Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Importace of Pictures in a blog post

Picture plays a thousand words, this is a Chinese Proverb and this is really true. In case of a blogger post also, picture paints thousand words. Picture plays a great role in blog and websites and how I am going to discuss this here.

Listing the importance


First and crucial importance of placing picture in a blog is that it makes you blog look beautiful and attractive and as a result it make a good impression on your blog in your reader's mind.
Other important reason is that it helps to bring you some unique traffic. This is because there are many people in the globe who are searching for images. May be if they search in Yahoo image search or in Google image search, you can get some visitors come to your blog using image search.
Additionally one hidden importance is that placing an image with optimized alternative tag helps optimize your blog post. If you keep the alternate tage(alt tag for image) same as the name of the blog post then your blog post is optimized in an additional way for the title of your blog post.

What is Dofollow Commenting and know dofollow sites

Dofollow commenting means commenting and leaving a link of your blog in a site that offers a dofollow link. If you are leaving a backlink through comment in context for SEO then you must first know that the link you comment on must be dofollow.

What Does Dofollow and Nofollow mean


Dofollow means that Google provides you advantage when you link to someone's blog or site. If you link in a site which has nofollow relation in the link then you get no advantage in context of search Engine Optimisation.
Dofollow means search eagine will crawl your link where as nofollow means it doesnot.

How to know a site's Link is Dofollow or Nofollow


It is very easy to know if a siteis ddofollow or nofollow and if you are benefited when you leave a link or not. Simply in the blog post view the page source of the page(In chrome Right click and View page source). Then if you find in hyperlinks rel="nofollow" attribute then there is no use of leaving comments while by default the links are dofollow.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Some Side Effects of Two Way Link Exchange

Link Exchange is really very popular for the beginner bloggers and helps to get some visitors and good SEO. Also its is one of the things that is in high practice withing the bloggers but to speak the truth, it has some demerits.
Today, search engine Algorithm has been clever such that it can detect two way link exchange easily and thus can penalize a blog according to its rule. You can make some Link exchanges but making many link exchange may be dangerous for you. So you must not use two way link exchanges rather you can use some of the alternatives that provides you backlinks and does not ban you from search engines.
Try article submissions and provide one way backlink to your site. Similarly comment in your blog and most of all practice 3 way link exchange which is explained in figure below. Google does not penalizes three way exchange because it is difficult for Google to figure out this.
3 way link exchange

How to Increase Google Page Rank Quickly Easily

Since you are here to know how to increase Google page Rank Easily and Quickly then you might probably know the importance of Google Page Rank.
The only way you can increase page rank is backlink. More backlink you get more will be your page rank and other thing it matters is how quality is your backlink. A quality backlink is referred as a backlink from a high PR page. As your links get quality backlink, there is more chance your PR increases.
Now there is a question how to get quality links??
Getting a quality link is easy and the best way is commenting in blogs. Search for high PR blogs and then make quality comments related to the posts. Search for more and more blogs and then comment. Be sure you do not spam the comments or your comments wont get approved.
Note: Do not comment at great speed i.e limit 5 comments a day or google may think your blog as spam and penalize you. So have patience and be slow never look for speedy increase or you may be reported spam.

Decrease Bounce Rate of a Blog

Bringing Visitor in the blog is a difficult task but comparatively other difficult task is to keep them. You would like your visitors to check as many contents as they can in your blog.
Bounce Rate is nothing more than rate at which your visitors get out of your blog without looking more than one content. For an example if a visitor comes to your blog via a search engine and sees one content and then exits the blog, then it can be said that the visitor bounced out of the site. For an instance there are 10 visitor in your blog who view no more than one content out of 100 visitors then the bounce rate is 10%. No Blogger wants to keep higher bounce rate. So Here are the tips how you can make your visitors view as much contents as possible.
Related Posts Widget: Use Related post widgets so that visitors can see a list of related posts. This widgets can be easily installed in a blog. Related posts shows random posts from similar Labels. This is automatic and increases blog page views.
Provide Manual Posts Suggestions: This is one of most effective and unique way to keep your visitors in your site as much as possible. When you write a post then at the end write something that inspires others to view the posts. For Example: In this posts about Bounce rate if I suggest some posts like Increase Visitors in a blog or Get Free one way backlinks then it is obvious that most users will go through those posts as well. So this is one of the Idea. I have used this idea in my other blog(musicbid) and got a huge success.
Popular Posts Widgets: This is yet another successful widget which helps you to increase some page views. This widget can be added from blogger itself and it shows list of your popular blog posts which means most visited posts. If the post in popular then it means more visitors are searching for it and thus this post can help you increase some page Views.
Inbound Links: This is really great idea to help you make higher page views per visit because this helps lot. Whenever you write a post,keep inbound links. Inbound links are those links which direct to your blog and are also called internal linking. For example when you write a blog posts about increase adsense earning then you might write this way. You can increase your adsense earning easily after you create an adsense account. To know how to create easy adsense account click here. Then direct the viewer to link in your blog.

How to get Traffic in Blog Easily

How to get Traffic in Blog Easily

Traffic to a blog is the key thing. You do not like to put any effort to your blog until and unless there is someone who wants to view you so being a blogger, this is your most prior desire that your blog gets a visitors. If you are newbie and new blogger then I am going to teach you some effective and easy ways to get Visitors to your blog.

Leave your Foot Prints

This is very easy, free and yet effective way to get visitors to your blog. When you go through some blogs then leave comments in some blogs such that they will follow you back and you get some visitors. Keep linking to your blog and keep getting more visitors in a blog. 8% of my visitors are from referring sites.

ChatBox or Interaction Box

Most of the sites and blogs offers a chat box. Enter your link and then describe about your blog. If users find your contents useful, you can get good traffic.

Request Your Friends

This is most embarrassing thing for me even they help you to bring some visitors. You can make your friends visit your blog by referring through chat and other media. This is not much effective even it helps you encourage at the beginning when you have less or Zero Visitors.

Recurring Visit

One of the most important thing a blogger want is to make your visitors reoccur in your blog meaning that visitors comes visiting your blog frequently. This can be done when you provide good contents which are helpful to your visitors and provide an easy friendly appearance for our blog.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Amazon Filler Item Finder

You can use this Amazon Filler Item Finder to find filler items to qualify for FREE Super Saver Shipping on Amazon.com.  This slick fillers tool can help you to save a lot of money on your Amazon shopping.  I hope that you find it helpful that you are able to save boatloads of cash to spend on your family or to whatever project that you set your mind to.

Find Amazon Filler Items To Qualify for FSSS

You can use this Amazon Filler Item Finder to find filler items to qualify for FREE Super Saver Shipping on Amazon.com.  This slick fillers tool can help you to save a lot of money on your Amazon shopping.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Blogger Tips and Tricks

Blogger Tips and Tricks


Apprehensions regarding shift to custom domain - my response

Posted: 04 Jun 2011 11:29 PM PDT

A recent reader expression of apprehension of converting blogspot blog to custom domain is the reason for this post. Worries about the effect of conversion to custom domain is very understandable as it involved a change in URL of the blog. What I can offer is my own experience in custom domain conversion and address one particular concern, does the old URL (including the old permalinks) redirect to the new custom domain URL's.

For traffic, I have published a previous post Effect of conversion to custom domain on traffic where I showed that it had no effect on traffic on my blog (please note the emphasis. I do not guarantee the same for yours). Further in that same post, a commentator complained that it affected traffic to his blog tremendously, but probably he registered his domain direct via Godaddy while I did it via Blogger. see Advice: upgrade to custom domain via Blogger.

Now to the other point about redirecting traffic. Below are 3 permalinks with new custom domain permalinks and below that are 3 permalinks of the same post but with the old blogspot permalink. Confirm for yourself that they do redirect to the new custom domain permalinks.

New custom domain permalinks:

www.bloggertipsandtricks.com/2010/10/make-amazon-banners-open-in-new-window.html

www.bloggertipsandtricks.com/2007/04/making-bookcover-image-link-to-amazon.html

www.bloggertipsandtricks.com/2009/08/recover-accidentally-deleted-post-how.html


old blogspot permalinks

blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/2010/10/make-amazon-banners-open-in-new-window.html"

blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/2007/04/making-bookcover-image-link-to-amazon.html

blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/2009/08/recover-accidentally-deleted-post-how.html



Note that your PageRank will definitely be affected initially and it may take time to recover your previous PageRank, but that didn't seem to have affected my blog traffic which is what is important to me and not specifically the PageRank.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Cycler for Blogger

Cycler For Blogger

Hi Guys being a blogger I guess Cycler.com can be important for your blog or even be interesting for your blogs as you can add recent posts in your blog with RSS in your blog with Cyclur.
You must try this because this is great
I have tried this at mobinepal recents at my blog mobinepal.co.cc
You might like this because its cool

Add Adsense ads compatible with posts in Blogger

Add Adsense ads compatible with posts in Blogger
How to add adsense ads compatible with adsense posts floating left?
Here are the steps.
First go to design edit html and expand widget template.
Then search for post.body using browser's default search
There must be just one post.body so just above that paste your adsense ads in this format
adsense ads compatible in posts
Note all the < sign are changed to < and > to > in the ads
and the " quotations to &quot.
Then in this way you can ad your adsense ads in floating format withing the posts while whole add is added in div with float:left

Add adsense ads below each posts in blogger blogs

Add adsense ads below posts in blogger blogspot
If you want to ad ads below each posts in blogger blogspot then you may follow these steps
Steps:
This is a step to add ads between each posts in blogspot blogs
First go to design then click Edit in the blog post section as shown in figure


Then click on show ads after each posts
Then customize the ads, save it and Enjoy

Hope this helps you

Famous Bloggers - SEO Q&A – Develop your Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Famous Bloggers - SEO Q&A – Develop your Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Link to Famous Bloggers

SEO Q&A – Develop your Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Posted: 31 May 2011 01:17 PM PDT

Some times we need to visit new websites, involve ourselves into more interesting communicating ways and keep engaging with new people who have same interests, this is really helpful because those who have same interests are the ones who mostly can help you out.

If you know me, then maybe you know that I like Q&A websites, but what about a SEO Q&A site?

I actually had several attempts to create my own version for blogging niche while testing a few CMS platforms, themes, modules, plugins and other stuff. I must admit that I had no success till now and I am still looking around for interesting stuff to share and blog about it.

This is the first SEO site I’ve seen so far! I came across it last week, so I thought to share it with you, it’s called SEOnky, and it’s mainly focusing on SEO questions & answers provided by it’s members. I like the idea because who doesn’t have some SEO questions in his/her mind?

So, instead of finding information you need on traditional bookmarking sites as they provide it, we actually can have more fun spending quality time while asking our own questions, or from the other side trying to answer SEO questions that we already know!

 

SEOnky.com

SEOnky.com - SEO Q&A

At SEOnky.com you can ask and answer questions, comment and vote for questions and answers, but what I really like about is the active community which is missing on other sites I’ve visited before.

Another really cool thing about SEONKY is the ability to revise and enhance both questions and answers by the members, and I personally think this will give a big push to the quality of it’s content. It’s really interesting idea to develop search engine optimization techniques.

A chance to win a 16GB Wi-Fi iPad

seonky win ipad

SEOnky has a an iPad contest for it’s launch,  check it out here!

Give SEOnkya visit today! Enjoy connecting with the community, and get answers to all your SEO questions,

 

 

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Famous Bloggers - Recent Posts With Thumbnails Plugin For Thesis Theme

Famous Bloggers - Recent Posts With Thumbnails Plugin For Thesis Theme

Link to Famous Bloggers

Recent Posts With Thumbnails Plugin For Thesis Theme

Posted: 30 May 2011 11:23 AM PDT

I’ve got a support ticket from one of our members at ThesisAwesome.com asking how to display recent posts with thumbnails on the BlogSkin, and while I was getting ready to reply to him, I remembered the Great Pens plugin, so I thought to make some modifications to make it display the recent posts thumbs instead of authors avatars, it wasn’t really a hard job, so I am releasing the Thesis Theme recent widget for free in Thesis Awesome free download center.

Before we start, I would like to let you know that FamousBloggers is upgraded to Thesis Theme 1.8.1 since the first day it was pronounced, there were no issues at all!

Recent Posts With Thumbnails plugin for Thesis Theme

The Recent Posts With Thumbnails plugin is very straightforward plugin, it will create a widget to display 6 recent posts plus number of comments. The plugin has no option page yet, and I am not sure if I will create it as customizing the plugin is really easy, I mean editing one single file won’t be a big problem in case you would like to change the number of posts, or edit the post image size for example. And to make more easier to customize I’ve added the CSS classes to a separate file.

Installing the plugin

Installing the plugin is very simple like any other WordPress plugin, and because it has no options there is nothing much to do, activate the plugin then drag and drop the widget where you want to display the recent posts.

The Recent Posts With Thumbnails plugin is coded for Thesis Theme, and it uses Thesis Post image. I don’t guarantee it will work on any other theme rather than Thesis.

Download the Recent Posts With Thumbnails plugin

To get the plugin you are required to sign up to ThesisAwesome.com for free to get access to the download center.

Download Recent Posts With Thumbnails

Other free Thesis Theme plugins available

What Else?

Feel free to check out ThesisAwesome.com Thesis Skins, or join my Thesis Skins Affiliate program to earn 50% commissions on every sale you make.

Enjoy!

Monday, May 30, 2011

TIPS,TRICKS AND HACKING ZONE

TIPS,TRICKS AND HACKING ZONE


INCREASE SEO RANKING USING YOUTUBE

Posted: 29 May 2011 11:20 AM PDT


Today I am going to show you how to help YouTube to increase your website traffic.YouTube is biggest video sharing site which is owned by Google.Since YouTube is owned by Google and most of the users are using Google as search to their contents,the YouTube videos can make a major role in your site traffic.So [...]

HOW TO HACK FILE HOSTING ACCOUNTS

Posted: 29 May 2011 10:53 AM PDT


Today I am bring for you a fantastic trick to hack files hosting accounts using Google. Just give me a favour. hack file hosting accounts using simple trick on Google All u need to do is go to Google and in search bar type site:megaupload.com dir + (for megaupload) or site:4shared.com dir + (for 4shared). [...]

HOW TO CRASH WINDOWS XP

Posted: 29 May 2011 10:32 AM PDT


CRASH DOWN WINDOWS XP now here is Virus to delete Windows.. its very simple. Open Notepad & just copy below code and past it on notepad 01001011000111110010010101010101010000011111100000 save it as ***.exe and send it to victim.. don’t run dis file on your system….. please be careful NOTE: this is for information purpose only please don’t [...]

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Famous Bloggers - How Being Different Can Be a Real Game Changer!

Famous Bloggers - How Being Different Can Be a Real Game Changer!

Link to Famous Bloggers

How Being Different Can Be a Real Game Changer!

Posted: 29 May 2011 11:14 AM PDT

I remember the line from somewhere – If you can't prove yourself better, at least try to prove yourself different. Considering the stiff competition in the blogosphere (where you need to fight a battle with each blog post), bloggers need to provide readers with something different and refreshing.

If you can't differentiate yourself from what other bloggers are doing, you can easily lose yourself in the huge crowd. To achieve online success, you need to struggle continuously. That's why I say, serious blogging ain't easy.

If you are ready to prove yourself different, given below are some of the most important blogging tips to stand yourself out from the crowd.

Choose a Unique Blog Design

Blog designs can never be ignored. Bloggers should always select a pre-designed theme or create customized design that appeals to their target audience. Find out who your target audience is and be ready to live up to their aspirations by providing them with a visually appealing design.

Share Your Personal Experiences

One of the key tips for being different is to relate your blog posts to your personal experiences. Many times, writing a blog posts can be similar to writing a product review. You can write a compelling review of a product only when you have used it yourself. Readers really like to know your own experience. By sharing your personal experiences in a blog post, you actually foster a personal connection with your readers (key to blogging success).

Adopt Ideas from a Variety of Resources

It is only through extensive research that you can arm yourself with plenty of good ideas and collect some food for thought. Extensive research is a golden tip to provide your readers with something different and fresh. Surely, writing an awesome post (which has the potential of going viral in minutes) takes time an effort.

Be Responsive to Commenters

How do you respond to the comments left on your blog. Once your post has generated a couple of comments, find opportunities to respond to readers in an effective way. Even while responding to comments, you can offer your readers with some additional tips and ideas. Every single comment on your blog post is precious, so don't ignore it.

Have Your Own Style of Writing

You can never copy the writing styles of others. However, you can certainly learn a lesson from the way top bloggers write. In order to be different, you should always develop a unique voice for your blog. Think about the kind of tone and writing style that will suit your blog the most.

Narrow Your Focus

Don't try to cover too many topics at a time. Focus on a single niche. And try to provide your readers expert opinions with a view to providing solutions to their basic problems. More importantly, focus on quality rather than quantity. Make an effort to get a 'small group of dedicated readers', if you want to succeed online.

What other ways would you suggest for being different? Please feel free to share your own experiences, viewpoints and thoughts in the comment section below.

TIPS,TRICKS AND HACKING ZONE

TIPS,TRICKS AND HACKING ZONE


LEAVE FROM A FACEBOOK GROUP

Posted: 28 May 2011 10:32 PM PDT


Facebook,the fastest growing social network in the world providing its users to add their friends to facebook groups.It may a big disturbance for you ,if your friends are adding you to more and more groups.If you are referred to a group probably you will get updates from that groups. Consider if you are joined in [...]

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Forex Blog

Forex Blog


Swiss Franc at Record Highs

Posted: 27 May 2011 09:42 AM PDT

This month, the Swiss Franc touched a record high against not one, but two currencies: the US dollar and the Euro. Having risen by more than 30% against the former and 20% against the latter, the franc might just be the world’s best performing currency over the last twelve months. Let’s look at the prospects for continued appreciation.


As I wrote on Monday, the Swiss Franc has been one of the primary beneficiaries of the safe haven trade. With each spike in volatility, the Swiss Franc has ticked upward. Due to monetary and fiscal stability as well as political conservatism, investors have flocked to the Franc in times of crisis. Of course, the Japanese Yen (and the US dollar, of late) has also received a boost from this phenomenon, but to a lesser extent than the franc, as you can see from the chart above.

Personally, I wonder if this isn’t because the Swiss economy is significantly smaller than that of Japan and the US. In other words, its capacity to absorb risk-averse capital inflows is much smaller than that of Japan and the US. For example, the impact of one million people suddenly rushing out to buy shares in IBM stock would have a much smaller impact on its share price compared to a sudden speculative flood into FXCM. The same can be said about the franc, relative to the dollar and yen.

Ironically, the franc is also rising because of regional proximity to the eurozone. I use the term ironic to denote in order to signify that the franc is not being buoyed by positive association with the euro but rather because of contradistinction. In other words, each time there is another flareup in the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, the franc typically experiences the biggest bounce because it is the easiest currency to compare with the euro. In some ways, it is basically just a more secure version of the euro. This phenomenon has intensified over the last month, as the euro faces perhaps its most uncertain test yet.

It is curious that even as investors have gradually become more inclined to take risk, that not only has the franc held its value, but it has actually surged! Perhaps this is because it is expected that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) will soon hike interest rates, making the franc both high-yielding and secure. To be sure, some analysts think that the SNB will hike as soon as June. The fact the the economy has continued to expand and exports have surged in spite of the strong franc only seems to support this notion.


On the other hand, inflation is still basically nil. And just because the Swiss economy can withstand an interest rate hike hardly provides adequate justification for implementing one. Besides, the SNB hardly wants to give the markets further cause to buy the franc. If anything, it may even need to intervene verbally to make sure that it doesn’t rise any higher. Thus, “The median forecast among economists is for a rate increase in September.”

In short, I think the franc is overbought against the dollar. In fact, you can see from the most recent Commitment of Traders data that speculators have been net long the franc for almost an entire year, and it seems inevitable that this will need to reverse itself. On the other hand, the franc probably has more room to rise against the euro. The takeaway here is that it is less important to know where you stand on the franc in general and more important to understand the cross currency.

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Friday, May 27, 2011

How to increase mig 33 Levels quickly

You can increase mig levels by following ways:
  • Become more active in mig as possible
  • chat as much as possible
  • create some chat rooms that are used frequently
  • Refer as much people as possible
  • Become merchant and do some merchant deals
  • make new friends
  • Join different chat rooms
  • send more private messages
  • etc etc tc
More you be active more quickly you increase levels.

“June is ’31 Days to Build a Better Blog’ Challenge at SITSgirls – Join them Today” plus 2 more

“June is ’31 Days to Build a Better Blog’ Challenge at SITSgirls – Join them Today” plus 2 more

Link to ProBlogger Blog Tips

June is ’31 Days to Build a Better Blog’ Challenge at SITSgirls – Join them Today

Posted: 26 May 2011 05:02 PM PDT

How to BlogIf you’ve been blogging for a while now but feel ‘stuck’ – there’s a group of bloggers about to take the ‘31 Days to Build a Better Blog‘ challenge that you really should consider joining.

The Group is SITSGirls – a blogging community with over 8000 women bloggers – and for the 2nd time they’re running #31DBBB. Last time around was amazing – by my count over 400 bloggers joined that challenge and the impact that I witnessed was pretty profound.

It was the first large group of bloggers that I saw walking through the eBook together and to see so many tackling the daily challenges together and supporting each other through them just highlighted how much more effective blogging can be when you take a communal approach to it. In addition to just working through the eBook there was lots of support in the forum area as well as on Twitter.

The SitsGirls challenge starts on 1 Juneand participants in the challenge get the eBook at 33% off. If you already have the eBook this is the ideal time to put it into action.

The coordinator of the challenge is Shelley from I’m still Standing – you can read her kick off post here.

Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips
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June is ’31 Days to Build a Better Blog’ Challenge at SITSgirls – Join them Today

Behind the Scenes of Our New Ebook Launch at FeelGooder

Posted: 26 May 2011 02:15 PM PDT

It’s been six months since I launched my latest blog—FeelGooder—and today it’s entering a new phase, so I thought it might be time for a bit of an update.

You might remember back in November we launched FeelGooder and I outlined some of the backstory here on ProBlogger. The blog was a slightly new approach to me for a number of reasons—partly because of the wide niche (it covers everything from health, to relationships, to finance, to social good), but also because I decided to launch without any kind of advertising, and with the intent of monetization without ads.

It was an ambitious task and something of an experiment, but I was excited by the prospect.

Over the last six months, the focus on FeelGooder has really been to build up an archive of content (and a team of authors), and to build up a core readership. We’ve done both, although the going has been a little slower than I’d hoped, mainly because of the juggling I and my team are now doing across multiple websites.

However today we’re moving into a new phase and are launching an ebook: 7 Ways to FeelBetter.7 ways feelbetter.jpg

You can read more about it on its sales page, but in short, it’s a week-long challenge for readers to work through. We think it will lift their spirits, help them to feel better about their lives, and hopefully help them to develop some life-changing habits.

I’m very excited about the reaction we’ve been receiving from those who have already reviewed it, and love the way it looks (we’re getting a lot of positive feedback on its design).

A new approach (for me) to launching products

One of the things I’m excited about in this particular ebook launch is that we’re experimenting with a slightly different launch process. Here’s how it looks:

  1. We’re giving the first 500 copies away for free.
  2. We’re then offering the next 500 copies at 50% off ($4.99).
  3. Then we’ll be selling it at its normal price of $9.99.

UPDATE: due to limitations with e-junkie allowing only 100 free copies to be given away per day I’ve had to put the price up to 1 cent for the first 500 buyers.

This is a bit of a departure from my normal launch process, and is one I’m excited to see the results of. You can check out how it’s going over at FeelGooder today, because as this post goes live, we’re starting the giveaway part of the launch.

One of the main reasons I’m taking this approach is that, with a smaller audience on FeelGooder than here on ProBlogger or dPS, I suspect it’ll be a little harder to get momentum going with a new product.

The aim with this giveaway is to get what we think is a great product in front of as many people as possible. My hope then is that with it “out there,” we’ll have some opportunities to grow the momentum as people begin to use it.

One of the ways that we’ll do this is through a push via social media—particularly Twitter. We’re encouraging those who participate in the challenge to use a common hashtag to document what they’re doing with the challenge.

Time will tell how it goes, but I wanted to keep ProBlogger readers up to date as to what we’re experimenting with on FeelGooder.

P.S. Want to give some copies away on your blog?

If your niche relates to that of FeelGooder (life tips, health, relationships, fitness, finance, social good, etc.), any tweets, blog posts or linkups to this great little ebook would be greatly appreciated.

We’re also open to doing a handful of giveaways on related blogs—feel free to contact me via the contact form here on ProBlogger if you think your readership might be interested. Do include a link to your blog and any details of your audience (size, demographics, etc.) with your email.

Post from: ProBlogger Blog Tips
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Behind the Scenes of Our New Ebook Launch at FeelGooder

Why Bloggers Should Also Be Freelance Writers

Posted: 26 May 2011 06:02 AM PDT

This guest post is by Ali Hale of DailyWritingTips.com.

Blogging can feel like a long, hard road—especially when you're starting out. You haven't hit 100 subscribers, let alone 1,000, and it feels like you're writing into a vacuum.

And even when you're a little way down that blogging road, it can still be tough. You might be spending two or three hours a day on blogging—writing content, answering comments, building up friendships on Twitter and Facebook. Chances are, you're not making much money from it, though.

I'm not going to suggest that you give up. I'm not going to suggest that you work harder, either, pouring more and more hours into your blog.

Instead, I'm going to suggest something which you might never have considered before: becoming a freelance writer as well as being a blogger.

This might sound like a huge step. But really, you just need two key things:

  • the ability to write well
  • some contacts who're willing to pay you.

These might well be challenges—but they're not insurmountable hurdles.

Prerequisite #1: Being able to write

You certainly don't have to be a budding Shakespeare in order to write a competent, professional blog post—but you do need a strong grasp of grammar, and the ability to write engagingly.

There are certainly a few sites out there which will pay you for sloppy, lazy content—but the rate of pay will be abysmal. If you're going to write for a good, reputable blog, your writing needs to be solid. That doesn't mean flawless (even professional authors have copy-editors) but you should know:

  • how to construct an engaging blog post, with a gripping introduction, clear message, and strong conclusion
  • how to format your posts for easy readability, using subheadings, short paragraphs, bold text, and bullet pointed lists
  • how to adapt your writing style for different purposes—some blogs will want a much more casual approach than others.

I firmly believe that writing is a skill. It comes more easily to some of us than to others, but everyone can learn and improve. (Reading the posts here on ProBlogger is a great start.)

Prerequisite #2: Contacts who can pay you

You might not have many contacts yet, but if you're thinking about freelancing, you'll want to start getting to know editors of big blogs and websites. Sure, plenty of jobs are advertised (you may well have taken a look at ProBlogger's own job boards), but most higher-paid positions never get publically advertised.

If you feel a bit intimidated by the idea of networking with editors and blog owners, take the pressure off. Believe it or not, big bloggers are human too! I've met several of my blogging heroes—like Darren Rowse and Daniel Scocco—and they're lovely, friendly, normal people.

A great way to strike up contact is by using Twitter or Facebook to send a friendly message letting an editor know how much you enjoyed a recent post. Don't be smarmy or fake about this—focus on blogs which you personally love.

My first few blogging jobs all came from sending in guest posts. A well-written, targeted guest post is a great way to get an editor's attention. It proves that you can write, and that you know their audience. (And even if you don't land a paying job as a result, you'll still get some traffic to your own blog, plus great exposure.)

You've probably got your hands pretty full with just your own blog. You might think it's not worth taking the time to improve your writing ability, or to build up your contacts.

But here's why you might want to think again.

You'll make money (fast)

Of course, money isn't everything, but if you're in the problogging game, chances are that you'd like to see some financial reward for your hard slog. Problem is, you can't attract big advertisers and you don't have any products to sell yet.

If you write a piece as a freelancer—whether that's for a blog, a magazine, or a newspaper—then you get paid. For a typical freelance blog post, you'll receive around $40–$60.

Doesn't that sound a lot more efficient than watching the pennies trickle into your AdSense account?

The money from your freelance writing might let you quit your day job, so you can put more time into your own blog or other projects (that's how it worked for me). Or, if you keep your freelancing as a job on the side, it'll at least let you afford hosting, premium themes, and training materials for your own blog.

You'll build your blogging network

When you're Joe Newbie in the blogosphere, you're probably used to big bloggers ignoring you. It's not personal—they just don't have the time to reply to every single comment and tweet.

But when you're a freelance writer, your editor will definitely know your name. In fact, they'll probably get to know you while you're building up your freelancing contacts—perhaps you'll have been a regular commenter on their blog, or you'll have sent them a couple of guest posts, before landing that paid gig.

Plus, when you're regularly having work published on large blogs or websites, other big bloggers will start paying attention to you, too. Instead of trying to get attention to your own blog, you'll be able to leverage an existing audience—quite possibly one of tens of thousands of readers. And you'll be getting paid to do it.

Even if you only freelance for a few months, you'll have made contacts which you can maintain throughout your blogging career.

You'll get audience feedback

When you publish a post on your own blog, how many comments do you get?

It's probably not as many as you'd like. Maybe most of your posts seem to sink like pebbles dropped into an ocean—no-one ever sees them, and they don't make any ripples.

If you write for a blog that's big enough to pay writers, you'll get feedback. That might be:

  • comments from readers who loved the post
  • comments from readers who hated the post—this can be tough to take, but it can also teach you what doesn't go down so well
  • tweets about your post, or Facebook "likes" for it
  • indirect feedback from the editor—if bits of your post were edited, try to work out why the changes were made
  • direct feedback from the editor—they may tell you to do more of the same, or they may ask for something different next time
  • emails from readers—there's nothing better than a heartfelt message from someone who was really touched by your writing.

As a writer, you need to get feedback on your work: this is how you know what's going well, and what's in need of improvement.

You can write about anything you want

This might seem like an odd reason to freelance—but it's one of the reasons I love it: you get to write on a whole range of topics, and you can often choose exactly what you write about.

If you find it hard to stick with one interest—perhaps your own blog is suffering because you post about several diverse topics—then freelance writing will give you an outlet. You might be writing one post every week or every month, so you won't run out of things to say.

Plus, writing about lots of different topics is a great way to stay fresh and to continually hone your writing skills. You might end up researching an area that you knew very little about—or writing for an audience of people who have a very different background from yours. Getting out of your writing comfort zone is an essential part of your growth.

I know that the problogging dream is to have your own huge, successful blog with hundreds of thousands of readers, a line of products, some great advertisers and lots of affiliate income. The truth is, though, that it takes an awful lot of time and hard work to get to that stage. So while you're working your way up, why not give freelance writing a try?

Have you done freelance writing? Share your experiences in the comments—I’d love to hear about them.

Ali Hale is a writer, blogger and writing coach. You can read more from her on DailyWritingTips.com, where she also offers a course for those who want to get started with freelance writing.

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Why Bloggers Should Also Be Freelance Writers