Why Wordpress is now my Blog of Choice

The more I use Wordpress, the more I love it. It has 2 very important features that Blogger doesn't yet support.

Number 1, you can set up Wordpress to automatically ping all the RSS and blog feed directories every time you make a post. This is a very powerful feature if you want your blog to get a lot of traffic right away. On top of that, you'll be quickly developing backlinks to your blog almost automatically.

Think about how long it can take you to build a regular site, get the search engines to index it, get backlinks to improve your listings, and then start getting traffic. A blog like Wordpress can do all that "grunge" work for you automatically.

Number 2, Wordpress allows the use of Categories. Categories are a very powerful way to improve the structure of your site both for human visitors and for the search engines.

Let's say the topic of your site is Widgets. You could create a Category for black widgets, one for orange widgets, and one for green widgets.

Now when you add posts to your blog, you can choose which of your categories your post belongs to. Now your blog will archive your past posts not only by their month and date, as Blogger does. But also by Category.

So if you have a visitor who is especially interested in green widgets, they can easily find all your posts on green widgets. They don't have to go through your entire archives to find them. With a blog that has been around for awhile and has hundreds of posts, that would be pretty discouraging. Using Categories makes it very easy.

Categories are also very search engine friendly. When you use Categories in your blog, there is a link on every one of your pages to your categories. Think about this: would you rather be #1 in the search engines for March 2003, or for green widgets, one of the main keywords of your site?

By using the Category feature, you will eventually have hundreds of pages on your site with links to green widgets, black widgets, and orange widgets. All those backlinks to those keywords can result in much higher search engine rankings.

Another neat feature is that you can easily create an RSS feed for each of your categories. Then every time you post to your blog, it could be pinging the Blog/RSS directories for each feed!

Compare that to putting up a new page on a traditional website. Even if the search engines find your new page right away, it might be a month or two before it actually gets indexed and starts drawing traffic. It might be a long time before it enjoys a first page position for its keywords.

It's almost amazing how easy all this is with a well-structured blog like Wordpress with Categories enabled!

About the Author :- For more tips and ideas on how to make money blogging, be sure to visit my "Why Marketers Should Blog" weblog at (what else) http://www.WhyMarketersShouldBlog.com

Comparing Free Blogging Software

With the increased interest in Blogging (web Logging), many web hosting providers now provide an assortment of free usage, open source blogging software packages. Among the most popular of these blogging tools are B2evolution, WordPress and Nucleus. Each of these programs offer similar basic features, so the question arises as to which one is easiest to use and would be appropriate for the requirements of your particular website.

The answer lies in the true purpose of your blog website. If your primary goal is to share your opinions and ideas with the general public, you would want to utilize a different blogging tool than a user who was creating product blogs as a commercial sales effort. A blog for search engine promotion would have entirely different requirements. All of these uses are viable reasons to create a blog, however each requires different features to be successful.

WordPress Blogging Software
Available for free download at: http://wordpress.org/

It is hard to beat WordPress for general personal blogging. WordPress is an open source, state-of-the-art personal publishing platform with a focus on presentation and usability. Everything related to creating and updating your blog is available through an intuitive graphical interface. With WordPress there is no need to compile your work. You simply write your column. You then select the features you want and your blog is instantly created and published to your website.

If you are on vacation, you can schedule your uploads for some date in the future or even email your column to the server! The system allows multiple users with multiple blogs divided into categories and sub-categories. This allows multiple family members or friends to create their own blogs along with yours.

Easy customization and the availability of many "plug-ins" that provide more functionality (add new features as you learn) makes this software a very good choice for most individuals.

B2evolution
Available for free download at: http://b2evolution.net/

B2evolution is another advanced web log tool that features an integrated XHTML validator. It supports recursive subcategories, cross posting and has a really cool integrated "skinning" system.

The "skinning" system allows you to create multiple blogs in separate categories with different appearances for each blog. You simply "change the skin" for the blog to create a totally new look and feel.

The "skinning" feature, combined with the built in multi-user administration management tool, makes the system robust enough for more commercial endeavors, such as product promotion blogs. If you have much to publish with multiple themes, this is the software you are looking for.

Nucleus Blogging Software
Available for free download at: http://nucleuscms.org/

Though Nucleus is an extremely robust blogging tool in its own right, it also contains some powerful features that can provide benefits in promotion of your blog.

Nucleus offers the ability to optimize its URLS, creating simple page addresses that do not have and "&" or "=" characters. This makes the pages search engine (and user) friendly. Another great feature is the ability to show the contents of multiple weblogs on one page. This could allow a website owner to manipulate the optimum text / keyword balance on pages for better search engine rankings.

Nucleus also provides RSS and Atom feeds that can be extremely helpful when promoting a website. If part of your blog's function is to work as a search engine marketing and promotion tool, Nucleus is an exceptional software package.

Each of these blogging software packages offer the basic tools that you would need to create a successful blog and all three are PHP - MySQL open source (free to use) packages. You should try to select the software that helps you achieve the long term goal that you have in mind for your website based on the unique extra features offered by each.

About the Author :- Don Beavers lives in Bryan/College Station, Texas and is an enterprise level PHP-MySQL programmer at both the Shopping Elf Shopping Guide and the Datavor Web Directory.

Make Money Blogging

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

1. Blog needs to be dedicated to a niche market.

2. Updated regularly.

3. Enough back links (Don't worry for it. Directory submission would be enough to begin with)

4. Good blog host or application (blogger, Xanga or typepad recommended), and

5. High quality articles or news items supported with images.

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

Top 5 Ways to Make Money Blogging

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

1. Google Adsense

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

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

2. Amazon

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

3. Blogads

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

Alternative Services:

• Crispads is another useful network focused on the blogs. You can put your advertisements in their blogs using Crispads. You can move through their RSS/ATOM feeds that help in generating revenues.

• Tagword – It is similar to Blogads. It makes you select the ads and their price.

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

4. Affiliate Programs

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

5. Text Links

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

About the Author :- Matt Bacak, The Powerful Promoter and Entrepreneur Magazine e-Biz radio show host, became a "#1 Best Selling Author" in just a few short hours. He has helped a number of clients target his specialty, opt-in email direct marketing systems. The Powerful Promoter is not only a sought-after internet marketer but has also marketed for some of the world's top experts whose reputations would shrivel if their followers ever found out someone else coached them on their online marketing strategies.

Blog Affiliate Secrets

By simply placing the right affiliate links on their high traffic blog, many online entrepreneurs are making some very serious money.

Actually it is a lot simpler than you think because all a blog affiliate has to focus on to start generating a good income from their affiliate program is traffic. The more targeted that traffic arriving at their blog is, the more money they'll make from their affiliate programs. For instance targeted traffic will tend to click much more at the Adsense ads in search of more information and this will obviously put more money in the pockets of the blog affiliate.

The most effective way for a blog affiliate to generate targeted traffic is through articles marketing. By writing a couple of promotional articles, whose objective will be to direct traffic to the blog, a blog affiliate can end up with lots of highly targeted prospects at their blog. However it is important to note that articles marketing is a special skill that you will need to learn. The good news is that once you've acquired the relevant skills and knowledge, there will be no limit to the sort of income that you can earn from your blog.

It is also important that you realize that text affiliate links planted right in the middle of your content will work best to help you maximize on your blog affiliate income.

Make Money Online Idea That Has Changed So Many Lives

It would be difficult to find another online make money idea that has changed more lives than this particular one you are about to discover. And what is even more fascinating about this particular make money online idea is the fact that it is based on a very recent trend that has proved to be more than a passing fad.

We are of course talking about the phenomenal rise of blogs. Without blogs this make money online idea would not have been possible.

For years, since the days of the rise of Amazon.com folks have been making money from affiliate programs. Still it has always been a rather difficult thing to do mainly because setting up a web site, getting it hosted and keeping it running has always been a costly and time consuming thing to do for most.

Enter blogs, which are easy to set up and even easier to maintain and you have a make money online idea that has taken the World Wide Web by storm.

All one needs to do is set up a free blog and simply sprinkle it with the relevant affiliate links and you could swiftly find yourself earning thousands of dollars every month.

This is the make money online idea that is revolutionizing the web.

How to Get Your Blog Noticed Quickly and Widely

1. Submit your blog to all of the directories listed on http://pingomatic.com/. Pingomatic will ping 15 services all at once.

2. Ping your blog after every post at http://pingomatic.com/

3. Here's a real gem: Submit your blog to http://www.pingoat.com/ Pingoat will ping over fifty blog ping services all at once. So you don't have to hunt for ping services and manually ping them. Pingoat pings over fifty blog ping servers (growing) with just one click.

4. Ping your blog after every post at Pingoat at http://www.pingoat.com/

5. Sign up for a free account at BlogExplosion.com and register your blog there: http://www.blogexplosion.com/

6. Submit your blog to all of the directores listed at http://www.rss-feeds-directory.com/blog_lists.html

7. Sign up for a "My Yahoo" at http://my.yahoo.com/ and attach your blog to your own "My Yahoo" account. This will get your blog included in Yahoo very quickly. This is worth the effort to stop what you're doing right and do it, since Yahoo has a PR 9.

8. Use this code: "http://add.my.yahoo.com/content?url= http://www.yourblog.com/urblog.xml" in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own "My Yahoo" account.

9. Sign up for a "My MSN" at http://www.my.msn.com/, and attach your blog to your own "My MSN" account. This will get your blog included in MSN very quickly. This is also invaluable because MSN has a PR 8.

10. Use this code: "http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id= rss&ut=http://www.urblogfeedaddress.com/urblog.xml" in your blog to allow others to put your feed on their own "My MSN" account.

11. Place the link and description of your blog in your signature, so that any posts to Forums, Outgoing Emails, Autoresponder Courses, etc, will promote your blog.

12. Post a link and description of your blog on each of your sites.

13. Place your blog on all the major search engines. AddMe.com will submit your blog free to the top 14 Search engines here:
http://www.addme.com/submission.htm

SubmitExpress.com will submit your blog free to the top 20 Search engines here:
http://www.submitexpress.com/

14. Use Article Directories as a resource for articles to post on your blog. Here are a few:
http://ezinearticles.com/
http://goarticles.com/
http://www.knowledge-finder.com/
http://www.informit.com/articles/

15. Locate blogs with a lot of traffic and place useful comments in their comment box. Be sure the blog and your comments are relavent to both your blog and theirs. Senseless posts won't help you, they'll hurt you.

16. Once you get around 5 to 10 posts on your blog, start a PR campaign and announce it to all relevant channels.

17. Make a blog post as often as possible. More than once a day is not really necessary. Remember, if you can't write that much, go to step # 14.

About the Author :- Greg White, Internet Marketer, Author, Consultant and Project Manager has been running successful web projects since 2001. His sites and blogs cover Blog Marketing Tactics, Internet Marketing Tactics and a variety of 'Niche' topics, in addition to starting and marketing profitable web project.