How To Keep New Content Flowing On To Your Blog

As all bloggers know, the initial setting up of the website is just the beginning. Unlike static websites where information remains the same for many months at a time, blogs (especially newly established blogs) need to be updated frequently to remain or start ranking in search engines. Chances are, most of us who run blogs to make money have more than one project on our hands, and therefore, may not have time to update it daily.

Wake Up Early

One of the techniques I personally use is to wake up early. On a normal day, I will wake up at 5:00 AM and go to the gym to work out. Going to the gym gives me time to think about what I want to write about while getting my blood moving at the same time. By 6:00, I am ready to go home and start blogging for the day… My process usually starts with browsing blogs that are in my same niche. If I am going to write on my technology blog, I will spend 10-20 minutes browsing other technology blogs for inspiration. After I figure out two or three topics I want to write about, I jot them down on my whiteboard, along with a few key points I want to talk about. After I write about 2-3 posts, I will then continue on to my next project, whether it be a web design client, another blog, etc.

Schedule Posts

If you’re the type of person who works during the weekdays, but has off on the weekends (such as a school teacher), then it may be hard for you to update your blog during the week. What’s good for you is that WordPress (and other blogging software) will allow you to schedule posts. This will allow you to write ten articles over the weekend and schedule each one to automatically post itself on a certain day and time. This won’t work for news blogs that need to be updated as soon as the news breaks, but for things like how-to blogs and editorials, it will work perfectly.

Invite Guest Bloggers

Every blogger out there (that is, the ones who are ambitious) is always looking for a blog to guest write on. If you are having troubles being able to write the content on your own, invite guest bloggers to submit articles for free. Also allow them to include one backlink that will go to their own blog. This not only helps build you free content, but it helps the guest blogger build backlinks.

Hire a Writer

If you can’t seem to attract guest bloggers, there is always the option of paying somebody to write content for you. There are many “professional bloggers” out there that are looking for freelance writing tasks, but you could also hire a teenager looking for a job. The advantages of hiring a teenager are that they are willing to work, familiar with technology, and work significantly cheaper than a freelance writer. A good wage is about $4-5 per blog post, depending on the length and quality of the work.

Rethink Your Topic

If you can’t find the time to write on your blog, is it because you truly don’t have time or is it because the topic is boring? Although topics like financial and medical blogs will make more money, they don’t do you any good if they aren’t updated frequently. If your topic is too boring to write articles for, it may be time to make a blog about something you are actually interested in.

Sell Your Blog

If you don’t go with any of the options listed above, I would suggest selling your blog altogether. I first started blogging in 2010 and started a technology blog on Blogger. It was the first blog I had ever started and its beginning days were quite lame… Posts were short, my blog name and domain were terrible, and I didn’t really understand SEO. After about two years of practice, I moved the blog over to a self-hosted WordPress server. I realized that with the crappy posts from my beginning days and my domain name not being so great, that I should start a brand new blog. I was able to get $800 for the blog on the Flippa Marketplace for what I like to call my “sandbox blog.”

If you are unhappy with your current topic and your blog is in a format that you can sell and transfer to somebody else, I say list it on Flippa and see what you get for it. Then, use those profits to fund a blog you are actually interested in. For example, after I sold my first blog for $800, I invested $200 of that into finding a good, aged domain name that will work perfectly for the blog I had in mind.

Ian Eberle is the editor at his blog Omega Web. Head on over to his site to read more blogging tips, web design tips, tutorials, gain access to exclusive downloads, and more.

New enhancements to Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger

Back in April, we introduced Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger, a gadget that can help you earn money by adding an ad for a relevant product to a blog post and earning a commission when someone clicks on your ad and makes a purchase. We’ve received positive feedback from Blogger users and the advertisers who have made their products available through the gadget, and wanted to let you know about a couple of recent enhancements we’ve made to this gadget:

• Increased availability: When this gadget first launched, you may not have been able to see the gadget even though you have an AdSense account. We’ve changed this so that all Blogger users located in the U.S. with an AdSense account have the ability to see that gadget in their post editor and can sign up to use Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger. If you tried to find the “Advertise Products” gadget and didn’t see it before, try again!

• More advertisers and products: The types of advertisers and products available when the gadget became available were in categories such as Department Stores, Sport and Fitness, Office Supplies, Home & Garden, and Apparel & Accessories. We’ve now added 40 more advertisers and expanded our offering to include products in the Health & Beauty, Jewelry, Flowers Edibles & Gifts, Education, and other categories.

Google Affiliate Ads for Blogger is easy to use, and is a great solution for those users interested in choosing the products and brands they want to promote in their blog posts.

Here are two examples of a Blogger user finding a relevant affiliate ad: 

Get started today.

Author: Google Buzz

Choosing a Niche for Your Website

Choosing the niche, the very core topic of your website is an important step, since you’ll be stuck with it and if you don’t choose wisely you’ll soon abandon what you doing because of the simple fact you’ll not enjoying it. You have to be prepared to work for a year or two without, or with very little, financial compensation. Only handful people can do that. Are you one of them?

Brainstorming

If you want to create and manage a website, to become a webmaster, you’ll have to find your true passion and spend a great amount of time and energy in creating a good content, promoting your website and be prepared to learn something new every single day.

99% of the people, who try to make money online by running a website, they fail. There is no “get rich quick” scheme. Creating and especially managing a website is a long learning process and if you don’t enjoy it you’ll certainly fail. For that reason finding a niche that will keep you “alive” for several years is a must do.

So grab a pencil and a piece of paper and brainstorm some ideas about your new website. Ask yourself the following questions:

What I usually enjoy when I have a conversation with my friends and family?

In which field I’m considered as an expert?

What do I like to read the most?

What do I watch on TV the most?

What can get hold of my attention for a very long time?

Simply what is the true passion in my life?

Research

Now you certainly have some general ideas about what you want to do on Internet. Now fire up your browser and do some research about your “ideas”. You’ll be amazed of the fact that almost nothing is “new” on Internet. Whatever you think off, there is someone else who is already doing that. There is someone else who is already running a website based on your “ideas”. Whatever you think off, there will be a dozens of websites with the same “idea” behind. A truly great idea comes once in a trillion. Often that is a new technology employed by a group of people finding its way through the vast see of goods and services on the web (examples: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc.)

So what we are going to do about that. Nothing. There is a room for everyone. If you’’re good enough you’ll find your way.

Narrowing

So far so good, you have some ideas, you did your research on Internet and you narrowed your choice on two-three topics you are passionate about. That’s good but you have to be aware of one more thing. If you choose some broad, general topic (example: writing about “life”), you’ll lose the focus, you’ll face fierce competition, your site will be full of seemingly disconnected articles and probably you’ll have a hard time ranking well at search engines.

However if you narrow your niche to much (example: writing about “Australian cat grooming products”), you’ll have a very few people interested in this topic, thus a very small number of people searching for it on the web. Also you’ll probably run out of content very soon. Simply there is not much out there to write about it.

Profitability

It’s always good to check if the niche is profitable or not. For example the niche “insurance” is one of the most profitable niches out there, but in turn it’s very competitive. Google AdWords Tool is the best destination to check if the main keywords for your niche are profitable or not. Also you can check if they’re competitive or not and how many people are searching for them on a monthly basis.

Playing with the this tool will roughly tell you if you’re going to make some serious money in future and how much competition you’ll have to face along the way. For example the keywords related to “insurance” cost around $15 per click. That means if you decide to advertise your website with those keywords, you’ll have to pay a lot of money.

But, that also means if you place an AdSense ads on your “insurance” website you’ll earn good amount of money with every single click. However as I said it’s a very competitive niche and probably you’ll not make your site prominent and often visited, thus you’ll not earn much money from it, unless you’re genius in that field.

Wrap Up

Choose your niche wisely. Make sure it’s not too much competitive, that you have enough inspiration for it, it can bring fair amount of money, and the most important part, make sure you really enjoy the process of writing or creating the content for it.

Vlatko is the owner of Keen Talks. Visit his website to see talks, lectures and interviews with insightful people.

Easiest way to create floating share button

Some of you asked me on how to make a floating share button which slide in left or right side of website . It's very simple and easy . In this post ,I will show you how to do this with addthis.com service.

1. Go to Addthis.com

2. Click on Get the code at the top navigation bar

3. In style section ,choose the style that I marked circle

4. Copy the code in the right

5. Go to Dashboard - > Template ->Edit HTML .
Paste the code at the end of template ,right before </body>

6. Save changes.

Now you can go back and check the result

4 Steps to Increase Your Blog Traffic

One of the most common complaints that I hear from bloggers is the fact that no matter how hard they try, they can’t grow their blogs past 100 or so daily page vies. Those early days are indeed the hardest, because you need to put hard work in without the certainty of achieving results.

If you are in that same situation, here is a simple strategy that will certainly increase your blog traffic and make you break the 1,000 daily page views mark. In fact, the strategy could be used even if your are already over that number but have reached a traffic plateau lately.

Just make sure to execute the 4 steps as planned and to spend the two hours and a half every day (obviously if you have more time available you can expand the time spent on each of the four steps proportionally).

First Step: Killer Articles (1 hour per day)

Spend one hour brainstorming, researching and writing killer articles (also called linkbaits, pillar articles and so on).

Notice that your goal is to release one killer article every week. If that is not possible aim for one every 15 days. So the one hour that you will spend every day will be dedicated to the same piece. In other words, expect killers articles to take from 5 up to 10 hours of work.

If you are not familiar with the term, a killer article is nothing more than a long and structured article that has the goal of delivering a huge amount of value to potential visitors. If you have a web design blog, for example, you could write an article with “100 Free Resources for Designers”. Here are some ideas for killer articles:

• create a giant list of resources,
• write a detailed tutorial teaching people how to do something,
• find a solution for a common problem in your niche and write about it, or
• write a deep analysis on a topic where people have only talked superficially

When visitors come across your killer article, you want them to have the following reaction: “Holy crap! This is awesome. I better bookmark it. Heck, I better even mention this on my site and on my Twitter account, to let my readers and friends know about it.”

Second Step: Networking (30 minutes per day)

Networking is essential, especially when you are just getting started. The 30 minutes that you will dedicate to it every day could be split among:

• commenting on other blogs in your niche,
• linking to the posts of bloggers in your niche, and
• interacting with the bloggers in your niche via email, IM or Twitter.

Remember that your goal is to build genuine relationships, so don’t approach people just because you think they can help to promote your blog. Approach them because you respect their work and because you think the two of you could grow together.

Third Step: Promotion (30 minutes per day)

The first activity here is the promotion of your killer articles. Whenever you publish one of them, you should push it in any way you can. Examples include:

• letting the people in your network know about it (don’t beg for a link though),
• letting bloggers and webmasters in relevant niches know about it,
• getting some friends to submit the article to social bookmarking sites,
• getting some friends to Twitter the article, and
• posting about the article in online forums and/or newsgroups.

If there is time left, spend it with search engine optimization, social media marketing and activities to promote your blog as whole. Those can range from keyword research to promoting your blog on Facebook and guest blogging.

Fourth Step: Normal Posts (30 minutes per day)

Just like a man does not live by bread alone, a blog does not live by killer articles alone. Normal posts are the ones that you will publish routinely in your blog, between the killer articles. For example, you could publish a killer article every Monday and normal posts from Tuesday through Friday. Here are some ideas for normal posts:

• a post linking to an article on another blog and containing your opinion about it
• a post informing your readers about a news in your niche
• a post asking a question to your readers and aiming to initiate a discussion
• a post highlighting a new resource or trick that you discovered and that would be useful to your readers

While killers articles are essential to promote your blog and bring new readers aboard, normal posts are the ones that will create diversity in your content and keep your readers engaged.

Daniel Scocco

Some Basic Principles and Techniques for Web Site Design

This is guest post by Brianne Walter on basic principles and techniques for web design . It's also helpful for you who want to make a custom template for blog.

The principles and the techniques are essential for any design. Therefore, in this case, the website design is no exception. For a good website designing, you will need to apply the principles and techniques in a wise manner. Therefore, you will need to know about these elements and its functions. Therefore, some principles and techniques are discussed for your need.

Layout

The layout of a website can create its aesthetic meaning to the visitors. Therefore, it is very much important to use the composition of the page in the subtle manner. How you will design, the website's page is a vital concern for making the stunning layout. Therefore, for achieving the success of the layout, you have to apply the grid technique in the layout segment. Particularly, the rules of third should be used to make a stunning compositionfor the website layout. For good layout, you have to consider putting some surprises in the design, so that the visitors can stay on the website page for a long time.

Color

The color for any website design is an important element. So, the color should be used in the website design in intelligent way. Remember color can make or break the consistency of the website layout. Before using color in the website page, you have to study the color harmony in deeply. So, that there will be no scope for error for color placing on the website layout.

Typography

Before using the typography on the website, you have to know the aesthetic sense of the fonts. The reason is that if you use the right font for the website design, then you will make it more user-friendly for the visitors. The exact typography for the website design is vital for the eyes, because, the wrong fonts can damage the viewing angle of the monitor screen.

Navigation

When you are going to design the website, you should remember that navigation in the website should be user-friendly which means the visitors can access the website without any trouble. Moreover, you have to use your intuition in advance, about where the movement of the visitors' eyes will be on the web page.

Usability

When you are designing the website, you should think about the visitor's mind. In advance, you have to realize that what the visitors will do when they make a visit on the website and you have to think about what the visitors will do on the website.

Clarity

The clarity of the website design depends on the pixel usage. So, how you will use the pixels in the websitelayout which will determine the crisp and the sharpness of it on the monitor screen. Moreover, the edges of the pictures or fonts should be clear as well as looking great on the monitor screen also.

Consistency

Always, remember that the website design should have consistency in all segments of the layout, because, the consistency in every aspect of the website will determine its success. Generally, consistency means making everything match like font, spacing, heading sizes .Etc.

Therefore, the website design requires the principles and techniques to build a good-looking website for the visitors.

About guest blogger

Brianne Walter is a freelance blogger who is passionate about writing. She frequently writes on SEO, marketing, design and social media related topics. Her favorite sites are ecofriend and style guru, which she also happens to work for.

Google Wants .google, .youtube and .lol Domain Extensions

As you might remember, a couple of years ago ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced that it would allow companies to apply to and register whatever domain extension they wanted.

It seems that Google figured this might actually be a good idea, as they are applying to register a bunch of new extensions, including .google, .docs, .youtube, and even Internet’s favorite slang .lol. Here’s a quote from a post on Google’s official blog:

In 2008, ICANN announced a program to expand the number of generic TLDs (think .com, .org, .edu), developed through its bottom-up, multi-stakeholder process, in which we participate. Given this expansion process, we decided to submit applications for new TLDs, which generally fall into four categories:

-Our trademarks, like .google
-Domains related to our core business, like .docs
-Domains that will improve user experience, such as .youtube, which can increase the ease with which YouTube channels and genres can be identified
-Domains we think have interesting and creative potential, such as .lol

I still think allowing those weird domain extensions is a terrible idea. It will only confuse users and create a lot of fragmentation online. Hopefully the whole thing will backfire, making established extensions like .com and .net even more valuable and credible.

That all being said trying to grab Cats.lol shouldn’t be a bad idea when it comes out…

Daniel Scocco