Things You Should Keep In Mind When Blogging
Do you have a checklist of things to do when you log into your admin section of your blog? Sometimes, we tend to forget things. Due to having busy life schedule, this is very normal for everyone. When it comes to blogging however, there are many things that we should try to keep in mind. I must admit that I tend to forget some of this myself, so hopefully this post will also serve as a checklist to go through once in a while.
1. Backup your blog regularly - I don't think I can stress this enough. If there is one thing you should take from the tips listed here, it's this one. And I speak from experience. Waking up early in the morning only to find your blog crashed and you have no backup data, is like having your soul mate killed right in front of you, and there is nothing you could do about it.
2. Link to older posts - This is a bad habit most bloggers make once they blog for some time. Somewhat we always tend to forget to link to our older posts. There are many benefits to linking to older posts that you don't want to miss. Firstly, more information could be given to your readers. Secondly, it gives your readers options to keep reading your blog. One thing I find about the behavior of visitors. Usually, the longer they stay in your blog, reading your stuff, the higher the probability that they will subscribe to your blog.
3. Network - The key to blogging success is networking within your niche. It doesn't help when you only network at the beginning but does not put effort in maintaining this relationship with other bloggers.
4. Proofread - If you browse around the blogosphere you will notice that the vast majority of the bloggers do not proofread. Confusions with its and it's, your and you're, and their and they're are very common. So the next time you finish writing a post or article, remember to proofread it.
5. Answer to comments - I'm sure new bloggers doesn't need this reminder. For someone who has been blogging for some time however, it's too easy to neglect our comments. I'm not going to tell you to reply to all your comments, because frankly, it's time consuming. Though at the very least, you should answer the people that post direct questions to you.
6. Answer your e-mails - E-mails can get overwhelming at times. I'm not going to lie to you and say I reply to all of them. That would be wasting too much of my time. However, I always make sure to reply to any genuine inquiries and questions that relate to my blogs topic. It might be the difference between an upset visitor and a faithful reader.
7. Upgrade WordPress - Common sense, yet many bloggers are reluctant to upgrade their WordPress software. Some people deliberately choose to use older versions. That could be possible if you know what you are doing (i.e. if you know to patch the security holes).
Nik Imran is the writer of IMakeABlog, a blog that provides guide on how to . If you are interested in creating a blog, be sure to check out his guide on how to .
Should Affiliate Marketers Avoid Wordpress.com?
Wordpress has become one of the largest blog platforms. Wordpress.org allows bloggers to download Wordpress and use it at their hosting account. Wordpress.com is the service that allows bloggers to create blogs and have Wordpress.com host them. Is Wordpress.com affiliate marketer friendly?
Over the last few years, I have toyed with many different blogs. I have used several different blog platforms. When I became serious, about earning an income with blogging, I settled on the Wordpress platform. I created a hosted blog with Wordpress.com. Little did I know that decision was going to come with frustration and unanswered questions.
I started looking for a hosted Wordpress solution. Wordpress.com was built by the same people who worked on the Wordpress software (WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org, n.d). Wordpress.com offered many inviting features including:
1. I already had experience with the Wordpress software
2. Wordpress.com advertised the availability of over 70 templates
3. I could add widgets and plug-ins
4. Ability to track daily stats from your main dashboard
5. Easy to market "xxxx.wordpress.com"
At first, I was enjoying Wordpress.com. I created "emergencymgmt.wordpress.com", "lifeofreedom.wordpress.com", and "brucesmoneyrants.wordpress.com". My main blog was on money making. My plan was to develop the other two later. My first surprise came when I chose a template. I had about 12 templates available. You had to pay to access the 70 templates. Next, I found out you cannot upload external templates.
I started adding widgets to my blog. Wordpress.com did not allow me to upload my own template but Wordpress.com could be personalized through the widgets, right? Not at all, Wordpress.com offers a few widgets but is limited on the widgets that you can add. Wordpress.com also does not allow any javascript in their widgets. Wordpress.com's rules about java script greatly reduced my ability to monetize. Java script is required to run ads from Google Adsense and Amazon.com.
HTML allowed me to put small banner ads into my sidebars. Not the same as Google Adsense because they only pay when someone actually made a purchase, however, it was better than nothing. Using HTML, I was able to reach a level of monetization with my blog. My issue was that these ads would not change without me manually changing the code. That was going to take extra maintenance time. I continued because I did like the Wordpress software.
Finally, I was able to produce a look and setup I was happy with. I looked forward to the day the blog would pay to add Wordpress.com's pay services. This would allow the blog to pay for itself. I started writing a post everyday and placing links to the site. I was quickly indexed in Google. I was feeling very good.
I began focusing on writing posts to assist readers in making money online. I wrote about making money blogs and resources that I found useful (i.e. ZacJohnson.com and e-books). I also wrote about products, courses, etc. that had helped me learn about internet marketing.
My knowledge was growing along with my readers. My next step was to continue advertising. I obtained the addresses for 50 blog directories. Over the next two days, I registered with these directories.
Doomsday soon came. I signed up with a internet marketing course called Blogging for Dollars. In my view, this course offered some very useful tips. I believed readers would find it helpful. I wrote a review post about my experience and posted it.
The next day, my blog was gone. I attempted to check the number of site visitors. I was shocked to see the blog was gone. Gone! Not just could not login or it had been suspended...no it was GONE! There was a message from Wordpress.com on the screen. It read "This blog has been archived or suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service".
I did not write anything bad. Every time I quoted someone else, I stated the author, site I quoted, and linked to the source. I reviewed Wordpress.com's Terms of Service. Of course, Wordpress.com's Terms of Service is a couple of pages long. I was looking for restrictions that could be relevant to the posts I had made. Here are the ones I found:
1. "the downloading, copying and use of the Content will not infringe the proprietary rights, including but not limited to the copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret rights, of any third party"
2. "you have fully complied with any third-party licenses relating to the Content, and have done all things necessary to successfully pass through to end users any required terms"
3. "the Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing)"
4. "your blog is not named in a manner that misleads your readers into thinking that you are another person or company. For example, your blogs URL or name is not the name of a person other than yourself or company other than your own"
I only saw one potential problem. I had posted about products where I included an affiliate link. My recommendations were not meant to cause anyone pain or harm. They were products that I had found useful and wanted to share them with readers. My review included an offer to prove I used the product.
It is important to hear both sides of any story. Wordpress.com has the right to run their site and business however they see fit. I sent a note to their tech support. All I was asking for was an explanation, nothing more. Again, it is their business. But, it would be good business to offer customers an explanation. Patiently, I watched for a return email.
Throughout the day, no answer from Wordpress.com came. It was not in my spam filter. Nope, no answer there. In checking my other two Wordpress blogs, I realized that my login was now suspended. Well, I guess Wordpress does not believe in customer service. Just shutoff your account with no explanation. They have this right but a little customer service might avoid articles like this.
This article is not an attempt at revenge. Just as my blog, I want to provide useful information to other affiliate marketers. Maybe someone can avoid the frustration I have been through. If by some chance, Wordpress.com's technical support sees this article, I would love an explanation. You can reach me at .
You can find out how to for less than $2. Visit to learn the tools necessary to explode your income.
categories: wordpress,affiliate marketing,business,make money,monetize,terms of service,marketing,money,blogs,blogging,advertising,article marketing,home based business
WordPress Blog Administration
Changing the Admin User
By default when you first create a WordPress installation a single user is created for you called admin so that you can login. This user has full privileges for the site but it has the name of admin.
However if you create posts whilst logged in as the admin user they will show up with 'admin' as the author and this is undesirable if you wish to promote a personal or business brand with your blog.
Of course you need to use an account that has full privileges but you also want the account to have your chosen name. I achieve this aim simply by editing the 'admin' user. All the rights are the same but I just change the name associated with the account.
To edit users from your dashboard go to 'Users' and then click the username 'admin'. This allows you to input the first name, last name, email address and some other details. Once you have entered the name make sure you also click the drop down 'Display name publicly as' and select your name, rather than admin.
Also, for security purposes change the generated password to something more secure and then save the user.
Setting up Comment Moderation
Comments are a crucial part of most blogs and as your blog grows and develops it will attract more and more comments - including a healthy dose of spam comments! We need to modify some settings so from your WordPress dashboard click 'Settings' and then 'Discussion'.
Recent WordPress releases have changed this section a little but it should still basically be the same. Take a look at the following options:
Make sure that people are allowed to comment and allow to leave trackbacks. If these are turned off you can't get comments on your blog.
Check the email options. Personally I switch off email notification as I check my blog comments daily so I don't need to be emailed whenever somebody has left a comment but this may be useful if you don't post very often or have a usually quiet blog.
By default, when somebody leaves a comment it is published immediately and of course that can be good or bad depending on your point of view. If somebody posts something abusive or spammy then you might want to know about it beforehand and this is largely dependent on the topic of your blog.
WordPress comes installed with the akismet plugin which will trap about 99% of spam so the vast majority of comments that get through will be from legitimate users and I find that most people do leave genuine comments which are no problem so I prefer not to moderate too much. The only thing I find to be an occasional problem is people leaving lots of links in a signature or something so I moderate all comments with 2 or more links.
When this happens you need to manually click the 'approve' button for every comment in the moderation queue before it will show up on your blog. This obviously causes a delay for the comment poster so I would advise you to use this feature sparingly.
Caroline Middlebrook has been writing a popular blog since 2007 which earns a 4-figure monthly income. She shows you how to and provides free downloads of her .
Why Search Engine Optimization Is Necessary
With a new edition of OK to Make Money Online, we are going to look at Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is just a fancy term for teaching Google about your website so it can send the best traffic your way and place the proper ads on your page.
Most web sites do not focus on keywords or keyword optimization. The website authors do not do the proper keyword research and so the pages and the site are not keyword optimized. Then when Google spiders the site what does it find? A whole bunch of keywords but very little uniformity, and if by accident there is some keyword uniformity, what is the keyword? Worse yet the keyword or long tail keywords don't even pertain to the main subject of the site.
So what is a webster to do? Take a hard look at your website or blog: what is the main subject? Do you have multiple subjects? Are the subjects related? Is your visual subject different from your textual subject?
If we look over at a cooking site, can you find the main topic? Would it be desserts, beef, American, French, or general? Now therein lies the problem: the information is too general. If we are doing a niche site, we need to be more specific. So we need to break a general site into ten or twenty sites, with each site concerned with one food group, say beef or salads. Now we are talking about a niche. Got the idea?
With a list of topics or categories in hand, we need to create a website of each. The hard part is going to be the URL name. This is the one area where the name is important. So how do we determine the best name? By using our keywords. But wait you don't know what a good keyword for your subject or category would be? OK, let's ask the expert: Google. You can use the tool Google uses to sell ad space under Adwords, Keyword Tool. With this tool you can input your subject, category and Google will return a list of the searches that people have entered and the keywords they used.
After you have completed your research and have determined the best keyword, it is time to find a URL that will contain your new keyword. Go to Blogger and see what can find. When you find a URL with your keyword then start using your keyword on every page and in every article, including the Privacy Page and the About Page. When you have completed your first website, go on to the next and do the same till you have covered all your categories or keywords.
Once you're done, break the articles you have on the original site into major subjects and copy them to each new website. Rewrite the articles using the keyword for that site, making sure that the title, first paragraph, last paragraph, and one or two percent of the article body contains the keyword.
If you have pictures or graphics on a page, make sure you work your keyword into the picture information area of the HTML code. This will assure the spider that the picture relates to the article or keyword topic. However, be true to your readers. Some of the black hats will put up any old picture so they can imbed the keyword text. Remember, at some point you want traffic, and you want your readers back. Don't given them trash; give then something they want to come back for.
Last, make sure not to exceed one or two uses of your keyword per one hundred article body words, or Google may flag you site for keyword stuffing and sandbox you until you correct the problem.
Review of the rules: make sure your site sticks to one topic, make sure you research your keyword or long tail keyword, and use your keywords in every article and page on your site to make money online. Then as always, get as many backlinks to your site as you can (i.e. traffic).
Michael
Affiliate Marketing – It?s For Anyone Wanting To Earn Fast Money Online
Affiliate marketing the over looked online moneymaker that is easy to learn and earns you a decent monthly income. Many feel it is out of their reach for a few reasons, the main one being they believe you need to be some somewhat well informed computer wizard to be affective at affiliate marketing. That is just not true. You can earn affiliate commissions without all the web sites and hosting fees, you can do this business free of any cost to you.
You will discover that almost all affiliate marketers started out not knowing any more then you do right now about earning fast affiliate marketing money online. Some companies provide some decent training to help you with the confusion of setting up your affiliate business but this usually a small amount of what you really need to know.
This business model is all about leveraging other companies? products to earn your income. Ever walked by a shop and thought to yourself wouldn?t it be grate if you had the money to open a place like that and earn some big money? I bet you have lots of people do including myself at one time. Now some time back I found that opportunity, I found it in affiliate marketing. To make money is not all about getting the highest payouts, and commissions for products. It is about continuity and numbers.
Getting to learn and know affiliate marketing is a fantastic way to way to earn all the income you want. Learn it and rep the rewards. My only advice to you would be to find the best place to discover all the inn?s and out?s about this business before you make a hefty commitment to tuition fees.
If you like what you find doing your research on different places you can learn this business, the next step would be to commit to a full years training. The longer you commit to your training the better you will come out on top. Did you know this is one of only a few home businesses, you can start to earn in wile you are learning? Only affiliate marketing can give you this benefit.
Setting Up Contact Forms & Archives Pages
How to Create a Contact Form
It is surprising how many bloggers there are that do not have a contact form on their blog. But why would you want one? Well if you want to market something, either yourself, your services, a brand or even a product ? anything, you will need some way for those that are interested to be able to contact you. Unfortunately, these days spam is a big problem so publishing your email address online is probably the last thing you want to do. A contact form will allow people to reach you via email but will keep your email address hidden away on the server.
You can create a form manually using HTML but there's no need to go to those lengths unless you need something specific. If all you need is a simple way for your visitors to send you a message then I recommend the great WordPress plugin from The Marketing Technology Blog.
Once installed login to your WordPress dashboard, click the 'Settings' link and you will see a new option called 'Contact Form'. Click this to bring up the contact form editor.
You will have to fill it in with your email address so that mail can be forwarded on to you, but this will remain hidden from your visitors so don?t worry. You will also need to fill in a subject line and some standard messages. It will also give you the option to create a question that your visitors must answer, this helps to avoid spammers.
Once this is set up, you will still need to create the form itself. You can use a WordPress page or post. All you have to do is to type %%wpcontactform%% in to the body of the page, then when it is displayed on your website, the text will be replaced by the actual form.
That?s all there is to it! I would recommend, however, that you send yourself a message via your form to test that it works!
Setting Up Archives Pages
WordPress has built-in archives features but they show the full posts and there is not an easy way to see just a table of contents at a glance. Thankfully plugins come to the rescue once again and by far my favourite is the one at idunzo.com.
What this plug-in does is it creates a single page that can display a single link for each post. It groups the links by months and can also show how many comments were received for each post.
Once the plug-in is installed you will see a new option called ?SRG Clean Archives? in the ?Settings? menu. There are several checkboxes allowing you to tweak the output but you may find that the defaults are fine.
The process to make the archives page is very similar ? you have a piece of text to put in which will get replaced by the actual archives output once the page is published. There is one subtle difference however ? you will have to type the text in the HTML view of the page and not the Visual view.
This is what to type in: <!--srg_clean_archives-->
This is an HTML tag (or a comment) and so must be input in the HTML view. If it is typed in the visual view then that?s exactly what will be shown on the page when it?s output.
Auto-Trading Device A Miracle Cure For Traditional Forex Trading
Automated Forex trading is one of the greatest innovations in the field of currency trading. You no longer need to have a thorough knowledge of the currency market to even try to get in on trading. You use to have to do quite a bit of studying before you could really get in on the market, not to mention the large amount of technical knowledge which would be needed.
The new Forex automated trading system comes equipped with continual, automated trading that requires little or no human input.
Automated Forex trading prevents traders form having to spend all of their time keeping an eye on market conditions and currency pairs while squinting at a computer screen. The automation of the Forex trading system has made this unnecessary, greatly easing the burden borne by traders.
Traders have long complained of the health problems brought on by the strain of spending hours and hours staring at a computer screen - eye problems and backaches being very common complaints.
Like a lot of other automation technology, automated Forex trading software takes much of the workload out of currency trading. Automated trading provides Forex traders with all of the tools and information they need to make money on the currency trading market with a minimal investment of time and effort.
Word to the wise, make certain to do your homework and know which product you need and with whom you are dealing. Always seek out a reputable company with a reasonably wide array of products and services.
A lot of the software available on the market might look very similar to you at first. However, not all of these programs are created equal; some are far better than others and many offer different sets of features. Some have better algorithms which they work on - reviews can help you to make this evaluation; be sure to look for software which comes with a money back guarantee in the event that you are unsatisfied with the performance of the program.
If you are a newcomer to Forex trading, you may be under the impression that investing in automated Forex trading software is something which is best left to the larger players in the field; however, these systems are now designed to meet the needs of any trader. This is a growing field and there are a lot of novice traders out there who have a need of or interest in automated Forex trading - and there is software available which meets the needs of novice and expert traders alike.
Automated Forex Software – A Solution For Any Forex Trader
Last time I checked, there were dozens of different choices out there for Forex trading software. All of these claim to be able to make you a fortune. Being a skeptic myself, I don't listen to these claims; instead, I look at how the software actually performs.
Something which I noticed that which sets a Forex auto-trading system apart from all of the other programs out there is that it was created by a Forex trader who has actually made his fortune in Forex trading. These traders have been wildly successful in their own Forex trading and have put their knowledge behind their created automated Forex trading software.
Now you shouldn't make the assumption that you can just start this software up and leave it alone to trade - don't be fooled that it will do everything for you. However, this Forex Robot software can easily be used by someone who does not have a background in Forex trading. With just some basic computer skills, you can set up and run this program.
The software can make trading decisions for you based on mathematical modeling (The Fibonacci formula) and analyze market movements; you can get the most benefit from this software if you do have some knowledge about Forex or other trading systems. However, you don't have to be a Forex expert to get started in trading with an automated Forex trading system.
An important part of success in any kind of trading is the ability to take calculated risks and knowing what the consequences could be. Forex Auto-trading software can help you to minimize your losses - many claim that they are profitable in 96% of their trades using this software.
Obviously, you will not last long in the Forex market if you cannot make trades which are profitable far more often than not. The more you become familiar with the Forex market and the automated trading software you use, the better you will be able to make the trades which will lead to success in your Forex trading career.
If you are new to Forex trading, you'll be glad to know that most Forex robot software offers a demo mode, where you can test out the software and learn how the market operates without putting any of your money at risk. Once you feel comfortable with the markets and have tuned your Forex auto-trading device for the best performance, you can then start making real Forex trades at any time.
Look out for the automated Forex trading software that offers 8-week money back guarantee - so you have plenty to gain by trying out this software, but nothing to lose if you're not satisfied.
With all of these features, it's not hard to see why Forex Autopilot system dominates the automated Forex trading software market. Developed by an expert in the field, this is software which can maximize profits and minimize risk for novices and experts alike.