Tips to Increase Your Adsense Money

If webmasters want to monetize their websites, the great way to do it is through Adsense. There are lots of webmasters struggling hard to earn some good money a day through their sites. But then some of the “geniuses” of them are enjoying hundreds of dollars a day from Adsense ads on their websites. What makes these webmasters different from the other kind is that they are different and they think out of the box.

The ones who have been there and done it have quite some useful tips to help those who would want to venture into this field. Some of these tips have boosted quite a lot of earnings in the past and is continuously doing so.

Here are some 5 proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings.

1. Concentrating on one format of Adsense ad. The one format that worked well for the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280). This same format have the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.
2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, This will result to more clicks from people visiting your site.
3. Remove the Adsense from the bottom pages of your site and put them at the top. Do not try to hide your Adsense. Put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between Adsense locations can make when you see your earnings.
4. Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.
5. Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as “adsense text”, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.

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Note also that there are many other Adsense sharing the same topic as you. It is best to think of making a good ad that will be somewhat different and unique than the ones already done.Every clickthrough that visitors make is a point for you so make every click count by making your Adsense something that people will definitely click on.

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Tips given by those who have boosted their earnings are just guidelines they want to share with others. If they have somehow worked wonders to some, maybe it can work wonders for you too. Try them out into your ads and see the result it will bring.

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If others have done it, there is nothing wrong trying it out for yourself.

10 Hidden Secrets to drive traffic to your site

Do you want to discover the most hidden secrets on the Internet to drive the most traffic to your site for free?So many of them do not do as much as we use to spend big money every month on advertising, yet their income is beyond compare.You will find here below, the Top 10 secrets not yet revealed:

1. Offer your visitors original contents. When you purchased articles from other authors, as far as you linked back to them, that are not so bad, but you have no guarantee that those authors do not sell the same articles to other publishers or to your competitors. Then, it is important to provide your visitors with useful information of your own and that are not available from other publishers. If you are the only source of the information, you will find that visitors will stampede to your site.


2. Try to give them some free software for their desktops, available for download on your site. If the software is free (or not so expensive) and is very useful to their computers, that will be a good idea to bait your visitors to your site.


3. Give them some opportunity to join some free sweepstakes or some other free competitions. In fact, no many people would like to visit your site for no real purpose, but they would like to earn something in return for their own satisfaction. If you have a well-planed strategy to meet the needs of your visitors, you definitely win their trust in your web site.


4. Try to create a directory thematically linked to other websites related to your own web site or to some web sites related to the subjects of your targeted traffics. People most of the time will come to your site where they will find the most information from a single site. Just like a household consumer most of the time would prefer to visit a big hypermarket where she would find nearly all the items she wants under the same roof than to drive and to park her car from place to place to buy different items.


5. Offer your visitors the possibility to subscribe to your free email newsletter (also give them the possibility to opt out anytime they want). People always look for free information regularly sent to them by email in such to help them save their time and money from always seeking for information everywhere.


6. Build a community with a forum on your web site. People like to meet together within a particular site where they can discuss on a specific topic with other people having the same idea.


7. Offer a free online service. If you happen to meet their specific online requirements such as a free email account at your domain .com, a free hosting service where they can upload their pictures and music, give them the possibility to download free e-books and all these will contribute massively to your online success


8. Offer your visitors up to date-released news, weather report, latest stock and currency index or daily bible verses. Or if your sites talk to your visitors about “Adsense” it is a good idea to give them daily “Niche Keywords”. Giving them the possibility to bookmark your site is also definitely an ingenious strategy for them to come to your site everyday. You may refer to the example of the daily Bible Verses written by André Lee at http://Bible.GodAdSense.com/


9. Offer them some free samples of your products or free trial of your service. Have you never visited a hypermarket and came across a merchandiser offer you a free tasting of her food items? This same concept will drive a lot of visitors to your web sites.


10. Another strategy that is the most popular actually is the offering of an affiliate programs. People actually are always finding ways to earn money so if you have a well-structured plan on how to set up an affiliate program on your web site, your success will be inevitable. You may read the article written by Allan Gardyne on how to setup an affiliate program

Blog Tagging. Another great way to generate traffic to your blog

I have came across on to this fun new way of generating back links to your site via game. I don't know who came up with this or who started this game but it seems to me the possiblities are endless. The game is called "blog tagging." Here is how you play the game: You find 5 blogs of similar interest or content as yours and then post a comment to them saying " you have been tagged " with a link back to your site. Getting response shouldn't be hard as people like games if there is something in it for them. At your site you have an explanation something along these lines: Blog Tagging. What's It All About? Ok.

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Let's say Marlene did this tagging thing with me. She doesn't know either who started the game, but it's a fun and creative way to get links back to your blog. If you get tagged, expect to write a post giving your reasons for blogging, include a link back to the person who tagged you, then tag 5 other bloggers. All you need to do is to get readers to your blog and build friendships. I hope you respond to this tag game. Mentioning their name adds a nice personal touch. You must hyperlink this person's blog in the text of your explanation. This is easily done in the back office of your blog where you edit your posts. When you write the post you will need to click on compose and then highlight the words you want to hyperlink. In this case it is the name Marlene I highlight. Another box will come up where you put in their blog link to their site. Presto! You have followed the rules and finished your explanation of the game.

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If you do the math on this you will have a least 25 links to your site for every 5 people you tag. Imagine what would happen if you tagged 2 or 3 people a week for a year. That's right. Hundreds of back links to your site which the seacrh engine will pick up on where people will be able to find your site. It occurs to me one can change the topic of the game too. Instead of it being why you blog it could be " lessons you have learned on the internet " or " favorite hobbies " or " celebrities I don't like " or...well you get my drift. Whatever gets people to respond to your tag. You are limited only by your imagination here. As anything else you will have to spend a little time checking out other blogs and finding people with similar blog topics as yours.

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I don't need to mention blog traffic exchanges but just in case you don't know about them blogsoldiers is a good place to start. There are many others though. Spend some time with Blogger or Wordpress reading other blogs. It's all about community isn't it? I did a little research on the internet to see if anyone had written an article about this game. I couldn't find much. It may be absolutely new and fresh. You may want to start your own tag game now to create mass traffic at your blog or even your webpage. Happy blog tagging. I invite your comments and opinions on this topic

The Power of Text Links

Links drive direct traffic to your website. Links directly increase your website’s rankings. Link building is the art of attracting links that you want. Anybody can engage in link building. Links come from anywhere that you want them to come from.

Links can come from…

• Blog Post
• Press Releases
• Text links
• Links from websites related to your website
  

Tip: Your inbound link profile is extremely important. You need to understand what your link profile should look like. You need to build a “natural” inbound link profile. It used to be about the quantity of links.

However, the search engine have recently added filters that discount unnatural links.

A natural profile link includes your domain name and a variety of links that directly relate to your website. These links vary in nature. For example, don’t have the same link over and over. Have synonyms of the link instead. This is more natural and shows that you didn’t just go for quantity.

• Tip: Permanent links equal equity. Equity is built based upon links that you have over time. So websites that have had links for several years have more power than newer links from newer websites. The key is to not ever stop obtaining inbound links.
  
• Tip: Links that are in the text copy carry more weight than links that are simply on the page.
  
• Tip: Obtain theme related links. Obtain links from websites that relate to yours.
  
• Tip: Build links that you can control. Otherwise , you might incur an over optimization penalty.
  
• Tip: Set up your own Blog Put the Blog under your domain name. Write interesting posts so people will link to your Blog. Comment on other Blogs. These will build deep links. Deep links point to other pages on your website besides your homepage.
  
• Tip: It’s more important to have a higher percentage of deep links.

My Space - Taking You to New Lead

Do you know about MySpace? Have you heard friends or colleagues talk about MySpace? Have you seen news about MySpace on the Internet, TV, and newspapers? If not then you must have been living under a rock. MySpace is relatively new, but is used by millions of people. Therefore, you should integrate a MySpace strategy into your internet business.

There are many advantages of myspace. For example, you can obtain leads by creating “friends” on MySpace. When you open a MySpace account you get a “friends” list. MySpace is free social networking. 171 million people are on MySpace. If MySpace were a country it would be the sixth largest country in the world.

MySpace has demographics that are broken down by age, sex, geographic location

, and income levels. MySpace is essentially a free database. You can target people based on demographics and ask them to be your “friends”. Once you build the “friends” list then you can market to them.

Being able to grab this information about MySpace is extremely powerful!

MySpace also lets you do blogging. Blogging is powerful in MySpace because it is free and other MySpace people can find your Blog. They can ask you to be their friend after reading your Blog.

Why do MySpace pages translate into making money? An example is a magician that created a MySpace page. He made money working at trade show events. He wanted to get a friends list of event planners through MySpace. You can go to Google and find people in MySpace using these keyword demographics. He then sent all those people an email. He ended up getting several event bookings as a result of creating this type of database.
Check out these Internet statistics…

6.4 billion searches are done per month using internet search engine.

42% of people click on the first result in the search engine results. Then it drops off significantly. So if your website isn’t listed in the top spots on Google then you are missing out on website traffic.

Utilize the power of the Internet along with MySpace and watch your leads grow exponentially. You can open a MySpace account in a matter of minutes.

Making Money Effortlessly through your Blog

The ProBlogging concept has taken the Internet money-making world by storm. What people like about professional blogging is that it is a haven of money-making opportunities in itself. There are plenty of ways to make money through blogging, but if you’re looking for the easiest ways of making money through blogging, you’ve come to the right place!

Making money through blogging has never been easier with the options that are now available to you. As the Problogging concept continues to grow, people are finding more ways to maximize its money-making potential. Bigger Internet-based companies such as Amazon.com and Google.com are now offering you easy, surefire ways of making money through your blog – without the effort!

First, display ads from other people. Making money simply by displaying ads on your blog may seem too good to be true. You can simply dedicate a portion of your blog for these ads so they won’t harm your blog layout. There’s no harm in displaying ads, and you can even display ads that are connected to the topic of your blog. This way, people might also find the ads helpful and enticing enough to click on them. The more clicks, the more money you make! This money-making way is not a scam. There are a lot of websites offering you a chance to make money by displaying their ads on your blog. Examples are Google AdSense, BlogAds, Bidvertiser, and the upcoming MSN Adcenter. Even Internet giants such as Google and MSN are your partners in this venture! So visit their websites and start making money easily through your blog!

Another way is to display links on your blog. The same concept applies. You get paid for each click the link on your blog gets. If you think that there is not enough space on your blog to display a lot of ads, why not display links instead? Again, this is a pretty effortless way of making money online.

As if those two ways are not good enough, you still have yet another option of making money easily through your blog! Again, you can display links and banners of various web-based companies. The difference is that, these companies are your “affiliate programs”. When a visitor clicks on the banner or link, they will be directed to the affiliate site. If a visitor’s click on a link or ad on your site results to a successful sale, you will earn a commission from the sale.

It’s pretty easy to make money through blogging, right? You don’t even have to do maintenance. Simply display the links or ads on your site and start making money without the effort! The best thing about this is that it can earn you loads of cash even without you noticing! You can just sit back, relax, and count the cash as they come in! Making money through blogging has never been this easy.

Blogging Lesson 7: Use Free And Inexpensive Blog Traffic Exchange Communities

There are many sites which can be termed “traffic exchange” sites for the blogging community. It won’t cost you anything to sign up. At the very least, join blogexplosion, blogclicker, and blogazoo. Once you sign up, you have two options to help drive traffic to your blog. Use both of them!

The first method is to earn credits (guaranteed visitors to your site) by using the “surf member sites” function. As you surf through those sites, you will be earning credits (visitors to your blog). When you find an interesting post, leave a comment as discussed above. When you find a blogger you like, add them to your blogroll and let them know you did.

The second method to drive traffic is to purchase credits. The cost is very cheap for the traffic you will drive to your blog. The more traffic to your blog, the more customers you’ll have. The more happy customers you have, the more they will tell others. The more they tell others, the more customers you get. Don’t you love this dance!

In summary, blogging may not be for everyone. However, it can be a great method for bringing your unique perspective to the Internet. You will surely find others who think the same way you do. Some bloggers will entertain you, some will inform you, and some will drive you to tear your hair out. Decide what type of blogger you want to be and be the best you can. See you in the blogosphere!

Blogging Lesson 6: Submit Your Blog to Blog Directories

In addition to submitting your blog to the major search engines, make certain you submit the blog to exclusively blog directories like blogwise, blogcatalog, or bloghub. Many people find blogs through these online directories.

When you do submit your blog to these directories, remember to add a description that will entice your targeted audience to check your blog out. For instance, when I post my blog in blog directories, under description I put “General musings, rants, advice and strategies from a battle-worn veteran of the Marketing Wars, online and off”. Your description should help the potential reader understand your In addition to submitting your blog to blog directories, join a few of the free or inexpensive traffic exchange sites like blogexplosion or blogclicker.

Blogging Lesson 5: Think Keywords When You Post

Think about keywords with your use of titles, links and blog posts. Search engines, like Google and Yahoo, like keywords. The more targeted your keywords, the better the chances of your blog appearing in search results. Search results can drive that extra traffic you want.

To increase the value of the key words in your content, make certain keywords are part of the hot link in your posts. Don’t use “click here” as the hot link. You will be wasting valuable real estate in your post. Instead use the relevant keywords for the hot link, like “a great marketing idea. This gives the keywords added emphasis with the search engines.

One last thought on keywords for driving traffic; if you want a real leg up in the traffic game, in your linking code add rel=”tag”. This helps Technorati, a major blog resource, index your blog for their directory. But don’t stop there! It’s time to submit your blog to blog directories.


Keys to keywords by Microsoft

While experts may be better at drilling into engine algorithms and analytics, you're the smartest bet for figuring out keywords that define your business and that will draw serious traffic.
So stay on top of the keyword process. These 15 tips will help.

1. Research, test, and learn. Industry sites such as Overture and Wordtracker now make it easier to select keywords. Their free online tools give you a popularity barometer of keywords and offer suggestions about choices. "However, if you don't get the right percentage of click-throughs to impressions, it can cost you time and money," says Pedro Sostre, a Miami-based online marketing pro. You want traffic that converts into customers, not lots of visitors. Move slowly and build on what you learn.


2. Choose phrases. "Don't just look at one keyword. Look at hundreds of phrases," advises High Rankings' Whalen. The more specific the phrases, the more likely you'll attract exactly the visitor who's looking for what you sell.


3. Mix and match. While you're brainstorming with friends, staff and experts to come up with key phrases, make sure you run the gamut from broad keywords to specific ones, so you reel in all possible prospects.


4. Don't overlook the obvious. The HTML title tag at the top of your browser window is a prime factor in search indexing. "Clients waste their title tag by including only their company name," says Rosemary Brisco at ToTheWeb, a search marketer in San Mateo, Calif. "The tile should include search terms and 'call to action' messaging to entice prospects to click on your link when it is presented in the search engine results page.


5. Invest in education. Run a pay-per-click campaign for a few weeks to learn which keywords pull. That way you don't have to spend a lot of time and effort optimizing your site pages for keywords you don't yet know will work. Armed with the pay-per-click data, you can then optimize and shift to organic search.


6. . . . Or, if you love graphics. Search engines don't read graphics or Flash animation. If your site relies on Flash or illustrations, then pay-per-click is a smart bet so you don't have to optimize your site.


7. Join the club. Each industry has its own buzzwords and jargon. Use those to draw the insiders you want to reach.


8. Review results. You'll waste time and money if you don't keep checking which keywords attract which customers. Then you can winnow out effective keywords and track which ones pull from which engines. You also learn which engines deliver customers who choose certain wares or services. You can easily measure how your advertising is pulling with affordable site-traffic analysis software such as Microsoft's FastCounter Pro.


9. Be your own customer. Every month or so, visit a search engine and input the keywords you're using and considering. You might be surprised at the results. Also, call your top customers and ask them what keywords they currently use.


10. Use your keywords consistently. An Overture study found that users gave a nearly 50% higher "likelihood to click" to listings in which the keyword was included in both the title and the description.


11. Leverage location. As a small business, you're may be dependent on regional or local business. So, "use word combinations that include your city's name and surrounding suburbs or towns from which you draw customers," says Jim Caruso, chief executive of MediaFirst PR in the Atlanta area.


12. Be a bad speller (or at least know how to be one). Research the keywords that your customers might use but spell incorrectly. "You'd be amazed at how often prospects misspell common words," says ToTheWeb's Brisco.


13. Add content. Keywords work best when there's actual content for engines to cruise and find. When you have post relevant articles, information or reports, competitors and other sites tend to link to your site, which adds to your traffic. As broadband penetration increases and users find searching for information much easier, content is becoming ever more critical.


14. Map pages to keywords. Rather than sending a potential customer to a landing or home page, try to link your keyword descriptions to exactly the page that offers the item or information the user wants.


15. Be honest. Finally, you'll get better long-term results with keywords that actually represent your services or products. Be honest. Hyping your business or shading the value of what you offer via juiced-up keywords will only disappoint searching customers. And what good will that do you?

Blogging Lesson 4: Participate in the blogsphere

Get involved in other people's blogs. Visit blogs that interest you and are in line with the general topic of your blog. Then, leave thoughtful comments. Almost every comment option on someone else’s blog will allow you to post your blog URL and your email address. Help other bloggers out with traffic and they will help you.

Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post. Therefore, answer your comments, in your comments, and off blog: Of course you have enabled comments on every post, right? So, when you do get comments, answer as many as humanly possible, and if its an interesting enough issue or question, contact the poster directly for a friendly follow up. Treat every potential poster as a potential subscriber to your feed, and a future friend and contact.

Do interviews with other bloggers: Score interviews with newsworthy individuals (who may be linked to newsworthy content), to create link worthy content, but more importantly, create news on THEIR blog to get back to YOUR blog.

If a blogger really likes your site, they will add you to their blogroll. A blogroll is generally found on every blog which understands linking to the rest of the blogosphere helps drive traffic. A blogroll is a listing of other blogs. Think of it as a “recommended reading list”. Don’t be stingy with your blog roll either. Add those blogs that you read and enjoy to your blogroll too.

Blogging Lesson 3: Mentioning your blog wherever you can

Mention your blog’s address in your email signature line, in forums where you post, on your business cards, on address labels and in conversations with anyone you meet. Use a tag line under your blog address to further entice them to visit. Mine reads:

Aison Tan
http://www.aceinfo.blogspot.com/

A sassy little marketing blog.

Beyond just mentioning your blog in writing and conversation, you must actively participate in the blogging community too.

Blogging Lesson 2: Blog Regularly

If you don't update your blog often enough, blog readers will move on to other blogs. There are too many blogs out there competing for attention. Blog readers will go where they can get enough of what they want.

Successful blogging takes a commitment of your time. When you begin blogging and wish to capture an audience, you should be prepared to blog every day. In this way, you can develop an audience who counts on you to help them begin or end their day.

This means you should also try to post at the same time each day. Your readers will get accustomed to your schedule and check your blog at the appropriate time. The time of day is not as crucial as the consistency in your posting.

Since you now have quality content and a regular posting schedule, it’s time to drive traffic to your blog. Your readers will do a lot to promote your blog just by telling their friends. Don’t count on this alone! You need to do some additional work.

When you post, make sure you set your blog to “ping” blog tracking sites every time you add a new post. Think of this as a means to get their attention. The ping says “Hey, we just added a new post”. An alternative to automatically pinging from your blog is to use pingomatic.com. This is a one-stop place to automatically ping everyone you should notify of your new post and only takes a couple of minutes to accomplish.

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One critical issue I have to voice out, it's much secure for you as a blogger to back up your blog regularly to avoid any disaster.

Creating backups of your blog is like drinking water. You know you should do it at regular intervals, but often times other activities get in the middle and you just forget about it.

The possible consequences of not backing up your blog, however, are much more serious than missing the middle-morning water glass. Should your server crash for some reason, or your websibe get hacked, you will lose valuable data.

Below you will find a quick checklist for backing up your blog.

1. Use an FTP client to download all the site files (the Wordpress folder)
2. Log into phpMyAdmin and select your Wordpress databas
3. Click on “Export” and make sure that all the Wordpress tables are there
4. On the “Structure” section tick “Add Drop Tables,” “Add AUTO_INCREMENT,” and “Enclose table and field names with backquotes”
5. On the “Data” section leave all the boxes unticked
6. Tick “Save as file” and download the database (you can use compression if your database is big)
   

If you don’t have access to phpMyAdmin, you can use the Wordpress Database Backup plugin.

Blogging Lesson 1: Provide Quality Contents

On the Internet, whether you are talking about websites or blogs, a lot of space is given to content. Everyone directs you to provide quality content. But, what is quality content? The quality of your blog’s content is directly related to how well you have defined your ideal audience.

A successful blog is written with a distinct audience in mind. In this way, you can provide content that is unique to your audience’s issues, needs, or desires. If you create content they like and wish to return to read, you have quality content.

The second issue is to stay true to your audience and tone of your blog. If people are reading your blog, it’s because they like your topic and tone. Try not to stray from your typical topics and style too much. This will give your readers a reason to link back to your blog on an ongoing basis, as will posting on a regular basis.

7 Tips for Writting Quality Content (by Seomoz.org)

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I hardly need to waste words stating how important it is to come up with quality content for your website. It is, to say the very least, the glue that holds online business together. Provide your visitors with the value that they want and need and you have a chance of succeeding online. On the other hand, if you fail to provide much (if any) value to your website visitors, then you can take solace that your website won’t be the first to fail online (nor the last).

So clearly, content is King (or at least a high powered minister in the cabinet). But what next? I mean, now that I know that I need quality content, what do I have to do to actually provide quality content? Put otherwise, I now know what I need to do (create content of value), but I still don’t know how to do it. The goal of this post is to help get you started on figuring out how to create quality content. Think of it as an introduction, or direction, on how to create the type of content that your site visitors crave.

With that said, let’s not waste anymore time and jump right in.

1. Answer their questions. Regardless of your industry, your customers have questions. For example, imagine that you are a grandmother looking to buy your grandson a camera for his 8th birthday and you go online looking for something appropriate. You probably aren’t too interested in a list of features or the result of a laboratory test demonstrating whether or not this is a good digital camera. Those aren’t your concerns – you don’t care whether or not a camera can take good photos in low-light conditions. Your concern is whether or not an 8 year old can use and enjoy the camera. In other words, you have a question – what are the best cameras for kids. As such, you would readily read an article or blog post which talk about the top 10 cameras for kids. That’s the article that tries to answer your question, and thus that is the article that you are interested in. Flipping sides for a second, if you can figure out what questions your customers are asking, then you can start to write content which addresses those questions. As such, one of your first tasks is to do whatever it takes to learn what questions your customers are asking.


2. Take them by the hand. Sometimes a simple answer does not suffice. Sometimes you have to actually demonstrate to your customers exactly what it is that they need to do. In other words, they don’t just want information, they want a presentation. This is where screenshots and PowerPoint and/or Camtasia (e.g. video) demonstrations can be very helpful. As an example, when I wanted to figure out how to use Windows Movie Make, I found a site with step-by-step tutorials which showed me in less than an hour exactly how to use the program. I have since returned to that site to use some of their other tutorials. Likewise, you should spend some time figuring out what products or issues confuse your site visitors and figure out ways to clarify the product or issue for them.


3. Solve their problems. Let me take a second and explain the difference between a question and a problem. A question has an answer, a problem needs a solution. For instance, let’s say that you are getting bombarded with spam –you would probably be interested in a website that provided you with a tool that stopped spam from getting into your inbox. In other words, you aren’t so much looking for an answer as you are a tool. As such, creating tools and other resources which solve your customers' problems is another form of quality content. That means that you should also spend some time trying to figure out what problems your site visitors and/or customers have.


4. Make their virtual life easier for them. Let’s face it - there is just too much stuff online! That’s why the search engines are so popular--they help us navigate this worldwide mess. But, as we all know, the search engines help only so much. As such, people are looking for other ways to find the type of information, product, or service that they are looking for online. Therefore, it is worth spending time trying to figure out what types of websites your site visitors are looking for and how you can help them find them.


5. Keep them up-to-date. Most likely, there are important (as well as not so important) changes going on in your industry. New products, news, services, ideas, websites, etc. Your site visitors may not be aware of these changes (in which case you can inform them), or they don’t know what to make of these changes (in which case you can help them to figure them out). Either way, keeping abreast of your industry allows you the opportunity to keep your customers up-to-date.


6. Be a facilitator. In addition to information, solutions, answers, guidance, etc., people also need a (virtual) place to meet and learn the latest information, solutions, answers, etc. Forums and online conventions (like eComXpo) are two great examples of facilitating the creation of content. If you notice that your niche lacks such a space, why not consider providing it?


7. Make them laugh (or at least entertain them). Life’s hard, life’s boring, life’s this, life’s that. Whatever life is, make it more enjoyable for people and they will flock to your site.

I think the common denominator in all of these tips is the need to understand your customers. The more aware you are of their questions, problems, and issues, the better you will be able to provide them with the exact type of content that they so very badly want to read. Of course, once you know your customers' problems, questions, and issues, you then need to be able to answer, solve, or address those problems and issues. But that’s a different topic for a different time...

Tips to Successful Blogging

5 Tips of Creating a Successful Blog

1. Breaking a Post Down into a List

Lists are concise, they keep the writer on point which in turn helps readers follow along much more easily, and they can be skimmed and dissected. If you doubt the power of lists even for a second, you should head over to the king of lists’ blog and check out how effective they are. Many great bloggers embrace the list as a priority.

You should also keep in mind that there are emerging more and more list aggregators that serve the sole purpose of linking to list posts. Usually these automated sites are worthless for authority links, but every blog backlink builds your Technorati and PR which is a good thing to advertisers.

2. The “What [person/group/experience] Taught Me About [topic]” Strategy

This is a great way to relate your topic to something typically unrelated to your topic thus capturing the curiousity of a more diverse group of people. This is also a way to make your topic seem more interesting by relating it to something more interesting, or at least interesting to a broader audience.

This can be seen at Kumiko’s blog where she talks about the 6 Lessons Britney Spears Can Teach You About Blogging. This is a perfect example of this strategy at work. Britney Spears has been in the news time and time again for being an all around dumbass, so to claim that she has something to teach us about blogging captures pretty much anyone’s interest. I admit, I read it all.

3. Link-farm Posts

When you’re running low on things to blog about but you know you should get that daily update out why not compose a link-farm post? If you’re an active blogger then you should be an active blog-reader as well, so when you come across enough interesting articles from others in the blogosphere dedicate a post to them. I do this just about every week with my top links posts. Not only does this give you some extra content without actually having to sit down and write anything (aside from maybe a summary) but you’re sharing the love with other bloggers. After all, being friendly is the little known link-building strategy.

4. Make All of Your Posts Personal

Blogging is personal, so you should go out of your way to relate what you write about to your own experiences and include your own advice. If people didn’t want your opinion they wouldn’t read your blog, they’d watch the rehearsed, critic-friendly, non-offensive evening news. Being able to relate to an actual person rather reading a news feed from some media conglomerate is what separates blogging from traditional media. Use that to your advantage.

5. Interlink Everything

Always try to include as many links to previous articles in every post you can. It’s not enough to get users to your blog for one page view, you want them to stick around and read as many pages as they can handle. The best way to do this is to include a critical mass of interlinks in each and every post you do. It may make publishing time a bit longer, but it will definately pay off in the long run.

Another good idea is to include a related post plugin in your blog which recognizes the most relevant articles published and lists them after each post. This isn’t as effective as interlinking within your actual posts, but every bit counts.

These methods aren’t anything new, but I thought some people would enjoy seeing them all in one spot. They’re 5 of (what I’ve seen to be) the most effective blogging strategies in use by some of the top bloggers.

Content Hub, Built Traffic at Your Blog

Writing content for your own website is only half the battle, though. You have got to get people to read it. Just posting a website is not going to get people to come to it. It would be like building a business in the middle of the mountains. Nobody knows its there and you won't get any customers. If you get your articles out there for people to read and the articles are written correctly, you can position yourself as an expert in your field and promote your own website. One way to do this is by publishing on content hubs rather than limiting it to your own website.

Content hubs are a great way to direct your visitors to key content, and it’s a nice way to maximize your search-engine optimization efforts. It’s also a great way to drive traffic to older content that is evergreen, but doesn’t show high up on your blog because it’s older. Essentially, a content hub is one page that features links to various posts and articles that fall under one theme.

Another bonus is that developing a content hub can often times reveal gaps in your blog coverage, so it’s a great way to develop to-do lists for future content. It is also a way to go after traffic for more commonly searched terms.

While categories in blogging can do this to a certain extent, a hub page is more controlled. You can decide which post should show at the top, and which posts are less evergreen and shouldn’t be highlighted at all.

Steps to Create a Content Hub

Step 1. Search around your blog for common themes that keep reappearing. Do you have several posts that are all related? Could indirectly related posts fit nicely under one theme? Make notes of any potential hubs, and create a list that features simple 2-4 phrase titles.

Step 2. Do some keyword research around the focus of your blog. See what terms are commonly searched, and which you also have lots of content around. For example, if you have a blog on blogging, you can see that people often type “what is blogging,” “video blogging,” “free blogging,” “make money blogging,” and “blogging tools.” Those could easily make content hub titles.

Step 3. As you write your content hub, keep reinforcing your hub’s theme keywords. The nice thing about a hub is it can be quite natural to restate your keywords in links, which helps boost the page’s SEO.

Content Hub Variations

Not all content hubs need to be formatted the same way. You might consider some of these fun methods for making a page into a content hub:

• Make a top 10 list. Top 10 Blogging Tips, for example, could link to ten of your prior posts on the subject.
• Use picture. If the subject is visual, feature an intro blurb followed by pictures with short text links.
• Create a "best of" or "most popular" page. Pick a topic and feature the post with the most page views.

Promoting Content Hubs

Once you have the hub, be sure they are promoted in a high-profile way on your site. Consider creating a sidebar section with “must-read” links, and place your hubs here. Also promote these by seeking out links from other sites. The bonus of driving traffic to these hub pages is that they encourage people to click around your site, rather than simply reading and moving on to another site.

Business Blogging

Your small business can benefit from using blogs to raise awareness, increase customer loyalty, and boast sales.

For most small-business owners and managers, that whirlwind of Internet communication tools - blogging, pod casting, and so on - seems a bit overwhelming. When faced with unfamiliar technology, most people simply avoid it, writing it off as not essential to the health of their business. I'm here to tell you that online visibility is critical for business.

In today's wired society, people regularly turn to the Internet instead of phone books, newspapers, or TV to find the vendors they are looking for. A blog bridges the wide gap between sexy advertising copy and dry mission statements, connecting Web site visitors with your company via content that's easy for employees to update whenever the spirit moves them.

WHAT IS A BLOG?

A blog is a form of online diary, often focused on a particular topic or theme. For your small business, your blog might discuss company culture, industry trends, or even simply news items you find interesting.

Your blog is a window into your business's people, culture, and values. You want your customers to connect to your brand in a way that encourages community, trust, and of course, repeat sales. In today's crowded marketplace, you want to embrace any opportunity to attract consumers loyalty.

Blogging software makes updating site content remarkably quick and easy. This means that a blog can also serve as a crisis communication tool, providing your customers with your opinion or defense-instantly.

HOW TO CREATE BLOG

Creating your own blog is simple. Online hosting services such as Typepad (http://www.typepad.com/) and Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/) let you set up a simple blog in 10 to 15 minutes and add a link to it from your company's Web site (plus a link from your new blog to your site!)

Another way to go (a bit more complicated and expensive) is to host your blog directly on your company's site. Your service provider can help with the necessary resources and software. A blog on your site may repay its higher setup fees by mirroring your site's branding and giving you more control over the design.

How will people find their way to your blog? One of the best ways to increase your readership is to link to other blogs. This enable quick access to link-minded people who could become customers. To build your network, use the Technorati Website (http://www.technorati.com/) to find similar businesses or industry blogs, then comment on entries in those blogs. By contributing thoughtfully, you can engender respect for yourself and encourage a community to form. But don't expect to be noticed just for existing. If your comments on the blogs are little more than pointers to your own, you'll likely be slapped down, or simply ignored.

BLOG ETIQUETTE

As in any area of business, follow the commonly observed rules. In the blog sphere, it's absolutely critical to maintain communication. It's worse to have a static blog that's rarely updated than not to have one call at all. Once you make the commitment to produce online communication, stick to it or you'll lose credibility. And just as you would at a business conference, network, network, network. The more people who link to your blog, the more your Web traffic will grow, and the better your results will be.