123 Blogging

123Network brings to you the LARGEST gallery of PARIS HILTON

2007-08-02T07:33:00.000-07:00

Dear 123Network lovers,

We are glad to announce the launch of our very latest blog. It is and will also become the world's LARGEST gallery of the hottest and sexiest PARIS HILTON. Thats a dream come true for you, isn't it?

We are here to give you the best and something unique at the same time. So here it is only for you Hilton lovers. Enjoy till you want. More things are coming. Videos, writings, articles, etc.

World's LARGEST gallery of PARIS HILTON

VISIT TODAY @
http://123parishilton.blogspot.com/

Regards and tons of love,
123Network Team

Two more Alternative to mGinger, adMAD.Mobi, Sms2india

2007-07-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Seems the mobile world is getting a clean new revolution. More websites have come up for the mGinger & adMAD.Mobi concept. So more for us if at all this thing has to get a huge success. So friends here are two more of from this upcoming breed.

mGarlic
mGarlic.com pays you to read ads on your cellphone! These ads are only about your interests. Not only that, you get to decide when you want these ads.
Check it out and sign up here.

m-earn
How do you like the idea of getting paid to receive SMS? m-earn promises you just that ! These messages would only contain offers and discounts based on your own interests. You also get to decide the number of ads you receive and their delivery times! There is no limit to what you can earn by referring your friends and relatives. Your mobile can now easily pay its own bills !
Check out and sign up here.

Hope these ventures earn us and them a good amount of money. I wonder if companies will be willing to advertise on this medium. Hope they don't bleed out sooner. What do you think? Whatever be it. We have some option to earn a small penny somewhere in the future.

mGinger, adMAD.Mobi, Sms2india - Get paid to read ads on your cellphone

2007-06-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. Now it seems the advertisement world is coming up and getting geared for yet another much awaited revolution. You must have already heard about mginger, where you get paid for reading smss on your mobile phone. So now one day you will have to keep your mobile silent for the smss which come to your inbox. So what are you thinking. The fun has just begun.

It was just mGinger till a few days ago. And now it seems the competition has come up in this field too. The idea was unique but not protected. Gung ho!!! Even you can start such a website. Well I was just think where will all this end up. Ultimately, its we who will suffer the most. Our inboxs will be filled with loads of advertisement or say spam messages for which we have ourselves subscribed.

So, now we see and talk about the alternative to mGinger or say alternative to adMAD.Mobi or else alternative to Sms2india (Fully functional from 11th June, 2007). Uff!! So much. Well, for your kind information all the above mentioned websites need a INVITE. So someone need to send you an invitation to sign up for their money making programs.

mGinger
I guess the first in this field of new age advertisement. All leading newspapers and television news channels have also done up with this new funda. Till I am writing this the membership would have crossed over 7 lakhs. What say? And what are you waiting for?
Sign up here now.

adMAD.Mobi
The new one in this arena. Came to know about it from my brother. Well, the above one was also discovered by my brother. When I write this it would have had 16000 members. Hope it increases soon. Benefit for you and also me.
Sign up here now.

Sms2india
I found this when I was hopping through the net or better say when I was googling. Not at all a clean interface. To much of a mess. May be they are not fully launched thats why they are not completely ready. Many features are not available yet. It says of have a full launch on 11th of June, 2007. Hope it come in the much required competition. Well, this website does not provide any invite link. The invite system is very tricky and as far as i know not even a full proof also. They simply ask for writing the username of the person who have invited you. Well, lets see what happens soon.
You can write code102 as referral id when asked. Visit and signup the website here.

So folks. Enjoy and invite everyone possible. Its a new trend to get you money by just reading ads on your cellphone.

123Network starts SMSFUN service - SMSs for your mobile inbox

2007-05-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

JOIN
PARTICIPATE
SUBMIT
SHARE
READ
SUBSCRIBE
ENJOY

123Network is the maker of the world's LARGEST DIRECTORY of SMSs. Now we want our visitors to benefit from it. We would regularly send SMSs to you. Be it cool smss from our huge directory or the news of and about our various blogs we will try to keep you on your toes all the time and everyday. Subscribing is easy.

Go to the Write Message option in your mobile phone.

Type JOIN SMSFUN
&
Send to 67673434

The service is powered by sms.webaroo.com/smsgupshup.com

Wordpress plugins for Adsense

2007-05-12T06:24:00.000-07:00

Google Adsense has become the most popular online contextual advertising program. Wordpress allows bloggers to easily integrate Google Adsense inside wordpress using plugins. Listed below are 10 best Adsense plugins which help you work smarter with wordpress.

Adsense Deluxe - offers advanced options for managing the automatic insertion of Google AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) ads to your WordPress posts. Adsense Deluxe+ claims to have a an improved ad limiting algorithm.
Adsense Injection - inserts Adsense code randomly into a pre-existing blog.
Adsense Inline - inserts Google adsense in blog posts
Adsense Beautifier - makes your Adsense look beautiful by placing images beside them to increase your clicks (CTR) and subsequent Adsense earnings.
AdSense Widget for WordPress Sidebar - Google AdSense widget designed for the new WordPress Sidebar Widgets plug-in.
MightyAdsense - allows you to host the code in wordpress without having to modify the templates. Ads are displayed in post item and you can specify how many blocks its going to show up in a page.
AdRotator Wordpress Plugin - rotates your adsense ads with other affiliate programs like Chitika Eminimalls wherever you want. Helps to reduce ad blindness and test different ad formats and affiliate programs.
Adsense Earnings Wordpress Plugin - displays your adsense earning details within wordpress admin panel.
WP-AdsenseProfit - shows your profit from the adsense program to the public by adding a simple call to the function in your template.
AdSense Sharing Revenue and Earnings System - allows you to view your adsense earnings and share your adsense impressions with your friends and co-authors.
Author Adsense Wordpress Plugin - allows blog authors to enter their Google Adsense Publisher ID and have ads displayed on their own posts generating revenue. Admin can set the ratio of author’s ads to admin ads.

Support and upgrades are provided by the respective authors of these wordpress plugins. Use at your own risk.

Buzz about Blogs

2007-05-09T09:23:00.000-07:00

The "blogosphere" is continuing to grow at an amazing pace. In fact, the number of published blogs is expected to double about every five months.

Right now, there is a new blog published every second, according to Technorati, the search engine that keeps track of Weblogs. In March there were over 7 million blogs, that number is now over 14 million.

Weblogs have become the homepages of the 21st century and are used for everything from sharing recipes, personal opinions and travel adventures, to the latest in political and economic news.

Blogs are also facing their share of controversy and praise. Reporters Without Borders recently published their "short list" of the seven best blogs out of 60, which won the "Freedom Blog Awards" for defending freedom of expression.

Winners (who are chosen by the public who vote for their favorite blogs) included "Shared Pains" which describes life in Afghan, and Mojtaba Saminejad, an Iranian whose blog is published in the Farsi language. (He received a two-year prison sentence in 2005 because of his blog). Another winner, Jeff Ooi, publishes the Malaysian blog "Screenshots" which is in English. Because he allowed a comment on his blog back in 2004 which reportedly "insulted Islam" according to authorities, he was also threatened with imprisonment.

This award marks the first year for the event, but Reporters Without Borders hopes to make it an annual one. The organization follows and reports on freedom of the press around the world.

In oppressive countries, such as Iran (which shut down almost all independent newspapers in 2000), blogs have provided a way for journalists and others to express themselves and share the latest news and happenings. But speaking up in such places often has serious consequences, such as one blogger in Iraq who was jailed by authorities after speaking up about what was simply a local problem.

China is another repressive area. Recently Chinese authorities declared that all bloggers had to register their blogs with them, or risk being shut down.

To help combat these and similar problems around the world, organizations are being set up to provide global support among bloggers for those who are being repressed.

One of the biggest controversies right now, is whether bloggers should receive "journalistic" status. Some people see blogs and bloggers as a kind of counterbalance to what they see as media arrogance, while others call them vigilantes. Recent events with Newsweek, CBS News and others have caused a division between the main stream media (MSM) and bloggers who feel the "truth is out there" and they want it told.

One thing both bloggers and the mainstream media agree on, is that things have been forever changed. The tools of mass media are no longer the property of the press alone, they're also freely available to the people. What that means to us in the future, or what changes blogs will bring about to the way we receive and act on the news we get, no one really knows.

Not as controversial, blogs have also become a mainstream tool of large and small businesses everywhere.

Blogging provides a simple and low-cost method for businesses to stay in touch with their customers, get free publicity and build a business brand.

As technology continues to evolve, and the number of blogs continues to rise, it remains to be seen whether blogging will remain an effective business and marketing tool. But one thing is for certain - blogs are here to stay.

#1 Mistake Most Blogs Do

2007-05-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

As much as this might surprise most bloggers, the #1 mistake most blogs are doing is not publishing their content via e-mail, as a supplement to their RSS feeds.

Just think about it: while RSS is growing strong, it still only penetrates about 5-6% of the American online population. Furthermore, according to a recent BlogAds survey, "only 12 percent of the blog reading audience said it used RSS always or often".

If you're delivering your blog content only via RSS, you're missing out on about 80% or more of potential regular readership/followship.

THE KEY BLOG PROBLEM

There are millions of blogs already, but really few people have the time to watch more than a few daily. But if they come back just once a week, they can be quickly overwhelmed with the amount of new content.

That's why it's crucial to provide a "best of", a helping hand to guide your readers to the "must-read" content you publish … and delivering this content either as a standalone “blog-zine” or as part of your regular e-mail newsletter.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

Deliver your blog posts as they are written via RSS, but then also publish a regular (weekly or monthly) e-mail e-zine with your "top blog posts" for those that are still not in to RSS.

Don't do just one channel, do both.

E-mail is still the #1 end-user content delivery channel ... whether we like it or not. Using e-mail (as a supplement to RSS) to deliver our content is just good business practice, at least for now.

THE CHRIS PIRILLO EXAMPLE

Chris Pirillo is the publisher of one of the most popular sites on the net, Lockergnome.com. He was actually the first to proclaim e-mail as being dead.

But still, while he preferrs for his subscribers to use RSS instead of e-mail, that isn’t stopping him from using or promoting either RSS or e-mail.

COMPARING BLOGS, E-ZINES, E-MAIL AND RSS

If you’re reading this article and thinking that blogs are actually “beyond e-mail”, just consider the following reality.

RSS and e-mail are content delivery channels; the tools that enable us to deliver our content to end-users. Blogs and e-zines on the other hand are two different internet media content formats, differing in how/what content is provided and presented through them.

RSS/e-mail and blogs/e-zines cannot be directly compared. Blog content and e-zine content can both be delivered via RSS and e-mail, and there is no direct business/logical relation between, for example, blogs and RSS.

Blogs are "personal" conversations, opinions and news, delivered in a linear structure, usually written in a more personal style, and confined to a limited number of content types.

E-zines on the other hand are more similar to magazines or newspapers, carrying content presented in a complex non-linear content structure, and having the ability to carry many different content types that do not mix well together if provided through a linear content structure.

A typical e-zine might include:

- an editorial;
- a leading article, representing the prevailing topic of a specific e-zine issue;
- supporting articles, clearly structured to show they are secondary to the leading article;
- links to "best of" blog posts in the given timeframe;
- links to the most relevant forum topics and posts;
- a news section;
- a featured client case study;
- different advertisements (banner ads, textual ads, advertorials etc.);
- a featured consultant;
- a Q&A section;
- a featured whitepaper;
- etc.

Providing all of this content demands a complex content structure and a strong and experienced editor. The blog format simply does not provide the level of structure needed to effectively present such a complex content mix.

But that's not to say that blogs are in any way inferior to e-zines, they're just different. And businesses need both, and they need to deliver both via RSS and e-mail.

Personal preferences towards content delivery channels and internet content media formats have no place in business. What matters is what our audiences want and how they want it.

Make Money Blogging

2007-05-09T09:21:00.001-07:00

You have created a blog and your blog is dedicated to a niche industry. Have you ever thought that the blog could make money for you? We would look here in this article, ways and means, to make money blogging. Lets first have a look at what are the prerequisites for a blog needed to make money:

1. Blog needs to be dedicated to a niche market.
2. Updated regularly.
3. Enough back links (Don't worry for it. Directory submission would be enough to begin with)
4. Good blog host or application (blogger, Xanga or typepad recommended), and
5. High quality articles or news items supported with images.

Get the above criteria in place and Hurrah... You are ready to Make Money Blogging.

Top 5 Ways to Make Money Blogging

Lets now take a look at top 5 ways using which you could make money blogging:

1. Google Adsense
Google Adsense delivers text and image ads to the authorized websites/blogs depending on the content of the website. Small code is required to be pasted at proper locations on a webpage and Google automatically recognizes the page. Google shares the revenue it gets from the advertisers whenever a visitor clicks on these ads.

Google bills advertisers on price per click basis (PPC). Advertisers are required to pay only when any visitor clicks on their ads. They bid against each other for the keywords in order to receive better placement and thus prices for each keyword differ from one another. It is better to choose keywords for your blog which pays high $ per click.

2. Amazon
Amazon Associate program is another important way to make money blogging. The Amazon Associate program gives opportunity to website/blog publishers to promote any product from its inventory by adding a predefined code to their website/blog, which, when clicked by a visitor, takes them to the relevant product page. Once the visitor buys the product, the blog owner will be compensated with a commission.

3. Blogads
You can use Blogads as an effective tool to have a better control over the advertisers in your blogs. You can analyze and compare your profits with any one of your online agencies. Blogads can be simply specified as an advertising service used for the web logs or blogs. From the total money generated by Blogads, it retains 20% of it and the remaining money is paid to you through PayPal or checks.

Alternative Services:

• Crispads is another useful network focused on the blogs. You can put your advertisements in their blogs using Crispads. You can move through their RSS/ATOM feeds that help in generating revenues.
• Tagword – It is similar to Blogads. It makes you select the ads and their price.

Users can place their text-based ads in the site within minutes and the ads will be displayed instantly on the website.

4. Affiliate Programs
Your affiliate programs can help you earn a lot of money for selected products and services. Lot of websites offers you to become affiliate members. These affiliate programs can provide a better reach and an in-depth exposure to the products. The commissions for the sales differ according to the quality of the product, sales and marketing strategy involved. You can gather information related to the commissions by looking into the catalogues of Link Share and Commission junctions.

5. Text Links
Text links has emerged out to be the best form of moneymaking source that you can use instead of cluttering or crowding the page with ads. You don’t have to make these text links prominent within your website. This link can act as an extra value to your site and will also help to promote the rankings of other sites. In most of the cases you will find these text links placed in the bottom of the web pages. The best part of this strategy is that the publishers send and accept links as the market continues to grow.

7 Tips for Successful Blogging

2007-05-09T09:18:00.000-07:00

So, you have a blog! Do you have traffic? Do you know how to build traffic to your weblog? There are seven proven methods for building readership of your blog. They start with defining the purpose, or life, of your blog. Then, after you have a blog worth promoting, driving traffic is crucial to your ongoing success at blogging.

Here are seven tips to help you build and hold an audience for your blog:

Tip #1: Provide quality content.

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

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

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

Tip #2: Blog regularly

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

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

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

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

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

Tip #3: Mention your blog wherever you can

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

Michele Schermerhorn
http://www.imarketblog.com
A sassy little marketing blog

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

Tip #4: Participate in the blogosphere

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

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

Tip #5: Think keywords when you post

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

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

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

Tip #6: Submit your blog to blog directories

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

When you do submit your blog to these directories, remember to add a description that will entice your targeted audience to check your blog out. For instance, when I post my blog in blog directories, under description I put "General musings, rants, advice and strategies from a battle-worn veteran of the Marketing Wars, online and off". Your description should help the potential reader understand your blogging topic and the flavor of how you write.

In addition to submitting your blog to blog directories, join a few of the free or inexpensive traffic exchange sites like blogexplosion or blogclicker.

Tip #7: Use free and inexpensive blog traffic exchange communities

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

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

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

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

24 Tips and Strategies on How Everyone Can Blog Right and Get

2007-05-09T09:17:00.000-07:00

By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key
part of online culture. "Blog readership shoots up 58% in
2004 6 million Americans get news and information fed to
them through RSS aggregators But 62% of online Americans do
not know what a blog is." - Pew Internet & American Life
Project

Tip #1 - How and Where Should I Start?
You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service
such as Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), or other similar
free services such as JournalHome.com, LiveJournal.com or
Blog-City.com. The learning curve for using such free
services allow you to spend more on developing your content
rather than worrying about the advanced areas of scripting,
hosting, or programming.

Tip #2 - The Things You Should Decide to Write About
Although not a required prerequisite for you in order to
write a blog, it is highly recommended to try to find a
topic to write about based on your level of interest and
knowledge. The higher your level of interest, the easier it
is for you to get your quality content posted on your blog.
Always try to choose an area which you can enthusiastically
write about on a daily basis.Try to pay attention to a niche
which suites you well. A niche is basically a targeted
product, service, or topic.

Tip #3 - Always stay on topic.
Opinions are generally accepted but the content of the items
in the blog should all relate to a general theme. The
majority of your readers will be interested in the content
that relates to a specific defined theme or loosely defined
area of interest. Define a topic and try not to run too far
away from it. This will ensure that you create a loyal
following of interested readers.

Tip #4 - Information is king, be informative.
If you are attempting to create the impression that you are
knowledgeable about a specific industry or sector, be sure
that you stay current on news. Checking your facts before
you're giving out an opinion or a product review is always a
good idea, your reputation is at stake. If by any chance
you're utilizing other people's articles for you blog
content, ensure that you follow the terms of usage defined
by the author.

Tip #5 - Old news is not news, but old information can be
recycled and made new. While blogging everyday can be
strenuous and time consuming, it is important that the
information presented is current and accurate. Information,
articles or any other archived resources can be recycled /
modified to add more substance to your content. As long as
they're relevant and informative, there's no reason why it's
not a good approach.

Tip #6 - Be disciplined and stick to a fixed posting
schedule. Realizing that blogging requires time and effort,
don't create unrealistic expectations and be unable to
deliver. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and
a community you don't want to lose them due to lack of
communication. If time is not on your side, take advantage
of tonnes of automatically updating contents which are
available for your blog. Looking at the constantly updating
nature of RSS feeds, other RSS feeds from similar topic can
be inserted within your blogging post.

Tip #7 - Posting Frequency
If your blog content is updated frequently, search engines
will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals. Updating
your blog daily not only keeps your blog more interesting to
readers, but it also gives your blog fresh content on a day
to day making it more appealing to search engines. To keep
your blog traffic and retain your visitors interest it is a
must to update your blog daily with multiple entries. You
should try to update your blog everyday with at least 2 - 3
or more daily entries, depending on your daily schedule.

Tip #8 - Quantity matters.
In order to attract the attention of search engines, you
will need to produce a relevant amount of content and
information. A headline or simple sentence is not going to
generate the interest of readers or help with search engine
ranking. Be sure to archive old blog posts to develop a
large portal of similarly-themed content.

Tip #9 - Clarity & simplicity / Short & Concise
Keep your posts and blog entries clear and easy to
understand. Simplicity always produce better results at the
end of the day.

Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication and
publication your blog entries should be short & concise (if
you can help it). Should you insist on partaking on the
lengthy road, try to maintain a clean paragraphing style,
proper spacing, use different size, color and bold for your
titles as well as the subtitles. Use bullet points, go
straight to the point and never run out of topic. Insert
images to spice up things if you're an avid fan of long
posts.

Tip #10 - Utilize the

and tags
Being one of the few most underutilized blogging formatting
tags, these 2 items can help you on emphasizing certain
points, in the most efficient and striking way. Formatting
is simple and straightforward. Just

Hi
World!

and your message will apear
distinctively different from the rest of your text, thus
gets more attention which it deserves. Take note that the
formatting for these 2 tags differ from blog to blog
depending on how the owner defines the tag in the CSS
(Cascading Style Sheets).

Click the below link if you want to read more about CSS.
==>http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Tip #11 - Keyword-rich.
If the goal of your blog is to increase your visibility,
include related keywords in the title of the blog. Use the
title as a headline to attract interest. Each item post
should have a title that will attract attention but still be
relevant to the post. The title should be no longer than
10-12 words. Experiment with the titles if you must,
possibly try to avoid general and ordinary titles. Try to
include extraordinary and innovative titles to grab the
readers' attention.

Tip #12 - Spell checking and proof-reading.
It only takes a few extra moments and can save you from
having to make embarrassing explanations. The hazards of
Internet is that if you're too late to correct your mistake,
most likely it's already been crawled by the search engines
and read by many. It is extremely essential to think / proof
read carefully twice or even thrice, about what you post
before doing so. Take note of your language and grammar.

Tip #13 - RSS Feeds
RSS to a blog is like fuel to cars. Mostly every single free
blogs or bloggin software out there will have an automatic
RSS feed generating feature. Although it's most unlikely
that you'll find one without a RSS feature, simply leave it
and find a new one, if you happen to come across one without
it.

Tip #14 - The essence of the Internet - Traffic. It's no
secret. You must have traffic to realize the definition of a
blog.. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid and
free advertising, viral marketing, search engine marketing,
RSS/XML feeds, word-of-mouth, submitting to numerous blog
and RSS directories, etc. RSSBlogsubmit (
http://www.rssblogsubmit.com) provides a submission service
for your Blog & RSS feeds. You should always use your blog
URL address in the signature of your email, forum
discussions, message boards, or any other communication
media. Never forget to share your blog to your friends,
colleagues, and any other invidious that you know of.

Tip #15 - Track Your Blog
Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated
usually a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com,
ActiveMeter.com, Extremetracking.com or Sitemeter.com will
do the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the html of
your blog template and start tracking your visitors. Its
better to use a service which gives you advanced traffic
analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral
information, and search engine information. Visitors,
returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standard
for any page counter service you choose.

Tip #16 - Make use of your Blog's statistical and tracking
information. Believe it or not, your visitors' information
from your tracking scripts will provide you priceless
information on how you can attract more readers. Keep note
on the keyword terms used from search engines which bring
you traffic. You can identify relevant closely related
topics which you can venture into and add more variety into
your blog, yet staying very much in topic. Simply put, more
topic coverage and more variety = more traffic. You may
analyze your tracking information further on how you can
strategize your blog's content. You can also apply some
keyword optimization strategies here.

Tip #17 - The essence of your Blog is your Audience, listen
to them. Always interact with your readers who post comments
on your blog. Reply with a brief thank you note or just
simply attend to their questions if they have any. It's a
proven fact when there's a direct human interaction and
knowing the fact that there's a "real human" at the other
end of the blog makes most of them coming back. If your
audience provide suggestions, comments or feedbacks, take
them constructively and inform them if you have any desires
of implementing such ideas on your next update. And of
course, don't forget to thank them for their ideas. If it's
a great idea, why not throw in a free gift? Mention their
website in your blog?

Tip #18 - Create and increase the "Why Must I Return" Value
to Your Blog
Everyone knows the fact that Blogs get a huge level of
returning visitors because of its constantly updated
content. Why don't you add more interesting items to that
return value by having fixed periodical posts / offers, e.g.
Monday Top 10 Tips, Picture of the Week, Free Bonus of the
Month, Free Daily Wallpapers, etc. to give them the absolute
excuse to return to your blog. As long as you can
efficiently and appropriately increase that Return Value
constantly, it is mostly guaranteed that you'll be getting
tonnes of repeated visitors, period.

An advance notice, prelaunch announcement or anything
similar to that also can act as a short term return value
strategy. Encourage readers to comment on your such notices
/ posts. Experiment and play around with this idea.

Tip #19 - Multiple blogs
It never hurts to use multiple blogging accounts to attract
more people. You can even have multiple blogs within
Blogger.com itself, but you may also want to try different
free blogging services such as JournalHome.com,
LiveJournal.com, Blog-City.com, etc. Should you have the
urge to have multiple similar duplicates of your blog just
to gain more traffic, it is wise to avoid it as search
engines / feed directories might translate that as excessive
redundant information which simply brings you trouble, and
you're tend to get penalized, banned or even accused of
spamming.

Tip #20 - Digital Art, Creative Graphics Another proven fact
- Monotonous and continous display of text will make your
readers run away! Try to include non- advertising graphics,
pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries, but try to
keep them at a limit. Too many graphics also mean slower
loading time and messy text and graphical combination. You
don't want your blog to look messy. Most of the time,
graphics can bring your blog to life. Pictures can make
boring texts interesting no matter how long it is. Graphical
elements are by far the fastest message delivering element
available on the net today. It may deliver various messages
by a split second of a look.

Tip #21 - Maintain a Personal Blog
A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to
include personal experiences which relates to the topic of
your blog entry. Stay away from the business style of
writing. Write with a more personal style and use first-
person narratives. Share product reviews and personal
endeavors, instead of trying to make it sounds like you're
selling.

Tip #22 - Credibility & Popularity
As thing progresses, things need to change in order to cope
with the flow and nature of development. If your number of
readers are reasonably huge, and still using a free blogging
service to get your messages out, you may want to consider
getting your own domain name and hosting plan to have a more
personalized Blog.

Domain names and hosting plans are pretty much
straightforward. Research is all what it takes to get the
best of all the available options. For the most highly
recommended comprehensive listing of Free Blogging software
out there, drop by at http://www.opensourcecms.com/. This is
by far the best place to drop by if you want to get your
research done about which blogging software to choose.
Reviews, ratings, public votes, demos, etc are provided. And
the best thing is, all of them are Open Source, which means
they are totally free. Try going through the server
requirements for each software before purchasing your
webhosting .

Tip 23# - Customize the look of your Blog
If you happen to be using one of the Free blogging services
out there, you might notice that most of us are using the
same template again and again for our blogs. It is well
understood that not everybody has the technical knowledge to
change the layout as how they want it to be, but if you have
the knowledge, by all means try to customize it and make it
look DIFFERENT. You can grab that extra attention, if you're
different in certain ways. Create that image for yourself.

Tip #24 - Blog and Make Money

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog
traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking
if you want to turn your traffic into profit. Some of the
recommended income generating sources are as follow :-

Google Adsense, Amazon Associate program (www.amazon.com),
Blogads.com, Crispads.com, Tagword.com, Affiliate Programs
and any advertising related text links can be your place to
start off.

Final #Tip - Conclusion.
Following these blogging tips should make your blogging
experience much more rewarding. Blogging is generally done
out of interest and enthusiasm and sometimes for income
generating purposes. The flexibility of blogging will never
cease to expand. Through time, dedication, and persistence
you will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging.

Top 10 Places to Find the Most Popular Blogs

2007-05-09T09:10:00.000-07:00

The easiest way to get acquainted with the conventions of the blog format is to start reading them. The more blogs you read, the more you'll get a feel for the depth and breadth of style and subject matter they have to offer.

Here are a few sources:

Blog Monitors

- Blogdex (http://blogdex.com/)
- Daypop (http://daypop.com/)
- Technorati (http://technorati.com/)

These three sites monitor millions of blogs every minute of every day, searching for the top key words being mentioned in blog posts or in the most popular links and sites. It's like being in a huge convention hall eavesdropping on billions of conversations at the same time. This is a fantastic way to do market research and to see what everybody is buzzing about. The collective 'hive' of blogs is often called the blogosphere. Often, links and news bubble up in the blogosphere first, even before they reach your evening television news program.

Blog Search Engines and Directories

- Blogarama (http://blogarama.com/)
- Globe of Blogs (http://globeofblogs.com/)
- The Open Directory (http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Weblogs/)

Just like web sites, there are also directories and search engines devoted to cataloging the ever-growing global network of blogs. Try searching by topic or geographic location.

Search Engines

- Google (http://google.com/)
- Yahoo! (http://yahoo.com/)
- A9 (http://a9.com/)

As usual, Google and friends to the rescue! These are the more traditional and widely known search engines. Type in some topic and the word 'blogs' and see what results come up. The more specific keywords, the more likely you are to find bloggers talking about what you're interested in.

Blogrolls

And number ten is the blogroll. Most blogs have a blogroll, which is a list of a blogger's favorite blogs and websites. If you find a blog you like, try checking out the other sites that the blogger likes. You might find other valuable sites and blogs to read. The more your read blogs, the more you'll catch the nuances and conventions that have made them the fastest, easiest, cheapest way to publish online.

You are Known By the Blog you keep

2007-05-09T08:46:00.000-07:00

Literature is the soul of the wit. The best source of literature can be now found in blogs. The growing trend of 'blogmania' is slowly sweeping the netizens. Every person aspires to have a blog as a platform to publish his thoughts and be heard and read.

General surveys undertaken on blogs and bloggers shows a rising trend in blogging. A parallel platform for literary endeavor, the blogs are overthrowing the traditional journalistic norms. Publishing of news and views no longer remains the privilege of an elite minority. Anybody and everybody is free to get in touch and explore the writer within himself. The anamorphic nature of the human soul is best reflected in the blogs.
http://alphablog.rediffblogs.com/2005_20_03_alphablog_archive.html

A survey in the United States brought out a startling fact the 30% of the surveyed people read blogs. Also, 52% of the surveyed people advocate equal journalistic rights and freedom for the blogs. And the most striking fact is that 31% of the surveyed people revealed that they found blogs to be more credible than the newspapers.

The growing popularity of blogs can be gauzed from the fact that Yahoo, Google, MSN, Rediff and all the other bigwigs of the cyber world are experimenting with blogs and bloggers. Both free and paid blog hoisting sites have come up which offers a plethora of tools to make blogging a breeze.

MSN has even gone to the extent of making a common 'passport' database across all its services. So now, a MSN user can use his own personal 'id' across MSN messenger, Spaces and hotmail. Also, MSN has integrated its Spaces with MSN Messenger 7.0. The users of MSN Messenger 7.0 will have a tab labeled 'gleams' which will inform them when their contacts have updated their individual blogs.

Recent statistics from MSN shows that MSN has 170,000 daily blog updates. This number is huge considering the fact that most of the bloggers do not update their blogs on a daily basis.

The Literature of the new era is no longer limited to books. From Poems to Features, from Humor to Short Stories, everything can be found in the blogs.
http://alphablog.rediffblogs.com/2005_27_03_alphablog_archive.html
http://alphablog.rediffblogs.com/2005_03_04_alphablog_archive.html

Though good blogs are a trifle to find, yet close scrutiny will reveal every blog to be good in its own personal aspect. After all, blogs are a slice of the blogger's life and every one's life is a good source of learning experience.

http://alphablog.rediffblogs.com/
This also opens up the teaching value of blogs. Blogs can be a mirror of life, culture and society. What can be a better teacher than one with a plethora of experiences to offer on a silver platter?

13 Steps to Successful Blogging

2007-05-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

Blogs can be a very marketable and very profitable tool if used correctly. Profiting from blogs is just a matter of grabbing the attention of an audience and not doing any actual salesmen selling. In this article you will learn the 13 most essential steps to successful blogging.

1) Where to start?

You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Journal Home or Blogger. Starting with a free blog hosting service allows you to begin blogging instantly without having any advance knowledge of scripts, hosting, or programming. It allows you to focus on your content and not the internal maintenance of the blog. The best benefit of starting with a free service is, in the case your blog doesn't become successful you do not lose any money or are you left holding the bill. The great thing about a blog is that they are organized in chronological order, your latest entry is displayed first. When your blog traffic grows greatly and you are ready to upgrade to your own domain then you can simply make your last blog entry the announcement of your "move". Simply add a last entry stating that your blog has "moved" and type the new blog URL address. Which directs visitors to your new blog site, keeping your following, without a major inconvenience to anyone. Upgrade as you need to...but only when you need to!

2) Niche

A niche is a targeted product, service, or topic. You should first decide on a product, service, or topic which interest you. Choose an area which you can enthusiastically write about on a daily basis. You can use keyword research services like Google Zeitgeist or Yahoo! Buzz Index to find popular searched topics. It does NOT matter if your topic is popular as long as there is a audience for your topic and the topic is precisely focused then your blog should be successful. Anything can be considered a niche as long as it has a target audience no matter how large or how small the audience is. A blog about your cat can be a niche or a blog about the species of the cat family can be a larger niche market, if there are people who are interested in hearing about your cat or the species of the cat family...you can even choose to build your audience for a market which an audience does not exist, but first you must build your blog.

3) Update Daily (nothing less)

This step is a must and not a suggestion. Updating your blog daily not only keeps your blog more interesting to readers, but it also gives your blog fresh content on a day to day making it more appealing to search engines. Not updating your blog on an occasional holiday or one day here and there is understandable to most, but missing days at a time or weeks is unacceptable and will most likely result in your blog being unsuccessful. To keep your blog traffic and retain your visitors interest it is a must to update your blog daily with multiple entries. You should try to update your blog everyday with at least 3 or more daily entries. The best way to accomplish this is to set aside 1-2 hours a day for tending to your blog and adding new entries. It may even be wise to schedule a set time which you dedicate to your blog each day. Give yourself work hours and treat your blog as a job, what happens if you don't come to work for days or weeks...you lose money or worse you get fired! Same applies here...if you don't update your blog for days or weeks you'll lose visitors.

4) Traffic

It's no secret. You must have traffic to profit from blogs. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid advertising, free advertising, viral marketing, search engine marketing, RSS/XML feeds, and word-of-mouth. You should always use your blog URL address in the signature of your email, forum discussions, message boards, or any other communication media. You should submit your blog URL address to search engines and blog directories. You should submit your RSS/XML URL feed to blog ping services like Technorati, Ping-O-Matic, and Blogdigger. You should confidently share your blog with family, friends, co-workers, associates, and business professionals when it relates. Many blogs can be considered as a collection of articles, for this purpose you should submit your blog entries (those that are valuable and lengthy articles) to content syndicators like GoArticles.com or ArticleCity.com. Once submitted your articles can be picked up and published by others. The trick is to make sure you include your Blog URL address in the "About the Author" passage. What this does is create link popularity and backlinks for your blog, when someone picks up your article from the syndication then publish the article on their website the "About the Author" passage is included with each publication and the link you included is followed, crawled, and indexed by search engines. Imagine if your article is popular enough or controversial enough to produce 10,000 publications across the web. The search engines is bound to find your site in no time with that many publications and credit you a authority on the topic, in return increasing your rank on search engines. The small effort of writing a well written article is rewarding. You should try to write at least 1 full length article every week for syndication and submit your article to at least 10 article syndicators.

5) Track Your Blog

How do you know if your blog has traffic? Just because no one is leaving comments doesn't mean your blog isn't growing. Many visitors do not leave comments but they are returning visitors. I know it sounds crazy but with blogs people are more interested in what "you" have to say! Many visitors do not comment their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd time. Some do not comment at all, but are active daily visitors.

Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated usually a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com or Active Meter will do the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the html of your blog template and start tracking your visitors. Its better to use a service which gives you advanced traffic analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral information, and search engine information. Visitors, returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standard for any page counter service you choose.

6) Listen to Your Audience

When using the proper page counter you should begin to see how others are finding your blog and if through search engines then which keywords are being used to find your blog. If constantly your blog is being found by 1 or more keywords then focus your blog around those keywords to make it even more powerful. When writing entry titles and entries use the keywords as often as possible while keeping the blog legible and interesting.

7) Multiple blogs

Use multiple blogging accounts to attract more people. This means you should have a blog with JournalHome.com, Blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, Blog-City.com, tBlogs.com, etc. The more blog accounts the better. You can copy/paste from 1 blog to all others. Having different blog accounts is like having a publication in different newspapers. This enables you to attract more visitors and this also increases the chance that 1 of your blogs will be in the search engine results for your focused keywords.

8) Short & Concise

Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication and publication your blog entries should be short & concise (if you can help it). Sometimes there are exceptions to the rule and you have no choice but to blog lengthy entries, but try to avoid this as much as possible. You do not want your blog entries to become hours of reading. Visitors like to easily find information and skim through your entries. It is good to be detailed and provide useful information, but do not include useless information or run away sentences that veer away from your topic.

9) Digital Art

Try to include non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries. Not too much. Once a week is fine. Graphics can sometimes bring your blog to life. Of course, the content of the blog is the most important aspect and you do not want to overshadow your content with graphics, but displaying graphics can add a bit of spice to the blog. Be choosy about your graphics and make sure they fit your entry topic. You should add content with the graphic, at least a caption. Original graphics, photos, pictures, and art is recommended.

10) Keep it Personal

A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include personal experiences which relates to the topic of your blog entry. Stay away from the business style of writing. Write with a more personal style and use first-person narratives. Do not write any of your entries as sales letters, instead share product reviews and personal endeavors.

11) Interact With Your Visitors

You now have the traffic you deserve. You should begin interacting with your visitors. Create a regular theme such as: "Monday Money Tip" or "Picture of the Week" which entices your readers to look forward to each week.

Give your readers advance notice about a product, service, or topic which you are going to review and then talk about later. If the President was scheduled to give a speech then in your blog you should state that you "will discuss the speech and give your opinion after the speech airs. Comments will be appreciated".

Try your best to find exclusive information that not many have. Do not disclose any confidential or secret information which is deemed illegal or can potentially get you into trouble, but try to get the scoop before everyone else does. Such as: If your blog was about Paris Hilton (the socialite) and you had a blog entry about "Paris Hilton Getting Married" then it would be interesting to your readers if you had a actual picture of Paris Hilton engagement ring. Give your best effort to dig and search the internet for exclusive information and you will possibly come up with something useful. Your readers will appreciate this and they show their appreciation through word-of-mouth referrals. Imagine how many readers will tell their friends, family, and others about information they only can find at your blog.

12) Make Money

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking about turning your traffic into profit. You should use contextual advertising, like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising is usually text links which use the content of your blog to publish targeted ads on your blog. The payout is usually based on a pay-per-click model, meaning for ever click an ad receives you are paid a small percentage of the profits. In addition to contextual advertising it is good to also use graphical advertising such as: BlogAds.com, Amazon.com, MammaMedia, or General Sponsored Advertising.

13) You're a Professional

You're a professional now! What are you still doing with that free blog hosting service? It is time to upgrade to a domain hosted solution. You need to get a web host and choose a domain name for your blog then check its availability. Select the blogging software you wish to use, such as: Squarespace.com, WordPress.org, MovableType.org, etc. When you have your new blog domain setup and ready for traffic then it is time for you to announce your move on all your previous blog accounts. Your last entry to the blog should be a "move" announcement. The title should be "Moved" and the blog entry should state something like "Old Blog has been moved to New Blog please follow and bookmark this link for future reference: http://www.YourNewBlogDomainName.com". This way all returning visitors and new readers should not have any problem finding your new blog domain.

At the level of a professional blogger you may want to team up with 1 or more other bloggers. This will create a more interesting and more powerful blog. The old saying "two heads is better than one", more authors mean more advertising and exposure because each author will have a vested interest in the blog. The idea of a team blog is to make it profitable and rewarding for all authors, while continuing to target the blog topic and keeping the blog interesting for visitors.

Following these blogging techniques should make your blogging experience much more rewarding. There is no guarantee that your blog will become popular or a household name, but the effort should at least put you one step closer. Making money online is not an overnight experience like many may think, but making money online is definitely a foreseeable possibility. As well, growing popularity on the web is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging.

What is RSS?

2007-05-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

del.icio.us tags: rss, rss feed, rss readers

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly updated web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it. It’s the easiest way for users to get a the latest content from all their favorite websites and blogs all in one place. The universal icon for a website that has an RSS feed is this …

RSS Readers

You may also see a grouping of icons for popular RSS Readers such as the one on my site. There are several popular RSS Readers such as My Yahoo, Newsgator, Netvibes, Google Reader, Bloglines, plus most email clients and web browsers have built-in RSS Readers

RSS vs Bookmarks/Favorites

So you might say “I have all the sites I read Bookmarked - why do I need to use a separate tool?” First, let me say that RSS Readers aren’t for everyone, but there are advantages that many people find very useful. RSS allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. So every time the site content is updated you receive that new content right to your RSS Reader.

For example, suppose you have 50 sites and blogs that you like to visit regularly. Going to checkout the new content for each website and blog everyday could take you hours. With RSS, you can “subscribe” to a website or blog, and get “fed” all the new headlines from all of these 50 sites and blogs in one list, and see what’s going on in minutes instead of hours.

That one place where your RSS list is created is called an RSS Reader or News Reader, and it gathers all the headlines from all the websites and blogs you have subscribed to.

You also don’t need to fill up your email with newsletters, instead you’ll get all of the new content in your RSS Reader. Plus the number of sites offering RSS feeds is growing rapidly and almost all web sites have an RSS Feed.

Who publishes feeds?

Most of the biggest names on the web offer content feeds including USATODAY.com, BBC News Headlines, ABCNews, CNET, Yahoo!, Amazon.com (including a podcast!), local newspapers and many more.

So which RSS Readers should I use and how do I subscribe?

All you have to do is click on an RSS symbol or a text link of the words “Subscribe to our RSS feed” on the website to subscribe to the RSS feeds from that site.

A variety of RSS Readers are available for different platforms. Some popular feed readers include Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac), FeedReader (Windows), and NewsGator (Windows - integrates with Outlook). There are also a number of web-based feed readers available. My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader (This is the one I use) are popular web-based feed readers. As you can see, there are plenty of choices for you good RSS readers, so your choice will simply come down to your own preference.

Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites that syndicate content, like New2Blog, and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks.

Remember to just look for the RSS Icon or the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available, and happy reading!

What is a Blog and why should I Blog?

2007-05-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

Lets start with what is a blog. A Blog is simply a website that uses a simple approach to updating that site through posts. Posts are usually listed in chronological order (newest to oldest) and are also grouped into categories. Archives of your posts are kept on the site and are usually grouped by month.

Blog vs. Website

One advantage of a blog versus a website is that blogs are usually very interactive and social. Users can subscribe to your blog like they would subscribe to a magazine or newspaper. Users can also post comments to the posts you’ve written. And you can post replies to user’s comments - so it becomes a running conversation that’s all part of your blog. So as you can see a Blog is really website, only easier to create and use, much easier to maintain and very interactive.

So why should you Blog?

Well, first you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I’m guessing if you’re still reading at this point, then you’re interested in trying your own blog. There are hundreds of reasons to blog, but the most important one is that it gives you an opportunity to publish those things that your most passionate about. It may be your family, religion, politics, making money, improving your self, tax tips, losing weight, American idol, recipes, or even your pet. It could be any of those things or a combination, plus a million more. It doesn’t really matter what the topic is - it could just be your place to pontificate about the world around you - all that matters is that what you Blog about gets you excited.

But I’m really not a writer …

You don’t have to be a great writer - most bloggers aren’t. You just have to care about what you’re writing about and that will translate to your audience. Oh yes, if you’re passionate and honest, there will be an audience. And that’s what Blogging is all about - instead of surfing the net looking for good sites you can actually add to the net and people can start to read your fascinating new tales of wonder and lore all on your very own Blog!

Can I blog from home & work?

2007-05-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

Another blogging basic, but important reminder is that one of the great advantages of the web and specifically blogging is that you can do it from anywhere. My Dad is interested in starting his own blog so I thought I take a couple of his questions and answer them here.

“… If I do all my uploading from my school, is all my data going to be saved in our server (at school), or is it going to be saved in my yahoo account…”

My Dad teaches computers at a local High School and basically wants to be able to update the blog from school. His concern is where will his data live. This may seem like a basic question, but for many people its important to organize their posts in one location, so that they can get to it from anywhere.

No matter which blogging service my Dad chooses the posts he writes will be saved on the blog server. So, I’ve recommend using Blogger to my Dad and all of his posts that he uploads will be stored there. He’ll be able to upload his post from either his home office or from work. But is that the only place my Dad should keep his posts - No. I always recommend having a local copy or at the very least a copy of your posts stored on a separate server.

You can debate which blog editor to use - the online Blogger editor, Microsoft Word or Notepad - the simple answer is that you should always have a local copy of your work - plus a backup on a separate media, such as a CD or DVD.

“…What happens when and if I stop working here at (local high school)? Will I still be able to have access and continue to upload from another computer?…”

My Dad’s concern is basically access to his posts. Since he has internet access from his home office this won’t be an issue if he retires from his current teaching job.

Lets expand this question out a little further and consider two main issues of access - access to the server and access to local copies. A question that all bloggers should consider, “what happens if I lose my access to the server?” or “what happens if I lose my local copies?”. There’s 99% chance that you’ll always have access to your online posts - but consider the real chance that you may need to move your blog from one service to another. This is where have local copies of your posts can really come in handy for a big move. And as far as your local copies getting lost - this is what backups are for. You DO have a backup of your local hard drive, right? And if you’re running WordPress on your own domain, make sure you backup your MySQL database. This provides an extra level of security and also makes moving your domain from one host to another a much simpler project.

How do I label/categorize my posts?

2007-05-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

Blogger uses labels - Wordpress uses categories and labels. It doesn’t matter what you call them, you need to use them to help enforce some organization in your site. The problem is that people run into problems with how to setup their labels/categories.

My previous post, “more tips for good web design“ covers site structure, but its good to remind everyone about how site structure applies to blogging. Basically here’s the concept in a nutshell - use 5 to 7 categories to cover all of the main topics of your blog. If you don’t have 5 main topics, then start with 2 or 3 and add on as you blog. If you have more than 7 topics, I would then use subcategories. Find the 7 main categories and then for each main category follow the same principal of 5 to 7 subcategories.

The concept is based on how people handle choices. Most people can only make a intelligent choices from a maximum list of 7. Anything over 7 and people will more than likely remember only the first and last option - and maybe one of the options is the middle. Some people can handle more, some less. Consider your own experiences with a menu at a restaurant. If the restaurant has a full menu, both lunch and dinner items, it can become very overwhelming to try to choose. And how many times does someone say I’ll get the chicken parmesan - and you say, “I didn’t see that on that menu!”? Plug in whatever dish, but the point is that with more than 7 choices, we start to get major blind spots in our brain. Now consider a lunch menu - condensed, usually about the same price for each choice - now you can really start to contrast and compare the menu choices and try to make the best choice for your dining pleasure.

So, we want to take advantage of this for our users. We don’t want them to have blind spots when they visit our site. So staying to true to this principle is a critical step in having a well designed ~~web site~~ blog.

84 Cool Wordpress Themes/Templates - Hopefully unseen

2007-05-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it’s just like searching for a needle in a haystack: if you’ve ever googled for free and quality Wordpress Themes, you know exactly what we’re talking about. Most designers love to create Wordpress themes, so they can demonstrate the quality of their work and add some fresh works to their portfolios.

However, most Wordpress themes are either used too often (Kubrick theme, now K2, is definitely overused) or just have nothing to offer - particularly, if you are looking for a free, impressive and professional design. However, sometimes search is worth it. In the gallery below you’ll find 83 free Wordpress Themes you probably haven’t seen yet. All themes offer quality, elegance and a user-friendly interface.

1. Redoable 1.0 [ Preview ]

2. Iceburgg [ Preview ]

3. Soxnest link [ Preview ]

4. Gridlock [ Preview ]

5. Fresh Theme [ Preview ]

6. Deep Red Theme [ Preview ]

7. Time Manager [ Preview ]

8. Fluid Solution [ Preview ]

9. Intra Blog [ Preview ]

10. XV [ Preview ]

11. Wave link [ Preview ]

12. PlainBox V1.0 [ Preview ]