Tag: blog tips

Free Blogging Tools

When you are starting out on blogging, many of us are short on money. It is said we need to spend money to make money and it is true to certain degree as having right web tools and blog software can sure enhances chances of success with hard work. You can start off with free resources at first and add right tools as you see fit to make your blog successful.

Free Blog Platform:

We started on free blog platform and can tell you from experience that hosting you own site is best way in long run. Most hosting cost $7 or less and worth it. However, we wanted to pointed out a few free ways to get you started blogging.

  • Free Blogger : Starting a blog on blogger platform is very easy, all you will need is a gmail account and you are way.
  • WordPress.com : This free wordpress platform is great but does not let you add any advertisements

Free Blog Tool:

  • Feedburner.com : Feedburner is a Free tool to manage your RSS and email Subscribers
  • Google Analytics : Google Analytic is Free service to monitor your traffic and visitor statistics to your blog or website.

Free Video and Audio Tutorial:

Note: Some videos may or may not be available to view. As it is not on my site, I can not control it. However, there is a transcript of the video still available to read, so check it out.

Free Plugins:

Free Plugins : Part 1
Free Plugins : Part 2
Free WordPress Plugins

Free Themes:

Blog Related Services for Free

If you want to promote any products and make an affiliate commission, you can use

  • E-junkie Shopping Cart and Digital Delivery> for Free.
  • Join shareasale.com, Earn Cash!

Subscribe to Blog Success for Free

You can subscribe to Home business Ideas blog for Free, as we have tons of articles on tips, blog software, web tools reviews and of course free information, discount coupons information.

You can Subscribe Via RSS or Email. Free Useful tips and No Spams, We do not share your email information with anyone.

How to Leave Comments That Will have 100% Chance Of Approval

I and occasionally a friend of mine write for this blog and we both have full time job, so working on this site comes when we have a free time. We were having such a bad comment spamming awhile ago, and we were spending time clearing spams from genuine comments. It was not fun, and we had turned off all comments and kept only trackback features. See Why I Took Out Comments Off From Blog.

But, I missed having genuine conversation with other readers and bloggers. I do get occasional tweet or facebook mentioned but it is not the same as comment feature, which is more personal and friendly. After talking with a couple of other bloggers and friends, I am turning comments back on and I hope to get to know my reader friends.

Here are some commenting suggestions will be appreciated. Rest will be deleted.

This is not a spammy or automated blog, and I hope I get genuine comments and not automated comment blasts.

1. Please use your name or name @ blog name.

2. Please do NOT use your keyword as a name, such as cheap xbox, best ipad reviews and so on.

3. Write a meaningful comment based on post you are commenting.

4. Only “Good job”, “I agree” type of comments will be considered spams.

5. Do not add link, unless it is useful and relevant to subject and readers. This blog uses comment luv feature so your latest (or chosen) post will be linked.

That is about all! Hope you had a good Christmas and enjoying little break before the new year starts.

Please check out, I changed home page to create a how to start blogging in 7 steps, after getting many requests. Hope you like it.

Blogging and Business

Top 10 Simple and Doable Traffic Ideas for your Blog

Blogs are popular ways to create an online presence for personal and business reasons. You can build a blog for free and begin posting content right away. But, what good is that content if no one is reading it. Here are ten ideas to bring in the traffic your blog needs to survive.

Of all the successful blogs on the Internet, hundreds more have failed. Running a blog is like running a business website. Unless you are willing to put the time in and treat it seriously, you won’t be blogging long.

That is not to say that the failed bloggers weren’t serious about blogging. Mostly, new bloggers aren’t prepared for the work that goes into creating a successful blog. Just building the blog doesn’t mean that people will necessary come to you. You pursue the audience and give them a reason to see what you have to say.

1.    Fresh Content – no one wants to visit a blog day after day and see the same posts. Update your blog content at least twice a week. This will be easier if you write several posts ahead of time and upload them at the appropriate times.

2.    Article Marketing – the niche you’ve chosen for your blog is one that interests you. If it is interesting you will spend more time doing it. Create content not only for your blog but also to be submitted to article directories. Use the resource box to advertise your blog so people can find you.

3.    Social Networking – these sites are everywhere. Join Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, Twitter or a dozen others and make connections. You can join groups of likeminded people who are also bloggers or entrepreneurs.

4.    Viral Marketing – this is where you spread the word about your blog. Talk to friends, family and even strangers. Give out business cards that have your blog address on them.

5.    Use RSS Feeds – RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” Readers can subscribe to your feed and get email updates when new content is posted. It is an easy way for them to keep up with your blog without spending all day online.

6.    Submit Blog to Search Engines – doing this allows your blog to be ranked. Google and Yahoo! are two of the most popular search engines you want to crawl your blog pages. It doesn’t guarantee top ranking, though. You’ll have to do a little more work for that.

7.    Joining Forums – as a blogger you are a budding entrepreneur. Right now you are marketing yourself to find traffic and then profit. Become a member of business forums, work at home forums and others to meet new people and share ideas. You can add a link to your blog in the signature line so others can find you.

8.    Visit other blogs – show your appreciation to those who visit you by also posting comments on their blogs. It is a kindness that shows others you are not just out to advertise your blog alone. Add links to your blog in your comments.

9.    SEO Marketing – whatever you write, use relevant keywords. Keyword density between three and ten percent is good for getting higher page rankings in search engines. Base your keywords on a research you do to find the most popular words used in search engines for your niche.

10.    Social Bookmarking – submitting posts to social bookmarking sites allows others who are members of those sites to track you back to your blog.

Using any of these ideas will start the traffic moving in your direction. It takes time but you will build the readership you want.

Why I Took Out Comments Off From Blog

I am real person and my friend who blogs with me here occasionally is also real person with life and family. This is not some auto blog, where person is scraping content. I would “although there is nothing wrong with it” in sort of Seinfeld way, we are passionate people who are doing internet marketing on side.

I have a full time job, family and child and so does my friend. We are making some money from our blogging like few hundreds a month but not enough for us to quit our job to focus full time on blog. We are working hard and doing things white hat. You will not find us shooting crazy backlinking, actually we are lazy backlinkers who relies on time and quality and helpful (hopefully) and realistic way of blogging. We will share what we have learned, and hopefully without hype.

When I started this blog, I actually liked commenting and engaging with other bloggers whom I was getting to know. I took some time off during blogging due to event at job. When I came back to blogging, there were just hundreds of spam comments all over. While I understand we all need backlinks but it was crazy, I was getting 30-60 spams daily and not enough genuine comments.  I guess when one uses “Make Money and Home Business type of keywords, there bound to be much spams compared to let’s say art blog. 40 comments might be nothing to a large blog such as problogger, but it is a lot for small blogger like myself. I still like to engage with readers and other bloggers without trying 20-45 minutes weeding through comments and email.

Yes, I do have spam blocker plugins (3 of them) installed and they mostly worked but I still had to go inside Spam folder to make sure there were no genuine comments in there by mistake. So, comments are off for now.

You can still send an email or tweet, facebook like the articles or use ping back and track backs to connect. Making connection in blogging or internet should be natural as it would be real life.

What is your Philosophy in commenting? Yeah or Nay?

 

Top 5 Quick Tips To Get Website Traffic Quickly!

Online, one of the most significant keys to success is getting website traffic. The more visitors you have, the better your sales and profits. Presumably you have a niche and you know your keywords, and regularly conduct keyword research to stay on top of what’s popular. Based on those assumptions here are five quick and easy tips to get website traffic fast!

Tip #1 Make sure you’re actually tagging your keywords.

Do you spend a lot of time optimizing your content and then neglect to tag them on your webpage? Tags are where search engines look and if there are no tags they’ll pass right by your web pages. Here’s a quick brief on tags.

There are a number of tag types including,

* Title tags. Title tags are quite possibly the most important place to situate your keywords. Here’s what they look like -Primary keyword phrase here.

Your title tag is where you place your primary keyword or keyword phrase. The sentence will describe your business in less than 90 characters.

* Header Tags. Header tags are next in order of importance to search engines. They’re ranked in order of importance and look like this –

Primary and/or Secondary keywords here

The “1” designates this header as the most important header on the page.

* Meta Tags. Meta tags provide the small descriptive text found underneath the title tag on the search engine results page. Like title tags these should be kept brief, informative and up to date.

* Alt Tags. Alt tags are used to provide a text description of a graphic. Each graphic on your site should have a description and an alt tag.

Tip #2 Add content to your site daily

Content is essential for traffic and a top search engine ranking. Content is what search engine spiders look for and index – without it there’s nothing to index or rank. Give visitors and search engines a reason to visit and index your site. Make a commitment to provide daily, optimized content and your traffic will soar.

Tip #3 Procure valuable and relevant incoming links

The more websites which link to your webpages the more valuable search engines perceive you to be, though not all links are created equal. Search engines give more leverage to links from sites which are popular and credible and from sites which are relevant to your website topic.

There are different types of links.

– A direct link looks like a basic website address, for example, www.yourwebsite.com

– A text link occurs when the webpage address is embedded in the text. Readers simply click on the link and are redirected to a new website page.

– If the link is to an internal web page, for example an article published on a website, rather than the home page, it is called a “deep link.”

You can encourage linking to your website by:

* Adding content to your site.
* Submitting to article directories.
* Publishing press releases.
* Blogging and participating in social networking forums, chat rooms and social networking sites.

Tip #4 Be Social!

Now more than ever before, internet marketing is about building a community. Whether you offer a forum on your website or you participate in social networking sites, social networking is a valuable traffic generating tactic. Sites like Facebook and Twitter can be powerful tools for generating links and traffic to your site – create a profile and then post comments, links to your site and ideas which generate conversation.

Get involved – many chat rooms and forums are industry specific, find those which cater to your industry, and begin participating. Speak to and connect with a highly targeted audience.

Tip #5 Advertise for more exposure and traffic

Advertising, when handled strategically, can be used to promote your content and products or services. PPC advertising is often the tool of choice because you control the advertising budget on a daily basis and have the tools to test and track your advertising efforts. Once you’ve honed your PPC ads the return on investment can be phenomenal in terms of traffic and purchases.

For maximum results, create a traffic and SEO strategy. Outline your plan and your goals and then take the necessary action. Take advantage of these five traffic and search engine tips to boost your business.

Google Ranking: 5 tips to Rank High

Most Google ranking tips deal with getting incoming links (or backlinks as they are also referred to) to your website. And for good reason. The more quality incoming links (determined by the rank of the site that the link originates from and the relevance of the keyword) you have, the higher your Google Page Rank will be and the more visible you will be to your prospects and/or customers. Here are some tricks to build your incoming links.

Submit your site to search engine directories. some directories charge a fee but many of them are free. If you’re on a tight budget, stick to the free ones. These can get you some free links back to your website. Sign up with as many as you can. The more links you have into your site, the better your page rank.

This is one of the most overlooked but best of Google ranking tips. Join forums that are relevant to your industry. When you participate in forums and include the link to your website in your signature, you will get links back to your website. This is a very effective way to establish your reputation in your industry and raise your page rank at the same time.

Create an ezine (or newsletter). Taking the time to create a newsletter that you can send out to subscribers is definitely worth it. This keeps your visitors up to date with what you are doing and brings them back to visit your website on a consistent basis. You can also submit your ezine to an ezine directory which will link back to your website and give you more free incoming links.

Take advantage of article marketing. If you can create (or hire someone to do it for you) articles that pertain to your business, with your website information at the bottom, and submit them to article directories, you will get more traffic and links.

Ask for links from other related sites’ webmasters. This is a rather “old-school” tactic but is still effective, albeit frustrating and time-consuming. Find sites that are related to your industry and write to their webmasters requesting that they link back to you. Some will not answer you. Some will say “no”. Some will ask you to link to them as well. And others will just link to you.

You have higher chances of getting the results you want with this if your site contains valuable information. While your ultimate goal is to have high-rank sites linking to yours, you can start out with any rank (as long as the content is valuable and relevant to what you have to offer). As you bring in more links, your rank will go up as well and you will be able to attract the higher ranking sites.

Hopefully these five Google ranking tips will help you achieve the ranking and traffic you’re aiming for.

Backlinks and Link Popularity Tools

Everyone in blogging and internet marketing knows the importance of backlinks and tools that people use to gain backlinks, are they worth it?
Before discussing the link popularity tool, let’s discuss link popularity itself. What is it? Link popularity basically refers to the total number of web pages which link to your web site or any of its individual pages. The reason it is so important is because this is one of the main factors that search engines use to evaluate your website and where it will be ranked. If your website is ranked high with the search engines, you will come up in the first results when a potential customer goes online and searches for what your business offers. That’s why webmasters are concerned with their link popularity.

So what is a link popularity tool? It depends on the tool. There are many facets to link popularity and link building so there are tools that correspond to those aspects. Some tools will perform an analysis on the various search engines to show you how many pages are linking to your site. They can also tell you which pages are linking. Some will actually give you a score so you can judge how well you are doing. Some will give you the opportunity to compare your site to others. Most free tools will only give you the results from the biggest search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

You’ll probably notice that the amount of links varies significantly from search engine to search engine because the figures displayed represent the number of inbound-links that are known to each search engine in particular and will vary based on the size of its database. Search engines also figure out certain inbound-links (again, this varies according to the search engine) so certain backlinks may not figure into the total.

While you don’t want to become obsessed with using this tool or checking the data all the time, it is important to keep tabs on your links. You want to keep your links as high-quality and relevant as possible and knowing where they are coming from can help you manage that information.

After you analyze the information that you get from your tool, you can then continue on with your link building strategy. Many tools are also connected or related to other services that can help you with this realm of link-building as well. Just remember that the same rules apply if you should decide to go with a link building service to take care of that aspect of your business. You want to get a quality service so make sure you do your research in order to get the most bang for your buck. While many link-building tools are free, link building services are definitely not. However, what they save you in time and effort could very much be worth it in terms of cash.

By all means, take advantage of a link popularity tool and then decide if you plan to go as far as to hire someone else to handle your backlink strategy.

How to Get Adsense Conversion or Choosing Best Keywords

All in the Keywords

Most online marketers are familiar with Google Adsense which is a Pay-Per Click (PPC) service. Every time someone clicks on an Adsense advertisement on your blog or website, you are paid a portion of the revenue which Google collects from the advertiser. But do you know how it all works and how you can make more money with it? How is your Adsense conversion?

How well you do with Adsense all depends on how well you are using your keywords. All you need to do is find the keywords that bring in more revenue per click. Sounds simple enough but you need to do a little research to get these keywords.

While getting a lot of traffic will get you more impressions of your Adsense ads, you also want to get more clicks. There are several things that you can do to increase clicks. First of all, make sure that your ads are placed in a prime location where visitors will see them. Next, make sure you don’t have too many other links on your pages that visitors might be tempted to click rather than clicking on the Adsense ad. You can also change the graphics/style of your Adsense ads to make them more appealing to the eye and/or to fit better along with your blog or website theme.

But the real determiners of your Adsense conversion are the keywords that you use. One reason that Adsense is so popular is that you aren’t just randomly shooting your ads to millions who don’t care at all what you are promoting. When you able to customize an ad for your target audience based on where they find the ad and what they are interested in, your conversion rates will increase.

Google can evaluate what your site visitor would be interested in based on the content/keywords that your website/blog contains. When used in the right way, this can be more powerful and effective than the biggest, loudest, most popular commercials on television.

It’s important to keep in mind that the costliest clicks are not necessarily the best ones in terms of conversion. Although you can find some keywords that pay $40 to $50 per click, you really won’t earn very much if no one is clicking on them anyway. So, it’s better to seek out the keywords and keyword phrases that people are often clicking on. There are many free tools that you can use to find these words. Google Trends or the Google Adwords Keyword Tool are just a couple.

Just as important is finding the highest converting keywords. Your goal is to find the keywords that effectively balance the quality of the keyword (in terms of offering a decent payout per click) and a high possibility that people will click on it. When you hit that right optimized balance, your Adsense conversion rates will increase dramatically.

Reader’s Question: A Smart Way To Get Targeted Online Traffic

Question: What is the smart way to get Targeted online traffic to your blog or website?

Answer:

If you are not able to bring the targeted online traffic to your website, there is no meaning in having a website at all.  Hence this should be your top priority.  You should view your website through the eyes of your potential customers and then only you can get an unbiased opinion about it.

In addition to improving the quality of your website, there are several techniques by adopting which you can achieve a good targeted traffic to your website.   Instead of getting a very high number of visitors to your site,  you should aim to get a good targeted traffic.  Then only you can convert the traffic into more sales.

Online blogging is one of the techniques that is adopted by many marketeers. This truly has a potential to get you traffic to your website.  When you write blogs, you should remember that they must be relevant to the niche of the product you handle.  You can post these blogs on your web page or on article directories or on social networking sites.  There are several free blogging sites available on which you can post your blogs also.

But you will be able to sustain the interest of the targeted traffic in your articles only if your contents are interesting as well as informative.  But if you beat around the bush or if your contents are dull, boring and without substance, gradually these fans will wither away.  You can also make your blogs dynamic and participative allowing the readers to share their ideas on your blogs so that you may benefit immensely when you contemplate improving your products or services. This may be a good feed-back for your business also.

The secret of writing informative blogs lies in updating your personal knowledge in the niche you are handling.  If you study deep into your niche, you may be surprised to gain knowledge of many unknown and fascinating things about the product you are handling.  Research is taking place throughout the world on a continuous basis and several innovations are being made.  By keeping abreast of all these things, you can make your blogs as interesting as possible.  Such blogs and articles that are posted on directories will definitely lift your place in the search engine rankings so that more and more targeted traffic will visit your website.

Apart from writing such blogs, you should ensure that your website also has content of superior quality.  You should keep on changing, modifying and improving the content periodically so that the visiting traffic will find it interesting and will be motivated to visit it repeatedly.  This will pave way for repeat-sales from  such targeted traffic.  Even the search engines weigh the quality of the website content to decide the ranking of your website.

If the contents of your blogs and website evoke such a good interest in your targeted online traffic, you can be sure of achieving phenomenal success in your business.

 

Site Build it: Make Money Online easy With SiteBuild – Is it a Scam?

site-build-it

One of the best way of making money from home and online is to start a blog or website. However, it can be overwhelming for new person, sure it was for me. I did not know what was domain and hosting was and how to go about designing a site or who to ask. There are lot of resources available but it can be confusing for anyone who is starting out.

Note: I no longer recommend this product

What is Involved with Blog or Site Building

Many people start writing for article directory such as HubPages, one does not need to have a site to make money. However for those of you do, starting a website, getting web hosting, getting a web design can be overwhelming choice. For those of you want to have a website and not worry about technical side confusing details, this might be the place for you.

What is Site Build It?

It is a website in a box, a complete package program for starting a website; it comes with website building software and internet marketing in to one. It supposed to have all tools to set you up with web site or your business.There are many tools inside such as brainstrom it which can help you find right niche and right keywords similar to other keywords tools in the market.

Site build it or (SBI) is created by Ken Enoy. There are lot of strong opinion about this program and some people like it and others do not. I am trying share my personal opinion of this program after doing extensive research on my part, looking at both pros and con of the program. Only you can make a choice for yourself, if this is a right program for you or not.

Let me tell you one thing, site build it is not suitable for everyone.Is it a bad program? I am not saying it is bad, I am saying it it is not for everyone.

Site build is not for:

  1. If you are successful and knowledgeable blogger or internet marketer and blogging for sometimes with success, and making good money, this program is not for you.
  2. If you are web savvy and know html coding, css, and php, this program is not for you either, do not waste your money in this.
  3. If you do not want to own a website and happy writing for hubpages or freelancing, this program is not for you either.

So, who are the people Site Build it is for?

  1. Totally new to Blog or Website: You do not know anything about website or hosting or any html coding but want to have a website and make money. You might be overwhelm at steep learning curve of making a website and you want to leave the building site to some one else, this is the program for you. Go and Buy SBI here.
  2. Offline Business Owners without Web Presence: You might be successful offline business owner who wants web presence for your business but do not know how to go about doing it without spending too much time and manpower, then this program is for you.
  3. Confused about what niche or business to go in? This might be right for you to get it started. Many people make it sound easy to make money on website and blogs but believe me it is not easy, it is hard work and takes time.

Click here to know why many people love Site Build It. You can check out one site: Museum for more details.

Comparing SBI with Traditional Hosting

How much does it cost? Comparing it with traditional Hosting Account

Site build it is not free, it costs about $300 a year.But, that includes webdesign, email marketing, website search engine submission and marketing of your site and support.

However, If you have regular website which goes for $6.95 for hosting and about $14.95 for domain. So, let’s do the math.

SBI = $300/year

Compare to hosting your website:

Domain name buying:$14.95 (Typical, sometimes you can get .info domain for cheaper)

Hosting your website: $6.95 for month (Bluehost) * 12 months = $83.40

Email Marketing: $19 (aweber) * 12 months = $228

Web design: $150-$1000 (one time expense) = $550 (avg cost 1st year)

Web Template: Free to $87 = $40 (avg cost)

Total expenses for first year if you go hosting your own site = $916.35 approx.

As you see, for first year, hosting your own website can be expensive compared to site built it. However, as time goes by, this cost will may reduce. So many people suggest that when you starting out in blogging, start with SBI and when you learn to rope, go with traditional hosting plan. It makes sense to me.

Let’s suppose you are work at home mom, or if you want to boost your income a little bit, starting this program can be beneficial if you do not want to worry about design, marketing and other steep learning curve that comes with blogging.

Advertising Space – After your hub is published advertisements may be placed in this space. Please note, it can take some time after you publish for the ads to match the content of your hub.

SBI Myth Busters

There are some Myth about the SBI Program, so let’s take a look at it.

1. You can not cancel out of SBI.

Yes, you can cancel and move out of SBI. You may need to redesign your site based on which platform you might be using that is it.

2. You do not own the domain or content.

This is not true. Yes, you do own domain and your own content.

3. People push this program as they get paid money by SBI.

Yes, this part if true, if you buy it from this link, I would make some money. But is little money worth losing my reputation? I do not think so.

4. Can I see some people using SBI successfully?

Yes, of course. You can click here to see some of the happy SBI customers and their websites by clicking here.

Other concerns:

1. What if I do not have $300 a year to pay?

If you see it $300 sounds like a lot, but it is actually $25 a month fees. I am sure many of us, spend that money in eating out or half tank of gas.

They provide all services, such as niche and keyword choosing, web design, email newsletter and marketing your blog which very helpful when you are totally new. Traditional hosting plus services can add up too. For example, if you use aweber email autoresponder it is $19 a month. So do the math and see if it is right for you, only you can tell.

2. I want to go traditional website and hosting.

Sure, there are many places such as godaddy have domains sometimes as cheap as $4.99 and hosting from $5-$7 a month. You may need to learn a little bit about wordpress and html but it is easy enough to do.

3. If I go with SBI, will I make moeny for sure?

No one can guarantees that outcome. All we can do is work hard and payoff will come but then again nothing is for sure. It is like saying can we make money in stocks, some do and some do not. If you are consistent in your work, it might work for us.

4. I do not have any money to start but I want to make money.

It is possible, there are many ways to do that and I am going to write more in details about it. Meanwhile you can do following;

  • Blogger: You can start a free blog at blogger.com, all you need is gmail account.
  • Sign up for adsense: You can sign up for Google Adsense, please read TOS, if people click on any Google ads, you will make some cents.
  • You can write for hubpages, once you have enough hubs that people like, you may see some earning. You can sign up here.
  • You can do online survey for make some money. Cashcrate is one of the survey.

Final Conclusion:

If you always wanted to start on blog or website but were overwhelm and confused, SBI might be right for you. Click here to learn more about Site Bulit it and sign up.

If you are savvy online marketer, this might be bad program for you to sign up. If you are short on money and have lot of debt, I would suggest skip this program and start with free blogger account or writing for hubpages or even doing cashcrate survey as they do not cost a penny to start.

Whatever you choose, always do your own decision and d do what works for you. My reason for writing this post is that there are both pros and cons to every situation and I wanted to provide my honest opinion on it.

Click here to Experience freedom that comes with Sitebuildit!