Bloggers bible

The Blogger’s Bible
Everything you need to start blogging

What makes you different to all the other http://www.thebloggersbible.com
people on this planet? One very important
source of your uniqueness is your
experiences. Everything you’ve ever done is
recorded, not only in your concious memory,
but also in your nervous system. Everything
you’ve ever seen, heard, touched, tasted, or
smelled is tucked away in the giant filing
cabinet known as your brain.The concious
and un-concious memories are called
references. The experiences are what we rely
upon for certainty about what to believe,
including some of our most important beliefs
about who we are and what we are capable
of. Anthony Robbins

The main reason I blog is to pass my
knowledge and experiences on – to add
value to people’s lives and quality to mine!

Pat Sutton 1st July 2010

The Blogger’s Bible – Pat Sutton

Contents
Part 1: Setting Up Your Blog ...................................................................................................... 6

Part 2 – Blog Content ................................................................................................................ 7

Part 3 – Blog Content Brainstorming......................................................................................... 8

Part 4 – On Page Search Engine Optimization......................................................................... 10

Part 5 – Offpage Search Engine Optimization ......................................................................... 12

Part 6 – Offpage Search Engine Optimization II ...................................................................... 13

Part 7 – More Traffic Sources .................................................................................................. 15

Part 8 – Monetizing Your Blog ................................................................................................. 16

Part 9 – More Monetizing Options .......................................................................................... 18

Part 10 – Interactions Between Blogs ..................................................................................... 19

Part 11 Using article sites to drive traffic to your blog............................................................ 20

Part 12 Blogger or Wordpress? ............................................................................................... 21

Part 13 Mistakes that bloggers make ................................................................................... 23

Part 14 The five most important things to do with a new blog .............................................. 24

Part 15 Here’s how: ................................................................................................................. 26

1. Consider your audience ....................................................................................................... 26

2. Pictures speaks a thousand words ...................................................................................... 27

3. Make constructive and beneficial blogs .............................................................................. 27

4. Avoid making multifaceted and complicated blogs ............................................................ 27

5. Make it interactive .............................................................................................................. 28

Part 16 5 Reasons Why Blogging is the New Internet Marketing Tool ................................ 28

Part 17 All You Need To Know About Blog Hosts .................................................................... 30

Part 18 ..................................................................................................................................... 32

Keep in mind that blogs should have the following basic essentials: ..................................... 32

Part 19 ..................................................................................................................................... 34

The Blogger’s Bible - Pat Sutton www.thebloggersbible.com


How to Increase Sales Through Streaming Audio ................................................................... 34

Part 20 ..................................................................................................................................... 36

Blog Software For All Your Blogging Needs ............................................................................. 36

Part 21 Why someone else's software? .................................................................................. 37

Part 22 Hosted Services ........................................................................................................... 38

Part 23 Self-Hosted.................................................................................................................. 38

Part 24 Customize the banner ................................................................................................. 40

Part 25 Personalizing photos ................................................................................................... 40

Part 26 Add a favicon .............................................................................................................. 41

Part 27 Check out blog templates, layouts, backgrounds, textures and skins from sites ....... 41

Part 28 Include RSS feeds ........................................................................................................ 41

Part 29 Audio makes your blog more personal ....................................................................... 41

Part 30 Advertisements ........................................................................................................... 41

Part 31 Boost Your Business With Blogging! ........................................................................... 42

The Basics again:...................................................................................................................... 44

PROBLOGGING: MAKING MONEY FROM BLOGS..................................................................... 47

Getting started with videoblogging ......................................................................................... 51

Here are some of my favourite blog posts. Some are business, some are internet
marketing tips and some are just my musings and grumbles but that is the beauty of
blogging – it gives you a voice. ................................................................................................ 53

I hate chain letters but had to share this with you! ................................................................ 54

Marketing your business by marketing YOU!.......................................................................... 55

7 Tips on writing good web copy. ............................................................................................ 59

10 business start up tips. ......................................................................................................... 61

Are You Really an Internet Marketing Professional? .............................................................. 64

Escaping The Box - Even With Bars On The Windows ............................................................. 67

3 Ways Good CRM Can Boost Your Bottom Line..................................................................... 70



Why are blog posts becoming a better tool for showcasing your .......................................... 71

products than websites? ......................................................................................................... 71

Create the desire so people buy from you!............................................................................. 73

Adsense is like "big brother" watching! .................................................................................. 74

Just because you have a bad memory..... ............................................................................... 76

Email Marketing using Auto Responders. ............................................................................... 77

My Thoughts:........................................................................................................................... 81

The best affiliates for your blog. ............................................................................................. 81

How To Plan The Perfect Website!.......................................................................................... 83

The IPad - I want one. .............................................................................................................. 91

Don't wait for Business Opportunities to knock - you'll wait .................................................. 92

forever! .................................................................................................................................... 92

Don't sack the receptionist - give her more work! .................................................................. 94

A good way to beat writer's block!.......................................................................................... 96

So why should you have an official blog?................................................................................ 98

How to market your website so that people buy from you!................................................... 99

Forget the glass ceiling - use the fire escape instead! .......................................................... 103

Wow! I've been listed! .......................................................................................................... 104

Retweet - What does it mean and how important is it! ....................................................... 105

How to really monetise your blog ......................................................................................... 107

A membership site................................................................................................................. 109

Selling to the taxi driver! ....................................................................................................... 111

6 steps closer to monetising your blog! ................................................................................ 112

Put a sandwich board out to drive traffic! ............................................................................ 115

Confessions of a Blogger. ...................................................................................................... 117

If you build a relationship – they will come! ......................................................................... 118

That call to action – your life’s blood! ................................................................................... 121



10 QUESTIONS: DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES? By John Assaraf ........................................ 122

How and Why to Start a Membership Site. ........................................................................... 124

How to market on Twitter 2 .................................................................................................. 128

Union gives strength! An Aesops fable. ................................................................................ 131

The Goose with the Golden Egg ............................................................................................ 131

How to market on Twitter ..................................................................................................... 132

Do your potential customers forget about you? ................................................................... 135

Email Newsletter Open Rates Need Improving? ................................................................... 139

Don’t listen to the negative thinkers! ................................................................................... 143

12 things to be thankful for. .................................................................................................. 146

You can make your life as rich as you want! ......................................................................... 147

Do you have a vision? ............................................................................................................ 148

When you have moments of doubt – my message to you! .................................................. 149

Don’t be too clever if you want to win customers! ............................................................... 151

How’s your Verbal Business card?......................................................................................... 152

Do your customers find you attractive? ................................................................................ 154

Viral Marketing is the new name for “Word of Mouth”. ...................................................... 155



Part 1: Setting Up Your Blog

Blogging is a lucrative source of profit and blogs are easy to set up and
maintain. Imagine a life where you are paid to write on stuff that interests you,
whenever you want, wherever you are. The mere flexibility of blogging makes
it easy for you to just kick back, relax and go on a vacation whenever you feel
like it.

In this article, we are going to look into the profitability of a blog and set up a
blog of our own at no cost! Interested? Read on!

First, we need to obtain a blog. There are several options – host a blog on your
own domain or get a free blog. For starters, let’s talk about the free blogs. You
can obtain a free blog at www.blogger.com or the newer (and better!)
www.wordpress.com. If you are a techie, you must have heard of Wordpress, a
free blog engine that is robust and infinitely expandable.

Blogger.com is actually owned by Google, so it will be detected on Google’s
radar faster and you will be indexed faster. Wordpress.com, however, is a
relatively new option so I have no comparison on the speed of getting indexed
by search engines. However, Wordpress is better in the sense that it has more
advanced features such as Trackbacks and Categories. You can also manage
your sidebar links more efficiently (more about this later).

Get a free blog at either Blogger.com (http://www.blogger.com/signup.g) or
Wordpress (http://wordpress.com/signup/). Then, familiarize yourself by
posting your first post on your blog and tinkering around with the options and
templates.

Here are a few common ―blog-related‖ words to help you out:

1) Permalink – Permalink stands for permanent link, which is a URL
(uniform resource locator) that leads to an individual post that you make
in your blog.
2) Trackback – When you post about someone else’s blog post elsewhere,
your post will show up in their ―trackback‖ section. This feature, however,


is not available with a Blogger.com account.
3) Pinging – Blogging seems to be paired with pinging almost every time
either one is mentioned nowadays. Pinging is actually the action where a
certain aggregator is notified whenever your blog is updated, so that the
aggregator may show the newest post of your blog on their website. This is
a useful way to gaining traffic, which we shall discuss later.

For now, I shall leave you testing out your new blog and the features that come
included with it. In the next articles, we shall discuss the many ways we can
gain profit from a blog, as well as tips on how to write posts that keep visitors
glued and keep coming back for more!

Part 2 – Blog Content

Today, we’re going to discuss the type of content that is suitable for your blog
in order to make it profitable. First off, I want you to understand that there is
no fixed scope that your blog should have, which means you can write about
whatever you’re interested in.

However, the difference between a profitable blog and a non-profitable blog is
the way the blog is written. Just imagine, would you prefer to read your
university professor’s lecture notes or the latest novel by your favourite
author?

You may prefer to read the novel because it appeals more to your interest, or
because it is not as mind-numbing as the lecture notes by your professor.
However, the most important point is people like to read ―light‖ stuff most of
the time. You see, when people log on to your blog, they are not only looking
for information – they are also looking for information they can obtain easily,
and better still in a relaxed manner.

So, to attract more visitors as well as to keep your current visitors coming back
for more, it is very important to add a human touch to your blog posts. This
can be done by simply imagining you’re talking about a certain topic with your
personal friend. An extra bonus for your readers would be a great sense of
humour, so try to add funny comments in your articles where they are


suitable.

Another important key point is to avoid addressing your reader as a plural
unit. What I really mean is you should not write as if you’re preparing a speech.
Instead, you should write as if you’re having a conversation to a single person
because this will make your visitor think of you more as a personal friend
rather than a person of higher authority.

Besides that, it is also very useful to establish your own personality through
your words. Human beings are very curious creatures, so naturally your
visitors would want to know as much about you as the information you’re
offering them.

Having a distinctive personality in your blog would make a world’s difference
between your blog about gadgets and all the other blogs about gadgets out
there. This is a lot like creating your own brand name, where people
immediately remember your blog’s name when they need to find out
information about gadgets, just like how people immediately think of
McDonald’s for fastfood or Nike for sportswear.

So, the lesson for today is to simply write as an equal friend to your visitors,
write to them as if you’re talking to a single person and establish your own
personality on your blog.

Part 3 – Blog Content Brainstorming

Face the fact – your blog needs to be regularly updated to maintain its
readership! Hence, you must always find fresh topics to write about, and we’re
going to discuss how to do just that in this article.

We have discussed how to write attractively, so now we are going to discuss
what we are going to write on. The very first option that I think a blogger
should write on is a topic that he or she feels passionate and interested in.
You’ve chosen to make blogging your career because you want to escape a



mundane job – forcing yourself to write about something that you’re not
interested in is as torturous as as your mundane job!

The other reason I ask you to write about something you’re passionate about is
because your feelings and emotion shows through your writings! If you feel
indifferent to a certain subject but still write about it just for the sake of it,
your readers will notice it. Remember the advice about writing with a
personality? Forcing yourself to write will not establish a welcoming style at
all.

Once you have chosen your main theme, start posting to your blog about it
and make it a habit to post at least once every day, even if it’s only a comment
on the newspaper article you read today. Think of yourself as a gigantic train.
It takes a lot of effort to get you moving. First, you might just budge an inch,
and later trudge slowly on until you finally reach your full speed. Then, it’ll
take a lot of effort to stop you instead!

However, no matter how well you know your topic, your brain is bound to get
exhausted over some time, so here are methods to brainstorm for content for
your blog.

1) The very best way to brainstorm is to see what other bloggers have to say
about stuff happening in your field of discussion. And the very best way to
find related blogs is to use http://blogsearch.google.com/ or
www.technorati.com. There are other decent search tools too, you just
have to look around. From other blogs, you can gather more knowledge on
your subject and you can also comment on what others have to say on your
own blog!
2) Once you’ve established contacts with other bloggers in your field, you’ll
have quite an unexhaustible ―conversation‖ ongoing, so you’ll not need to
actively search for content to write about. However, if you’re still stuck,
search for news articles related to your niche in the local newspaper or
online through sites like http://news.google.com and
http://news.yahoo.com.
3) You can also have conversations with people with the same interest as you
in the particular niche you choose, so you will eventually build up a bank of
questions and answers and interesting discussions to write about in your
blog. To do this, join forums related to your niche, but don’t join every



forum there is out there. Stick with one or two with the biggest number of
members or the one which is most focused on your niche. This will also
come in handy much later in gaining traffic and generating profits.

Remember to keep up your momentum of posting at least once per day (or
more if you have a lot of content to write about) so that the major search
engines will know that your blog has fresh content everyday. This will attract
the search engines to spider your page on a more frequent basis, hence
gaining you extra traffic.

Don’t worry about the paragraph above about generating traffic and search
engines, because we’re going to talk about that in more detail later. For now,
remember to keep a consistent effort everyday and build up momentum like
that of a locomotive!

Part 4 – On Page Search Engine Optimization

Now, you should have a blog full with content you have passionately written.
It should be a very interesting grapevine for the community of your chosen
niche, as opposed to a lifeless factsheet.

However, no matter how delicious your content is, if there is nobody to read it
you can’t generate profit from it. Traffic is the lifeblood of your blog. In order
to attract people, you must offer attractive information. Simple enough.

However, to get traffic onto your site, you have to think backwards. Where do
people look when they need information? Yes, they search using search
engines like www.google.com, www.yahoo.com and www.msn.com, to name a
few more popular ones. So, to get these people on your blog, your blog needs
to rank high on search result pages of these search engines. When these
people search for information through the search engines and see your site
among the top results, they will naturally click through to your blog!

The art of getting your blog or website onto high rankings on search result
pages is called search engine optimization. It is a very complex and hard
subject to master, but that doesn’t stop us from learning simple yet effective
techniques to conquer the search results for certain keywords. The more


complex techniques are usually needed to fight for very competitive and
general keywords such as ―fat loss‖, but I’ll teach you how to overcome that
later.

For now, let’s determine the keywords that you want to optimize your site for.
For example, your blog talks about tech gadgets. Now, you’d want to check in
Google whether it is a very competetive keyword. At this time of writing, there
are 29, 000 ,000 search results. Think you can beat 29, 000, 000 sites at your
first attempt? I don’t think so.

Now, let’s try to narrow down our scope. Let’s look for ―technological gadgets‖
instead. At this time of writing, Google lists 792, 000 results. That’s more
manageable, but you’d like to search for more focused keywords. However,
let’s optimize your blog for ―technological gadget‖ just for the sake of learning.

First, you have to pay attention to the title of your blog. Since you’re
optimizing for technological gadgets, you need to have that exact phrase in
your blog title. For example, a line like ―Your Best Technological Gadget Blog!‖
would work great. You can change the title of your blog in the Blogger control
panel or the Wordpress blog when you’re creating it. If you’re proficient with
HTML, you can even do that on other blog engines like Moveable Type.
Bottom line? Learn a little HTML!

Other than that, your page heading should also contain the term you’re
optimizing for. The page heading is the bit of text in your code that is enclosed
within the <h1> and </h1> tags. This is important as it tells the search
engines what your page is about (in this case, ―technological gadgets‖). Since
we’re posting a blog, the <h1> </h1> tags are usually the post titles, so
remember to include the term there whenever relevant.

One last bit, you should also sprinkle the words ―technological gadgets‖ in
your posts whenever possible. The frequent occurrence of that phrase in your
blog will hint the search engines that your blog is really relevant to that topic.

However, this is the most important bit of all. Always keep in mind that you’re
writing for real life people who read your blog to obtain information, so it is
very stupid to spam your blog with keywords! In fact, if you do that, the search
engines will end up thinking you’re spamming and drop your ranking further



down into oblivion… So keep in mind! Write for humans, not search engines!

Part 5 – Offpage Search Engine Optimization

We’ve already optimized our blog to rank well for search results of certain
keywords that we’re targetting, but here comes the sad news – it affects your
ranking in only very minor ways. However, don’t skip this step as every little
bit helps when you’re competing for search engine rankings!

Now, we’re moving on to offpage search engine optimization. That is, factors
that are not on your blog but affect your search engine rankings very greatly.
There are a lot of offpage factors, but we shall study them one by one. The first
and most obvious one is the number of links to your blog.

As a general rule of thumb, the more links to your blog, the more the search
engines think you are an authority in that particular niche and hence the
higher they rank you. However, take care to observe the quality of the links.
For example, a thousand links from totally irrelevant sites like online dating
sites would not help at all because your blog is a technological product blog. In
contrast, a single link from a highly authoritative site about technological
gadgets will get the search engines crawling about your blog like the Feds
storming a crack den…

Anyway, the most cost effective way of getting high quality links from
authoritative sites is simply to ask for it. If your blog contains high quality
content that is original and will provide valuable information to the site’s
readers, chances are the webmaster(s) will link to your blog or even write
about you!

Let’s talk about how we should ask these webmasters of authority to link to
your blog. We’re discussing this based on the presumption that your blog is
really content rich and offer high quality information to anyone in your niche
or topic of discussion. The most viable option would be to send an email
directly to the webmaster.

First, let’s look for the top sites in your niche. Simply search the major search
engines for the term that you’re targetting. In this case, let’s search for


―technological gadgets‖. The first few results, www.t3.co.uk and
www.acarplace.com/brands/gm/gadgets.html are commercial sites, so don’t
bother asking. We’re looking for community-based sites and other blogs that
are more accessible to a complete newcomer like you. Seems like
www.gizmodo.com would be a good option!

So, compose an email to the webmaster of www.gizmodo.com (whose email
address you shall find on the site). They even have their AIM contact there, so
it’s also a good choice if you use AOL Instant Messenger. Start by stating how
you came across their site (i.e. ―looking for gadget information‖, NOT ―looking
for link partners!‖) and how you think their site provides valuable info.
Basically, try to say something really good about their site honestly.

Then, suggest that so-and-so content on your own blog will be a nice
complement to their site’s content and vice versa. Put a link on your blog to
their site and ask subtly if they might be able to do the same to weld a
mutually beneficial relationship between the site and your blog.

Along the way, you might find people who won’t even respond to your email,
so forget about them and move on. Remove the links from your blog to their
site if they have not responded to your email within two weeks, which is a
pretty long wait.

Keep doing this for the first 30 search results that pop up, and before long you
should have quite a few good sites all linking to you. In the next article, we
shall explore further the more advanced offpage factors, and ways to improve
them!

Part 6 – Offpage Search Engine Optimization II

In the last article, we talked about how getting high quality links from
authoritative websites in your field can boost your search engine rankings.
This time, we’re going to explore further into linking strategies, and how to
determine and obtain ―high quality‖ links. We’re also going to talk briefly
about Google’s PageRank.



First, let’s examine a regular link. It’s a piece of text (or image, but we’re going
for text) that links to your blog, and some of the factors that matter are
1) The address which it links to
2) The text of the link
3) The PageRank of the page on which the link resides

Let’s analyze this information one by one. First, you’d naturally want the link
to link to your blog, but to which page of your blog? To an individual post or to
your blog’s home page? Since your blog is a constantly updated website, it is
always wise to accumulate all the links to point to your main page instead if
individual posts because they tend to be very time-sensitive.

The text of the link also affects your rankings for a certain keyword. Let’s say
your blog is about technological gadgets and another site has a link that says
―Barbie dolls‖ and links to your blog. Doesn’t make much sense, right? If a lot
of links that link to your site contain the terms ―technological‖ or ―gadget‖, it
will greatly boost your rankings for those keywords. Hence, it’s essential to put
some thoughts when requesting links from other webmasters as you want
them to link to your blog with appropriate keywords.

Now, about Google’s PageRank. It’s basically a scale set by Google to measure
the popularity of websites. You can read more about it on
http://www.google.com/technology/. What is interesting is that the higher
the PageRank of a certain website, the more frequent Google’s robots will visit
the website to index it. Of course, the PageRank of a page will also help it to
rank higher in Google’s search engine results. In short, having a high
PageRank will bring you many benefits SEO-wise.

Your blog will start with no PageRank (which is different to PageRank 0)
because Google has not yet indexed your blog. Once Google’s robots find your
blog through links on other sites, your blog will show a PageRank of 0 and
depending on the PageRank of the referring page, your blog’s PageRank will
also rise eventually.

Getting high-quality links to your blog will help direct targetted visitors who
are interested in your niche to your blog, enable search engines to find and
index your blog and ultimately rank higher in search engine results.



Part 7 – More Traffic Sources

Getting links from other websites is not the only way to attract visitors to visit
your blog. This time, we are going to explore alternative methods to attract
high quality traffic with both free and paid methods.

The first thing you can do to generate traffic is to recycle all the content you
have written on your blog. What I really mean is to turn your blog posts into
little ―manuals‖ or articles that help people solve their problems or offer
valuable information and submit them to article directories. These article
directories are like aggregators that collect articles of similar themes together
in one place, so they receive thousands and thousands of qualified visitors
every day.

When you submit your articles to these directories, you are exposing your
name to the thousands of pairs of eyes visiting them for free! On most article
directories, you are also permitted to include a ―resource box‖ where you can
include your contact details, a simple biography and so on. This is where you
can truly leverage the traffic of the said article directories.

Some good article directories to get you started:
www.eZineArticles.com
www.ultimatearticledirectory.com
www.submityourarticle.com

Another excellent way to gain traffic is to join internet forums that is based on
your niche. To find these kind of forums, just go to any search engine and
enter ―<your niche> +forum‖, without the quotes. You would want the most
focused forum with a substantial number of active members, and preferably
always bustling with activity. Just check the dates of the threads posted on the
forum.

When you join active forums that focus on your field of discussion and post
very useful and valuable posts, your peers will start noticing you and paying
attention to what you have to say. In most forums, you are also allowed to
append a link to your site in the signature line, which is under every post you


make on the forums. People will click and visit your blog if they find your
posts helpful and informative. This way, your credibility is built even before
they land on your blog, so traffic from the forums would be easier to turn into
profits if your blog is selling your own products or recommending others’ as
an affilliate since they are already convinced you’re an ―expert‖ in the field.

The strategy we’ll discuss is word of mouth. Let’s say you already have a daily
visitor count of 100. What if you compiled a small report or gift and posted it
on your blog, saying that if a certain visitor can refer three of his/her friends
to visit your blog the gift will be his/hers for free? If your small report or gift is
lucrative enough, it will generate a small buzz among your blog readers and
they will surely refer their friends to this blog that they frequent!

You can also utilize the ―blog and ping‖ technique that everyone’s talking
about. Basically, when you update your blog, you can let blog portals such as
www.technorati.com know by pinging them. You can ping a lot of portals at
once by using the free www.pingomatic.com.

Besides the techniques described here, there are also paid methods like buying
links from high-ranking pages or buying banner advertisement space. A thing
to keep in mind when buying paid traffic is to always weigh your profits
generated from the paid ads. If your profits do no offset the expense, you will
end up losing money, so choose wisely.

Part 8 – Monetizing Your Blog

You have been working hard to produce good-quality, original content on your
blog and you have attracted a decent amount of traffic by doing so. However,
money is not going to appear out of thin air just because you have traffic. You
have to turn your traffic into money.

There are several ways to generate profits from the visitors of your blog, and
Google’s Adsense programme allows you to do so with ultimate ease. First,
visit their website at http://adsense.google.com/. You’ll find out more about
their advertising programme there, but here are some extra bits I’d like to tell
you.



First, Google’s Adsense programme is a really useful way to monetize your
blog because when users finish reading your newest post, chances are they
want to leave your blog because they have nothing else to do on your blog. If
your Adsense advertisement block is visible on your blog, they might see
advertisements relevant to them and click on them to exit your blog. Ka-ching!
You’ve just cashed in on your first virtual cents!

But yes, your profits will only be cents if you don’t ―do it right‖. This involves
placing your Google ads in the right places and ensuring they blend in to your
site so that they appear more like links rather than advertisements to your
visitors. Consult the page
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html to
see the ―heat map‖ of your blog. The ―hotter‖ a certain area, the greater the
chances of someone looking at your blog.

Once you get a Google Adsense account, you can change the colour of your
advertisement text and links. You will want them to match the colours on your
blog. If your blog’s text is black and the links are red, do the same for the ad
blocks too! It’s that simple.

Another way to earn profits from your blog is to recommend products to your
readers. When your visitors buy from the merchants you recommend, you get
to keep a little commission too. This is known as affiliate marketing and it is
very easy to start because you don’t have to create your own products or
services.

Anyway, let’s refer back to our technological gadgets blog example. Let’s say
you discover this Gadget X on a merchant’s website, and they offer an affilliate
programme. What you would do is to create a post in your blog and do a
mini-review on this Gadget X. Rip it apart and point out its benefits and bad
points, if any, and include a link (which is given by the merchant) for the
visitor to purchase the Gadget X online.

If your visitor clicks and purchases the gadget, the merchant will track from
the link that the purchase is referred by you, so they will send you your share
of the profits. Imagine if 1 out of every 100 visitors you get purchases this
product, and you earn $27.00 commission from each purchase! If you get
10,000 visitors in a month that would be a $2,700.00 paycheque for you just



for writing about ONE product.

Now, affiliate programmes are very nice ways to generate profit, but how do
you find affiliate programmes that are related to your blog’s theme? Easy, just
go to Google and search for <your niche> +‖affiliate programmes‖. Another
slightly better way is to go to http://www.associateprograms.com/search to
look for affiliate programmes in your niche.

The two ways mentioned above are basic ways to generate profits from your
blog. We’ll be discussing other great, profitable ways, so keep your eyes
peeled!

Part 9 – More Monetizing Options

We’ve discussed about using Google Adsense programme and other
merchants’ affiliate programmes to generate profits from your blog. However,
we have a lot of other options ot monetize your blog, so we’re going to look
into that today.

The first option we’ll be looking at is Chitika (www.chitika.com). Chitika is a
very innovative contextual advertising programme because it can serve very
detailed advertisements. For example, on your technological gadget blog,
Chitika will show advertisements for tech gadgets such as iPods. The way they
show it is in different tabs: one for ―Best deals‖, another for ―details‖, another
for ―reviews‖ and so on. This way, it is more of an informational section for
your visitor rather than an advertisement, and naturally the click-through will
be higher. You can apply here: https://chitika.com/application.php?type=mm

You can also be an affiliate for Amazon.com. Amazon offers a wide range of
products but its predominant domain is in books. Whatever your niche is
about, you can probably find a book about it on Amazon.com. Join their
Associate programme here:
https://associates.amazon.com/gp/flex/associates/apply-login.html/

Once you join them, you can refer visitors to them and earn up to 10%


commission. It’s not a lot but if you can manage to refer big volumes of
visitors, Amazon is for you. This programme really shines when it comes to
the ways you can refer visitors: you can use their predefined templates to pull
up recent items that match a certain criteria you set, you can target your ad to
show a specific item on sale or you can just simply weave your referral links
into your blog posts.

Last but definitely not least, you can sell advertising space on your blog if your
blog is truly popular. Just take a look at blogs like http://xiaxue.blogspot.com.
That blog receives over 10,000 pageviews every day and naturally merchants
will want to strike a deal with the blog’s owner to post their advertisements
there. If you manage to pull in huge amounts of traffic like that blog, you can
definitely get people to buy ad space on your blog for prices from $150/month
upwards, depending on your blog popularity.
To gauge how much pageviews and visitors you get everyday, just use the free
tool available at www.statcounter.com. They have a very detailed setup guide
there so I won’t go into it.

If your blog has not acquired large amount of visitors yet, you can still sell ad
space on your blog on a per click or per impression basis. Just visit sites like
www.adbrite.com. For a complete list of these sites, visit
http://performancing.com/node/60.

Hopefully, that will help you maximize earnings and profits from your blog!

Part 10 – Interactions Between Blogs

As your blog’s content increase, people in your niche will definitely mention
you for intelligent or interesting discussions. This is, in a sense, an initiation
of an interaction. When people speak of you, you should thank them for the
mention and build up the interaction!

When you use a traffic tracking script such as the free www.statcounter.com,
you can see where traffic comes from. If a large number of visitors come from
a certain blog, you can be sure they have mentioned you in their latest post or
linked to you from their sidebar or links page. What you should do is pay them
a visit, leave constructive comments on their posts and build up a


conversation!

As you continue doing this, you will start to gather a lot of friends in your
niche. This is helpful later on when you decide to do collaborations such as
interviews. In fact, when you’re out of ideas for writing on your blog, you can
interview other blog owners in your niche! Human beings are curious
creatures, so naturally they would like to know more about a person whose
writings they read so often.

If you’re using Wordpress, Textpattern, MovableType or any other advanced
blog engines, you can also post trackback links on your posts. This means you
can post an article about what other people have posted! Your particular post
will then appear as a link on that post you have written about. This is
definitely a great way to get traffic if you post brilliant insights about a post on
a very famous blog. Since the famous blog already has a per-existing pool of
readers, this is like a shortcut to hog their visitors! The only thing you would
want to observe is to keep your posts sensible and insightful, or you’ll be
viewed as a spammer.

On the other hand, if you’re using Blogger, you would not be able to use
trackback links. However, you can post insightful comments on other people’s
blogs and subtly include a link back to your blog. You can make it seem like
you’re pointing to your blog as an extra reference to the subject of discussion.
Of course, this technique is not only limited to Blogger users and users of
other blog engines can employ this strategy as an additional traffic source.

Part 11 Using article sites to drive traffic to your blog

Article sites are still, stickiness wise, one of the single best ways to drive traffic
and build a name as a expert, all at the same time.
So how does this tie to your blog?

Well, for a start, if you're blogging on the same topic as you're writing content
on, you should have a fairly good niche to promote into – and can use any of
your longer, more coherent posts as article content. But if you want it to



work really well, there are a couple of steps you MUST follow.

1) Make sure your article is coherent. Blog posts, by their nature are
supposed to be less informal than the standard 'article' – like you're
having an intimate conversation with a group of friends, instead of a
more impersonal discussion with your readers, but at the same time,
the best blog posts make TERRIBLE articles. So a blog post that is
also going to be used on article submission sites should be both
interesting, and slightly more 'formal' than standard blog posts.
2) Post it on your blog, and add your resource box at the end – you can
make it clear that its a free reprint if you want, or you can simply post it
in a category for your reprints. That way, you can offer a feed of your
reprints too, and include the link in your resource box. Also include
the permalink to the post itself in your post – which means you will
need to edit the post after posting the first time.
3) Wait a month – in that month, submit the article to any bookmarking
sites, and ensure that you maximize its impact by encouraging your
readers to 'vote' for it too.
4) Ensure your post is in the search engines by searching for the first line
of your article. If its not in the search engines, work on getting it there
– read up on site maps and other products designed to get you in the
search engines.
5) Submit your content to a maximum of 10 reprint sites. Make sure
your resource box doesn't break any of their rules, and make sure that
you leave comments OPEN on these posts (if you close them ordinarily.
Following these five steps won't guarantee your success in using article
marketing, but they will eliminate most of the serious beginner mistakes
people make when submitting to article reprint sites.

Part 12 Blogger or Wordpress?

The two main hosted blog types, are Blogger and Wordpress – you'll find that
whenever a discussion about where its best to host your blog, if you're not
hosting it yourself, that these two are rated the highest.
So which of the two services is better?
Ultimately, both services will offer you a strong and solid base to blog from,


but there are a couple of distinct differences between Blogger and Wordpress.

Wordpress
Wordpress hosted services are not designed to be used for commercial
purposes – nevertheless, most people do. You get a choice of themes (and
without paying, you can't design your own theme) and a choice of plugins.
You can 'map' your domain to the site, for a fee, giving you the appearance of
hosting it yourself.
Wordpress hosted (at http://wordpress.com) is almost identical to hosting it
yourself, other than the obvious 'bonus' of not actually needing to look after
your install. But its disadvantages include being at the mercy of a third party
site, and needing to pay for additional 'services'. These still cost less than
buying hosting and setting the blog up yourself.

Blogger
Blogger is owned by Google, and is designed around ease of use. You can 'ftp'
your blog onto your own site, or host at a domain
(yourblogname.blogspot.com) of your choice. Blogger doesn't use plugins,
but does let you use your own theme, within certain limits.
A huge community has been built around Blogger, but unlike Wordpress.com
they allow commercial based blogs as well as non commercial, which means
they are more prone to spam.

In conclusion. If you really can't host your own blog at your own site, play
with both Wordpress and Blogger, because ultimately, the main difference will
be between which one your more comfortable with. And that's the one you
should use.

Blogging has rapidly become THE primary traffic generation tool of newbie's
and advanced marketers alike. Its an easy, and efficient way to create and
maintain connections with customers, staff, colleagues and peers, and best of
all, ensure consistent and easier to link to listings in search engines, and from
sites.
Whilst many people are saying that 'the money is in the list' - and while that's
still true, there is a certain element of truth in the concept that the Internet is
changing in favor of blogs. This change is meaning that though you might
not make the same sorts of sales as you do on lists via your blog, but that blogs
are still a powerful, and compelling way to make money online - and, of course



build your list.
Blogging and list building don't need to be mutually exclusive of one another
either - both tactics compliment one another very deeply and will allow you to
extend your reach exponentially. This reach expansion may seem slow at
first, but one of the best things about it, is that people will, of course,
remember and reference you if you provide serious value to them - something
that most new bloggers overlook.
Blogs contain one very powerful concept - interaction. With interaction
you'll find that people are more interested in what you're saying, and you'll
gain insight into how your market actually works, which, in turn, gives you the
ability to drill down even further into your chosen specialty area.
With a little help, planning, and work, you can build an amazing, engaging
and useful blog that is a credit to your company and a customer based
connection that rewards you, and them with a rich relationship - and rewards
you with loyal customers that will follow you to the ends of the earth if
necessary.
Depending on your blogging style, you'll either make friends or enemies – but
either way, they WILL comment on your blog. People that comment are
more likely to return to your site – and those that return WILL give you the
feedback, and basis for more content. Blogs are win win – so why don't you
go out and get one today?

Part 13 Mistakes that bloggers make

Bloggers make mistakes all the time. But most of them are easy to avoid, and
even easier not to create in the first place.

Mistake one – not sticking to the topic of your blog. Blogs are designed
around a theme – and the more focused the theme, the more likely you'll
attract interested traffic. Most new bloggers however either 'cast around' for
a theme, hoping to hit on something that works, or are just scattered in
general.
Solution – keep your posts as focused as possible on the overall topic that you
set out for your blog.
Mistake two – Not driving traffic to their sites.
Blogging isn't just about posting content. Unfortunately, most people think
that 'if they build it, they will come' and thats simply not true. not updating


often enough – most bloggers start out really well – they write lots of posts
and then, it tapers off. They become discouraged, or worse, they think they
aren't doing 'it right'. Blogging needs just as much attention as any other site,
sometimes more so – and like most sites, unless you hit on something really
big, you'll find that you don't make much of an impact at first.
Driving traffic to your site CAN be fairly simple though – you can do it by
taking part in other sites, and using your url in your sigline, you can comment
on other blogs, or bookmark your site – with wide exposure you'll gain far
more traffic than simply relying on SEO.
Mistake three – not connecting with others in your niche
Solution - its important to contact others in your niche, because it gives you a
chance to participate in link exchanges. One of the best ways to do this is
'mutually' recommend one another's sites – you can do this, quite simply, by
asking the site owner to review your site, and you can do the same. That way,
you'll build a more valuable 'link base' for the person you're reviewing, and
though they are creating a two way link exchange with you, the review style
link exchange is always more valuable.
No matter what mistakes bloggers make, there's always a way to fix them – by
working on the solution, you'll find that implementing the solutions will help
immensely.

Part 14 The five most important things to do with a new

blog

No matter where you blog, or what you decide to do with your blog, there are a
couple of 'must do' steps.

Step one – make sure you've configured everything. There's nothing worse
than having done 99% of the work, only to be let down by the final 1%. To
ensure you've got the best fighting chance to get the best attention for your
blog, you should fill in everything that you can.
This includes any profile settings, and in the case of Wordpress, any plugins or
other information that needs to be completed – many plugins and themes
require some work to make them usable.
Step two – pick a theme and stick with it. You'll need to pick a theme that
you like and upload it. Making your blog stand out from the rest is a major


step in retaining traffic. More importantly, if you make it yours, the you're
more likely to work on it more often.
Adding a theme also makes you appear LESS like a spammer – most
spammers don't personalize their blogs – they stick with a couple of default
themes and don't add much personal information.
Step three – Write some content. When you're ready to upload the content,
you should set it up to create a great archive. Create at least five posts and
upload them to your site.
Step four – Promote that content – once you've got a nice stock of content up
start promoting your blog. Consider using your posts on article sites,
exchanges and more – you'll get more traffic if you diversify, so remember to
add your site to bookmarking sites – and, encourage your readers to do so too.
Step five – have fun!
Blogging, ultimately, is about connecting with readers and will give you a
reader base to discuss your work with – but it will also allow you to express
yourself, make friends, and spread your expertise over the web. But most of
all, blogging is enjoyable, so always keep it that way, and have fun!
Blogging 101

If writing is an art, then, blogging is one way of using words to come up with
an art. This is because people who are into blogging are the ones who are
artistic on their own sense, carefully choosing words that would best describe
their feelings, sentiments, wishes, desires, and everything.

Basically, blogs were first introduced as weblogs that refer to a ―server’s log
file.‖ It was created when web logging hit the virtual market. Since its
inception in the mid-1990s, web logging gradually saturated the virtual
community making the Internet a viable source of greater information.

However, with web logging, you still need a web site and domain names, but
with blogging, you do not need anything just an account with blog providers.
In most cases, these kinds of blogs are free of charge.

With the onset of blogging in the industry, personal journaling had been a
common ground for people who wish to be known all over the world. However,
not literally famous as this is not a case on being popular or well-known
personality.



Generally, blogs are created for personal use. Like a journal, people can write
their daily adventures, sentiments, and whatever ideas they want to express
online.

Nevertheless, with the advent of the online businesses, blogs had gradually
taken the limelight in providing businesses a chance to boost their
productivity online. This is where the business blogs have taken the limelight.

Business blogs are, basically, created to advertise the services or products of a
certain web site or online business in order to increase online sales.

Moreover, business blogs are also one way of promoting the company so that
the other readers will know that a certain company exists online. With blogs,
entrepreneurs are able to establish a name in the virtual market through
articles that can be very useful in the reader’s life.

From there, you can make money out of blogs by simply syndicating it to your
business’ web site. This can be done through the RSS technology.

So, if you are thinking to create a blog, whether for business or for pleasure,
you need to know some tips that could help you get through and make your
blog one of the interesting blogs online.

Part 15 Here’s how:

1. Consider your audience

Even if your blog is generally personal, still, it would be better to consider the
minds of your readers. You have to think of something that would interest
them.

After all, most of the reasons of people who write blogs are not at all confined



to their own personal motives. Most of them would love to be ―heard‖ (or read)
and would love to be known, in some way or another, even for just a minute.
Hence, it is very important to come with a write up that everybody can
understand, not necessarily that these people can relate to it but they can
understand it.

2. Pictures speaks a thousand words

To make your blogging worth the browsing effort of your readers, it would be
extremely nice if you will put some pictures in it. It does not necessarily mean
you have to place a picture of yourself. Any photographs will do as long as it
does not pose danger or insult to anyone who will be reading your blog.

3. Make constructive and beneficial blogs

Even if you are free to write anything you wan to say to the world, still, it
would be better to create some write-ups that would be beneficial to your
readers.

After all, its information technology that you have there so better be inclined
to provide information rather than sheer quirky entertainment.

4. Avoid making multifaceted and complicated blogs

In order to have an interesting blogs, try not to use some highly technical and
highfalutin words. After all, it is not a science discourse or a debate that you
are making, so better stick to simple facts and short blogs.

Bear in mind that most people who use the Internet usually do more scanning
than scrutinizing each site word for word. Therefore, it would be better to
come with blogs that will not bore your readers just because you have these



lengthy articles.

5. Make it interactive

As much as possible and if your capacity will allow it, make your blog
interactive. Yu can do this by placing some video or audio clips in your blog.

You can even place an area for comments or for some feedbacks. In this way,
you can get some impressions or reactions of other people. Who knows, you
might even gain some friends just by making them feel at home in your blog
site.

Indeed, blogs are not created just for the mere fun of it. It also has its own
purpose in the world of the Internet.
Therefore, for people who wish to harness their craft, as far as writing is
concerned, blogs are the best way to do it.

As they say, blogging is the contemporary term of creative and commercial
writing.

Part 16

5 Reasons Why Blogging is the New Internet Marketing

Tool

Blogging is a concept that started in late 90s. It used to be a way to comment
an existing webpage, an opportunity for visitors and readers to react or voice
out one’s opinion on the said page. What started as a single-sentence
commentary has evolved into pages of personal take on just about anything
and everything under the sun. As it continues to move forward, online
advertising has tapped into the blog’s potential. Here are 5 reasons why you
should use blogging as an Internet marketing tool.

1.Blogging is simple. The simplest way to get your piece on the net is through



blogging. No skills are necessary… an average adult can read and type, or at
least click a mouse. It’s like having a virtual piece of paper and you just write
your ideas, experiences, new products, and hope that the truth behind your
articles comes out and entice your reader to also try your product. If you
have a PC and an Internet connection (who doesn’t?) then you can blog and
advertise.

2. Blogging is authentic. In this day and age where advertising saturate our
lives, we question the credibility of promoters’ claims. However, in blogs,
real people share their real-life experiences, unscathed by paid advertising.
Reading blogs about first-hand product use is like talking to people about
their first-hand experience. You definitely want to buy a tried and tested
product.

3. Blogging is free. Because blogging is yet to be proven as a mainstream
online advertising media, most sites see it as something to augment current
marketing tools and thus offer it for free. Any opportunity for free webtime
is definitely a bonus especially to businesses that are starting up. Needless to
say, paid blog pages can generate more income for your seriously growing
business.

4. Blogging builds credibility. As you get more and more into writing your
experiences on a particular product or industry, your readers come to realize
that they can depend on your posts for their own information needs. As such,
you become an expert on it; as a consequence, more readers visit your site and
more bloggers link to your blogs. As companies and professional
organizations notice the growth of your readership base, they may soon get in
touch with you for advertising on your blog page, or make you an affiliate,
which pays for every referral generated from your blog site.

5. Blogging builds your market. Unless you are a Hollywood star, chances
are, only your Mom reads your posts. Mom has a lot of friends, so she lets
her friends know how interesting your blog site is. But you need not depend
on Mom to increase your readership base. Look into the following ways to
build your market through blogging:

-By using your e-mail. Today, blogging is overcoming the e-mail’s popularity
in quickly and effectively reaching and expanding a market. In this age of



speed and quick access, logging in and downloading e-mail is simply taking
longer than clicking into a blog site. Let them explore your site by using a
short e-mail message as teaser to your blog site. If your e-mail is on an
entirely different subject, use your e-mail signature to give a link to the site.

-By using subscription. An easy way to get your readers e-mail is to give
them an opportunity to subscribe to your blogsite. Keep some exclusive
information for your subscribers to entice readers to subscribe and give their
e-mail address. Just be responsible in using their e-mail address, as the last
thing you want is a comment on your blog that you are a spammer.

-By understanding your readers. Conduct a simple survey for your readers to
understand their profile and advertising preferences. Ask consumers to give
you feedback on a post, an ad link, or a trial that you shared. In this way, it is
like interviewing your readers without the commitment and intrusion of a
face-to-face interview.

-By joining a blog network –A network of blogs maybe a collection of blog
sites that share the same industry, interest, readership base, payment mode,
etc. Consumers find credibility and convenience in clicking one link to
several real bloggers about a single subject. Clearly, more bloggers are better
than one.

-By using RSS. RSS is the fastest growing technology on the Internet today.
As such, having RSS feeds to your blog is definitely another means of
generating awareness for your readership base. Having a variety of feeds can
add interest to your blog site.

Give your business a boost by effectively using blogging as an Internet
marketing tool.

Part 17 All You Need To Know About Blog Hosts

Apart from the chat rooms, instant messengers and electronic mails created
for communication and dialogue beyond turf are the emerging innovations
that help man build opportunities for interaction. The need for a


personalized and human face aspect of building online communities is slowly
changing the technological landscape of the Internet.

Blogs ―weblogs‖ or blogging are the newest gift of Internet technology to
people all over the world. These are updated posts, crop up entries or
personalized life snippets, of mundane or bizarre in nature. For most, a ―blog‖
is a personal, unedited, and authentic journal meant to be shared in an online
community. Blog site is a place where bloggers can publish anything; his
thoughts, feelings, photos, special events, experiences, comments on issues
and so on. It is more of an online diary with videos, links, documents,
newsletters and opinions on just about any topics you are interested.

Blogs are made to welcome the insights and opinions of all and therefore,
should not be written to sound intimidating and too formal. This kind of blog
is a sure way to put off the readers. In the basics of blogging, conversational
tone would be more appropriate to reach the desired audience.

Blogging is all about individuals reaching out to other individuals. Having a
blog has its own set of advantages:

a Freedom of Expression. If you want people to hear you out and give their
own opinion, this is the best way to create a line of communication;
b Networking is at its best. Having a blog is a good platform for exchanging
genuine ideas from consumers to you as marketer of a certain product. Sound
opinion and point of view is better than just showing the price quote;
c Excellent advertising platform. Blogging is a new way to advertise
products, a refreshing change from the traditional advertising outlets and it is
cost-effective.
d Gauging public opinion on products and services. The key is nice and
catchy titles with new ideas presented in your content. This is an assurance of
quick and repeated responses from your readers. Blogs is an excellent spot
for the exchange of ideas between the seller and the consumer. Good for
measuring public opinion regarding services and products, even political and
business matters alike.
e Useful tool for internal communication. This will help your company to



build a knowledge-based community of employees. Also good for harnessing
employee relations and identifying human resource issues in advance.
f Other benefits like search engine optimization (SEO) will help your blogs
to be seen often by as many people as you wish. This is very good exposure for
your products and services.

Many blog hosting services are available on the Internet. But the basic
question is which one of the services will be the best to start off your business
blog program? Business people are usually clueless to recent technological
innovations which would help them maximize their marketing potentials. For
these beginners, it is best to study first the services offered by blog hosts. An
ineffective business blogging program may damage marketing opportunities
instead of enriching them.

A company may decide to do the following depending on its capacity and
needs: 1) Host their own blog service, 2) Pay someone else to host the service,
or 3) Setup a ―blog aggregator page‖ and ask the employees to select their blog
hosting services individually. There are paid and free services available for
individuals.

For business blogs, they are required to have the latest blogging features; if
not, this will prevent them from maximizing their marketing, public relations
and SEO potentials.

Part 18

Keep in mind that blogs should have the following basic

essentials:

COMMENTS. Welcoming comments provide opportunity for dialogue. In



business blogs, they are a good customer feedback mechanism. This helps
develop better customer relations based from loyalty and trust. Blogging is an
innovative way to converse with your customers.
TRACKBACK. This helps in maximizing company and product exposure.
Through this service, consumers can get back to you for more posts and
updates without the difficulty of locating you. If your blog is popular in a
specific online community chances are links going back to your blog site are
everywhere online, other blog sites or even websites.
CATEGORIES AND TAGS. These both help in classifying blog searches for
ease of navigation and on site search. Categories act as libraries because it
classifies posts by subject matter such as business, distance learning,
e-commerce, online auctions, etc. Tags, help in the classification, especially in
the blog search engine Technorati. Possible customers and new clients locate
blogs about certain topics of interest by just clicking the tags.
RSS FEED. Really Simple Syndication is the feed from your blog that is sent
out over the internet, and collected through the various newsreaders and
aggregators.

If your company is to establish a business blogging program, considerable
options should be made available by the hosting companies shortlisted for the
services. Free blog hosting services are popular but they are much appropriate
for individual online journals. Paid blog hosting services offer unlimited
packages best for your company’s needs. You may want to suggest checking
out some blogs that use the host first, read and examine their layout and
design. Another important thing to consider is a reliable technical support the
host has.

After, choosing the blog host, a team should be ready to plan the design and
structure of the blog: The team should:
a create a style that meets the needs of the audience;
b establish an open, credible tone;
c schedule weekly updating of blog - ideally, a few times a week;
d include weblinks of other website and blogs;
e blog post should be in the ―first person;‖
f focus on the business blog objective; and,
g maintain an honest, engaging conversational quality.



Remember, whatever the look, style and content found on your blog is a
reflection of you and your company.

Part 19

How to Increase Sales Through Streaming Audio

Many studies have proven that radio is a good medium for product
advertisements. People listen to the radio for entertainment, usually to listen
to the latest music or to their favorite radio program. In between the
program, advertisements on products and services are being played.

For many years, this has been the trend in advertising. But now that the
radio medium is almost behind the audio-visual medium, the TV, and the
Internet, other marketing strategies have to be employed to continue the
benefits of advertising through audio.

It is then that the benefits of using music on websites were discovered.
Before, music on the Internet was just available in downloadable forms as
mp3. Even through hosting downloadable music on their servers, companies
were able to get much traffic on their sites. And everyone engaged in
Internet marketing knows that website traffic plays a big role in boosting
product and service sales.

However, there had been a problem with illegal music download in which
artists, musicians and record companies have lost millions of revenues.

Then, came the popularity of Internet music streaming. Unlike the former,
radio streaming does not allow download of the music files. Thus, the
copyrights of the artists and record label owners are protected.



So, how can this be done? There are several ways to stream audio from your
site. First, is to stream a radio program from your site or blog. You can find
free affiliate programs that allow you to stream their radio content from your
site.

What will this mean to you? This means that your site will have new audio
content every time it is visited. What's even great is that the content is being
updated even without much effort from you.

In this case, what you needed to do is to signup with an Internet radio station
and have the link embedded on your blog or website.

Another way is to stream mp3s. To do this, you just need to upload your
mp3files on a server and add the files' links to the page. When the link is
clicked, the browser opens a media player window and plays a file. However,
since the file is in mp3 format, it may also be downloaded. Downloading
music files without the authorization of the copyright owner is illegal.
Therefore, if you will be using this type of streaming, make sure that you have
the appropriate permit to do so.

A third way to add audio to you blog or website is to stream music through
organizing playlists. Playlists are m3u files, which if downloaded, will not
play music if offline. Using this process, however, can be complex. Here is
a short instruction on how to do it.

1. Save your mp3 or wma file on the server. You may skip this step if you
know that the file exists on another server and know the link to that file.
Make sure that the link has a .mp3 or .wma extension.

2. Open your text editor and type the path to the file. Include the http://
and the file extension. Repeat this step until you have included all the links
to the files that you would like to be included in the playlist.

3. Save the playlist with a .m3u extension.

4. Upload the m3u file on the directory where the music files are hosted or to
your server.



5. Open your html editor and embed the link to the m3u file. Through this,
you can also set if you want to have the playlist to autoplay if someone visits
your site of if you want your visitor to control playing the music. You can
also set the volume level.

After the code is embedded on the html file, and whenever your site is visited,
the songs in the playlist will be buffered, streamed and played one after
another. If your playlist has several songs, the user can skip forward or go
back a song in the playlist using the media player controls.

Doing this setup works for many website owners. Through this you can
customize the type of music being played on your site. You can even play
recordings related to your product to boost product awareness.

It requires knowledge of html to be done. But if it will be the best way to
increase traffic to your site, why not request assistance from programmers.
After all, having audio on a website is a proven way to increase sales.

Part 20

Blog Software For All Your Blogging Needs

Today anyone who has writing ability or is dreaming to be a writer has written
a blog in the net. There are blog soft wares that are simple and easy to use and
a technically inclined and challenged individuals can easily acquire a blog
online.

For some individuals, blogs are their projects of every day living, as they talk
about their daily episodes as well as make tribute to friends and family.
Furthermore, blogs assume a profound meaning written to compose and
assemble political statements, endorse a product, supply information on
research, and even offer tutorials. Any subject that are of your interests, you
can be sure that someone has written a blog about it.

Blogs are now being written by musicians, politicians, sports figures, novelists,



newscasters as well as other known figures. It is this blog fever that has raised
controversy. The fact that anyone can compose and regarding any subject
matter under the sun, complaints about certain write-ups are an issue. In a lot
of blogs, names are being mentioned; do bear in mind that although you are
entitled to write anything that interests you in a blog, you have to be very
careful and take in a lot of responsibility. Do not make any statements which
can become controversial; or else, be very prepared.

Why a Blog?

1. For personal acquaintances, relationships and hobby. A person can write
a blog about his daily activities, what’s going on with his life as his way of
telling his family and friends the things that goes on in his life. Likewise, one
may also write a blog just so he can express what he feels about himself, or
about a certain subject matter that is of interest to him.

2. Topical. Some blogs are committed to a precise topic, like computer
hardware or politics. These are frequently read like magazines.

3. For marketing. Corporations are too, into blogging; when well written
and implemented, this kind of blog can be a powerful instrument for business
communications, forming eagerness and anticipation regarding their products
and services offered, or used as tool within the company, keeping employees
well informed about company issues and news.

Part 21 Why someone else's software?

A lot of Web designer and creators will laugh at the belief and idea of utilizing
the software of someone else. This is can be correct especially when each
software greatly differs from the particular requirements that a client may
have. Yet on the other hand, when it refers to a Weblog software, there is no
reason for apprehension in the use of a package that is pre-written, as most
packages were developed through years of study; not just knocked together
over a couple of days.

In addition, one may study its feature set. For a developer, it would take a lot
of time and effort to write and compose from ―nothing at all‖ every single


feature in the Weblog software packages of today. For most people, a blog is
there for the main reason that chooses to publish or make known your
literature and texts on the Web, so you want to spend your time more on
writing than coding.

Part 22 Hosted Services

If one wishes to start broadcasting on the Web, yet does not have web hosting,
one can consider looking into a hosted service, which includes Blogger,
TypePad, Live Journal, and more.

These services are operated or handled for an individual, so there is no need to
concern one about technical upkeep of one’s Weblog; instead, one can
concentrate on his blog's appearance and content. In just minutes, after
signing for an account, one can readily start his own blog. Many such
services are offered free, such as blogger. TypePad charges a minimal
amount for monthly service fee.

Part 23 Self-Hosted

When one has Web hosting on hand, or is eager to buy hosting, in which one
feesl that the advantage will prevail over the problems of keeping up your own
blog connection and installation, then you may want to take into account a
package that is self-hosted, which includes Movable Type, Textpattern and
WordPress.

Other hosting companies did construct the process of installation easier,
permitting installation with just a click from a control panel that is
browser-based. It is important that you check with a hosting company so you
can view if this function is offered. Similar to hosted services, some self hosted
packages are made available either for free or for a certain fee which is
dependent on the type of package that you choose as well as the basis why you
are using it.
The Importance of Blog Design



Blogs have increased popularity over this past months. Many people have
started to create their personal blogs to express their thoughts and feelings.
Internet companies have also started their blogs to inform consumers on the
latest product news and reviews.

Because of this, blogs are also being used as internet marketing media.
Before, internet marketing is done by placing banners and links on popular
websites, such as news and information sites. Links were also included on
newsletters and marketing letters sent to the members of their mailing lists.

Many people spend time reading blogs. People read their friend's blogs, their
favorite author's blogs, blogs on topics that they are interested in, and blogs
on product reviews. With the increasing popularity of blogging, it is even
feared that people rely on blogs to get the latest news.

While getting news reports from blogs isn't reliable, some people look for
product reviews through blogs. In some cases, this is more dependable.
While it is true that some media persons are being paid to write good reviews
about a certain product, blog writers write about their actual experiences on
products and services from a company.

Since there are many people who read and start their own blogs, blogs are a
good medium to market a product. With the increasing blog traffic means
increase in product sales.

Blog traffic can be increased by joining affiliate programs and sites, which will
list your blog under a certain search category or name. You can also have
your blog advertised in popular websites. This, however, will cost some
money and is not advisable if you have just started blogging.

A writer who has just launched his/her blog will want as much traffic as
possible to increase advertisements on the site. Also, some advertisers pay
every time their link is clicked or the page that has their link is viewed.

When you have increased traffic on your blog, you should try to keep you
visitors coming back and recommending your blog to friends and colleagues.

This can be done by having informative or amusing content and good blog



layout and design. You may develop your blog's content or you can also
acquire the services of a web content writer to provide you with the blog
articles.

The blog's layout and design also plays a big role. While most of the
companies offering free blog hosting offer pre-selected templates, there are
also some that allows customization that if you utilize this feature correctly
can increase your blog's traffic.

Here are a few tips to make your blog stand out from the millions of blogs out
there that have standard designs.

Part 24 Customize the banner

The banner usually has the most generic designs that are common to the blogs
from a blogging company or service.

You can personalize this banner by having a graphic with the dimensions of
the banner. You can also edit the graphic so that it will also include the title
of your blog.

In this case, you can create your own graphic or you can purchase professional
looking graphics online for less than $10.

Part 25 Personalizing photos

Of course, most of the photos that you will be posting will be your own.
However, if you don't customize the photos before posting them, you may
miss maximizing the enhancing benefits graphics can add to the page.
Adding photo borders can help the photo stand out from the page.

It can also add to the design of your blog. You can choose a standard border
or you can also create your own border which can be associated with your
blog's templates.



Part 26 Add a favicon

Don't you think sites with icons on the address bar before the website's URL
are cool? Many people do. These favicons add a professional look to the
URL. These easy to do using photo or graphic editing softwares.

Part 27 Check out blog templates, layouts, backgrounds,

textures and skins from sites

There are sites that offer free blog templates, layouts, backgrounds, textures
and skins. You can make use of these so your blog will not look generic like
most of the blogs hosted by the service provider.

Part 28 Include RSS feeds

This is a cool way to inform people with newsreaders about your blog
headlines. Tutorials on RSS feeds are available on the internet.

Part 29 Audio makes your blog more personal

Not only does audio personalizes the blog; it can also keep your visitors
coming back. You can try having streaming radio stations, mp3 file or
playlists loading with your blog.

Part 30 Advertisements

If you have signed-up with Google Ad-Sense, which I am sure you would like
to do, make sure that the ads are conveniently placed that these will not
hinder your readers' ease in accessing the information on your blog.



Try using these tips and you can definitely increase and retain traffic on your
blog.

Part 31 Boost Your Business With Blogging!

Business blog is an incredible online marketing tool that saves you thousands
of dollars but provides great business opportunities in just one click. Blogs are
user-friendly, customized and flexible medium for disseminating useful
information for effective positioning of your products in the market.

Companies engaging in business blogging have a definite edge over its
competitors. Here are some advantages:
1 Word-of-Mouth. In a survey, there are currently 14 million blogs with
80,000 more being added each day and about 30 percent of the 50 million
users are blog readers. Imagine how much gain your company will have, if
your products are advertised through blogs. With Internet, information
spreads so quickly especially if an impressive write-up goes with your product.
Soon your blogs will be passed on to hundreds of possible customers.
2 Awareness and loyalty. Open communication with your customers
creates trust and loyalty among them. Being there to respond to their
questions and comments make them all the more willing to try your products
and services.
3 Feedback. Blogs is good for product research and reviews. It would be
easier to improve on your products if you observe your customers’ thinking
and behavioral patterns. You can also take immediate action to your
customers’ concerns.
4 Community halo-effect. Bloggers are reasonable, friendly and helpful.
They are more than willing to create blogosphere of comments regarding your
product. The only thing you have to do is embrace and take active part in the
culture and your product will surely be considered in their next stop to the
supermarket.



For better marketing results, actively promote your business blogs by
submitting your blogs to blog search sites and directories. Do not forget to
paste in with your blogs, your URL. Be sure that your blogs contain exclusive
information with value and are always updated to keep readers popping in,
read up your blog, move on to the next and click on again for updates.

Blog is like a setup booth in the biggest trade show on earth everyday.
Marketing possibilities are just around the corner waiting to strike your sale
scales up.

The Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds are important too in conjunction
with your blogs to get the best benefits. Use effective keyword phrases to
generate high ranking status in the search engine traffic. In this way you have
better chances of people finding your website leading to your blogs. More
traffic means more potential sales.

For this to be successful, you can use RSS for news update feeds which can be
read through RSS reader application. This is a very useful tool for business
and internet marketers as well.

If you are already convinced with the potentials of business blogs for
marketing and targeting sales increase, your company is now ready to start
blogging. But first, you have to be in tune with your company’s business
objectives and determine if blogging will really help you achieve your goal.

1. Several blogs are dedicated to teaching people the do’s and don’ts of
blogging, READ them! Include in your reading materials blogs that are
consumer-based too to give you an idea.
2. Setup several test blogs right away.

If your initial try out with blogs worked well, you can now start setting up your
blogs.



1. Study blog design. Blog hosting services provide pre-designed templates.
But if you opt for paid blog service, you can ask your artist to design and
layout your blog site to match the company’s identity and needs.
2. Choose a topic. Its good to have a line-up of topics you want for your
blogs but be sure they are in consonance with your business objectives. This
would be a test of your flexibility and open-mindedness since results may be
going against the set objectives.
3. Remember the following safety measures in blogging:
4 legal issues are sometimes involved in blogging; it is safer to include
disclaimers and limitations of liabilities;
5 corporate communication and legal department are responsible in
educating the senior management on how blogs might affect business;
6 create blogging policies; set limits on who gets to blog and what
information are allowed to be made public;
7 avoid outright marketing blog or you will shy away your readers;
8 make content updated, relevant and fresh;
9 reinforce the company’s core values; and,
10 encourage employees to use it.
11 Start blogging and complete 20 posts before going to marketing.
12 Begin marketing.
13 Regularly monitor the coming ins and outs of readers and get updates.
Then, measure your results.
14 Adjust if needed. You can always play with your designs in the blog site as
long as it remains to match the company’s identity.
15 Strive to be consistent with your topic all the time.
16 Try to have unrelated topics with general and broad appeal.
17 Schedule updates regularly. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday would be
best to update blogs.

Once you have done all these things, you can now ultimately enjoy the benefits
of business blogging.

The Basics again:



A blog is basically an online journal wherein you can digitally pen down your
thoughts, ideas, opinions and practically anything that you want people to
read. Blogs come in different styles, formats, and settings, depending on the
preference of the user. Many blogging sites, offer built in features such as
hyperlink, straight texts, pictures etc. Some blogging sites, even allow you to
put video and mp3's on your blogs.

Instead of writing texts, some bloggers choose to make their blogs more audio
friendly, by using spoken word entries. This is called audio blogging.

Basically a blog contains these features:

title- which allows you to label your post
body- this is the content of your post
trackback- other sites can be linked back to your blog
permanent link- every article that you write has a URL
comments- this allow readers to post comments on your blog.

One of the advantages of blogging, is that it is made of only a few templates.
Unlike, other websites that is made up of numerous individual pages. This
make it easier for blog users to create new pages, because it already has a fix
setting that include: slots for title, body of the post, category, etc.

This is especially useful for first time users, since they can start blogging right
away. They can chose from a number of templates that blogging websites
provide.

Anyone who wants to start a blog can do so by becoming a member of a
blogging website of their choice. Once they've become members, they
automatically become a part of that particular blogging community. They can
browse through other bloggers pages, and link them back to their own blogs.
They can also make comments on other members' blogs.

Blogging is not just limited to personal usage. There are a lot of blogs that
follow a theme such as: sports, politics, philosophy, social commentary, etc.
These blogs espouse on their specific themes. This way blogging becomes a
medium in which people can share their knowledge and opinions about a
variety of themes and topics.



Some bloggers even use their blogs as a means to advertise. Some authors
advertise their books on their blogs. While other bloggers, use their blogs to
shed light to currents issues, events, news and catastrophes.

Nowadays in education, blogs also play an important part. Professors use
blogging to document the lessons that they have discussed and taught. This
way, students who who have missed classes, can easily catch up with their
assignments.

A lot of entrepreneurs benefit from blogging by promoting their businesses on
their blogs, with millions and millions of people logging onto the net everyday,
blogging has become a lucrative move. Some bloggers who run online
businesses promote their merchandise online. While others profit through
advertisement.

But by far, the most popular blog type is the one that takes the form of a
personal journal. This is the kind that is usually used by first time bloggers.
Individuals who want to document the daily struggle of their everyday lives,
poems, rants, opinions, find that blogging offers them a medium in which to
express themselves.

Bloggers usually communicate within themselves. This is one of the appeals of
blogging. It creates a community of people sharing their ideas, thoughts, and
comments with each other.

Blogs varying in topics, themes, and set-ups, can be found in blog directories.
First time users who want to get an idea of what the blogging world is all about
can browse through a number of blogs using these directories. This way they'd
get an idea of what these blogging communities are like.

Blogging is popular all over the world. Blog is short for the term weblog. There
are no rules when it comes to blogging. Bloggers have the freedom to express
themselves how ever way they want, and the best thing about blogging, is that
most blogging sites are free.

There are numerous blogging websites to choose from in the net. This give
first time users the option of joining a blogging community that appeals to



their interests.

Just search any blogging directory and you'd get a listing of a lot of blogging
sites that are available on the net. It's easy to search a blogging directory,
because it is organized according to category. This way you would get exactly
what you are after. Blogging is really for everyone. It is fun, simple and easy.

PROBLOGGING: MAKING MONEY FROM BLOGS

A weblog (or simply blog) is a website that 'publishes' or features articles
(which are called 'blog posts', 'posts', or 'entries'), written by an individual or a
group that make use of any or a combination of the following:

· Straight texts
· Photographs or images (photoblog)
· Video (videoblog)
· Audio files (audioblog)
· Hyperlinks

Usually presented and arranged in reverse chronological order, blogs are
essentially used for the following purposes:

· Online journal or a web diary
· Content managament system
· Online publishing platform

A typical blog has the following components:

· Post date -the date and time of the blog entry

· Category - the category that the blog belongs to

· Title - the title of the blog



· Main body - the main content of the blog

· RSS and trackback - links the blog back from other sites

· Comments - commentaries that are added by readers

· Permalinks - the URL of the full article

· Other optional items - calendar, archives, blogrolls, and add-ons or
plug-ins

A blog can also have a footer, usually found at the bottom of the blog, that
shows the post date, the author, the category, and the 'stats' (the nubmer of
comments or trackbacks).

There are numerous types of blogs. Some of them are the following:

1. Political blog - on news, politics, activism, and other issue based blogs (such
as campaigning).

2. Personal blog - also known as online diary that may include an individual's
day-to-day experience, complaints, poems, and illicit thoughts, and
communications between friends.

3. Topical blog - with focus either on a particular niche (function or position)
that is usually technical in nature or a local information.

4. Health blog - on specific health issues. Medical blog is a major category of
health blog that features medical news from health care professionals and/or
actual patient cases.

5. Literary blog - also known as litblog.

6. Travel blog - with focus on a traveler's stories on a particular journey.

7. Research blog - on academic issues such as research notes.

8. Legal blog - on law (technical areas) and legal affairs; also known as


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