Bringing more traffic to your blog - February 29, 2008 - 2nd Ed.






Welcome to the Second - February 29, 2008 - edition of "Bringing more traffic to your blog" Blog Carnival. I want to thank all the authors for active participation.


Woody Maxim presents It really is a numbers game posted at Woody Maxim.


Tip Diva presents Top Ten Tips - Using Blog Carnivals posted at Tip Diva, saying, "Carnivals, or blogs that host a page filed with links to posts about a particular subject, are a great way to get your voice (and blog) heard. Here are tips on how to use blog carnivals to your advantage."


Moazzam Ahmed Chundriger presents Internet Marketing - Three Steps Towards Success posted at The M&M Online BloG!, saying, "It was nearly Impossible to survive In my first month on Internet marketing. I really worked hard and made a whole lot of search to dig my way in this Industry. With all the research that I personally made throughout the first month, I found a few useful steps towards success. 1. Make your Strategy at the very Beginning: 2. Set your Goals, Break them Apart: 3. Keep Trying New Things:"


blue skelton presents Media Production and Presentation in Blogging posted at Blue Skelton Publications, saying, "The most important part of Media Production is presentation. Blogging is no exception. I have realized that to be a good blogger, you have to provide organized and relevant information about a topic. Here is an organizational strategy that can be tweaked to meet your needs."


Rebecca Suzanne Dean presents ?What Is It Makes Some Letters Pay?? posted at Rebecca Dean.


Charlotte Babb presents I want?I want?I want?. Sure you do. Here. Want Some More. posted at Wise Authors Write for Dollars, saying, "To get more of what we want, we need to say what we want, more traffic, more money, more love and joy in our lives."


Steve Osborne presents First Things First posted at TheWritersBag.com, saying, "Steve Osborne, author of "Writing Tips for the Real World," is a professional freelance writer and writing instructor with over 20 years of experience."


Sarah Paine presents Discover Niche Markets to Earn Extra Money Working Online posted at Sarah Paine.


Ian Richardson presents Abbott & Costello - ?Who?s On First?? - A lesson to the Internet Marketing Crowd posted at Make Everything EzyAs123.


Stephen Dean presents Stop Assuming So Much posted at Stephen Dean’s Copywriting And Internet Advertising Blog - Copywriter.


Craig Andrews presents Making Money Online for Free? posted at Craig S. Andrews.com.


Craig Andrews presents Setting Goals For Your Online Business posted at Craig S. Andrews.com.


Craig Andrews presents Building Your Internet Business (Part 1) posted at Craig S. Andrews.com.


Craig Andrews presents Building Your Internet Business (Part 2) posted at Craig S. Andrews.com.


Craig Andrews presents Craig S. Andrews - Internet Business Blog posted at Craig S. Andrews.com, saying, "For excellent results, one the best ways to drive a lot of traffic to your blog or Website is through effective and unique article version submissions. Using a highly effective article submission software is key to your Internet success, visit: http://www.articleprosoftware.com. Please visit my blog for "Real Internet Business Solutions" and more! Thank you, Craig Andrews"


JRickG presents You Are No Different than Successful People posted at $5000 and Up.


Michael@TSM presents Travel Writing Contest! Win $150 Cash Prize | Traveling Stories Magazine posted at Traveling Stories Magazine.


R.Pettinger presents The Importance of Gaining Momentum posted at Net Writing, saying, "The Importance of Gaining momentum in blogging. How to overcome initial difficulties."


Sarah Paine presents Fine Tuning Procrastination posted at Sarah Paine.


Woody Maxim presents Amazon S3 is simply amazing posted at Woody Maxim.


Ian Richardson presents A Niche is a Notch. Catch? posted at Make Everything EzyAs123.


WebSiteWerx presents Email Marketing for Ecommerce - Part I: What Is It? Why Do It? posted at WebSite Werx, saying, "Email marketing for ecommerce. What it is and why you should be doing it."


American Entrepreneur presents Search Engine Marketing for Small Business Owners posted at American Small Business News.


Ask Matt presents Using Stumbleupon To Bring Visitors to Your Blog posted at BlogTactics.com, saying, "Using Stumbleupon to bring visitors to your blog."


James D. Brausch presents Turn Off The Tube & Turn On Your Business posted at Internet Business Blog.


Ask Matt presents Free Traffic Tactic Videos and Understanding that SEO Malarky... | iamUncovered.com posted at BlogTactics.com, saying, "Free Traffic Tactic Videos and Understanding that SEO Malarky…"


Ask Matt presents Automated WhiteHat AdSense Sites That Work posted at IM & Affiliate Marketing Product Testing, saying, "Simple, effective and profitable whitehat adsense site building system"


Carol Bentley presents Reasons to unsubscribe. . . posted at Carol Bentley, saying, "Reasons to unsubscribe. . . Sometimes stopping a subscription is the right thing to do."


Andrew Erickson presents Email Marketing for Ecommerce - Part I: What Is It? Why Do It? posted at WebSite Werx.


Derrick Markotter presents How Blogging Regularly Can Increase Your Traffic posted at Online Business Blog.


Cindy King presents Consistency For International Business Success posted at Get International Clients.


Robert Phillips presents Market Research is OVERRATED posted at CYBERCA$HOLOGY.


Fred Black presents Google Dip posted at Fred Black: Internet Business Blog..


Kenton Newby presents 10 Ways Article Writing Can Stack the Deck in Your Favor posted at KentonNewby.com.


Richard Lee presents Internet Business Ideas posted at Richard Lee.


Ed Rivis presents Powerful Marketing Tactic. posted at Ed Rivis.


Tim Gary presents Drama = Rocket Fuel For Success posted at Internet Success Bites.


HL Grove presents 4 Steps To Creating Quality Content For Your Blog posted at MoneyWeb24.


Natalie presents The most popular layouts of the Top 20 Technorati blogs posted at I love technology, saying, "A study of the layout and colour scheme of the Top 20 Technorati blogs, complete with graphs."


Carol Bentley presents Cultural communication differences. . . posted at Carol Bentley.


Ed Rivis presents More Content = More Sales. posted at Ed Rivis.


Raymond presents Personal Finance Blogging Is A Time Consuming But Rewarding Part Time Job posted at Money Blue Book.


Raymond presents Blogging As a Business and Registering a Trade Name | Money Blue Book posted at Money Blue Book.


Stephen Dean presents B.S. Excuses For Not Using Scarcity In Your Sales Copy posted at Stephen Dean’s Copywriting And Internet Advertising Blog - Copywriter.


Marcus Hochstadt presents Getting Your Pages Indexed In A Matter Of Hours posted at Marcus Hochstadt, saying, "There exist several methods for getting your Web sited and pages indexed in a matter of hours. In this article, Marcus Hochstadt shares one of them. You set it up once and then put it on auto pilot. Wonderful!"


Kathleen Gage presents Your Recommendations Just Don’t Work! posted at Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions, saying, "Many people who want to market using the Internet are seeking highly effective ways to do so. Learn one proven strategy to give you position, credibility and visibility while increasing the numbers in your opt-in subscriber list."


Vaibhav Agarwal presents 10 Ways To Get Free Traffic posted at Make Money Online Without Investment, saying, "Hi, I would love it, If I could participate in this carnival. With regards, Vaibhav"


Richard McLaughlin presents Blog PING-List Building posted at Internet Marketing Tools and Tips.


Richard McLaughlin presents Online Article Submission Sites posted at Internet Marketing Tools and Tips.


Diana13 presents Free traffic for your blog posted at EzMoneyOn.Net, saying, "The most monetization methods require some traffic. So, even if many of you know how to drive free traffic to your blogs, I want to make a little recap, for those of you who just have started."


Aaron Anderson presents An Ounce Of Protection Is Worth A Pound Of Cure posted at Online Business Blog.


Derrick Markotter presents Time For A Change posted at Online Business Blog.


Shamelle presents Fake It and Flaunt It? (Even Personal Development Bloggers Do It!) posted at Enhance Life, saying, "This may be old news for some of you but I thought I would write a post for the benefit of those who may not know about it. After all, until today, I had no idea that things of this nature are happening around our blogging world!"


Aaron Brandon presents Your Linking Efforts posted at Aaron Brandon.


blue skelton presents Production Blog: The Biggest List of Blog Directories by Page Rank posted at Blue Skelton Publications, saying, "Here is the biggest list of the best blog directories that you can find sorted by page rank. These are the blog directories that can be the most beneficial to your blog’s page ranking. And so therefore they are worth the reciprocal links required by the directories. I have grouped them in order of page rank to more efficiently organize your SEO Needs."


Ed Rivis presents Social networking? Maybe next time. posted at Ed Rivis.


Diana Bajenaru presents Free traffic for your blog posted at EzMoneyOn.Net, saying, "Ok! You have started your own blog, you have written a few articles and you want to start to earn some money. Now what? How about some free traffic."


Fred Black presents Get More Links with This Often Overlooked Page posted at Fred Black: Internet Business Blog..


Jeremy Neal presents Forums Can Help Generate Traffic to Your Blog posted at Lead Inspectors, saying, "Forums are another way to get people to check out your blog, and you will probably have a better chance of getting these visitors to subscribe."


Batya presents Counter Milestone posted at me-ander, saying, "mentions the biggest draws"


Tiffany Colter presents Lesson Learned and How I got here posted at Writing Career Coach, saying, "This blog discusses how to have success beginning from the first day of this new year, and how technology is changing the way that books are made and sold!"


Pat B. Doyle presents How I Increased My Feedburner Subscriber Number By 47% In One Day posted at Pat B. Doyle.


Hill Robertson presents Reasons to Build a Customer List posted at Hill Robertson, saying, "One of the most important things to be successful in any business is to have a customer list."


Richard McLaughlin presents Cindy King / Website Localization - Which Directories are You Relying on? posted at Cindy King.


R.Pettinger presents Things I learnt Writing Guest Posts posted at Net Writing, saying, "Tips for using guest posts as a way to build traffic to your blog"


Brian Terry presents Create your own WordPress dream theme design posted at Big Selling Website Design.


Derrick Markotter presents Long term vs short term goals posted at Online Business Blog.


Craig Andrews presents Alternate Ways to Make Money Online posted at Craig S. Andrews.com, saying, "For excellent results, one the best ways to drive a lot of traffic to your blog or Website is through effective and unique article version submissions. Using a highly effective article submission software is key to your Internet success, visit: http://www.articleprosoftware.com. Please visit my blog for "Real Internet Business Solutions" and more! Thank you, Craig Andrews"


Tiffany Colter presents Writing Career Coach: A Pleasant surprise and How I got here Part 2 posted at Writing Career Coach, saying, "This blog discusses how to have success beginning from the first day of this New Year!"


Brent Diggs presents The Ominous Comma » Writing Prompts for the Not-So-Prompt posted at The Ominous Comma.


Carol Bentley presents Yesterday?s blog-post was completely off-track posted at Carol Bentley.


Edith presents Want More Traffic? Find Out Here? posted at Edith Yeung.Com: Dream. Think. Act..


Carol Bentley presents How appealing are you posted at Carol Bentley.


Ed Rivis presents More sales from self-service link building. posted at Ed Rivis.


Don D. Morrison presents Generating Targeted Traffic from Forums posted at dondmorrison.com.


Priya Jestin presents How To: Manipulate Del.icio.us to Drive Visitors and Dollars to Your Site, 20 Tips and Tricks posted at Smart Shopper: Personal Finance Advisor.


Tip Diva presents Top Ten Tips - Improving Your Blog posted at Tip Diva, saying, "You have a blog, but you don’t have as many hits or readers as you would like. Here are some tips to improve your blog’s overall visibility on the web and attract new readers."


Jack S. Keifer presents Writing Killer Headlines posted at Jack S. Keifer.


Hill Robertson presents Work Smart So You Can Smell the Roses posted at Hill Robertson, saying, "It can be easy to get so caught up with being busy that we overlook the important things that are often right in front of our nose."


blue skelton presents Production Blog: Technorati Favorite Exchange posted at Blue Skelton Publications, saying, "Here is a list of people willing to exchange Technorati Favorites that you can be a part of if you like. This post has top search engine placement so if you are serious about advancing your Technorati Position; this is a good list to include yourself."


James D. Brausch presents Failure? The Doorway to Success posted at Internet Business Blog.


Don Morrison presents Special Offer! 3 Minute Headline Creator! posted at dondmorrison.com, saying, "Simple Software Creates More Than 100 Online & Off Line Marketing Headline Combinations All In Single Click... 100% Amazing!"


John Lenaghan presents The Art Of Insulting People posted at Internet Marketing Chaos.


Milan presents Free Classifieds: Free Online Advertising posted at MiLan’s Blog: Make Money Online.


Derrick Markotter presents Copywriting Blueprint Formula posted at Online Business Blog.


Aaron Brandon presents What To Blog About posted at Aaron Brandon.


Steve Oliphant presents Stop Gambling with Your Future and Start Making Money posted at Steve Oliphant’s Musings.


Carol Bentley presents Death of the long letter posted at Carol Bentley.


Craig Andrews presents Do You Linkbait With Your Blog? posted at Craig S. Andrews.com, saying, "For excellent results, one the best ways to drive a lot of traffic to your blog or Website is through effective and unique article version submissions. Using a highly effective article submission software is key to your Internet success, visit: http://www.articleprosoftware.com. Please visit my blog for "Real Internet Business Solutions" and more! Thank you, Craig Andrews"


Don D. Morrison presents It Isn?t Human Relations Anymore? Its Out Sourcing! posted at dondmorrison.com.


Sabrina Jefferson presents How To Create Your Own DVD posted at Sabrina Jefferson.


Sarah Paine presents One Link for You Two Links For Me posted at Sarah Paine, saying, "Create several back links each submission using the suggested site to boost Google page rank."


Woody Maxim presents My review of Blog Farm Generator posted at Woody Maxim.


Tiffany Colter presents Writing Career Coach: How I got here: Part 3 posted at Writing Career Coach, saying, "This blog discusses expecting success and how to know when you get there!"


Terry Dean presents Using Long Tail Keywords for Profit posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.


rgunasekaran3 presents Discussion about "How to optimize a home page ?" posted at SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION SOLUTIONS, saying, "this blog explain the way to increase the traffic for website."


Woody Maxim presents The quickest way to more money is through testing posted at Woody Maxim.


Jimmy Sansi presents Tools Worth Using posted at The Kaizen Business.


Don D. Morrison presents 10 Superior Methods To Incorporate An Online Marketing Auto-responder! posted at dondmorrison.com.


Brian Terry presents 17 essential ?big selling? website strategies posted at Big Selling Website Design.


Sarah Paine presents The Power Is In The Ping posted at Sarah Paine.


Brian Terry presents How to develop a Big Selling Affiliate mindset posted at Big Selling Affiliates Blog.


Sarah Paine presents The D-List posted at Sarah Paine.


the baglady presents What Makes a Blog Article Popular? posted at xynny.


Brian Terry presents How to tap into 60+ million highly responsive, targeted visitors posted at Big Selling Affiliates Blog.


Sarah Paine presents StumbleUpon Site Traffic posted at Sarah Paine, saying, "Generate an amazing amount of traffic to your site using the StumbleUpon phenomenon."


Brian Terry presents Why you MUST become fanatical at testing and tracking posted at Big Selling Website Design.


Ian Richardson presents Final Five Reasons to Host Your Own Blog. posted at Make Everything EzyAs123.


Ed Rivis presents Burning blog feeds for actual statistics. posted at Ed Rivis.


Richard McLaughlin presents Mind Mapping Makes Life Easier posted at Cindy King.


Brian Terry presents 10 Steps To Successful Affiliate Article Writing posted at Big Selling Affiliates Blog.


John Lenaghan presents Affiliate Summit Day 1 - Calacanis Keynote Part 3 (aka Long Term Thinking) posted at Internet Marketing Chaos.


James D. Brausch presents Not Enough Time posted at Internet Business Blog.


Brian Terry presents How to boost your big selling affiliate commissions and build your list (Big Selling Affiliates Blog) posted at Big Selling Affiliates Blog.


Don D. Morrison presents Discover 18 Common ?Link Baiting? Methods (Or Getting More Online Back Links)? The Prime Directive! posted at dondmorrison.com.


Sabrina Jefferson presents How To Create Your Own Blog posted at Sabrina Jefferson.


Woody Maxim presents The quickest way to more money is through testing posted at Woody Maxim.


John Crenshaw presents Paying Off Your Mortgage - Will It Save You Money? posted at Truthful Lending dot Com, saying, "There’s been quite a bit of debate lately over whether or not you should pay off your mortgage or invest any extra money. This article explores the different mortgage payoff methods and will help you decide which, if any, are right for you."


Jimmy Sansi presents Guaranteed Traffic Today Using These 7 Simple Methods posted at The Kaizen Business.


Aaron Brandon presents Product Creation Worry posted at Aaron Brandon.


Brian Terry presents How to set up a zero maintenance affiliate marketing WordPress blog posted at Big Selling Affiliates Blog.


Thomas D. Brownsword presents Current Projects, Part 1 posted at Business Action Steps.


Taylor Coburn presents Get A Grip On Your Online Business posted at Internet Business at ProcessToProfits, saying, "Bloggers who do the best job monetizing traffic know their analytics... Learn how to get a grip on stats here"


Woman Tribune presents adgridwork Production Analysis posted at Woman Tribune, saying, "Free advertising programs are mostly ineffective. Here’s the stats from adgridwork."


The Money Moose presents Abusing Social Sites | BLOG BADLY posted at Blog Badly, saying, "A humorous article on how to abuse social sites for maximum profit. Not meant to be taken seriously - just a light-hearted satire :)"


Craig Andrews presents Internet Business Blog - Craig S Andrews posted at Craig S. Andrews.com.


Brian Terry presents The #1 reason most people fail? posted at Big Selling Website Design.


Cindy King presents 7 Easy Tips to Internationalize Your Web Site posted at Get International Clients.


James Lee presents How a Simple Military Strategy Can Bring You Big Online Profits posted at Online Business Freedom.


Robert Phillips presents One Size Does Not Fit All posted at CYBERCA$HOLOGY.


Fred Black presents Will the Real Blogger Please Stand Up... posted at Fred Black: Internet Business Blog..


Kenton Newby presents Simple Solutions For the Content Creation Roadblock Nearly All Online Business Owners Face posted at KentonNewby.com.


Warren Wong presents How To Avoid Google’s Duplicate Content Penalty (For Bloggers) posted at Personal Development for INTJs, saying, "Things you should know to avoid duplicate content penalities on your blog and get good search engine rankings."


Sarah Paine presents Changing Permalink Structure to Maximize SEO posted at Sarah Paine.


Mark Riffey presents How to measure advertising response in any media posted at Business is Personal.


Mystery presents 8 SOLID Ways To Turbo - Boost Your Blog’s Visitors For 2008! posted at Mystery Online Autoincome Turbo Cash Money Making Systems.


That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of bringing more traffic to your blog using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Reading feeds/headlines in FireFox

If you use firefox, you probably already know that firefox is much safer than other browsers, it's also highly customizable with themes and addons. Have you used the "Live Bookmarks" feature of firefox? It's a great time saver. firefox let's you bookmark the feed of the site/blog you are visiting as a "Live Bookmark"(Provided it publishes one). Everytime you explore your bookmarks, the feed is updated and headlines are shown in a submenu.

Here's how this feature is used:
After the page is loaded, look for the "dish" icon on the statusbar.





Hovering your mouse over the icon will show you if the site/blog publishes it's feed and clicking it will prompt you to save the site as "Live Bookmark". Once you are done saving, take your mouse to the "Bookmark" menu and explore the bookmark you just added. Firefox will fetch the feed for you and you will never have to fire up your standalone/web based feed readers anymore.





Never used FireFox? There is always a first time sometime.


Continue to FireFox Download

Advanced Trackbacks, Comments, and Rating with Haloscan

One of the limitations of the Blogger platform is inability to send trackbacks when you make a post. A trackback is a simple acknowledgment, sent via a network signal (ping) from the originating site to the receiving site. Trackback requires both sites to be trackback enabled in order to establish this communication. A free service from Haloscan allows a blogger to send trackbacks to other blogs, and also display the trackbacks which have been sent to the blog. Haloscan also puts comments features on the higher level, allowing advanced comments management and enhanced performance. And, finally it offers blog visitors to rate blog entries, merchandise items, services, pictures, or any other objects on the site, based on a 5-star rating scheme.

Membership is absolutely free. Sign in: http://www.haloscan.com/

Internet Safety for Girls

Here we discuss some general Internet Safety Issues and steps to take to improve security on the internet.

One of the most common ways by which Internet Security is compromised is by using a bug-ridden internet browser. It raises serious security concerns when a malicious hacker targets a known vulnerability in the browser. It is therefore recommended that you use a safer browser that is less prone to attacks. I have used FireFox+Google Toolbar for quite a while, I strongly recommend that you download and try it. You will see that with the help of the google toolbar, it is able to block annoying popups too. FireFox, is and always was free to use and can be uninstalled easily if you arent impressed with it.


Continue to FireFox Download



Once the browser is secured, you should get the official updates for your operating system. Most users nowdays use Windows XP, So all XP users should get Windows XP Service Pack 2 to better defend you operating system. Get the Windows XPSP2 from any of the following locations:


The download can take a while as the files could be above 250 mb and make sure you have a genuine copy of Windows XP installed.


Install a good anti-virus package for protection against viruses. There are a few free Anti-Virus packages that offer decent security, such as



If you are serious about internet security then you should consider using a commercial anti-virus package. Norton Anti-Virus and McAfee Anti-Virus are well known packages of which the latter is highly recommended if you can afford it.

Finally, As a layer of protection against SpyWares, download and install the following Anti-SpyWare utilities:

Run these utilities on a regular basis to clean out the spyware junk from your system.

The tips above will improve your overall internet security, So how about a nice, friendly kiss for sharing these tips with you, Girls? ;-)



Update: Norton Security Scan is now included with the google pack, See what more is included in the google pack.

Free Blogging Communities on Danga Platform

After the publication, comparing Blogger and WordPost free blogging platforms ( http://blogging4good.blogspot.com/2008/02/blogger-vs-wordpress-review-for-newbie_07.html), I got several questions on the alternative solutions to start free blogs. In this post, I will briefly review blogging opportunities with communities, based on the Danga platform.

Danga Interactive was a Brad Fitzpatrick’s company that started in 1999 a famous community LiveJournal and developed a related operating software. In January 2005, blogging company Six Apart purchased Danga Interactive Company from Fitzpatrick, and in December 2007 sold it to SUP, a Russian media company that had been licensing the LiveJournal brand and software for use in Russia. The Life Journal in Russian is the most popular blogging community in the Russian-speaking countries at the moment. Overall, there are more than 14 millions of members using this platform, and more than 3 millions in USA. As a LiveJournal member, you can write blogs, add friends, start and join communities, and chat with other members. You can create custom layouts for your pages, as LiveJournal allows to paste in custom CSS files, changing overall blog layout. Another nice feature is ability to embed your journal into your own website. This blog service also accepts posts from email enabled mobile phones and from instant messaging services. You can upload video and images as well. With all the mentioned nice features, there are some not so nice disadvantages, as relatively high amount of advertising on the page and lack of the proper guidance from the new members.

The software running LiveJournal is open source and primarily written in Perl. Because of this, several other communities have been designed using the LiveJournal software. Among them:

§ DeadJournal - LiveJournal clone with very relaxed terms and usage conditions. Here you can find some journals that would not be hosted in any other communities.

§ GreatestJournal - community with about 2 million members, offering free voice posts, 1GB of photo hosting, and space for up to 2,000 user icons.

§ InsaneJournal - offers free accounts with heavy advertising, strongly encouraging its member to upgrade for paid accounts.

§ JorunalFen.net - Blogging host directed towards various fans communities restricting its membership for users 18 and older. A free account creation is turned off by default, however new users can still obtain a free blogging account.

§ Blurty - one more host for online journals and communities for people over 18. There are some limitations for a free accounts holders, like amount of characters in the journal name, or total amount of entries.

Blog Loading Speed Optimization

TubeImage.com

When you work on your Blog, you do your best to improve it by all means to attract visitor’s attention and to get him or her interested in your content for as long time, as possible. Sometimes, practice of using catchy graphics and beautiful widgets is creating a significant load on the Blog structure, causing significant loading delays, especially for the computers with slow Internet connection. This extended loading time for the site might drive an impatient surfers off, without getting through the loading phase.

To can an objective picture of your site characteristics, you can test your Blog loading speed and optimize your site performance per analysis and recommendations from free comprehensive services provided by Web Page Analyzer (http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/). Simply paste your Blog URL into the assigned box and submit query. The automatically created script will calculated the page size, different elements on the page, and related loading time for different connection rates. Based on these characteristics, the script then offers you recommendations on how your page loading time might be improved, and it is up to you how and if you will follow the friendly script’s advice.

15 Advices on How to Decrease Danger of Being Banned from AdSense

TubeImage.com

Note, that I do not propose the magic advices of how avoid AdSense possible ban. Because, there might be reasons beyond Webmaster control or related to the AdSense stuff mistake. However, it is possible to decrease danger of the ban, carefully following the AdSense Team recommendation and common sense. Note, that getting Google to reconsider the cancellation note is next to impossible, if your site does not accumulate amount of traffic that might get Google sorry for losing you. So the easiest way to handle the situation is not to find yourself in it.
Let’s review some basic recommendation of the safe Google AdSense account ownership:

1. Be sure never click on your own ads. It is the most obvious reason, why the account is banned. If you are interested in the offer, announced in the ad, better type the website address in the browser window. Do not click as your explanations on the click justification will not be later accepted.

2. Do not make any changes in your AdWords code, other than playing with permitted color palettes modification.

3. Do not place AdSense code on Thank You pages, registration pages, or any other pages that do not contain real content.

4. Avoid insertion of AdSense code on your pages containing ads from Google’s competitors as, for example, Yahoo Publishers Network.

5. Do not use “hidden text” techniques on your pages, including tiny text fonts, or text with the same color as background.

6. Do not place your AdSense ads in the close proximity to Macromedia Flash games, pop-ups and download prompts, drop-downs and menu links, as it increases chances of the accidental clicks on the AdSense ads.

7. Avoid placement of too many links on your site. Having a link higher than 100 on a single page will classify you as a link farm.

8. Avoid using doorways - pages loaded with choice keyword ads redirecting visitors to another pages. While you can find many reasons of them being useful, AdSense will not share this point of view.

9. Stay away from running AdSense ads on pages, containing adult or mature images and videos, and racial intolerance and extreme violence exposing posts.

10. It is not recommended to place AdSense ads on pages, involved in unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials.

11. Do not use the shared computer to log in your AdSense account, as your family members might accidentally spoil your situation.

12. Do not make any arrangements with other AdSense users on the clicks exchange. Any unusual traffic pattern is clearly visible the AdSense monitors through IP addresses used.

13. It is also not advised to be part of the traffic exchange networks or programs to boost your traffic, and especially AdSense exchange networks. While amount, involved in the cross-clicking will be higher than one-to-one, it is still will be a limited group of people, creating a statistically visible pattern, that might drew a close look from AdSense inspectors.

14. It is not recommended to utilize auto-surfing programs to boost traffic to your Web Site or Blog. Traffic generated from these programs is not considered as real for AdSense, and might be a reason for the ban.

15. Read all the Google AdSense policies, posted on the site to see whether your page might be somehow considered violating any policies and regulations. Make the necessary modifications as needed.

TubeImage.com
And...happy moneymaking inside Google AdSense guidelines.

Showing Labels on Blogger through Drop-Down Menu

For Blogger platform, labels are even more important for post categorization, than for other platforms, since Blogger template does not allow creating Categories. With growing amount of posts on your blog, the amount of related labels will be growing as well. Soon, it might capture a significant amount of the valuable space on your sidebar, and might create a feeling of the misbalance on your blog interface. Amanda Fazani offered a very elegant solution to save the space and still show the labels on your blog. She has created a widget, displaying all the labels in the drop-down menu. Detailed instructions on the Template modification are presented in the following post:
http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2007/11/drop-down-menu-for-your-labels.html
You can see the practical idea implementation on my sidebar. The process will take no more than 5 minutes of your time. All thanks are going to Amanda Fazani!

One more way to monetize your blog with PPP

Will 2008 bring the new ways to monetize your Blog? Most likely, yes. So, we should keep our eyes open for any new trends and offerings. There is a quickly expanding array of new advertising services and tools for Bloggers that go well beyond the standard pay-per-click text ads or display ads. Not all of them profitable, not all of them will survive the tough competition. "There’s going to be a lot of new business models in 2008 that are geared toward more monetization," predicted Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of strategic services for Nielsen Online, the Web analysis unit of the Nielsen Co.

The PPP (Pay-Per-Play) might be a next big thing in the Blogging World. Starting Feb. 1, San Diego-based V2P Communications is offering five-second audio ads, called NetAudioAds that will automatically play when a visitor lands on a Blog or Web site. Publishers sign up for the free service and V2P then lines up advertisers, who bid on rates they will pay to have their ads played on a given Blog. PPP audio ads are contextually related to the web page content where the PPP code is placed. The audio ad is only 5 seconds in length and a website visitor will only hear one 5 second advertisement per visit to any specific web page. PPP works on a bid management system similar to Google AdWords and will compensate publishers like Google AdSense but website owners are promised to get their revenue share with no needs for the visitor’s clicks.

The earning scheme is:

  • 25% of what the advertiser spends on PPP ads installed on your Blog.
  • 5% of what the advertiser spends on PPP ads installed on the Blogs you have referred.
  • 5% of what the advertiser spends on PPP ads installed on the second level of your referrals.

You can get more information and sign in through the link: http://voice2page.com/info/gaa.html

Why am I not signing? May be, I am too conservative, but I personally do not distract my visitors by any striking features, and the audio ad is quite striking. But, I respect different approaches and views, and give you this information, as it might fit your Blog style and improve related revenue stream as well.

Image Hosting (ImageShack, Photobucket and more..)

Whenever you need to post an image on your blog, you will need to upload a photo to blogger directly. That however does not give you much freedom to work with the image and even renaming the image is not quite possible. It is therefore recommended to have a Image Hosting account for use with your blog. The good news is that there are many free image hosting providers that give you good features at absolutely no cost. My personal favourite is Photobucket, but below is a list of other free image hosting providers that you can use to post images on your blog. Many of them are now allowing free video hosting as well. Some of them will not require you to register with them too.

http://photobucket.com ( Images + Videos )


http://www.imagecabin.com/ ( Images + Videos +MP3 & more.. )



http://tinypic.com/ ( Images + Videos )


http://imageshack.us/ ( Images + Videos )



http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/ ( Images )



http://www.freeimagehosting.net/ ( Images )



http://www.theimagehosting.com/ ( Images )



http://www.imagevenue.com/ ( Images )



http://www.piclynk.com/ ( Images )



http://www.filehigh.com/ ( Images + Videos + Cursors )



http://www.theimageplace.net/ ( Images )



http://www.imgplace.com/ ( Images )



http://xs.to/ ( Images )



http://www.myonlineimages.com/ ( Images + Videos + ZIP & more.. )

FavIcon for Bloggers

What is Favicon?

Favicon is an acronym for "Favorite Icon". Nearly all professional sites use it nowdays. As it shows up right next to the address line of the adressbar and favorites list in Internet Explorer and probably on other browsers too. If you have your pages hosted either on paid hosting or free hosting, hosting the favicon is not a problem, however if you are using a blog service, you are out of luck as all blog providers would reject the *.ico extension. This is where you need a free service provider such as http://www.myfavatar.com/

Use this smart tool to get a favicon from an image stored on your disk. you can get an animated favicon using this free favicon tool. Just follow this link and get your favicon in seconds http://zerodollarchallenge.blogspot.com/2006/05/favicon-generator-form.html

Blogger Hits Counter

How do I find out who has been to my blog? How can I track my visitors? How can I see where my site visitors are coming from?


These are the most frequently asked questions by bloggers. The solution is to install a "Hit Counter" on your blog!



[Google Analytics Screenshots]


Once you install a Hit Counter on your blog, you can get lot of useful information about your blog. like Popular Pages, Referring Pages, Keywords, Geographical location of visitors, Browser Statistics etc.


Although there are several free "Hit Counters" from which you can choose from, there are three services which are the most popular with bloggers. StatCounter, Google Analytics and Sitemeter.



[Statcounter Screenshots]



[Sitemeter Screenshots]



Here are other hit counters(free services) with our recommended
ratings:

Google Analytics
http://www.sitemeter.com
http://www.activemeter.com
http://www.histats.com
http://www.whatcounter.com
http://www.shinystat.com
http://hitslog.com
http://www.addfreestats.com
http://www.ezwebstat.com
http://www.advancedsitestats.com



We blog for YOU! So, If you would like to help us by a donation, which
will encourage us too bring more articles like this. No amount is too
small for donations.



PageRank Link Directory

The PageRank Directory contains links to directories that accept submission of individual sites or blogs. Please feel free to browse through. I estimate that this page will become a PR2+ page over time.

Web Directory - Add URL to Search-Group.com
Eastlink Directory

ShareThis BookMarking Widget





Another free service from http://www.sharethis.com offers a bookmarking widget for your blog(s). This bookmarking widget allows the visitor of your blog to bookmark your blog in any of the popular social bookmarking sites, much like the widget from http://www.addthis.com ( read the post here for details ). you can also customize the widget to match the "look and feel" of your page.

Installing Google Analytics in Blogger


To track your site/blog using analytics you need to have an account with Google Analytics, If you already have a Google Account you can use that username/password here or you can always sign up for a free google account. In either case you need to go to http://www.google.com/analytics [ Opens in a New Page ]



After you login with your username/password, you will be in your dashboard area.



Scroll down to the bottom of the page and find the link to "Add Website Profile".







On the next screen select the option to "Add a profile for a new domain".







Click continue and on the page that follows, type the URL of your blog.







The final screen will generate two tracking codes for your blog. make sure you are on "New Tracking Code(ga.js)" tab








This is the code that you need to copy/paste on your blog. We are now going to install google analyics tracking code to your blogger blog.




Go to http://www.blogger.com [ Opens in a New Page ] and login with your id/password.




Once you are logged in go to your dashboard, where you have to click the "Layout" link(beside the settings link) of your blog. make sure you are on the "page elements" sub-tab, where you can easily add and arrange page elements.

You will now add a gadget by clicking the "Add a Gadget" link





From the popup that appears, you can add many gadgets to your blog, this time we need to scroll down to the HTML/JavaScript option and click the "+" sign beside it to add it to your blog








This will open a final popup where you paste your code(your google analytics code) under the "content" textarea. I prefer not to give it a title because the code is invisible, so leave the title field blank and click the button to "save changes"



Blogger vs WordPress: Review for the Newbie Blogger

I am still a newbie blogger. When I started, somehow I naturally get to the Blogger. However, moving forward, I am trying to define is the Blogger platform right for my purposes. There is a choice, and all the alternative solutions should be investigated. Usually, you can find anything on the Internet, but it appears to be challenging to locate a comparison tables, highlighting vital features of different blogging platforms. The best comparison I found on the Online Journalism Review page. The table updated for the last time on May 18, 2006. For the blogging platforms development, almost two years are ages. So, what is new there? In the PC World top blogging platforms review (January 22, 2007), the only two free platforms presented are Blogger and Wordpress with slight Blogger priority. Based on that post, and in order to limit the spec of this review, I will focus on these platforms comparison.
There are indeed serious differences between platforms that might influence on your informative decision on using one or another. Bear in mind that I am referring to the developer hosted wordpress.com, not the self hosted wordpress.org. So, let’s review several factors on the platforms differences:

  1. Blog Import: In Blogger - limited availability to import and export only in the same blogging platform; in WoordPress - you can import from several other platformd, including from Blogger.
  2. Image Storage: In Blogger - 300 MB; in WordPress - 3 GB.
  3. Static Pages: In Blogger - not available; in WordPress - static pages can be listed in separate menus.
  4. Post by Email: In Blogger - accepted; in WordPress - not.
  5. Categories: In Blogger - not available; in WordPress - arranged with no problem.
  6. File Uploading: In Blogger - not available; in WordPress - files can be uploaded.
  7. Indexing Time: Here Blogger produces far better results, as due to the tight connections with Google, it can appear in the Search Engines very fast.
  8. Blog Monetization: WordPress has serious restrictions on the publishing ads, so if you plan to use AdSense, your preferences will probably lean more to the Blogger.
If you are shooting for the blog monetization, there is no doubt that it is much easier to get started with Google Adsense if you have a Blogger account. In fact you can now apply for Adsense from within a Blogger account. Not entirely surprising considering the fact that both are owned by the same company.

With Wordpress, it can get tricky. The default installation is not enough. You’ll need a couple of plugins and even a better theme to really maximize the Adsense potential. However, this seems to be getting easier and there’s even “Adsense revenue sharing” plugins around that allow you to share ad revenue with other contributors and writers for your blog.

Based on all information available, I would definitely recommend Blogger for all the beginners, while WordPress might be considered preferable for more experienced bloggers.

Additional Reading:
http://onestoryeveryday.com/blogger-vs-wordpress-10-features-for-beginners.html
http://pulsed.blogspot.com/2007/07/blogger-wordpress-chart.html
http://michaelsync.net/2007/04/01/wordpresscom-vs-bloggercom
http://www.searchforblogging.com/index.php/2008/03/11/blogging-wars-wordpress-vs-blogger/

21 Free Utilities for AdSense Users

Most likely, I do not have to explain to you, what the AdSense program is. Entering this market, Google drastically changed the map. AdSense are Google contextual ads that any Web Site or Blog owner can place on his/her Blog, Search Engine, or Web Site. Google, in return, will share a portion of the revenues generated from these ads. The specific pay rate varies, depending on the keywords on the Web site used to generate the ads.

You can review a brief informative tour at the Google Web Site on the AdSense basics:

http://www.google.com/services/adsense_tour/index.html

If you do not have a Web Site, but you still want to enjoy the piece of the Google’s pie Google, there are multiple opportunities for you as well. Find the list of the Revenue sharing Web Sites, I have created on RateItAll:

http://www.rateitall.com/t-24229-revenue-sharing-web-sites.aspx

Your task mostly to submit content (posts, images, videos, etc.), and your host will do the rest, taking a small share of your AdSense income as reimbursement.

AdSense provides pretty good stats monitoring, giving you ability to track your visitors per artificial or URL channels and other parameters. However, some user pointed out on the certain deficiency of these statistics and inconvenience related to the need to log in to the site to check the trends. Also, there are occasional delays with the stats posting, which can misrepresent the visitors’ response trend for the high-traffic Blogs a Sites owners. To close the gap, several software packages were developed. I have prepared the list of the free applications on RateItAll, as usual, with brief description, rating, and links for download:

http://www.rateitall.com/t-24845-freeware-utilities-for-adsense.aspx

Enjoy the release!

Enhancing Searching Capabilities on your Blog with BlogBar

As you may noticed, I am trying to keep the Blog layout very simple and non-aggressive. Presence of the blinking banners, flashing ads, and pop-up windows might be fascinating at the first glance, but on the long-term, it is taking away your readers' attention from your main content. However, I am constantly searching for the suitable utilities and widgets that can help my readers and myself as well to keep their interest on the Blog.

I am pretty sure, that fills the very important gap on my blog related to the readers' need for additional information advanced search. is a free search engine widget that can simply included in the blog or website template. With , blog visitors are able to performed advanced searches, as:
- Search for an additional information within the Blog (you make easy for your visitors to research your other posts).
- Search the web with the major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, or all of them together for the same item).
- Search the Blog Search Engines for the needed information (Technorati, Google Blog Search, etc.)
- Search the Social Bookmarking Sites (Digg, Del.icio.us, etc.)
- Search in Wikipedia.
- Search for Images (Google Images, Flickr, etc.)
- Search for Video Clips (YouTube, Google Video, etc.)

Pretty impressive listing! Widget is very small, and the process of its installation will not take more than a minute. You can choose the color of the search box frame to fit the best to your blog layout. To finalize the presentation, the last, but not least reason to install the widget is additional monetization capabilities with it. If you have an AdSense account, simple placement your ID in the widget code will allow to account for all related searches and clicks.

You can see the described search form on the borders to the left, and you can verify, that whatever I review, it is all true. You can generate the Widget code through the following link:
http://www.blogbar.org/

Seven myths about making money from a blog

Getting paid for blogging?

Are you getting paid for blogging? or getting penalized by google for posting paid reviews?
It is now official that google is taking action against sites/blogs with paid posts/reviews.

Bloggers and Site Owners who were members of "Paid for Blogging" sites such as PayPerPost.com, Smorty.com, SponsoredReviews etc. must have noticed that their google PageRank has been reduced to 0.

Google's official statement in its webmaster guidelines says:

"Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results."

The guidelines add that not all paid links violate their guidelines, since "Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results"

It recommends that the links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the tag "(The most preferred method in blogs) or Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file.

If a blog/site has lost its PageRank and wants to get it back then it has to comply with the google webmaster guidelines by using the above mentioned recommended practices. Once that's done, you can follow
Matt Cutt's advice and read the Official Google Webmaster blog which suggests :

"The site owner can address the violations of the webmaster guidelines and submit a reconsideration request in Google’s Webmaster Central console. Before doing a reconsideration request, please make sure that all sold links either do not pass PageRank or are removed"

site visitor