tracking program installed on your blog that will notify the site which it is from whenever your blog is updated. Search engine spiders usually visit newly pinged sites most often, which is why pinging is such a crucial part of the equation to get your site listed quickly. Sites that are newly “pinged” will be visited by search engine spiders. A visit from the spider equals a listing on the search engine.

How do I get pinging on my blog?
You’ll have to register with a site that offers weblog pinging. The most popular pinging program around is weblogs.com. Other programs offered include Yahoo’s Blo.gs, BlogRolling, and Technorati. Once you’ve decided on a pinging service, you’ll have to follow the instructions to install it on your blog. When you’ve done that, your blog will start getting pinged and visited by search engine spiders.

What is linking?
Linking is basically having another blog or site link to your blog. When search engine spiders visit that site and see a link to your site, they’ll visit your site. Linking is effective both for sites with blogs and those without it.

How do I get linking?
You get it by visiting sites/blogs that are relevant to what your site is about. Then you contact the owners of those sites/blogs, asking them to post a link to your site on their site. In return, you will probably have to link to their site on your site. That way, both of you are able to benefit from the linking.

Why is the use of keywords important to my blog?
Spiders love to visit sites with a good amount of keywords. People who read your site won’t mind the use of keywords if they are lightly spread throughout the content of your pages. The key to this is to make a list of keywords relevant to your blog posting and then to try to use those keywords throughout your content. It is important to make sure, however, not to overuse keywords. Spiders have been trained to ignore sites with excessive amounts of keywords, so if you use a whole lot of keywords in the hopes of getting spiders to visit your site, it’s not going to do you any good. Generally speaking, using between 2-6 keywords per 200 word piece of content is a good ratio. It’s pleasing to both readers and search engine spiders.

That’s really all there is to it. Apply the above techniques to your blog and you will net your site a quick search engine listing.

There is no quicker way to get your site listed than to use a blog. So install a blog on your site today and you’ll be listed sooner than you could have imagined!

7 Things Every Webmaster Should Know About Links

2007-10-10T05:03:00.000-07:00

Link building in a nutshell, is the process of getting other web sites and web pages to link to your web site. These links will not only drive direct targeted traffic to your pages; but more importantly will increase your overall search engine visibility and rankings. Building a solid incoming linking structure for your site is one of the most effective techniques used by search engine optimization professionals to improve your search engine rankings and boost the overall amount of traffic any given web page receives. However the process of building incoming links to your site can be a daunting and tedious task when just getting started. The purpose of this essay is to outline the importance of building a strong linking profile for your site as well as offer a handful of key strategies that any webmaster regardless of marketing budget can employ to climb to the top of the search engine ladder.

1.) Purchasing Links & Sponsored Reviews

Paying other web masters to place a link on their site back to yours is probably the easiest and most straight forward way to generate links to your site. However the down-side of purchasing or renting links from other web masters is that it can become a very expensive venture, not to mention you need to pick and choose your potential candidates vary carefully. There are many services out there to help connect you with other web masters that are interested in selling links from their web pages, however you will save yourself a lot of time, and money by working directly with other web masters as apposed to paying a middle man to act as a link broker. Unfortunately there is no set standard on determining what any given link is worth: however you should pay careful attention to a few key factors before cracking open your wallet and spending your hard earned money on a paid link. These things include but are not limited to the number of incoming links the candidate site itself has, it’s overall page rank, the age of the site and finally the search engine saturation (number of pages indexed in the major search engines) of the site. When approaching a web master to purchase links from make your goals as clear as day - and ensure that he or she knows you’re interested in purchasing a link for Search Engine Optimization reasons. You need to ensure the link will not be cloaked (hidden from search engine spiders) or nofollowed (marked to inform search engines not to follow the link with the rel=”nofollow” attribute) as either of these conditions will make the link relatively worthless from an SEO stand point.

2.) Comment and Post on Related Blogs & Message Boards

Even a web novice can find a litany of blogs and message boards for any given niche or market to post comments and feed back . I strongly encourage you to register on message boards related to your topic or subject and include links within the signature of your posts and messages. The same goes for blogs and commenting. There are many blogs that will allow you to include a link back to your site either within the content of your message, or make your user name a clickable link back to your site. However there is a fine line between spamming and offering valid comments, posts and responses to community based web sites and blogs. Making obvious spam posts such as “Cool site, check my site out at …” will likely get your IP address banned from the web site or network, and can negatively impact the reputation of your brand or web site. If you don’t have a valuable view point, or comment to offer other readers of the site you’re posting on, you’re better off not commenting at all.

3.) Write User Testimonials & Product Reviews

Writing user reviews or testimonials is an under appreciated technique to create a wealth of back links to your site. Most often when you write a review for a product or service you’ve had success with, the web master will include a link back to your site in the signature of the review. This technique is simple and straight forward; if you’ve purchased a product or service write up a short 100 - 300 word review for the product outlining it’s strengths and your positive experiences and include your full name, and web site address in the signature of the review. Nine out of ten times the web master of the site you’ve written the testimonial for will be more than happy to include and activate the link when they post the review onto their website.

4.) Develop a Free Online Service or Software Application

Most people wouldn’t even consider spending their valuable time developing an application or online utility to give away for free. However the benefits of creating and distributing a free online utility or software application can create several 1,000 back links to your site very quickly. A perfect example of this is creating a small, easy to use Mortgage Calculator with javascript and offer the code to embed the Mortgage Calculator onto other web pages. Include a link back to your site within the coding of the Mortgage Calculator perhaps in a copyright statement at the bottom of the application and require the link as a condition for using your free application.

5.) Write Articles and Distribute Them Online

Assuming this isn’t the first essay you’ve read on improving the amount of links to your web site, you should be well aware that writing articles and submitting your articles to the popular article directories is a fantastic way to generate many back links to your web site. The premise is simple yet effective; Write a handful of articles geared toward your topic and subject matter and distribute them to the many article directories on the Internet. Often times when your article is posted on these article directory sites they will include an authors bio, or resource box. Within the authors bio area you want to include a little information about your company or product(s) as well as a link back to your site. Whenever your article is picked up by other web masters or syndicated across other popular web sites you will receive a free one way link back to your site. Repeat these steps over and over to build several 1,000 links back to your web site. This is an amazing technique as your only investment is a little time to write and submit an article.

6.) Submit Your Site to Directories

Over the past few years links from directories or web indexes has become less and less valuable. However there are still a handful of well trusted and high quality directories that you should consider submitting your site to. This will boost both your linking profile, as well as your page and trust rank. Some of the most notable directories to submit your web site to in no particular order are DMOZ, The Yahoo! Business Directory, JoeAnt, Gimpsy, GoGuides, Linkopedia and Uncoverthenet. Though most of the directories l’ve mentioned here are not free to submit to, the cost of submission is well worth the price as the links you’ll receive from this investment are quality one-way links that carry a good amount of page trust and rank. When submitting your site to any of these directories, pay special attention to the category you are submitting your web address to, make sure that you are submitting your site to the most relevant, and related topic to the subject of your own web site. As this will ensure that you’re submission is not denied, or skipped by the directory editors once it gets reviewed.

7.) Exchange Links and Build Partnerships

Link exchanges or trading links with other web masters is another technique that has lost a little of it’s gusto over the years, however this method of generating back links does still hold a bit of value and should not be overlooked. Many webmasters dedicate a page of their site titled references or resources and use this page to link out to other web pages that have agreed to link back to their site. As mentioned above this technique is not as effective as it once was; however picking and choosing web sites that are well trusted and ranked by the search engines and that are related to the topic and subject mater of your own site promise to be well worth the effort. Finding other web sites that are prime candidates to exchange links with are those that are linking out to other relevant sites in your field or niche. Once you’ve found a web site that you’d be interested in swapping links with, contact the web master via email with your offer. When soliciting another web master for a link you want to write a personal email message and refer to specific content and aspects of his or her web site. Doing so will show the prospective linking partner that you’ve actually taken the time to give their site the once over before sending your solicitation; as a result you will be far more likely to receive a positive reply. As with purchasing paid links you want to ensure that the site you are requesting to exchange links with doesn’t end up cloaking it’s outbound links (hidden from search engine spiders) or nofollowed (marked to inform search engines not to follow the link with the rel=”nofollow” attribute) as either of these conditions will make your link relatively worthless from an SEO stand point.

In this article we’ve discussed 7 of the most effective, and commonly used methods to generate a massive amount of incoming links to your web site. With any luck, after reading this article you should have a handful of ideas and techniques in your tool box that you can employ to kick-start your web site’s model for success. Building links to your web site is by no means a set-it and forget-it facet of web marketing and requires time, dedication and ongoing analysis. You can never have too many quality incoming links to your site and once you’ve had a small taste of success with link building I’m confident you’ll be hungry for more.

Using Free Article Directories To Gain 1000`s Of One Way Links

2007-10-10T05:01:00.000-07:00

If you have a website and are marketing something and want to drive hordes of traffic to your sites, then the article directories can help you do just that.

It`s kind of funny, how marketers are always searching, for the perfect advertising solution and spending fortunes, on this product or that service, to see traffic come to their websites, with little or no luck.

When all along, there is a growing number of free directories, that want your articles. They need your articles to survive and are one of the best places, to get your websites indexed by the search engines.

Let me give you a run down, on the benefits of joining, as many free article directories as you can and writing and submitting articles on a regular basis.

First of all, the free article directories will help you build name recognition for yourself and your websites. As visitors read your articles, they will view you as an expert in your field.

The Second benefit of submitting your articles is: that directories usually have, a large amount of traffic visiting on a daily basis. This means added exposure and visitors to your websites as well.

The third benefit of using the free article directories is: that as other webmasters scour over the articles and decide to use your article on their website, you get an instant one way link to your website in your authors resource box.

One way links, are what the search engines like to see. It`s not unheard of, to gain 1000 one way links to your website, from a single, well written article.

I can tell you personally, that I have received 1000`s of links from simply submitting one informative article. This type of marketing is totally viral.

One webmaster picks up your article, than another does, and another after that. And it won`t stop there. Your article will be in those directories for years. And you will gain back links on auto pilot.

The fourth benefit of using these article resources is: Most directories have high page ranks in Google. This is also another high pr link that you get for free.

The fact, that there are so many directories online means, that you will gain a lot of links, from the directories alone. If you are smart, you will use an automated submission service. Your articles will be distributed to hundreds if not thousands of directories.

The whole name of the game to generating traffic, is to have thousands of links pointing to your website.

The best part is that writing articles is easy. Just pinpoint a topic and start typing.

Just think, of how much free traffic, that article directories can help you generate to your websites. And more traffic means more sales, more subscribers and less work on your part at marketing your website.

I have tried, so many kinds of marketing techniques and article submission, is by far the best!It`s pretty cool, when you run a back link check on your website and see your link, spread out, all over the internet, from simply using a free online resource.

If you are not using free article directories, as your main form of marketing and link building, than you are losing out on earning a lot of money with your websites.

Search Engine Optimization for Dynamic Websites

2007-10-10T04:59:00.000-07:00

One of the major issues which have always raised questions among the search engine optimization fraternity is” Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Dynamic Websites”. In this white paper, we will show you how to optimize dynamic websites for top search engine rankings. But, first the basics.

What are “Dynamic Websites”?

Dynamic websites are websites whose pages are generated on the fly. Unlike static pages (primarily .htm/.html pages), dynamic pages are generated when an user triggers an action through that particular page.
Here is a sample dynamic URL-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=%22dynamic+websites%22&tab=news &go=homepage
As per the above example of www.bbc.co.uk, the dynamic part (i.e. the part) of the URL which changes as per surfer request is the part after the question mark (?)

What are the problems that search engines face in indexing Dynamic URLs?

1. Search engines often consider a dynamic URL as an infinite set of links.

2. Since dynamic URLs find maximum application in online shopping carts,
there is a possibility of incorporating a session id to a particular page. As session ids of that particular page change, the search engine spider needs to index an infinite number of copies of the same page, which is a Herculean task for them.

3. Proceeding with the same logic presented in point #2, indexing the same dynamic page might overload the servers of the search engines and therefore prevent the search engines to present with the most relevant information in the fastest possible time.

Here is what Google says about indexing of dynamic websites-
Reasons your site may not be included: Your pages are dynamically generated. We are able to index dynamically generated pages. However, because our web crawler can easily overwhelm and crash sites serving dynamic content, we limit the amount of dynamic pages we index. (Source - http://www.google.com/webmasters/)

What are the options that you have in order to make a search engine spider index your Dynamic URLs?

1. Use of softwares - Exception Digital Enterprise Solutions (http://www.xde.net ) offers a software which can change the dynamic URLs to static ones. Named XQASP, it will remove the “?” in the Query String and replace it with “/”, thereby allowing the search engine spiders to index the dynamic content.

Example -
http://www.my-online-store.com/books.asp?id=1190 will change to
http://www.my-online-store.com/books/1190.

The latter being a static URL, it can easily be indexed by the search engine spiders.

2. Use of CGI/Perl scripts- One of the easiest ways to get your dynamic sites indexed by search engines is using CGI/Perl scripts. Path_Info or Script_Name is a variable in a dynamic application that contains the complete URL address (including the query string information). In order to fix this problem, you’ll need to write a script that will pull all the information before the query string and set the rest of the information equal to a variable. You can then use this variable in your URL address.

Example - http://www.my-online-store.com/books.asp?id=1190

When you are using CGI/Perl scripts, the query part of the dynamic URL is assigned a variable. So, in the above example “?id=1190″ is assigned a variable, say “A”. The dynamic URL http://www.my-online-store.com/coolpage.asp?id=1190 will change to http://www.my-online-store.com/books/A through CGI/Perl scripts which can easily be indexed by the search engines.

3. Re-configuring your web servers-

Apache Server - Apache has a rewrite module (mod_rewrite) that enables you to turn URLs containing query strings into URLs that search engines can index. This module however, isn’t installed with Apache software by default, so you need to check with your web hosting company for installation.

ColdFusion - You’ll need to reconfigure ColdFusion on your server so that the “?” in a query string isreplaced with a ‘/’ and pass the value to the URL.

4. Creation of a Static Page linked to an array of dynamic Pages- This approach is very effective, especially if you are the owner of a small online store selling a few products online. Just create a static page linking to all your dynamic pages. Optimize this static page for search engine rankings. Include a link title for all the product categories, place appropriate “alt” tag for the product images along with product description containing highly popular keywords relevant to your business (you can conduct keyword research for your site through http://www.wordtracker.com). Submit this static page along with all the dynamic pages in various search engines, conforming to the search engine submission guidelines.

How Amazon.com, Earth’s Biggest Bookstore, coped with the issue of indexing of dynamic URLs?

A search in Google for internet marketing books, yielded a result that takes you directly to the appropriate dynamic page at Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0395683297/103-0475212-8205437.
Since the above URL does not contain any query strings, all search engines can index Amazon.com’s products. Amazon.com uses this method to get its product selections indexed by search engines. This is very important for Amazon, because being an online bookstore, it is very natural for them to adopt dynamic URLs yet it was equally important for them to make their dynamic URLs search engine index friendly.

Conclusion
Even a few years back, most of the major search engines did not index dynamic URLs, thereby often preventing top search engine rankings for the online stores. With Google starting to index dynamic URLs a few months ago, the picture is going to change in the coming days. This is more so because Google’s numero uno position is currently being threatened by Microsoft’s MSN (developing its own search engine) and Yahoo! who recently acquired Overture, the biggest player in the PPC Search Engine industry.

2007-10-10T04:57:00.000-07:00

Great Leadership Resources

Leadership Series for
Successful Living

Lead in Your Niche Market

Quit Your Day Job!

Are you a leader?

Truth be told, not everyone is a leader. It’s just not meant for everyone. And that’s OK.

But more people are leaders than they realize. Leadership takes on many different faces; it’s just a question of understanding how you lead and why.

Here are 10 key business leadership skills you’ll need to succeed as a leader:

Lead By Example. You can’t be an aloof leader, someone that’s never around and incapable of getting your hands dirty. One of the best ways to lead is by example - pitching in where needed, lending a helping hand, and making sure that the work you do is clearly understood by your team.
Passion. A leader without passion isn’t a leader. He’s a paper pusher. Or a taskmaster. Or a government employee… Passion drives a lot, and you can inspire so much in others through your own passion and enthusiasm. That doesn’t mean you have to be constantly cheery, it means you’ve got to believe in what you’re doing and what your company is doing.
Be Organized. A disorganized leader isn’t leading, he’s chasing his own tail. Disorganization breeds nothing but more disorganization. If you’re frazzled and messy, your team will be too. When you’re organized you’ll be much more productive and so will everyone else.
Delegate. You can’t do everything. A great leader needs to be able to delegate effectively. The key to delegating successfully is giving employees ownership of the work you assign them. They can’t just feel like they own the work, they really have to.
Take Ownership and Responsibility. Although you’ve just delegated work and truly given your team ownership, you also have to take ownership and responsibility at all times. Your team has to know you’ll be there for them through the good and the bad times. That doesn’t mean you absolve people from making mistakes or ignore crappy work/effort, but it does mean you take responsibility for the big picture.
Communicate Effectively. Duh. Everyone knows great leaders have to be great communicators. But there are certain points of communication that many people forget. For example, it’s critical that you communicate to employees how their work matters in the bigger picture. Are they a cog, or does their work truly make a difference?
Communicating success is also something leaders forget to do. People need affirmation. They want to know they did a good job. You just have to tell them.
And be precise. Insecure leaders will often ramble; uninterested leaders cut things off to quickly. Whether you’re giving praise, providing constructive criticism, or defining goals and to-dos, you have to figure out how much to say and in what order. Be precise, specific and concise. Get to the point.
Be Brave and Honest. Cowardly leaders will shy away from any number of situations that crop up regularly when running a team. The project your team has worked on for 6 months just got shelved. Now what? Or you have to talk to someone about their lack of effort recently. Do you ignore the problem? Or maybe it’s time to take your product into a new market. Do you hobble forward, scared and nervous, or do you grab the market by the throat?
Leaders are brave.

And honest. Tell it like it is. Don’t sugarcoat, don’t obfuscate. Don’t be a jerk either. You have to learn how to present things to your team in an honest but balanced manner.
Great Listener. A huge part of being a great communicator is being a great listener. If all you want to do is talk, you’re not a leader. Keeping people motivated means listening to them, asking them questions, understanding their issues. When you listen more, you can respond more effectively and get to the heart of things much faster.
Know Your People. You have to know your people. You don’t have to be best friends or even socialize outside work, but you do have to know what makes them tick. You need to know something about their personal lives because their lives outside work matter. Their lives outside work drive a great deal of their success (or lack of) at work. Keep track of simple things: birthdays, marriages, children, etc. The more you know your people the more common ground you’re likely to find, the more you’ll be able to connect.
Be a Follower. Benjamin Disraeli said, “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?” That sums up many of the other points so beautifully. Great leaders are followers too. If you’re a leader without following, you’re a dictator. And as fun as that sounds… Being a leader-follower means finding value in your team, getting inspired by your team, encouraging your team to communicate, brainstorm and be open.

Very few people are great leaders overnight. It takes time and practice. As long as you’re open about learning along the way and working with your team on leadership versus dictating to them, most people will be happy to go on the journey with you.

And without getting too mushy, here are some great quotes on leadership:

6 tips to improve your blog articles

2007-10-10T04:51:00.001-07:00

Wendy from eMom’s at home recently wrote a similar post, and asked me the question, “What does it take to write a great blog post?”

The fact that Wendy asked me in the first place was a big compliment. It suggests I know how to write a great blog post in the first place! Thanks Wendy.

I’ve re-phrased Wendy’s question and turned it into a few personal tips. Therefore, for you to write a great blog post I believe that it must consist of the following things:

Tell us a story

If you’re like me, you don’t read blogs like you would an essay i.e. yawning and wiping the odd tear of sadness from your cheek. You read blogs because they’re personal, because you get to know the author in a way that isn’t shown in academic writing. Brian of Copyblogger writes a great post to back this up – Tell a Tantalizing Story to Kick Off Your Blog Post.

Address your readers

Don’t forget who you’re writing for. People will return to your blog because you’re speaking to them and not simply writing a diary. The more you can relate your words to those who read your blog, the more they’ll appreciate what you’re doing and ultimately the more blogging success you’ll have.

Spend time on your headline

There are many posts in the blogosphere about how important your headline is. The best headlines are not just written for Google or Digg. Besides, getting on the front page of Digg isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

I’ve previously posted an article titled, “Here’s how to improve your headlines” which might be of interest.

Use images

A blog post with images is much more appealing to the eye than one entirely made of text. It’s much more likely to be read and will help the reader remember the content.

Optimise your images for the web so you don’t use unecessary bandwidth and stay clear of cheap looking clipart that devalues your blog. Photographs are best, although well done illustrations can be equally effective.

Char from Essential Keystrokes writes about Thirteen Things Every Website Needs and has this to say on images:

A picture is worth a thousand words and a well-placed picture or graphical element will save your web site from eternal loneliness.

For images, try this wallpaper image resource or these royalty-free stock photography websites.

Ask us questions

This is an important point to help gain more blog comments. There are other things you can do, such as install the subscribe to comments plugin for WordPress or join the NoNoFollow community, but if you don’t ask a question in your blog post you can’t really expect a response. People might read your post, agree, and move on, but if you take the time to ask something you’d be surprised how effective it can be.

Give us your own opinion

Splogs, or spam blogs, are rife. There’s enough duplicate content on the internet to reach from earth to the sun if it were in manuscript form*.

Don’t add to it.

If you find something worth blogging about, and it’s already documented on another blog, add your own spin to it. Do a little research and combine a few stories, with your own comments as you go. It’s so much more interesting than a simple regurgitation, and you’ll keep people returning to read your thoughts again and again.

——————-

I’m not the only one writing about this topic. Dawud shares his insight on great blog posts. Ben makes a great point of writing in bite size chunks. Leo adds the importance of cutting out what isn’t necessary. Mike writes a nice piece asking, “Do You Sound Like Your Blog?“.

Here’s where I ask you for your tips on writing a great blog post. Don’t feel oblidged to join in as I’m sure you’re all busy.

Sean of seandinner.com.
J David of jdavidmacor.com.
Tara of graphicdesignblog.co.uk.
Asgeir of asgeirhoem.no.
Bret of techtraction.com.

What have you done recently to improve your blog publishing?

*Statement may not be entirely accurate.

Digg This! • Stumble It! • Save to del.icio.us (10 saves, tagged: blog blogging writing) • Subscribe to this feed

6 tips to improve your blog articles

2007-10-10T04:51:00.000-07:00

Wendy from eMom’s at home recently wrote a similar post, and asked me the question, “What does it take to write a great blog post?”

The fact that Wendy asked me in the first place was a big compliment. It suggests I know how to write a great blog post in the first place! Thanks Wendy.

I’ve re-phrased Wendy’s question and turned it into a few personal tips. Therefore, for you to write a great blog post I believe that it must consist of the following things:

Tell us a story

Address your readers

Spend time on your headline

I’ve previously posted an article titled, “Here’s how to improve your headlines” which might be of interest.

Use images

A blog post with images is much more appealing to the eye than one entirely made of text. It’s much more likely to be read and will help the reader remember the content.

Char from Essential Keystrokes writes about Thirteen Things Every Website Needs and has this to say on images:

A picture is worth a thousand words and a well-placed picture or graphical element will save your web site from eternal loneliness.

For images, try this wallpaper image resource or these royalty-free stock photography websites.

Ask us questions

Give us your own opinion

Splogs, or spam blogs, are rife. There’s enough duplicate content on the internet to reach from earth to the sun if it were in manuscript form*.

Don’t add to it.

——————-

Here’s where I ask you for your tips on writing a great blog post. Don’t feel oblidged to join in as I’m sure you’re all busy.

Sean of seandinner.com.
J David of jdavidmacor.com.
Tara of graphicdesignblog.co.uk.
Asgeir of asgeirhoem.no.
Bret of techtraction.com.

What have you done recently to improve your blog publishing?

*Statement may not be entirely accurate.

Digg This! • Stumble It! • Save to del.icio.us (10 saves, tagged: blog blogging writing) • Subscribe to this feed

Here’s what happens when you get on the front page of Digg

2007-10-10T04:46:00.000-07:00

A number of things happen when one of your blog articles reaches the front page of Digg.

1/ Your server crashes due to the high load

2/ You get an e-mail* from your host company’s abuse department:

Right,

We need to inform you that we had to send out our abuse team to impose some additional limits on the system resources usage for your account. These measures have been taken in order to cease a very high load on the server hosting davidairey.com. Your site is listed at digg.com (http://digg.com/design/What_makes_a_great_logo_2), which in particular caused the high server load.

To be more specific, we have:

- limited the number of processes your site can run at a time to 5

- assigned one of our team to keep a close eye on your account at all times

We have to ensure that any such high loads will not affect the covert operation of our server. For your information any high server load could affect the performance of all the other web sites hosted on the same machine.

Yours abusively,

Vassily Romanov

Abuse Team

3/ You receive a ton of negative comments on Digg:

“crap sandwich of an article”

“plagiarism”

“the article offers nothing”

“a really pointless article”

4/ You become paranoid about your own design skills

5/ You think about a career change

But what’s more…

6/ You don’t even get a t-shirt!

_____________________________

In saying all that, I am extremely grateful for those of you who ‘dugg’ my article and left positive / c

52 Ways to Speed Up OS X

2007-10-10T04:39:00.000-07:00

After Apple recently announced a delay to OS X 10.5 Leopard I had to delay my iMac upgrade until the Autumn. This led me to thinking about how to speed up Tiger to get the most out of my ageing G5.

This is what I came up with:

General System

1. Repair Disk Permissions
Navigate to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Select your Macintosh HD and select Verify Disk Permissions. If needed you can then Repair Disk Permissions.

2. Clear out login items
Its good to check that unwanted programs are not starting up when you login to your Mac. This can be done from System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items.

3. Clear out unwanted applications
Go through your applications folder and see if you can save yourself some disk space by removing any applications you no longer use.

4. Clear out unused system preferences
Check in your system preferences if there are any unused system preferences tabs that can be removed. If you do find something you don’t use you can either disable it within its menu or remove it from ‘~/Library/PreferencePanes’. You may have to reboot or do a force empty trash (see #38).

5. Clear Desktop
Its been reported numerous times that having a clear desktop can increase the speed of your Mac. So either put your junk in folders or delete it!

6. Empty Trash (if it wont empty see #38)
I’m always amazed when I’m looking on someone’s Mac and they haven’t ever emptied the trash! Check what’s in there then save yourself some space and empty it.

7. Turn off Universal Access (if not used)
Navigate to System Preferences > Universal Access and turn off anything you’re not using.

8. Turn off Bluetooth (if not used)
Navigate to System Preferences > Bluetooth.

9. Turn off speech recognition (if not used)
Navigate to System Preferences > Speech Recognition.

10. Turn off internet sharing (if not used)
Navigate to System Preferences > Sharing > Internet

11. Check there is plenty of disk space on the boot drive.
Your Mac uses some of your hard drive space as virtual memory when there is not enough actual memory available. Its good to always keep 10% of your hard drive free for such activity.

12. Remove Unwanted Language Packs
OS X contains hundreds of languages that you most likely wont use. Monolingual is a free program that can root out these languages and remove them saving you some extra disk space.

*Edit: Warning people have experienced problems with Monolingual so becareful what you remove. Only a reinstall will put the languages back so decide weather you really need the extra space by removing them.

13. Remove any desktop changing programs
Until recently I had a nice program that would put a different babe on my desktop each month. It looked great but once I started looking in activity monitor it was taking up lots of memory and processor time.

14. Check dock for unwanted apps.
Your dock should only contain your most used applications so take a look through to see if there is anything you can remove or uninstall.

15. Choose suitable applications for files
Be sensible when choosing what applications open by default - think do you really need Photoshop to open just to view an image when preview will work fine? Right click on a file then select Get Info.

16. Check Software Build
If you have an Intel Mac then check the build of the software is universal - it might be that the application is still running through Rosetta and that a universal update is available.

Eye Candy

17. Remove dock animation
Navigate to System Preferences > Dock then un-tick Animate Opening Applications.

18. Avoid animated desktops
Navigate to System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver then un-tick Change picture.

Dashboard

19. Remove unused widgets.
Each widget takes some memory and processor power even when you’re not using the dashboard so only enable the ones you use. Alternatively you can disable the dashboard - see #23.

20. Check to see how much processing power and memory each widget uses.
Some widgets are more intensive than others, if there is one that is particularly demanding see if there is one with similar functionality on the Apple website. To do this run Activity Monitor - Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor.

As you can see the widgets I have running are all using an acceptable amount of Real Memory.

Tinkertool

Tinkertool is a utility that gives you access to additional settings within OS X.

21. Remove animation effects.
The animation effects are the eye candy that make OS X look nice but they are not really needed, you can turn them off from the Finder pane within Tinkertool.

22. Disable Dock shadow.
From the Dock pane un-tick Enable Dock shadow.

23. Disable Dashboard.
If you don’t use the Dashboard you can deactivate it from the General pane.

24. Skip checksum verifications when opening DMG files.
This will speed up the loading of disk images when opening. This can be found in the Applications pane.

25. Remove or deactivate unwanted login items from the Login Items pane.
You might already have done this in #2.

26. Reduce delay time for display of loading pages in Safari.
This should speed up your web browsing experience, found within the Safari Pane.

OnyX

OynX is similar to Tinkertool however has many more options and preferences.You may have already done some of these in previous tips.

Parameters

27. Un-tick Graphic Effects (Finder tab).
You may already have done this with Tinkertool #21.

28. Un-tick Animate ‘Opening applications’ and ‘When alert in background’ (Dock tab).

29. Disable Dashboard (Dashboard and Expose tab).
You may already have done this with Tinkertool #23.

30. Set Safari speed of web page display to fast (Safari Tab).
You may already have done this in #26.

Maintenance

31. Repair Disk Permissions.
You may already have done this in #1.

32. Run Maintenance Scripts.

33. Reset Spotlight Index (it may take over a day to rebuild the index afterwards).

34. Run complete system optimization.

Cleaning

35. Clear Internet Settings.

36. Clear User and Font Caches.

37. Clear unused logs.

38. Force Empty Trash

Automation

39. Check settings - The default settings should be fine here. Click Execute.

Safari

You can do some of the following by resetting Safari - click Safari > Reset Safari.

*Edit: Resetting Safari does not clear Favicons.

40. Clear Cache.
To speed up page loading Safari saves a copy of every page in its cache however if the cache gets too large it can actually slow down page loading so its best to empty it occasionally. To do so click Safari > Empty Cache.

41. Clear History.
Safari can remember every single site you have visited which can have a negative effect on its performance. You can empty it be selecting History > Clear History.

42. Clear AutoFill.
AutoFill is the data is saved in forms such as your username and password on websites. As with the cache and history the AutoFill can mount up over time. To empty select Safari > Preferences then select the AutoFill tab. From here you can go through the three AutoFill sections and clear out data that you no longer want stored.

43. Clear Favicons.
Favicons are the little icons you see to the left of the URL in the address bar. These can be cleared by emptying user folder/Library/Safari/Icons.

Firefox

44. If you use Firefox then you can get specially optimized versions of the browser based on your processor architecture - either G4, G5 or intel.

45. Extensions
Firefox has some great extensions but they can slow down the browser so take a serious look to see weather you really need that extra toolbar!

marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" vspace="0" hspace="0" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="60" scrolling="no" width="468">iTunes

46. Smart Playlists
These can slow down the operation of iTunes as they reload the contents of the list every time the program loads. If you have a a smart play list that does not change very often then you can either deactivate live updating (by clicking file > edit smart play list) or copy of the contents of the smart play list in to a regular play list.

Other

47. HP Printer drivers can often cause problems and use a lot of processor power so check in the activity monitor for HP Communicator, if it seems to be constantly running at 80% - 100% then try uninstalling it. I had problems on my Mac Mini for my HP PSC 1110 all in one with the HP software on OS X 10.3 maxing out the CPU after printing. I had to remove the software and just use the basic drivers rather than the full suite.

48. Check Classic is not running if not being used. Classic can be disabled from within System Preference.

49. Run Software Update.
The latest updates sometimes provide speed increases as well as fix bugs and vulnerabilities.

50. Update other applications.
It’s always best to run the latest versions of your programs. Websites such as Mac Update and Version Tracker are good places to keep your applications up to date.

51. Add More RAM.
There is only so much you can do with software, the cheapest way to give you’re Mac a speed boost is to upgrade the memory.

52. Reboot your Mac.
After doing all this optimization it might be an idea to reboot your Mac. If your like me and use sleep mode for the majority of the time then a reboot once in a while often helps too!

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