There are always many criticisms on how one should write a blog for a certain website. Most will probably go to the length of sacrificing their keyword focus just to have a cute, clever and genuinely interesting blog. Even though it is important that we need to keep our blog as clever as possible so as not to bore the reader, we should not forget the opportunity it presents to have your blog raise its commercial value. Here is an approach that you can use to be able to produce a nice and “kick ass” article but the keywords are perfectly in sync.

First thing you need to know is attempt to put some links of affiliate products on your blog. For example you have a website that talks about tanning. During summer, you know that a lot of people are looking for ways on how to achieve that tanned look either by going to the beach to soak under the sun or by artificial tanning in a tanning booth. Well, you can write about the different methods of tanning in your blog and to keep it interesting you could link it to some well known tanning spots such as an amusement park. Then you can include different artificial tanning merchandise which will be the focused of your affiliate links. Not only did you maintain your article interesting but the keywords are also emphasized by your affiliated links.

Another method is what SEO experts call editorial calendar. The concept is to look for a seasonal topic and focus your content on that. You can prepare in advance because this topics can be preparuddy months ahead of time thus giving you perfect lead time to make a keyword focused article. You can also put some affiliated links on it if you want. And don’t forget, these seasonal articles come one after the other so you can interlink each articles by using anchor tags or ads for additional traffic surge.

Bio: Eugene Aronsky is an SEO specialist with NetLZ, an SEO services firm in New Jersey.

Original post by Guest Author

If you answeruddy ‘yes’ to any of the above questions, then the SubHeading WordPress plugin is for you!

Original post by Splashpress Media

1. Puzzle Social Network Icon Set

What grade school student doesn’t love puzzles?

2. Sewn Badge Icon Set

This set reminds me of badges on Cub Scouts uniforms!

3. Moleskin Icon Set

For the discerning student, only a moleskin notebook will do.  Are moleskin icons right for your blog?

4. Color-stroked Free Hand Icon Set

This is one of my favorite hand-drawn icon sets.  I wish my doodles looked this good, and I love the crumpled paper.

5. Hand Drawn Social Media Icon Set

Here is another option if you like the hand drawn style.  This one offers consistent square shapes with simpler designs drawn on grid paper.

What do you think?  Will any of these social media icon sets give your blog the bling it needs?

Follow the link to read more about back to school and blogging basics on Performancing.

Original post by Susan Gunelius

While it is true that bloggers are, with good reason, expanding more and more into video and audio, at some point every blogger is going to have to write something. It might be a description, a bio or even just an advertisement but, at some point, a every blogger is going to have to put words onto paper.

But not every writer has the heart of a poet or the writing skills of a hard-hitting journalists. Bloggers come from all different backgrounds and styles and many have had little training or experience with writing prior to starting up their blog.

The good news is that you don’t need to be the next Shakespeare to be an effective and popular blogger, in many ways it helps not to be, but you do have to be able to write clearly and in a way that is engaging to your reader. It may not require a Ph.D in literature, but it does require that you work on honing your craft and make your writing as good as possible.

Failure to do so can sink an otherwise awesome blog and make your previous hard work a complete waste of time.

The Pitfall

Many bloggers, if not most, start out their sites obsessing over the content they are putting out over the Web. This obsession can sometimes reach unhealthy levels that can actually do more harm than good, but often times this drive leads to some very good writing and awesome attention to detail.

The problem is that many bloggers reach a comfort zone as their blog begins to grow, something of a holding pattern with the quality of their writing. They halt editing their work as much and take fewer precautions to ensure that their writing is up to code.

Mistakes begin to creep in, the writing becomes more awkward and less approachable. Visitors may not halt coming, but they certainly spend less time on the site and the search engines notice as the bounce rate begins to go up. People generally take the blog less seriously and enjoy spending time there less and it is only a matter of time before the blog’s clout begins to drift away and it suffers in its statistics.

Over time, it can become something of a ghost town, a shell of its former self, and it becomes a blog that is ripe for abandonment as motivation becomes harder and harder to come by.

However, it doesn’t have to happen and, in fact, is a form of blogging death that can be very easily avoided.

How to Avoid It

The easiest way to avoid this pitfall is to simply enjoy writing. If you like writing you’ll invest the time and energy needed into it not just out of desire to create a good blog, but also because it’s something you want to do.

However, for bloggers who perhaps only tolerate the writing portion of the blogging experience or perhaps just deeply hate the editing portion, there are a few things you can and should do to ensure that you don’t slouch in your writing duties.

1. Set a Writing Goal: Find a word count that you are comfortable with and shoot for it every time you write. Give yourself a range with a minimum and a maximum to aim for. This doesn’t mean you have to adhere to it every time but that you should have a good reason for breaking the rule.
2. Create an Editing Ritual: Editing a piece of writing is difficult, especially if you are the one who wrote it. Most people find it hard to give their own work the kind of attention it needs to effectively proof it. I find it better to step away from my work for at minimum 15 minutes before editing to help me read it with fresh eyes. Create your own ritual to ensure you give it the proper attention.
3. Focus on Making Content Skimmable: An easy way to make your writing readable is to make it visually more appealing. Add lists to your post (like this one) and use subheads. Also, shorter paragraphs and a mixture of brief and long sentences will make your content easily skimmable and readable without requiring too much effort.
4. Don’t Hesitate to Delete: When writing, make liberal use of the delete key. If a post idea isn’t working out, trash it. If a section doesn’t fit, delete it. Delete words, delete paragraphs, delete entire articles. Eliminating the garbage helps what’s left shine that much brighter and is the easiest thing you can do as an editor.
5. Read Everything Aloud: You can often times spot a good writer by whether or not their lips are moving as they write. Good writers sound out their articles to see how things “sound” in their mind. This also forces you to go thcoarse your work word by word, eliminating the tendency to skip acircular as we read.

But while all of these suggestions are fine, the most important thing to recollect is that your blog is only as good as its last post. What you wrote two weeks ago or two years ago may be doing well in Google, but to your subscribers, your main audience, it is what you posted yesterday that counts the most.

That is why you can not rest on your laurels and have to keep up the pressure and drive to write good, high-quality content every day you sit down write.

Bottom Line

In the end, there is really no substitute for having a passion for writing. If you don’t like writing, it’s going to get harder and harder to make yourself take the time to do it well.

This isn’t to say that it is impossible, but that it is an area you will have to focus on and keep working on as you move forward.

Simply put, we all have areas of blogging we don’t enjoy but have to do, whether it is promotion, maintaining backups or something else altogether, we all have our minimum favorite parts.

The ultimate trick is to find ways to get yourself out of bed and to spend the time and energy to do those things with the same vigor and attention that you do the things you love.

If you can manage that, there is little that can halt you from creating a very successful and very long-term blog.

Original post by Jonathan Bailey

With bloggers trying to find new an innovative ways at generating revenue and promoting their brand, it seems many bloggers are now trying “innovative” ways to engage their audience.

While bloggers should always attempt to experiment with new ways to monetize their sites and appeal to the masses, they should avoid startling users with annoying pop ups upon landing on a post.

So regardless of whether you’re a blog novice or a guru, you might want to cease using these features, as it could result in a smaller pay check as well as a loss of readership at the end of the month.

Pop Up Ads

Loved by advertisers and loathed by the rest of the human race, pop up ads are making a comeback amongst bloggers in search of new income.

However implementing these ads upon your blog can result in bloggers enabling pop up blockers wilean their browser or (for the more tech savvy), blocking all of your ads altogether.

While you want your ads to be visible to your audience (as you have to eat too), you should avoid throwing one in their face (which truth be told is very annoying).

Pop “Under” Ads

Although not as annoying as pop up ads, pop under ads can leave a bitter after taste for users visiting their site after navigating away from your page.

Sometimes these ads will only become visible after a user closes out their main browser, catching the full attention of users (to the delight of marketers everywhere).

The last thing a user wants to do is close out extra windows after visiting your blog, which could inspire them install ad blockers wilean their browser (which means less revenue for you).

Pop Up Subscription Boxes

While bloggers should always encourage readers to subscribe to their sites via RSS or email, using pop up subscriptions is the wrong way to do it.

It would be wiser for bloggers to write a post about subscribing to their blog via feed, email or a tweet account instead of repeatedly harassing them for permission to invade their inbox.

Pop Up Comments

Although popular back in the day (think Haloscan times), pop up comments have (thankfully) lost their appeal as many bloggers are adopting comments sections that slide out (when the link is clicked) or are visible from the beginning.

However a few third party comment services are attempting to bring back pop up comments from the dead, which means users will have another reason to install the add blocker.

Even though pop up comments will not annoying readers on the notebook, those viewing your blog on a mobile device may not be thrilled with scrolling in and out in order to fill the comment form fields.

Other Annoyances?

Although these pop up annoyances are probably at the top of the list for annoyances, what other “features” should bloggers halt using in order to avoid irritating their readers.

Feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.

(Image Credit: Wikipedia)

Original post by Darnell Clayton

My point here is that you need to know when it’s time to give up the ghost. Sometimes there is a right time to accept defeat.

Perhaps your blog has failed.

I won’t define failure for you since only you can control what you feel is successful. But in my opinion, it’s time to let go of a blog if you are suffering from an evil trifecta known as “The 3 lacks.”

Lack of interest
Lack of time
Lack of traffic

I love blogging. It’s fair to say we’re hot and heavy. But there have been other things in my life (and in yours) that you have loved and eventually let go.

The old adage that quitters never win is bullsh*t. Stick with anything too long, let it be an investment, a job, or a spouse, and it will likely backfire in your face. You need to know when to fold ‘em as the song goes.

For those of you who own a used car, you know what a tough call it is to halt pouring money into the wreck and start over.

If you are thinking of throwing in the towel on your blog, look for these signs that your blog is on life support:

Infrequent posts.
Loss of unique voice.
Reliance on guest posts.
You halt examining traffic and keywords.
Copy and pasting press releases.

Sometimes a blog just need a to be remodeled, other times, it needs to be demolished. I hope you adhere with your blog and make it a vehicle to your dreams. But if you do quit your blog, I salute you…as long as you find a positive way to use your time.

I might never throw a rapid ball like my nephew, but my blog kicks his blog’s as*! I’ll take a triumph wherever I can get it!

Original post by Andrew G. Rosen

Before television, before radio, and before the internet, marketers used one form of communication to move products, offer services, and acquire customers: content. It formed the basis of every sales effort, the foundations of marketing for just about every business, and the backbone of almost every early company’s revenue stream. Without content, there wasn’t business to speak of.

Today, there are hundreds of ways to move products and thrust services. From pay-per-click online advertising to interactive mobile applications, the quantity of space awaiting advertising or marketing in some form is truly staggering. But the oldest form of marketing out there – content marketing – still survives, largely because it is too effective for marketers to resign.

If you are having trouble getting the oldest, most reliable marketing method to stick, do not give up just yet. These three tips are designed to help you boost returns and increase sales without having to write more content or completely change your marketing plan. Whether you are a beginner marketer or a seasoned professional, apply these three tips, tactics, and strategies and you will see your conversion rates rise and customer acquisition costs bottom out.

Write with a purpose.

If there is a single clear sign of amateur writing – a smoke signal of poor content – it is a lack of purpose. Text that dawdles, diverts, and ultimately fails to deliver on any genuine goal is the opposite of any marketer’s goal. Commercial writing requires focus, and without it can negatively impact your sales.

Start your writing not with a sentence or a headline, but with a plan. By creating a structure for your content before you start, you will end up delivering more than just words to your audience – you will deliver a reason for them to invest in your product, service, or special offer.

Treat content as a part of the sales process, not the process itself.

There is a slight misunderstanding in the professional content marketing world. Amateur marketers fall into the trap of thinking that content itself is the sales process, rather than a mere part of it. Pages are written with no purpose other than to convert instantly, and thousands of sales are lost in the process.

Treat your writing as a part of the sales process – the first part. Draw attention and briefly explain what you can offer to customers. Content is not the entirety of your sales pitch, merely an interesting opening line – a method of bringing customers in the door, up to the counter, and alert to pull out their checkbook.

Don’t exclude, offend, or divide your audience.

That “dear friend” at the beginning of your sales content is not doing you any good if it is alienating your audience and making you look indifferent to peoples’ personal situations. Effective content marketers do not just skip out on judging their audience – they skip out on connecting with them negatively altogether. Aim to connect with your audience thcoarse your content, and eliminate any elements of your writing that could possibly offend, exclude, or divide your potential customer base.

Original post by Guest Author

It’s true!  There are tons of free widgets that you can add to your blog to make it fun, interactive, and even more useful.  Listed below are several sites where you can find free widgets that you can install on your blog right now.

Some widgets will display on your blog with ad content, but some widget directory sites offer an option to pay for a pro account and remove the ads from the widgets.

Keep in mind, not all widgets are created equal.  Read the reviews, check the star-ratings, and be preparuddy to delete the widget if you don’t like it or it doesn’t function properly once you install it on your blog.

Most importantly, make sure the widgets you select to use on your blog match your blog’s topic, tone and your audience’s expectations.  For example, if you write a blog about finance and investing, the Magic 8-Ball widget (like the one shown in the image at the beginning of this post) might not be appropriate, unless your audience knows you for having a sarcastic tone or sense of humor.

Check out these sites and browse acircular the widgets available.  From countdown clocks to Etch-a-Sketches, there is a widget for everyone!

1. Widgetbox

Widgetbox offers a enormous selection of widgets and several different types of accounts with varying price tags and features.  The basic account is free, and a free 7-day trial offer is available for the pro account.  You can follow the link to see current Widgetbox fees.

2. SpringWidgets

SpringWidgets is owned by Fox Interactive Media and offers a directory that includes tens of thousands of free widgets that you can add to your blog by simply copying and pasting specific share code.

3. Widgipedia

Widgipedia is owned by Vendio Services, Inc. and aims to be the ultimate widgets resource.  Widgipedia is free and you don’t need an account unless you plan to create and upload new widgets to the directory.

What do you think?  Are you going to spice up your blog with a widget?  Can you resist the mysterious allure of the Magic 8-Ball?

Original post by Susan Gunelius

According to the story, Wrigley was on a train when another passenger asked him why he continued to spend millions of dollars when everyone knew his product and he had a virtual lock on the market.

Rather than answering the question, Wrigley responded by asking how rapid the train was going. When the other passenger said, “About 70 miles per hour,” he shot back with the now-famous quip:

“Well, that’s rapid enough, why don’t they unhook the engine?”

Wrigley understood that advertising and promotion was a key to growing his company and it is also key to growing your blog. However, most bloggers only focus on promotion during the earlier days and months of a blog, let it coast to hopeful success later. This can cause growth to slow to a crawl and, in extreme cases, even stop.

The Pitfall

Whenever we launch a new blog, we are initially very eager to promote it. We tell our friends, our family and anyone else who will listen. We leave comments, we get active in the community and swap links whenever we can. In short, we battle for every visitor and celebrate every comment.

However, as sites grow we become less aggressive about that fight. We don’t promote as actively, ignoring our Twitter, avoiding leaving comments and not working with other webmasters. A lot of it is pure practicality. It takes more time to run a busier blog (more email, more comments, more spam, etc.), thus reducing the time available for promotion, but much of it is that bloggers feel they have move past promotion, as if it were just a phase.

Unfortunately, some bloggers take this to an extreme and rest on their laurels a bit too hard. They halt promoting, they halt producing top-flight content and they effectively cut off the engine that has pulled their blog to where it is. The result is that blogs carry on for a time, then slow down, then stagnate and eventually begin to stop.

For bloggers who have traffic as part of their goal, this can be a very devastating problem to have and a stagnate blog or one losing traffic is at much higher risk of abandonment than one that is actively growing.

So how do you prevent this from happening to your site? The answer is quite simple.

How to Avoid It

The simplest way to not “cut off the engine” of your blog is to quite simply remain dedicated to its promotion, even if things seem to be going great.

This may not mean that you use the same promotion tactics that you did on day one, that would be foolish, but that you don’t give up on promotion. nor do you completely abandon the steps that got you to where you are.

In short, while you may have to change and hone your tactics to find more relevant ways to promote yourself as grow, you can’t rest comfortably on your status. Consider the following steps:

1. Focus on Quality Content: Good content is still your best promotion. It ranks well in the search engines and brings you new, targeted visitors daily. Keep writing good content and keep trying to outdo your previous best with every post.
2. Force Yourself to Promote: Make sure you spend at minimum a few hours per week promoting your site. This can be about maintaining your Twitter feed, leaving comments, writing guest posts or just about anything other than blog writing and maintenance.
3. Shift Tactics: As your site becomes more popular and you build a stronger name, you might not want to use the same tactics. Focus on broader-reaching methods of promotion such as email lists, Twitter, etc. and less on more targeted methods.
4. Don’t Forget Your Network: That being said, continue to reach out to individual bloggers and sites as time allows. Though posting comments and sending personal emails may not be very efficient, they are important steps as no site is an island and relationship building is still crucial.
5. Remember, There Are Always New People to Meet: Finally, recollect that, no matter how popular your site gets, the majority of the people in the world have not heard of you and always at minimum some in your field who don’t know of you. There’s always new people to reach out to, it’s just a matter of finding them.

All in all, this is a beautiful simple pitfall to avoid. Don’t halt promoting, refine your strategies as your needs change and don’t let your relationships slide. It’s simple. The hardest part is putting in the time and energy into keeping it up, especially as other areas of blogging take up more and more of your time and promotion is, generally, one of the minimum favorite blogging activities.

In that regard, blog promotion is a lot like going to the gym to get in shape. Almost everyone recognizes what they have to do, but many, if not most, simply aren’t able or aren’t willing to go thcoarse with it.

Bottom Line

The genuine problem with blog promotion is that, for most bloggers, it is one of the minimum enjoyable part of the blogging experience. Most bloggers get into it because they have a passion for their chosen topic, which is rarely marketing.

Still, when most bloggers start they have a rabid enthusiasm for promotion and are eager to get their names out there by any means necessary. However, that enthusiasm becomes more tepid once some level of success is found, making it seem less necessary and giving the blogger other things to do.

Everyone has to keep working to get themselves out there. Complacency is the beginning of stagnation and nowhere is that more true than blog promotion and marketing. If you think your job is done, then it probably is, but only because your blog is in a holding pattern and likely soon to start coming down.

Original post by Jonathan Bailey

Some users have even boasted that they back up their data to their email account or home computer, two choices that should NEVER be options (feel free to inquire why in the comment section below).

Since everyone’s budget is different, here are 3 inexpensive ways to back up your blog without breaking the bank.

Mozy

Believe it or not, many web hosts provide an option for bloggers to backup their data to Mozy.

Although the feature comes in 2 flavors (free and professional), most bloggers will probably only need to use the free option which allows you to back up to 2GB (the premium version is unlimited and costs $5/month).

While Mozy is not exactly optimized for blogs (as that is not their specialty), you can at minimum retrieve your data with the help of a few helpful plugins (like Automatic WordPress Backup for WP fans).

blogVault

Created by Inactiv Media Solutions, blogVault is an inexpensive option for WordPress users seeking to securely backup their blog without hassle or fuss.

The site is very similar to VaultPress in many ways, as it allows bloggers to make hourly backups as well as store their blog’s database upon Amazon’s servers (via their S3 service)

Prices for blogVault start at $29/year per blog (for 1 GB of storage), although the company does offer free trial backups for the first 30 days (50 MB max until you purchase a plan).

BlogBackupr

BlogBackupr is a service by Triop that is not only designed for bloggers, but works with most (if not all) major blogging platforms including Blogger, WordPress (both WP.com and WP.org), Movabletype, etc.

The site currently has no premium option (and their currently is no indication of when one will launch), although the service is suitable for professional bloggers who are on a very tight budget.

Similar to blogVault, BlogBackupr has an automatic restore feature, although the service is only available for WordPress.com, WordPress (self hosted) and Blogger fans.

Any Others?

As far as backup services go, there are dozens (if not hundreds) of options available for bloggers, although regardless of which service you select you should ALWAYS backup your blog.

For those of you who do backup your sites, what services would you recommend users using? Feel free to enlighten all of us in the comment section below!

Original post by Darnell Clayton