Posted: 09 Mar 2010 05:54 AM PST

While I get many questions from bloggers asking for advice on ‘how to blog‘ perhaps one of the biggest questions a new blogger needs to ask themselves before they move on to the HOW to blog question is ‘WHAT will I blog about?’

There is no real right or wrong answer to this question as blogs come in all shapes and sizes and focus upon all manner of topics. However thinking through the question before you start a blog will help you make some of the other decisions that you’ll want to make later on in this guide (for example the domain name and the name of your blog will probably come out of this decision).

Reasons to Focus Upon a Niche with Your Blog

Choosing a niche to blog about is important for a number of reasons. These include:

1. Niche Blogs Appeal to Readers

My first blog was a personal blog with no real niche focus. It did start with a main focus upon Spirituality, but over time began to cover a large range of topics including blogging, photography, culture, politics, personal stuff that I was doing etc. The more topics I covered the less I appealed to everyone.

Sure a certain group of people were interested in Spirituality and Blogging, but less of them were into photography, even less also liked my stuff about Australian Pop Culture….. each topic narrowed the chances of me writing something that would appeal to all of my readers. I started to get complaints from them – ’stop writing about XXXX’.

When I began to break topics out onto their own blogs my audience responded well – those who were into photography gathered around that topic, those that were into blogging gathered on that blog.

In the end this is about relevance – people seem to be drawn to niche focused blogs because they know that they’ll see content on them that focuses upon the things they are specifically interested in.

2. Niche Blogs Monetize Better

I tried to make money from my personal blog for a while but found the going really tough. At the time I mainly tried to make money from advertising and found that sponsors were simply not interested in promoting their product (which had a specific focus) to an audience who were there to read about a whole range of things.

What camera manufacturer wants to promote their latest camera on a blog about photography that also touches on spirituality, politics and what movie I saw on the weekend?

Niche blogs also tend to work better with contextual ad networks like AdSense. AdSense is getting better are providing ads that related strongly to what is on a specific page of content but I have seen instances where blogs covering lots of different topics attract ads that don’t always relate to content on a particular page.

The other thing about AdSense is that it is a system that gives advertisers the ability to target specific sites. These types of targeted campaigns can be quite profitable but they are less likely to happen if a blog covers a large range of topics, many of which don’t relate to that advertiser.

When I went niche I found monetizing with advertising a lot easier. In fact monetizing with a variety of methods seems to be easier on niche blogs. Affiliate promotions and selling your own products work better because your audience is there to get information on certain topics – so when you promote products on those topics…. they’re much more likely to buy.

3. Niche Blogs Do Better in Search Engines

It is possible to rank well for all kinds of topics on a generic/multi topic blog. It’s possible – but I find it is easier when you have a blog with a focus upon a niche topic. If your whole site is about the one topic Google treats it as more of an authority on that topic the more content you add, the more you interlink the posts, the more other sites in your niche link to it etc.

There are certainly exceptions (mega sites like Wikipedia are obvious ones) but unless you have the pulling power of a massive site like that a niche focused site could be the way to go.

4. Niche Blogs Build Credibility and Profile

One of the consequences of moving to more of a niche focus with my blogging was that I noticed I was starting to become known for that topic.

The first time this happened was after I started my first photography blog and 2 months later had a phone call from a city-wide newspaper asking for a quote on a photography related story. This had not happened to me before as a result of my personal/multi topic blog but having a site purely focused upon a single topic gave a perception that that topic was ‘my thing’.

For me having niche focuses has helped me to become known on different topics – which has led to all kinds of opportunities in those niches – including writing books, speaking opportunities around the world, main stream media appearances and all manner of partnership opportunities with wonderful people in my industries.

Not everyone wants to build their profile and become known in an industry – but if that’s part of your goal then a niche blog on those topics can be powerful.

Note: Niches Need Not Just be Topic Related

Before I conclude this post on niches I thought it might also be worth noting that a blogs niche need not only ever be focused upon a topic. I explored this more fully in a post titled – Does Your Blog Focus Upon a Niche Topic or a Niche Demographic? As the title of that post suggests – there are some successful blogs around that cover a variety of topics – that appeal to a similar type of person or demographic.

So instead of just writing about video games – a blog might choose to blog about topics that appeal to teenage boys – video games being one of the topics that they might have an interest in.

Worth noting though is that if you do decide to target a niche demographic rather than a niche topic – you could be opening yourself up for a lot of work. Covering a diverse range of topics can certainly work – but to cover them all comprehensively can take a lot of time and energy.

How to Choose a Niche for Your Blog

Now that we’ve looked at some of the reasons WHY a niche can be a powerful thing to think about before you start looking at HOW to blog – later this week I’m going to continue this post with a followup post exploring a number of factors that those looking to start a blog might consider when choosing a niche.

Posted: 25 Feb 2010 10:26 PM PST

If you want to get some good amount of visitors to your blog from search engines, you need to do a bit of SEO to your blog like meta tags, title tags, heading tags, choosing good keywords,etc.

But,its a bit difficult to do all that stuff on your own..especially if you are new to blogging and know less about design stuff(html,etc). Many sites are charging lots of bucks monthly for SEO tools like backlink checker, keyword researcher, etc. But, some people can’t afford it.. So, I decided to create “SEO Tools” section here in BloggerTricks with full of useful SEO,design tools (ofcourse..for Free :D) which can help your blog traffic,search engine rankings,revenue..
With these tools, you can get to know lot of information about your blog like..your keywords, the keywords you should be targetting, how fast your blog is loading, your site pagerank,backlinks in search engines,etc.
I’m working on this new Tools section from a week now..and it is finally ready and I’m very happy to release it

Here are some of the top tools in the list..

Meta Tags Generator

Adding Meta Tags is one of the Best way to increase your search engine rankings.
This tool automatically creates you effective, error free, meta tags code. All you have to do is provide some basic information like your blog description,etc.. and it will generate your meta tags code for you.
If you don’t know how to add meta tags to Blogger… Read this tutorial.

Help: How to add Meta Tags to Blogger

Blogger Ad Code Converter

Adding adsense inside blog posts can maximize your earnings a lot. But, if you directly paste adsense code in blog template, it will give you bx error. So, you need to first convert the code….and this tool will do just that. Just put your adsense code in the box and it will generate the encoded code which you can put anywhere you want in your template. You can also use this tool for any other codes too.. (abrite,chitika,etc)
I’ll write a detailed post about how to add adsense inside blog posts in different positions soon..

Favicon Generator

Ever wondered about that short icon next to the address bar in your browser ? It is called FavIcon. It will give your blog a cool and professional look.
Use this Free Online Favicon Generator tool to create stunning favicons in many sizes like 16 x 16 , 32 x 32 , 48 x 48 , 64 x 64 ,etc.

Help: How to add Favicon in Blogger

Google Pagerank Checker

Google Pagerank plays a vital role in Search Engine Rankings. Improving your backlinks,etc can increase your pagerank.
Use this Free Online Google Pagerank Checker tool to check your blog pagerank easily.

Link Popularity/Backlinks Checker Tool

Increasing Quality Backlinks to your site increases your blog traffic, search engine rankings, pagerank,etc. So, try to get as many inbound backlinks as you can.

Use this Backlink Checker tool to check How many backlinks your site have in Google and Yahoo. Note down your site backlinks and check back from time to time to see if your backlinks increasing or not and try to improve your blog accordingly.

Keyword Suggestion Tool

If you are trying to rank for some specific keywords in search engines, you need to know all the relevant Keywords in that niche. Good Keywords increases your blog PPC, revenue and your traffic.

So, use this Free Keyword Suggestion Tool to get some keyword ideas.

Keyword Density Checker Tool

Repeating keywords often in your site make Search Engines to consider it as spam which decreases your SERP’s (search engine rank positions). On the other hand, if you don’t have proper keywords, you lose traffic and rankings.

So, use this free Keyword Density Checker tool to scan your blog and find out how often keywords are repeating and optimize your site according to that.

Instant Domain Name Search

If you’re trying to register a domain name, you don’t need to load hundreds of pages trying to find a good domain name. All you need is Just One ! With this Instant Domain Search Tool, you can know if a domain name is available or not (.com, .net or .org) instantly while you’re typing.

Website Speed Test

Adding tons of images, javascript codes,etc slow down your blog page loading speed which is not good. So,Use this Free Website Speed Test checker tool to find out your website loading speed and try to optimize it as much as you can.

Online 3D Logo Maker Tool

Adding a cool header logo image to your blog makes your blog look more professional and nice.
But, what if you don’t know photoshop, image editing well ? Don’t worry! Use this Free Online Logo Maker tool to create Stunning Logo images to your blog. Hundreds of Font styles and text effects (shadow,reflection,glossy,etc) to choose from.

Email to Image Converter

Never type your email address directly in public forums,blogs,etc.. because, Spammers use harvesters to search email addresses and spam your inbox. So, instead of typing email address directly in your Contact Us Pages, forums,etc.. Use this Email to Image Converter tool to convert your email address into an image which makes it difficult for Email harvesters to find your address.

Nofollow Link Checker Tool

Search Engines don’t follow and crawl links with nofollow tag and it don’t benefit you SEO wise.. So, if you have your links in other sites, Use this tool to find out if they are using Nofollow tag to your links or not.

Reciprocal Link Checker

If you have purchased or exchanged links with other sites, make sure they are linking back to you properly. Use this Tool to scan your partner’s website and find out if they are linking back to you or not.

Go to Blogger SEO Tools Section to check out more useful tools.

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 06:45 AM PST

Over the last few weeks I’ve had three conversations with readers regarding different sources of traffic.

In each case I had a number of email exchanges with each blogger (all on the same day) and ended up laughing to myself at the common theme but extremely different opinions being expressed by each of the bloggers.

In each case the bloggers had strong opinions (and experiences to back those opinions up) on what type of traffic was ‘best’ and how to get it.

1. In one case the conversation started with a blogger telling me that I focus too much upon social media traffic and not enough on traffic from search engines. Their niche didn’t work with social traffic but with search traffic they did best.
2. In another case the blogger told me that they’d been told to forget about search traffic in their niche and work more on building traffic from other sites and to convert it into ongoing traffic with newsletters.
3. In the last case a blogger told me that in their opinion the best type of traffic was social media traffic and they didn’t see the point in newsletters.

I was reminded through these conversations just how many different valid approaches there are to blogging. I also came away with a few thoughts that I thought I’d jot down here on the topic of driving traffic to blogs.

1. There are Many Valid Sources of Traffic

The above chart shows just 8 of many sources of traffic to a blog. As I write this others are already springing to mind (for example some bloggers run paid advertising to drive traffic to their blog – others get it from banner exchange programs). The reality is that there are many potential sources of traffic.

2. The ‘Best’ Source of Traffic Varies from Niche to Niche

As I thought about the 3 bloggers I was chatting to above it struck me that each had found great sources of traffic but that they were each operating in very different niches.

The first blogger who had written off social media was in a niche that people were simply not using social media for (I won’t reveal the niche as I don’t have their permission but it was a very very niche focused blog). Perhaps they could have driven a tiny bit of traffic with social media but for them Search was a much better place for them to invest their time.

3. Different Sources of Traffic Will monetize differently

Another important factor to consider is that some sources of traffic will monetize ALOT better than others. I’ve found that search traffic can work very well with AdSense for example (it depends upon the niche and intent of the reader). People arrive on your site searching for specific information, read your content, see an ad that relates to their search term and click on it.

RSS readers on the other hand don’t tend to convert for AdSense as they tend to be loyal readers and many don’t even click through to your site to read your content. RSS readers (and social media traffic) however can convert really well for affiliate promotions or selling your own products to.

4. Traffic Patterns Change over the life cycle of a blog

As a blog matures its sources of traffic often quite naturally change.

There’s no typical one size fits all pattern to this but at first the traffic might mainly come from other blogs or forums where you comment – or blogs where you guest post – or articles that you write. In time you might start to see more traffic from RSS or newsletters as a few people subscribe. Perhaps then some traffic will come from other sites who link to you (people who subscribe via RSS might have their own blogs) and from social media. After a while your search engine ranking might kick in as a result of the links from other sites and your guest posting and article writing and you might start seeing Google traffic. Once your blog is more established you might start seeing social bookmarking viral events that spike your traffic.

Again – this is not going to be the pattern for all blogs but in time traffic will naturally start to come from different places – the key is to try to leverage it for ongoing good (trying to get your blog to be sticky rather than just having one time visitors) and to work out how to convert that traffic for the goals you have.

5. Bloggers should be open to different approaches

While each of the three bloggers had discovered great lessons and good sources of traffic for their niches and the life cycles of their blogs – I was left wondering in each case whether the bloggers were being a little too closed off to different sources of traffic that perhaps could have added to the overall mix of traffic.

I see a lot of SEO type bloggers write about the worthlessness of social traffic for instance. One common comment that I get from some SEOs (definitely not all) is that social media traffic can’t be monetized. The reality could not be further from the truth. It won’t always convert but it certainly can. For example I know in each of the E-book launches that I’ve done in two niches that I’ve seen significant conversions from Twitter traffic.

On the flip side of things I hear some social media focused bloggers write off SEO and say that it works itself out and you don’t need to optimise your blog for search if you just produce good content. While there is some truth in that (good content does tend to generate natural incoming links to some extent) with a basic understanding of principles of SEO and a few minor tweaks a blog can rank much better in search engines without compromising the integrity of the content.

I guess what I’m getting at is that if you get exclusive about the type of traffic you are after you could actually be limiting the potential of your blog’s incoming traffic.

6. Too many Eggs in One Basket Can Be Dangerous

I used to be very focused upon search traffic in my early days of blogging. I worked hard to optimise my first blogs for search and got to a point where I was making a full time living from the ad revenue I was getting almost exclusively from Google. As a result I got a little lazy in some of the other areas – I didn’t work to convert readers to be loyal with newsletters or with prominent calls to subscribe to RSS, I didn’t build too many relationships with other bloggers to generate referral traffic and I was very inactive in social media (although it was much more limited back then).

As a result when Google decided to adjust their algorithm one day and my rankings dropped (and almost completely disappeared) in their results I lost almost all of my traffic – and as a result almost all of my income.

I was lucky in that Google readjusted their algorithm a couple of months later and I regained a lot of (but not all) of that traffic but in the mean time I looked for and found a ‘real job’ – and more importantly learned an important lesson about the power of having more than one source of traffic.

That experience was the beginning of me doing a few things that included working harder on capturing readers as subscribers (email and RSS), networking more with other bloggers in my niche and getting more involved in promoting my blog in other places (mainstream media, social media etc). My hope in doing all of this was to build up other sources of traffic so that if Google ever switched off my traffic again (temporarily or permanently) I’d at least have enough traffic to survive.

Google still does send me around 40-50% of my traffic (it varies a little from blog to blog) but I’m in a position now where I could survive for an extended period if it all disappeared (not that I’d like for that to happen).

7. The Importance of Personality and Being Yourself

I’m sure there are other factors that are at play that might be worth considering when looking at traffic. One of these (that I’m yet to fully think through) is personality type.

For example a lot of my my technically thinking friends seem to enjoy the challenge of SEO a little more. They love experimenting with and testing what happens when they make small tweaks to different aspects of their blogs. They’re constantly testing different setups and do quite well from it. I am not technically minded and find their attention to detail very very unusual (and so far from where that I’m at that I feel like I’m from another planet).

Other friends are perhaps a little more social by nature and as a result seem to do well on Twitter.

Others seem to do better by applying their freakish ability to write blog posts that get tonnes of links from other sites and which do brilliantly on social bookmarking sites..

Others are networkers and spend a lot of time interacting with other bloggers and site owners and tend to get links and traffic that way.

Others just seem to be brilliant at building community on their blog and as a result retain almost everyone who ever comments and build new readers from those people telling their friends.

I guess the lesson here is to be yourself and work with your strengths. Of course you don’t want to let your strengths dominate so much that you ignore or become lazy in areas that you’re not as strong in – but do follow your natural abilities and leverage them as much as you can.

Remember that there is no wrong or right way to generate traffic for a blog. If you were analyze the sources of traffic on many top blogs you’d find quite different factors at play!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Posted: 10 Feb 2010 05:44 AM PST

One of the things that first attracted me to blogging was the creative genius that I saw at work in many of the blogs going around at that time.

There was an ‘anything goes’ type attitude among bloggers who were pushing the boundaries of what could be done on a blog. Of course I look back now and much of this past creativity has become quite normal now (for example I clearly remember seeing a blogger include a short video in a post a number of years back and thinking it was cutting edge).

Another thing I loved about blogging was the humor, irreverence and fun I saw happening on blogs. Bloggers were not constrained by the editorial process, policy and standards that journalists worked with and as a result some of the content that they produced was like writing I’d not seen before (note: I’m not saying that editorial processes, policy and standards of journalism are a bad thing – but that what I saw bloggers doing was markedly different to what I saw happening in mainstream media at that time).

Blogging was an exciting genre – we were cutting new ground as a community of bloggers.

Of course this tradition of pushing boundaries and expressing ourselves creatively lives on – in fact it’s a real feature of many successful blogs.

Be a Playful Blogger

In a presentation last year on principles of successful blogging – one of the points I made that tried to get at this pushing of the boundaries and new way of writing was titled – Be Playful.

Not every successful blog is ‘playful’ but many are. Whether it be in the experimentation with new mediums, tools and ideas, or whether it be in the type of content that they produce – almost anything goes when it comes to blogging.

In fact as I look back on the most memorable posts that I’ve published on my blogs it is often the ‘playful’ ones that stick out. A few examples:

• 5 Things You Should Know about My Dad the ProBlogger (I wrote this post in the voice of my 2 year old son – the voice seemed to capture the imagination of readers)
• How to Reduce Camera Shake – 6 Techniques (the pictures in this post where the author scribbled over her butt and asked readers to ignore it (by drawing attention to it) went over so well with readers. The post went viral on Digg and many other sites.
• Does My Butt Look Big in This? – What Clothes to Wear in Portraits (the title of this one drew in a HEAP of visitors)

A few quick starting points for being playful

There are many ways to ‘be playful’ on a blog but a few starting points include:

• Experiment with your voice – it is often not ‘what’ you say but ‘how’ you say it that grabs people’s attention.
• Humor – careful use of humor can really make an impact upon readers.
• Surprise – much of what I’m trying to get at with this post is to allow yourself to do things a little different with your blog – things that surprise your readers will make them stop in their tracks a little and take a second look at what you’re doing.
• Fun Projects – pretty much any project that allows your readers to do something fun and interactive would fit into this category. On DPS this would include our Weekend Photography Challenges where we ask readers to submit an image on a theme each weekend or here on ProBlogger it’d include our group writing projects over the years. These projects are largely about fun, interacting with others and a little self promotion for readers.

How have you been playful on your blog?

Being playful is not something you can make a definitive list of how to do. Playful blogging comes in all shapes and sizes so I’d love to hear how you’ve done it on your blog (or how you’ve seen others do it). Please feel free to share a link below to your examples!

PS: playful blogging is also fun and can help you to get through tough patches where you feel like giving it.

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 06:06 AM PST

Guest post by Mike CJ.

“Treat your blog like a business” is something we’re told all the time. It’s solid advice, assuming you want or plan to make an income from your blog, and adopting it as a mindset often leads to the successful transition from a blog into a business.

But what does it actually mean?

Have a proper accounts system

Record income and expenses as they happen. Monitor cashflow – every day if things are tight. There are so many tools out there to help you do this, and many of them are free to use. Outright is one of the easiest.

Set objectives

The blogosphere is full of objective-setting posts at this time of year. Most of them revolve around traffic and subscribers. And that’s fine, but if you do want to blog professionally, you need to have financials behind those. You need to know what you’re going to earn over the next year.

Set budgets

Once you know what’s coming in, set yourself some spending budgets. How much of your income are you going to re invest in the business? For training? Software? Marketing? By setting budgets, it makes buying decisions so much easier. Do you want to advertise your new book here on Problogger? Don’t waste hours wringing your hands trying to decide. If it’s in budget do it, if it isn’t, don’t.

Seek opinions and advice

Most “real” businesses, even small ones, don’t run in a vacuum with the proprietor making every decision. And yet many blogs do just that! Get as much advice as you can, from your partner, your bank, your accountant and from other bloggers.

Produce reports

Monthly or quarterly, produce a report showing how the business is performing against the various targets. Examine what went well, and what didn’t. Use the findings to inform your planning for the next period. The act of producing the report itself is effective, but it’s even better if you have to present it to someone else – even if it’s your partner.

Enter into collaborations

Working with other bloggers can really accelerate your success, as well as theirs. Seek out opportunities with like minded people you see around the web.

Use professional tools

It’s too easy to let yourself down with poor design, a tatty invoice or by not having a business card. None of the accoutrements of being in business cost a fortune – they’re a small expense compared to the loss of image when they aren’t right.

Invest in training

Every business should have a training budget – choose the right books, courses and memberships and you’ll get a far greater return than the initial cost.

Treat your readers like customers

Typically only a very small percentage of blog readers will ever become customers by buying something from you – most will simply enjoy the mass of free content you put out there. And that’s fine. But treat every one of them as a potential paying client, and that percentage will slowly increase over time.

Those are my thoughts about treating your blog like a business. What would you add?

Mike CJ is a full time professional blogger and author. He lives in the idyllic Canary Islands, just off the coast of Africa. You can find out more about Mike on his blog Mike’s Life and catch up with him on Twitter @mikecj

Subject: 62 steps to the definitive link building campaign

62 steps to the definitive link building campaignSuccessful search engine optimization (SEO) requires quality links from other websites to your own. Using extracts from their new book, Wordtracker Masterclass: Link Building - How to build links to your website for SEO, traffic and response, Ken McGaffin and Mark Nunney outline seven stages and 62 steps to the definitive link building campaign. Why SEO needs standardsIn a guest blog post, Judith Lewis discusses the need to establish standards in the Search Engine Optimization industry if it is to be taken seriously as a profession, and how that might be achieved. Do you agree with Judith that SEO, at the very least, needs to protect its brand? 15% off entry to SES London (and New York)You can still use the 15% discount voucher for Search Engine Strategies (SES) London (15-19 February) and New York (22-26 March). If you missed it in the last newsletter, read our piece on SES London keynote speaker, Avinash Kaushik’s work: How to maximize profits by becoming an analysis ninja. Other popular articles Is online PR the ultimate link building technique? 10 reasons why journalists will write about your website Link building for search engine optimization Free tools & videos We’re offering a free 7-day trial of Wordtracker’s keyword research tool. Newly improved to include the best competition metrics available (courtesy of MajesticSEO), you can also save, organize and develop your keyword research into lists and projects.A Wordtracker keyword research tool works perfectly with our seven Profit from keywords videos which show you how to use the Wordtracker keyword research tool to plan and implement effective search engine optimization and pay per click campaigns. Issue number: 34 Publication date: 4 February 2010

Posted: 14 Oct 2009 06:02 AM PDT

Have you ever had a moment in your life where everything changed?

You might not have known it at the time - but the moment was defining, it changed the course of some area of your life in a way that turned things upside down.

I had one of those course changing moments early in my blogging. It was a moment that resulted in my blogging moving from being a hobby that generated a nice bit of secondary income into a full time business.

It was a moment that at the time didn’t feel life changing - but it was.

The funny thing about this moment is that it wasn’t a discovery of some secret way to make money blogging, it wasn’t the day I stated one of my blogs… in fact it was a moment that didn’t immediately lead to any particular change on my blogs - because it was largely something that happened in my mind - a paradigm shifting moment.

It all started with 9 words from my wife (V)

‘You’ve got 6 months to make blogging full time.’

She then told me that if I didn’t get it to this kind of level I’d have to get a ‘real job’.

Up until this point I’d been talking about how blogging could one day provide us with a full time income. I’d been showing her the growth of the earnings from the blogs so far and projecting forward to what they might be in the future if things kept going.

I’d been on about it for months and things were going OK - the earnings graphs I kept showing her were trending up - I could see the possibility of one day being a full time blogger.

But I’d been talking a lot…. dreaming a lot…. creating a lot of pretty graphs…. and not really DOING a lot.

I didn’t really see it (I was too close and too caught up in my dreams) but V knew it and so she set me an ultimatum - a deadline that changed my thinking and more importantly led to me changing the way I went about my blogging.

In the moments after V’s ultimatum I had a realization that while I dreamed that one day my blogging would become a business that I’d been treating my blogging like a hobby.

I knew that if I were to succeed in going full time in the next six months that that had to change. I needed to start looking at my blogging as a business now - even though it was only earning a day or two a week’s income.

That moment changed everything.

That was the day I….

• started putting serious time aside for blogging
• became more focused upon my core tasks of creating content
• wasted less time on distractions
• became more strategic in my thinking and set myself goals to work towards
• began to look for new income streams - beyond AdSense
• started hustling for advertisers - ringing up businesses in my niche and pitching my blog to them
• began to seek out guest writing opportunities on other blogs and even in main stream media
• started setting myself deadlines for posting a certain number of posts a day and developed an editorial calendar
• I started networking more with other bloggers
• began to invest more time and even money into my learning of different aspects of blogging
• started to look for a business coach who could teach me how to look at what I do as a business instead of a hobby

That day began the process for me of looking at what I do as a business.

While not a lot changed on my blogs that day - the impact over the last 4-5 years has been significant. I’ve not looked back and many of the things I changed back then have become patterns and a natural part of my blogging work flow.

The #1 reason my blogging grew into a business was that I began to treat it as one.

Tomorrow I want to share a free opportunity with you that I think will help many of us as bloggers to make this mind shift. You see many of us are stuck in the mindset of looking at what we do as a ‘hobby’ and need to make a shift into looking at things more as a business person.

Update: due to unforeseen circumstances I’ve pulled tomorrow’s post. I was going to promote something that I thought fit the bill but on further investigation - it doesn’t. My sincere apologies but I don’t want to promote something that doesn’t fit with my ethos.

However I do recommend people take this idea of learning how to build a successful business seriously. I did this through finding a business coach, reading books and networking with business owners (offline and online).

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

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• Training Report #5: “Affiliate Money Machine” (also a rebrandible ebook you can use to promote Secret Affiliate Weapon with.)

• Training Report #6: “Ultimate Website Videos: How To Start And Profit From Your Own Websites!”

Training report #5 is a video tutorial package worth $427. Not only will you be able to learn from these videos, but you can also rebrand them and make autopilot commissions from Secret Affiliate Weapon with it!   These video tutorials will show you how to start and profit from your own website. There are a grand total of 17 video ebooks with hundred+ hours of step-by-step ?how to? videos in this 4-module package: Module #1: Website Design Videos Module #2: Website Tune-Up Videos Module #3: Website Conversion Videos Module #4: Website Traffic Videos

For Details Training See This Links :
http://bloggwpress.com/internetbusiness/
http://bloggwpress.com/webtoolz/

The Product Library Management service offers well established and experienced service in the area of Catalog Library Management.
The service provider work for various online stores and retailer who have their products listed on their websites. Product Library management involves creating online catalog with the combined efforts of proof readers, content developers, graphic artists, data entry personnel.

Catalogs are created describing the product features, their specifications, clear descriptions about the product, pricings, color and style variants clearly mentioned, and images of the products. Only a well experienced team can bring the finer points of the catalog by mapping them correctly to right categories and sub categories.

When an online store tries to work in house on their catalog building they lack the combination of talents to bring out the most cost effective web presence for their products. Hence outsourcing the catalog library management helps the online stores to focus on the marketing and expansion of the store. Most of the online stores outsource the catalog management because it gives them cost effective and professional catalog display for their products.

The outsourcing providers with their experienced team bring out the most attractive at the same time user friendly product displays on the sites. Their experience gives them to make the pages SEO friendly by giving the right tags and keywords so that the products are highly ranked during Google search. They understand that the success of online product depends on the web positions and hence the catalogs are created to suit the search engine techniques.

Images play a vital role in product display. Only a talented graphic designer can redesign and create products which give the buyer a look and feel of the product. Product swatches are created on the site so that the buyer gets a close look at the design and the texture of the product. The ultimate aim of any catalog is to help the buyer in taking the buying decisions with the help of the information provided online.

The success of any online catalog management is also to be a catalyst to quick decisions and profession service providers help the online stores by being a partner and work towards the success of their client’s business.

Posted: 30 Nov 2009 06:02 AM PST

“I just lost all my Google traffic – help!”

This request hits my inbox every week or two from a distraught blogger who has logged into the blog’s statistics one morning only to discover that most of their traffic has completely disappeared due to the all powerful Google making some kind of change in their algorithm and how they rank sites which resulted in that particular blog either disappearing from search results or at least being buried many pages down in the rankings.

The feeling associated with this discovery of a loss of traffic can be sickening.

I still remember the first time it happened to me (back in 2004) as if it were yesterday – it was like someone had sucker punched me in the gut – really took the wind out of my sails.

Up until the day it happened traffic had been healthy on my blog – healthy enough to just make a full time living from. Then when the traffic from Google disappeared I was down to 30% of what I’d come to see as ‘normal’ traffic and suddenly my dreams of being a full time blogger seemed over.

What to do when your Google Traffic Disappears

OK – so the question that I’m asked each time this happens to a ProBlogger reader is – what should I do?

It’s a tough question to answer – partly because I’m not Google and don’t have any insight into your particular situation and partly because each time it happens it is different. I’m also not an SEO expert am won’t give you any technical advice – but let me give you some general advice to start with:

1. Don’t Panic

I’ve had this happen to me at least 5 times over the last 7 years of blogging and most successful bloggers I know can recall a similar number of Google fluctuations that have brought decreases (and increases) in traffic in their blogging history. It happens to us all – sometimes in big ways and sometimes in small ways. In chatting with one Google employee recently he told me that they are making daily (and more) changes to the way that they rank sites (mainly small tweaks) so over time we’ll all notice changes.

The key is not to make massive big changes to your site’s SEO too quickly or as a gut reaction to a change in your ranking.

For me the first time that this happened (when I lost 70% of my traffic) I was very tempted to make big changes to my site to try to fix things. I was advised by a few wise and experienced web masters to wait. I did and a few weeks later almost all of the traffic returned. Google fixed itself (phew).

If the traffic doesn’t come back after an extended period you might want to get some expert SEO advice and make some larger changes – but I personally am glad that I’d seen out the dips in traffic rather than doing anything to hurt my long term rankings.

Of course there are times when you might need to make some changes…. such as….

2. Have You Done Anything Black Hat?

Google has guidelines in place for webmasters. If you want to rank well in their search engine you need to play by their rules. Of course there’s a whole industry around ‘bending’ and ‘manipulating’ the rules and many web masters make a living by doing it – however if you are caught breaking the rules by Google you’re likely to be penalized.

If this is the case for you you have two choice:

• fix what you did that was wrong and ask for a reconsideration into the index
• keep doing what you’re doing and suffer the consequences

I know of numerous bloggers who’ve asked for reconsideration and have been reinstated back into the index. It can take a little while (the last one said it took a couple of weeks for them) but in the long run it can be well worthwhile.

3. Build Other Sources of Traffic

The biggest lesson that I learned back in 2004 when I lost most of my traffic as a result of a Google algorithm change was that I needed to diversify my approach to building traffic to my blogs.

Up until that time I was almost exclusively working on driving traffic via Google. It was like a drug that I’d become dependent upon in some ways and much of my day was spent writing content for Google and attempting to ‘get links’ to that content from other sites. I was not really writing for regular readers or trying to build community on my blog – I just wanted traffic that I hoped would click my ads and affiliate programs.

This approach had worked for me – however when my Google traffic disappeared I was left with little and realized how short sighted I’d been. I began to change my focus and started working on other sources of traffic.

I still love the traffic that Google sends me but today if it all disappeared it would hurt – but it wouldn’t be the end for my business. Next week I want to followup this post with another one looking at some of the ways to become less reliant upon Google traffic and to build traffic from other sources – stay tuned for more.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

This Article will provide you complete guide on search engine optimization (SEO) for blogger templates.If you have any other ideas please leave a comment.

Meta Keywords and Description

Meta tags are very important for SEO.So you must add meta tags to your blogger blog for improve your seo.

• How Add META TAGS to Blogger(blogspot) blogs
• Add Different Meta tags to Different Blogger Posts
• How To Install Dynamic Meta Description Tags

Submit Your Sitemap to Search Engines

• HOW TO SUBMIT BLOGGER SITEMAP TO GOOGLE
• How To Submit Blogger Sitemap to MSN and Ask.com
• How To Submit blogger sitemap to yahoo

Change Blogger Default Title Tag

Default page title for a single Blogger post is BLOG TITLE: POST TITLE. You can improve SEO by changing the title tags to POST TITLE ~ BLOG TITLE.

• How To Change Default Title Tag on Blogger for SEO

Change Blogger Default Heading Tag

Heading Tag (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5) is also important for SEO. All of Blogger widgets (gadgets) title use h2 or h3 tags. If you want to improve SEO, you need to use h1 tag for post title.

• How To Change Heading Tag For Better SEO in Blogger

Use Social Bookmarking Services

Adding social bookmarking links can help you build your traffic and improve SEO.

• How To Add Big Social Bookmarking buttons
• How To Add jQuery Social Bookmarks icons
• How To Add Sexy Social Bookmark to Blogger
• How To Add Addtoany Social Bookmarking Widget
• How To Add SocioFluid Bookmarking Widget
• How To Add Retweet Button in Blogger
• How To Add Save to del.icio.us button with Hit counts
• How To Add ‘Digg it !!!’ Link to blogger posts
• How To Add ‘Stumble it’ Link to blogger posts
• How To Add ‘Reddit’ Link to your blogger posts
• How To Add ‘Twit this’ Links to blogger posts
• How To Add ‘del.icio.us’ Links to blogger posts
• How To Add ‘Share on Technorati’ Links to blogger

Use Related Posts Widget

• How To Add jQuery Related Posts Widget for Blogger
• Nice Related Post Widget For Bloggers
• Add Related Post Widget to Blogger-Original Templates
• Add Related Post Widget to Blogger-Modified Templates
• Instant Related Post Widget For Blogger

Use Read More… Feature

• Auto ‘Read More’ Feature with Thumbnails
• Jquery Read More-Expandable Post in Blogger
• Add Auto ‘Read More’ Feature to blogger
• Add ‘Read More’ Feature to blogger
• How To Create Expandable Post Summaries

Use Recent Posts,Recent Comments Widgets

• How To Add Recent Posts Widget with Thumbnails
• How To Add Recent Posts Widget to blogger
• Add Scrolling Recent Posts Widget to blogger
• Add Recent Comments Widget For Blogger Blog

Use Popular Post Widget

• Add Popular Post Widget - with comments count
• Add Popular Post Widget-without comments count

Use Labels / Tag Clouds

• How To Add New Blogger Tag /Label Cloud Widget
• Add Flash Animated Label Cloud Widget to Blogger

Use Breadcrumb

You can use breadcrumb to provide easy navigation for your visitor and increase page views.

• How To Add Breadcrumb to Blogger

Submit Blog to Blog Directories

• Submit Blog to Blog Directories to increase Traffic

By default WordPress uses URLs containg a question mark and numbers for your permalinks and archives such as “http://yoursite.com?p=123“. In order to increase keyword density of your site for better SEO, You must change that setting to a custom permalink structure.

In your WordPress admin area, click “Options” and then click “Permalinks”.

Select “custom” in the Customize Permalink Structure area and in the box next to “custom” enter this:

/%category%/%postname%

This will create URLs for your permalinks and archives that would look like this:

http://yoursite.com/yourcategory/title-of-your-post

Click “Update Permalink Structure” to save above setting.

How To Change Wordpress Permalink Structure For Better SEO

Unsur - unsur yang berpengaruh pada suatu website secara garis besar adalah sebagai berikut :

Title Tag, Keyword Meta Tag,Desc Meta Tag,H1-H6 Tag, Body Content, Keyword Density, Alt Tag, Image Tag, Achor link / text

Title Tag - Judul Halaman pada suatu page, hendaklah se natural mungkin dalam menaruh kata keyword di dalamnya

Meta Keyword Tag - Bagian dari Metta Tags yang memberikn informasi tentang suatu keyword / kata kuncipada 1 page

Meta Desc - Desc secara singkat suatu halaman

H1-H6 - Titile dan sub title pada body / isi halaman

Anchor Text - Hyperlink ke halaman / text lain

ALT-Tag - Keterangan tambahan pada suatu links / gambar

Keyword Density -Tingkat kerapatan suatu keyword dalam suatu pages.

Pages Titles

Pages title sangat penting dalam untuk meletakkan keyword anda. Sebaiknya judul / title tidak lebih dari 60 karakter. Sebab Search Engine hanya merekam max 60 karakter.

Links -Hindari broken links

Meta Description -Beberapa Search Engine tidak melihat pda bagian ini kecuali google dan yahoo. Google mengkombinasi pencarian keyword pada meta desc dan text isi halaman.

Meta Keywords - Tempat meletakkan banyak keyword pada website, dengan banyak tags. Diharuskan meletakan 3 frasa keywords tiap halaman

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Email Marketing

Email Marketing can achieve amazing results, but first and foremost it must be said that Email Communications should be seen as a relationship building or customer retention opportunity with existing business acquaintances. It is not an opportunity to get new business from people you do not know.

Email Relationship Marketing can offer real benefits. Communicating via Bulk Email is cost effective and saves time. Email campaigns can be segmented, personalised and response can be effectively measured - great benefits for any marketer.

Email Relationship Marketing keeps your business top of mind, and as long as you ensure great design, content and delivery, you will achieve all these benefits.

Email Software:
Consulting and implementation of the best email software solution for your unique marketing strategy and budget.

List Building:
We develop and implement strategies to build and maintain robust opt-in email lists of prospective customers.

Content Creation:
Email template design and development of effective email content, including newsletters, auto-responders, drip campaigns, surveys and polls.

Campaign Management:
List segmentation and list management to produce maximum value from your customer database.

Professional SEO Service

Search Engine Optimization Services often referred to as Organic SEO or Natural SEO services are one of the most prominent Search Engine Marketing methods used today for attaining large sums of targeted visitors to your website according to a Forrester Research study. Search Engine Marketing is one of very few affordable methods currently available for achieving highly visible First Page Placements on the Major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN networks along with Local Internet Marketing and Targeted Email Marketing for Small Businesses and Medium size businesses nationwide.

SEO Expert Marketing is a Local Search Engine Optimization Company in Miami, Fl which offers Affordable Website Marketing, White Hat Seo, and Natural SEO techniques to achieve and maintain top 10 rankings for your online business within the major search engines, such as Yahoo, Google, MSN, Lycos, Excite, Alta Vista and many more.

Natural results (SEO) attract the majority of internet search click-throughs - up to 70%, depending on the vertical and type of search. There are billions of web pages that exist on the internet; only a small percentage will appear on the first page of the natural search results. Those that do make the most qualified connection with their target audience and beat out their competition have to resort to paid “sponsored results”, or pay per click, if they wish to generate leads from search engines. Natural Search Optimization (NSO) from SEO Expert Marketing ensures that web content achieves the maximum visibility for its most relevant keywords and phrases across the leading search engines. We help your website achieve natural search results that appear as the main body of listings in major search engines on the left side of the page, distinct from the advertising that is labeled as “paid,” “featured,” or “sponsored.” Search engines create natural results by crawling the web, sending “spiders” out to follow the billions of links and find new and updated pages.

PPC Management

Through the Google Adwords campaign, we help our clients to attract buyers, clients and hot leads from your desired cities / states / countries. Being that one of our partners is a Certified Google Adwords Professional, we are capable of managing your PPC campaign more efficiently, professionally and more economically then you can on your own.

While our clients are waiting for Natural SEO rankings we can manage their PPC campaign to bring them more targeted traffic and customers almost instantly even though it is more costly then Natural SEO, the result is almost immediate. We can manage your Google Adwords campaign for a very small percentage.

How it works?

* Let us say that you are selling Wedding Dress, and you want prospective buyers from New York.
* Now anybody from New York, searching on Google for your product, Wedding Dress (or Wedding Gown, Wedding Garment, Garment for Weddings etc) will see your text ad (with a direct link to your site) along with other top ranked sites.
* The person, who is searching for Wedding Dress, is actively searching to buy your product. As soon as he clicks on your ad, he will reach your website directly and potentially become a sale.

Google Click Charges

Your ads are displayed on the Google network. Google does not charge you anything to just display your ad, however as soon as somebody clicks on your ad and reaches your site, Google charges you a fee for every click. Our main goal is to take the time consuming work of constantly watching your bid amount and monitoring your PPC listing placement off your hands, so that your time can be spent more wisely on other important business duties. In order to provide excellent service and maintain a long lasting trustworthy business relationship, we ask that you pay Google directly and pay us the maintenance percentage separately.

Please remember when you set up your monthly budget make sure that you know that you will get charged on the monthly budget that you set up. Even if your account does not reach your monthly budget our company will still get paid the set up fee for managing your account based on your projected monthly budget.