How often should I Post?

Many bloggers have been held back in their chair thinking about how often they should update their blog with new post. This question goes beyond just mentioning figures- three, five or six times a week. The whole thing goes back to what kind of blog you run or operate. A blogger who operate on current affairs /latest news on celebrity, polities, technology may be updating his/her blog 3-5 times a day or more depending on how frequent news occurs. On the other hand, a blogger who runs a tutorial lesson in any field may be updating his blog daily. He needs to give his students time to absorb what they have learnt and probably apply it in one way or the other before he goes on to the next. You and I can now see that the question on how often blogs should be updated depends solely on what kind of blog one operates.

I was chatting with a fellow blogger sometime ago and he complained seriously about the recent change in his visitor’s statistic. He used to have about 350-500 visitors per day across the globe. What a difference!! Recently, he introduced sometime outside the scope of his blog and according to him, this should be where his problem comes from.

 “I used to run a blog on technology, giving advice to my visitors on latest devices and how to maintain their devices among others. I began posting irrelevant things -things that have nothing to do with my blog since I was running out of my number of post per week.”

This blogger gave out 150 visitors for bad post. I’ll tell you something, one useful post worth more than thousands of post worthless or useless post. Always take your time to bring out the best to maintain your standard. I know you won’t like to give away 150.

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Broken Links

Broken links are links that lead to pages that do not exist. When clicking on a broken link, the page you land on is called a 404 error page, a standard HTTP response that indicates that the requested URL doesn’t exist.
What do you do when you happily surf the web and suddenly come across a 404 error? For most of us, the immediate response would be to simply leave the current site in favor of another one because both people and search engines consider broken links as unprofessional.

404 errors and broken links also have negative effects on your search engine rankings so it is quite reasonable to be proactive in avoiding them to improve exposure and increase site traffic.
Bloggers update their blog’s content more often than other site owners do. Therefore, there is a higher chance for them to have broken links found throughout their website.

There is not a simple or final solution to the problem of link rot. The cost of joining the DOI  (Digital Object Identifier)  system may not be viewed as justifiable for smaller public sector institutions that are making their research outputs openly accessible. There are, however, a number of good practices which can limit the problem of broken links:

- Use link checking software for your website. There are several software packages that are free of charge or reasonably priced. You will need to organize a workflow to make sure that broken links are repaired.

- Avoid implementing pages with many external links on your site if you do not have the resources to maintain them. Links to pages that are deep in the hierarchy of an external website are more likely to expire than “higher” links.

- If you have a repository where your publications are stored, always use the link to the version of the publication that is in your repository.

- Create a custom 404 error page, with the look and feel just like any other page on your site. Implement this wherever you have a page that is gone, is missing, or has moved. This lets the visitor know that they have hit an invalid URL. Then you'll want to present some options for the visitor - give them some links to follow, helping them get to their intended destination.

Get rid of that broken link and put smiles on the faces of your visitors!!!

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Rich Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are also known as associate programs, referral programs and even bounty programs. Most affiliate programs are free to join. Affiliate programs are a way to earn money without producing your own product.

Affiliate programs allow a membership website to generate additional (other than the membership subscription) income by advertising products that are relevant to the site’s theme. For example, let’s say you own a membership website whose theme is golf. You would recommend products that you like yourself like golf books, magazines, videos and golfing gear. When you have an affiliate agreement with the merchants selling those products, they provide you with affiliate links which you paste into your site. Then when members click on those links and buy those products, you earn a commission. Affiliates programs can earn commissions in three ways: per click, per sale and per lead.

There are so many circulations about which affiliate program is the best or can generate so much money for their members. But the real thing is, things work out differently for different people at different times. The possibility of you to make the best out of any affiliate network depends highly on your time, techniques and other useful approaches applied. Someone who spends so much time on any affiliate program which he figures out to be the best probably have the chances of making it big if the right resources are put in place. The problem most people have is signing up for so many affiliate programs that they can hardly manage. It’s a good practice to stay focus on any job you gat to do. If you feel signing up for so many affiliate programs to make your money will be of help, there is no harm in it. Although must people get frustrated when these programs begin to take much of their leisure time. This is why I suggest you signup for affiliate programs that you can handle effectively- five, six, seven, maybe more. But always within your capability.

Am going to give priority to affiliate programs I have worked for sometime now. They worked for me and thousands and millions of people out there. Here we go;

Amazon: This is one of the most popular online store where so many people across the globe make their shopping. People feel safe shopping at amazon because of its wide range of reach. It provides good tools for makerting which their affiliates can use to draw targeted traffic to their site. It offers 4% commission to their affiliates and this increases as they get ranking or draw more customers to their site.
Clickbank:Clickbank is the biggest and fastest growing affiliate network in the world. It operates on all digital products. Their affiliate have a wide range of digital product to sell or promote. It offers about 75% commission to their affiliates. Although this is not on all digital products.
eBay:eBay is the world's largest online marketplace, where practically anyone can buy and sell practically anything. About how much you make on ebay depends on how much traffic you drive to their site. The more traffic, the more money you make.
CashCrate:

One of the easiest and most lucrative ways to make money online with CashCrate is to complete the free offers found in the Members Area. Free offers are typically short surveys, quizzes, website registrations, and trial products. CashCrate has several hundred different offers and paid surveys to choose from, ranging from $0.25 per offer all the way up to $50.00!

BigExtracash:BigExtracash offers a variety of banners you can use for your promotion and get paid.

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Meta Tag and your Traffic Rate

With some time ago <meta> tags were the main tool for SEO with a direct connection between your text there and your ranking in the search results. Since than, algorithms have improved and metadata’s importance is fading day by day, in particular with Google. However, there are certain search engines still displaying metadata – below the clickable link in the search results – users to read your written text, and in case they consider it relevant, they might visit your site. Moreover, some specific search engines still take in consideration metatags in ranking your website.

Meta Description tag I just another method to write a description of your website and directing search engines to topics and themes your site is relevant to. It will do no harm including a short description, so don’t skip this step. Continuing the example with the cat site, your meta Description tag for the site might be something like: <Meta Name=”Description” Content=” Affiliate marketing is the fastest growing market on the internet today. People are earning a living from. Join our team of experts to give latest tips on how to get the best out of it”>

A possible use of the meta Keywords tags is to incorporate all the keywords you consider relevant to your pages. Although the main search engines will ignore it, it is still another chance to highlight your targeted keywords. You might even include different spellings (misspellings of the keywords too) in the meta Keywords tag. For example, for the cat adoption site you could write something like this: <Meta name=”Keywords” Content=”Email, Money, Make, earn, revenue, paid, promote”>. It is slight improvement to search engine top placement, but why not use it? This does not only increase your chances of ranking high in the search engine. It also draws traffic to your website or blog as many of your visitors will be visiting your site as a result of the hint they've gotten about your site.  For example, the meta tag discussed above appear like this on the search engine:

<Meta Name=”Description” Content=” Affiliate marketing is the fastest growing market on the internet today. People are earning a living from. Join our team of experts to give latest tips on how to get the best out of it”>

This what your visitors will see on the search engine:

Affiliate marketing is the fastest growing market on the internet today. People are earning a living from. Join our team of experts to give latest tips on how to get the best out of it.

Although the code for the meta tag does not appear on your page , the content does.

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101 Blog Tips

 

1. if you are not, start blogging today
2. write about something that you love
3. if you are serious about blogging buy your own domain
4. make sure your domain name is equal to your blog name
5. use a short and easy to remember name
6. use WordPress/blogger
7. use WordPress plugins/bolgger widgets
8. blog with consistency
9. write at least 5 posts a week
10. proofread
11. proofread one more time
12. interact with other bloggers
13. leave meaningful comments
14. leave funny comments
15. leave the first comment
16. backup your blog
17. get rid of the sidebar calendar
18. choose your niche wisely, not too big and not too small
19. participate in online forums
20. put a link on your signature
21. use blog carnivals
22. content is king
23. customize your blog template
24. use trackbacks
25. simplicity is the way to go
26. leverage social bookmarks
27. consider joining a blog network
28. write “Top 10″ lists
29. use tags
30. use pings
31. write “How to” articles
32. make your posts scannable
33. list your blog on directories
34. ask questions to your readers
35. use Feedburner
36. use sense of humor
37. be generous
38. encourage readers to subscribe
39. have some spare posts for emergencies
40. encourage readers to digg your posts
41. put an RSS subscription icon on every single page
42. use “series” of posts
43. return comments
44. return links
45. use readable fonts
46. gather .edu and .gov backlinks
47. break long posts in more parts
48. experiment with different revenue sources
49. write “pillar articles“
50. use Google Analytics
51. study those numbers
52. use email interviews
53. be yourself
54. avoid duplicate content
55. use an RSS reader
56. read as many blogs as possible
57. focus on timeless content
58. have an “About” page
59. have a picture of yourself on the “About” page
60. crate your own “Advertise Here” page
61. use meta tags wisely
62. learn the basics of SEO
63. use pictures whenever possible
64. create value for your readers
65. place ads wisely
66. be patient
67. consider getting a co-blogger
68. submit your articles to directories
69. share what has worked for you
70. share what has not worked for you
71. read Problogger.net
72. do not clutter your sidebar with icons
73. get rid of looooong blogrolls
74. experiment with Google Adsense
75. experiment with Text-Link-Ads
76. link to other blogs as often as possible
77. make it easy for visitors to contact you
78. use titles effectively
79. offer email subscriptions
80. always answer to questions
81. always answer to comments
82. use Technorati
83. enable subscription to comments
84. offer useful tools or resources
85. write with a personal touch
86. become an expert in your niche
87. do not rely on “linking posts”
88. always give your opinion
89. use simple colors
90. participate in blogging projects
91. get to know other bloggers personally
92. list your best articles
93. have a voice
94. organize your categories
95. talk directly to your readers
96. make your URL structure efficient
97. put functional links on your footer
98. mention your sources or references
99. do monthly roundups
100. consider adding podcasts
101. create a “101 list”

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Why aren’t there more successful bloggers?

Recent studies show that there are more wealthy bloggers than ever before. While a growing number are making it by climbing the corporate ladder, most of today’s bloggers are still making their money through scam. A few are making their fortunes by launching big companies online- the most common source of big riches for today’s bloggers.

Making it through the genuine or honest way is not always easy if we most tell ourselves the truth. But for the sake of all those who still have fate in the internet, we have to shown or avoid all forms of fraudulent activities. Don’t be discouraged if you can not come up with ideas that can boast your income rate through blogging.

Here are some tips for coming up with a successful blog.

1.       Continually be aware of the products that people are buying. This will help you to determine the kind of affiliate network to join. Is it the affiliate network that provides only a specific product or vast empire of products? Learn how you can promote these products on your site to earn money.

2.       Go to networking events, seminars and conferences. You might find someone with good idea(s) to uplift you in this career (internet marketing). Read magazines and publications that cover the niche you are interested in.

3.       Intern or get a partner that both of you can be sharing ideas. Since no one neither knows all nor have it all, some best marketing strategies come through sharing. As you are sharing, both of you are traingning and educating each other. Work together effectively to dig out the latest strategies to develop the best skills you need.

4.       Do what the bests are doing. Having a mentor or a model either in business or in life has a great impact on your success. You need to monitor your mentor and know his/her short comings and work on making them your ladder to success.

Implement these tips with some other useful ones on monetizing your blog and you will be glad you did.

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5 Tips to Secure your Blogger

I have heard lot people say something about loosing privileges to blogs they own either on Wordpress or Blogger. This has called on the attention of bloggers to update or enable security settings on their blog to avoid such things happening to them. Just imagine yourself thrown out of the window by someone you don’t even know. He or she gets access to your account and make changes to the blog that took you time to build.  This same person restricts or completely throws you out. You have no dealing with that blog again. It sounds crazy. People have lost their blogs this way and many will still do if appropriate measures are not applied. It’s a wise thing to do if you can observe or implement these five tips on how to secure your blogger.

1. Review codes for widgets and Remove the irrelevant ones. Some hackers get HTML codes for widgets or gadgets and embed some irrelevant codes that can help them track the activities of everyone using such a widget or gadget. Some times they put some codes pointing back to their site. For example, if you are adding a weather gadget to your blog and notice in the code that there are links pointing to unrelated sites, take that as a red flag and keep searching for another weather gadget. There is no reason that a weather gadget should include a snippet like

<a href="http://completelyfreemoney.com">Make Money Online!</a>

2. Always preview your new template code before saving. Malicious template designers may sometimes include pop-ups or other unexpected ads in the template code, which will usually be revealed with a quick preview. If anything unexpected shows up in the preview, go ahead and discard the new code by clicking Clear Edits.

3. Backup your template! It’s always a good practice to backup your blog from time to time to secure it from lost of data and some other valuables.

You can easily do this from the Layout | Edit HTML tab by clicking the Download Full Template link and saving the .XML file to your hard drive. You'll then be able to revert back to this downloaded version by clicking the Upload button, also right under the Layout | Edit HTML tab.

  4. Look first to 'trusted' code repositories for a new template or widget. There are probably thousands of places across the web where you can find widget and template code, but it may be helpful to first check out some of the more widely known and trusted sources.

 5. Permissions: It’s worth touching on another security area which many bloggers ignore Permission settings. You can always add authors or users who can help you with the work of posting. This is a great idea but you really need to think of someone reliable. Who may someday claim all the privileges and you are out

Blog with care and avoid mistakes to keep you smiling while you blog to the world.

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