power up your blog

A lot of my current SEO consultation clients always ask me the same thing – “Why do I need to blog?” To most people, blogging is boring and foreign, and no one really understands the purpose behind blogging. Some people hear bad stories of wasting time blogging instead of selling products, others simply are too lazy to create a really great blog. Regardless, the bottom line is that blogging really is one of the best ways to get more people to go to your website.

Blogging is extremely valuable to your search engine optimization practices. Here’s a few of the top reasons to blog:

1) Blogging adds new content to your website.

Blogging adds new content to your website automatically. The more content that your website contains, the more chances for Google to see your website, which means that you have a lot better chances to be indexed by Google.

2) Blogging allows you more chances to rank for keywords.

As previously mentioned, each time you blog, a new page is created. This page will be indexed by Google automatically, and completely separate for your other blog posts. This gives you an additional opportunity to rank for certain keywords.

3) Blogging gives you more chances for incoming links.

Let’s face it – Google loves to see websites that link to your website. The bottom line is that incoming links greatly increase your search engine rankings! Each time you post a new blog article, you gain another opportunity for another blogger to link your content and link to your website from theirs.

4) Blogging gives you credibility.

The more you blog, the more your website will get indexed by the search engines – yes that’s true. But remember this factor – why do you even want more traffic to your website? The only reason you want more traffic to your website is to gain more customers! But, getting people to your website is only the first step – from there, you must get them to trust you, and to pay you for your products or services. To do that, you must be credible. The more you blog, the more you establish yourself as an expert! The more you establish yourself as an expert, the more likely your customer is to give you their hard earned dollars.

The Free Blog Posting concept involves submitting your content to various free article submission zones over the Internet. You can make the habit of continuous posting of the articles without any hiccups. However, you should not include any obscene or officious content piece, which is summarily rejected by the crawlers. It is also equally necessary that your blog contain the real content and not a corpus of nonsense. Remember, it should not be a junk or talking something weird and off-track. This is because most of the online audience is there just for over reading and not for any kind of serious reading.

There are different ways to go when you think of free blog posting. Amongst other things, you should remember that your Internet business should make a phenomenal business. You can implement blog tools such as Joomala, WordPress, Plone, CMS made simple, Mambo and many more have given the process of bulk submission to various web directories a new concept altogether.

I would consider that no strategy works wonders in the such an affordable manner as free blog posting does. What’s more, you can customize your posts as per your convenience, time your posts and much above update the content as and when you feel like doing it.

Make the things in a way such that they grab attention of the online audience. If you do in this manner, you are sure shot a hit out there. Thinking of becoming a big online marketer, then ideally you can take a step ahead and post videos as a part of free blog posting. Much more, search engine spiders would simply love to taste such a content much above the copied or the regular content.

As I come to a final close down, I would suggest that you should be regular and fresh in your content. This is the success mantra of free blog posting. All the crawlers would give your content top ranking and by this way, you would definitely gain rich rewards and business prospects net buddies. Just give a try and then see what happens next!
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WordPress is an open source blogging platform that anyone can use for free. You can use it to host your blog or website. You only need to make a few simple tweaks to change your site from a blog to an ordinary website. WordPress will then become the CMS that you use to manage your content.

WordPress is a very versatile CMS. It works with templates – which means that you can change designs very quickly and easily. There are tons of free templates that are available for download. If you are looking for a general template, then a free one will do just fine. But there will be situations when you need better templates. Here are some reasons why you need premium WordPress templates.

1) Duplicate designs.

Free templates mean that the same template may be used by other webmasters. So there is a chance that your website will look similar to other websites. For a greater sense of identity on the Internet, it’s always better to use a unique template.

2) Branding concerns.

It’s almost impossible to brand a Company if you are using a free template. For one, there is no uniqueness. When it comes to branding, you want your customers to recognize your brand and associate your brand with quality. It’s hard to do that if you are using free templates.

3) Functionality issues.

Most free templates are meant for general use. They are not customized to suit the specific needs of any particular group. So if you are an Internet marketer, you may find that you need more advertising space on your blog so that you can generate more revenue. Premium templates will be able to provide such additional functionality.

4) Creating a more positive experience.

Many of the free templates look nice, but you may be unhappy with the experience that these templates offer. For instance, you find that the designs are generally too simple, and the font sizes and colors are not quite right. You can always install a premium template to correct all these issues. By giving a more positive user experience, you are encouraging the visitors to stay longer on your blog, which is always a good thing. You don’t want to chase away all your visitors by having bad designs!

5) Better support.

What happens if you encounter some problems with your template? If you are using a free template, there is no one you can turn to for help. But if you are using a premium template, you can always get support from the designer. This is an important aspect if you are serious about your blog. You want your blog to be working correctly. A blog that is buggy may not be worthwhile visiting.

So is it worth paying good money for premium templates? The answer is a resounding yes! A high quality premium template can give your blog greater functionality and a greater sense of identity on the Internet. In the faceless world of cyber space, a strong sense of identity is very valuable.

Is it for money or fame? What was the main reason I was actually blogging for. I came up with 3 main reason why I personally blog.

Networking – In the early stages of blogging I started to notice the great potential for networking through blogging. There was the opportunity to network with:

- My Readers

- Other Bloggers – I have been able to build relationships with a couple of bloggers that I have been able to learn so much from, which I never would have been able to learn if I had not started this blog.

Authority – I guess this could also be called “creating a brand”. But there is authority that comes with a blog. If you can provide quality information on a specific topic, you start to become known around the blogging circles as an expert in the field.

I am currently planning a few niche’s that I will be focusing on shortly with my blog, trying to do this very thing. By becoming an expert in something it allows you to start creating products, and recommending products in that niche – and people will buy because of your position ( so don’t abuse their trust)

Money – I put this third on the list because I believe it will follow if you are able to do the first 2 points. If you are networking with other bloggers and building a community around your blog, and also becoming an expert in your field that bloggers start to associate you with a certain way to ‘make money online’ for example – then the money will follow.
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So long as you can use a search engine, it’s fairly easy to find a free blog template code to make your blog look good.

Remember that each blog service is different, so a WordPress template (or theme, as they prefer to call them) will take a lot of tweaking to make it work with a Blogger blog.

It’s a lot easier to narrow down your search to only return links to blog templates that match your particular blogging platform.

Of course, if you’re a wizard with HTML and have the spare time, you could design your own blog template code from scratch. But that’s not something that many people are comfortable with doing.

Most blogs come with a few standard blog templates. A standard WordPress installation will have a couple templates. Blogger has a larger number and you’re asked to choose your template in the new blog creation wizard.

Trouble is, these blog templates are so common it will look as though you haven’t put any effort into your blog if you use one of them.

Once you’ve typed in your search for your particular blog template, chances are that you’ll get hundreds of possible sites that you could choose from.

But even if you’ve used the word “free” in your search, that doesn’t mean that all (or even any!) of the templates you find on a particular site will actually be free for you to use. You see, sites know that you’re likely to be looking for free stuff and will construct their pages in such a way as to fool the search engines into showing their pages. A phrase like “we don’t offer free blog template code” will likely help the site to show up in a search for free templates.

So be careful – it’s easy to get hooked on a particular blog design and then suddenly find that when you click the “download” button you’re asked for money.

If the blog template code that you thought was free turns out to cost a few dollars, that may actually be a good thing. Since most fellow bloggers will be looking for true freebies, your blog could look more distinctive if you actually pay for a template. Ultimately, it’s your choice.

Now that we are have already scratched the top of Blog Marketing fundamentals, here are the rest of the basic tips you need to know as well.

Make Your Business Blog a Big Part of Your Marketing

Discipline yourself to blog regularly. Essentially, prepare yourself in the same manner you use to post your ads through your online groups. Create a fresh blog entry even 2-3 short additions several times a week. At a minimum, update a blog weekly. Including quality content will allow your blog to be crawled by search engines and creating headlines on the RSS feeds which is what you want.

Think Search Engines When Blogging

Work to use a few vital key words over and over within each blog entry. Steady use of the same key words that internet surfers use to search will put up page after page of these search relevant key words in your blog.

A blog with numerous posts (pages) on the identical subject with the same key words but exclusive content will give you search engine traffic that you can learn to channel to your own website or direct sales company website.

Publish Your Own Articles on Your Business Blog

Post your personal articles on your blog complete with resources and permission to publish with signature intact. Your own articles will give you further reliability and assemble readership.

Use Your Blog’s Links Section

The links section of your blog give your readers the prospect to survey your websites, your newsletter, services and products further after they have read your latest post.

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Creating a blog on your site isn’t as daunting as it may initially sound. There are several different ways that you can go about the process. All of them assume that you have some kind of web space hosting of your own – this is readily available nowadays for very little money, so don’t panic.

The very cheapest web hosting is free but this often comes with adverts that pay the service hosting your site enough money for them to offer you the space for free. If you expect your site to generate a reasonable amount of traffic then it’s better to spend a few dollars a month on reliable web hosting.

Next up is to decide on your blog platform.

1. Use Blogger on your own site

Google’s Blogger service gives you the option of using Blogger and its accompanying site or simply using Blogger to write your posts, which then get published on your own site.

It’s easy to do this. Just go into your Blogger control panel, click the Settings tab and then select the Publishing tab. You’ll see a link that says “Switch to custom domain”. You’ll then be given the option of buying a brand new domain for your blog or pointing it to a domain you already use. It’s a simple matter of following the instructions on screen. Once you’ve done that, your Blogger blog will be posted to your own website instead of on Blogger.

2. Use WordPress on your own site

This isn’t quite as easy as Blogger, but it’s pretty close. Most hosts offer a one click install of WordPress. This installs the basic software on your web hosting space and then allows you to do whatever tweaks you need to make the blog your own rather than the “out of the box” settings. At the very least, you should turn on Akismet anti spam in your plug-ins. This involves getting an API key from WordPress but that’s a simple matter of clicking a few links and following the instructions that appear.

Once you’ve got WordPress installed, check out a few tutorial sites to make sure that you’ve got your brand new blog set up as efficiently as possible so that the search engines can give it the publicity it deserves.

3. Choose a different blogging platform

Blogger and WordPress are just two of the blog platforms available. There are lots more including systems such as Moveable Type amongst others.

That said, most people find that either the simplicity of Blogger or the customizable nature of WordPress are more than adequate for their needs. Both platforms are very well supported and you’re almost certain to be able to do exactly what you want to do with them. Whichever you choose, you should make sure that you perform regular backups of your posts.

Apart from your writing, the template you choose for your new blog is the biggest statement you can make to the outside world. Both Blogger and WordPress come with lots of templates or you can have your own template custom designed if you want to really stand out from the crowd.

If you’re anything like me, when I first set up my blog about a year ago, I had NO CLUE where to start. Should I use Blogger, Blog spot, WordPress, or any of the 100′s of other blog platforms that are out there? I assumed a blog was just a blog. Boy, did I learn otherwise! After a lot of research, recommendations, and help from others (that’s the “Network” part of network marketing) I realized that I better go with installing WordPress for my blog.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with WordPress, it’s a blog platform that gives you a pre-built blog site for free. But if you REALLY want to boost up your blog marketing – you really need to get a self-hosted WordPress blog and your own personal domain. And I’m going to go into more details why here in the list.

Here are my Top 5 Reasons to Use WordPress for your blog:

1. Google Loves WordPress – If you’re using a blog for your marketing strategies, you’re probably interested in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – at least a little bit. If you’re into SEO, then you want and need Google giving your site “some love.” Now, I could go on and on and on and on and ON about SEO, but the idea is that you want Google ranking your site higher than your competition for any given keyword. Well, for whatever reason, Google loves WordPress. Period. Game, set, match! You need a WordPress blog if you are in SEO strategies.

Yes, you can use other blog sites and still get good ranking, but you typically have to work harder to get the same amount of “love” from Google as your competition. If you already have a different blog and are so far into it that it would hurt you more than help you, just stick with it and MAKE IT WORK. But AT LEAST have it self-hosted – which leads me into my next point.

2. Self hosted – I have this in my top 5 reasons, well, for a good reason. (Oh man I’m witty!) You can use the free version of WordPress and have no problems and make that work for you just fine. But you could run into a few problems, the biggest of which is that your blog could be here one day, and gone the next. If you have a self hosted WordPress blog, no one can touch it. It’s yours. Yes, you’re paying a small monthly hosting fee (usually around $5.00 or less) but it’s WELL worth its value considering the thought that you might lose your blog otherwise.

On top of having your blog self hosted – I would also recommend getting a domain name that is specific to you. Mine is obviously my name Linus Ruzicka. It looks a lot more professional that the generic site URL that WordPress gives your site. Having your domain forwarded is essential for branding YOU in this industry.

3. WordPress Design Themes – Now, do you want the generic WordPress Theme that comes with WordPress, or a custom designed one that is specific only to you? The default WordPress theme is perfect if you’re just setting up a blog to have a blog. BUT, since you’re in this industry to make money and brand you, I suggest a designed custom theme. There are tons of people who design custom WordPress Themes that you can easily upload to your domain, to change the appearance and feel of your WordPress website. Some of the WP Themes are paid versions, but most of them are free.

There are more than 1000 themes loaded directly into the WordPress theme website, from which you can choose, although you are not limited to just the themes loaded into the WordPress website. Since I outsourced the design and feel of my blog, my designer and I talked back and forth for a week or so to grind out the details of what I wanted. The theme I chose is very SEO friendly (“Monezine” theme), but there are many other to choose from such as “Flexibility” or “Thesis”

4. Plug-ins – This is my favorite. Plugins are what soups-up your blog and converts it from a 1992 Ford Taurus, into a 2010 Chevy Camaro. The right plug-in can save you time, make you money, and make your job a WHOLE lot easier. In fact, I think I’ll make my next post on specific plug-ins just so you can see some of the money making ones you NEED to have on your blog (So make sure to Sign-up to get my blog updates via e-mail so you can get the next one).

Just like with the WordPress Themes, if there is a specific function you want your blog to perform, there are programmers out there who have created WordPress Plugins that will make your job A LOT easier. There are 1000′s of WordPress Plugins on the WordPress.org website (WordPress.org/extend/plugins/), which are free and an ever growing amount that are not in the WordPress database. You just have to go looking for them.

When you find a Plugin you want, just click “Install” on that specific plugin page, and it will automatically download, unzip, and upload it to the right Plugin directory on your blog. After it finished its upload, simply go to the backoffice area of your blog to “activate” the plugin.

5. WordPress functionality – Now, I don’t want to lose you here on this one, so I’ll keep it simple. WordPress is an HTML based blog platform. The reason I love that is that it allows you to do SOOOOOOO much more to your blog. Whan you’re creating a post – you have the ability to add videos, pics, graphics, links, and audio all in HTML format. The cool thing is, when you create posts, you can create them in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) design – meaning that what you see on the screen is what your readers will see. Or you can do HTML formating – all with a click of the mouse and flip-flop back and forth.

To Double check and see what your content will look like, you can “Preview” it and see it in real time on your designed blog to double check and make sure it looks the way you want it to. Wow, that was a lot of content – so I will cut it off for now. Stay tuned for my next post talking about specific WordPress plug ins.

As any smart marketer realizes – leave the hard stuff to the professionals. So that is why I outsourced my blog set-up (which included the graphics, RSS feeds, theme, and connection to all of my social networking sites) to THE professional blog set-up guru I know – Ms. Shannon Shubert at IM Group Marketing.

I also self-hosted my site – and again, to another professional who knows a ton more information about self-hosting and is THE ONLY person I would trust with hosting my blog – Holly Powell at Nonstop Social Media.

If you stop by their sites, tell them I sent you!
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Blogs are becoming increasingly popular on the internet today and although you may not realize it yet, but you could actually make money with them. Yet very little has been written on this subject, that is until now and the publication of The WordPress Goldmine guide. Below we provide a review of just how WordPress Goldmine may help you with making money online.

First however let us explain a little about what a blog is. A blog is also referred to some internet users as a weblog and is a way in which people are able to express their own thoughts regarding a certain topic, or it could in fact, be about themselves. Each one consists of just one web page and on this will be posted entries regularly and as you look at it you will see the most recent postings appear at the top of each page and earlier ones towards the bottom.

Yet even though many people do have their own blogs very few of these realize that they can also make money from them. In fact, there are numerous ways in which one can make money from them but in order to do this you need to decide just what you want your blog to relate to.

When you are building a blog you need to be able to gain the trust of those people who visit and then stay to read what it is you are saying. The more trust and rapport that you are able to build with the visitors to your blog then the more chance you have of them actually making a purchase on any product that you recommend to them.

This is where WordPress comes in. It is probably the easiest of all the different types of blogging platforms that one is able to use. However, it is very closely followed by Blogger, although with WordPress Goldmine as the name suggests it uses the first blogging platform.

When it comes to setting up a blog using WordPress you will find that whole process very simple and easy to complete. But first you must register with the site and once this is done then you can start building your first ever blog with them. Actually building the blogs will cost you nothing and will only take a few minutes for you to complete and then all you need to do is start adding more information to it once it is up and running.

It is crucial that you post information to your blog which your readers will not only find useful but relevant. Through WordPress Goldmine you will learn exactly what you need to do in order to find the right kinds of posts for your blog. As you will soon learn through reading this guide you do not even need to have in depth knowledge in relation to the subject that your blog is related to.

In the WordPress Goldmine e-book you will find that the author has been able to clearly explain the steps that one needs to take in order to help you with making a profit from your blog. Through this e-book you will be able to learn about the mistakes other blog beginners have made and so that you can avoid them for yourself. Making such mistakes can not only waste considerable amounts of your time but could also end up in you losing money as well. Through this e-book you will learn just what you need to do to set a blog up properly, along with how to choose the right topic and products as well.