How I Gained 3,500 Subscribers in 12 Months

How I Gained 3,500 Subscribers in 12 Months

This is a guest post by Henri Juntila. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

I started in December 2009 and by December 2010 I had 3,500 subscribers. And that includes a 6 month period where I lived in Spain and spent most of my time learning Spanish.

Today I have over 4,500 subscribers and growing fast. I use a very simple strategy to grow my blog. It’s very common, but I take massive action, and I get big results.

You see, building a successful blog with thousands of subscribers is not hard if you focus on the right strategies and take massive action.

In order for results to come, you have to have a clear mind, be motivated and know exactly how to turn visitors into subscribers.

And that is exactly what I will show you how to do in this article.

Step #1: Clarity

Before you start your blog, you have to have a clear goal of what you want to accomplish.

Do you want to make a part time living online?

Or do you just want to build a popular blog with thousands of subscribers?

One of the biggest reasons blogger’s fail is because they do not know where they are going. When you set a target, you can track your progress and make adjustments along the way.

For example, if you want to build a popular blog, the first target you might want to have is 1,000 subscribers.

Now, if you aren’t seeing steady growth in the amount of subscribers you have, you have to adjust your strategy, and the more you do this, the more likely you are to be successful.

Successful blogger’s are persistent and patient. They know that there are no quick-fixes or magic bullets. It takes hard work to build a blog, but once you gain momentum, you become unstoppable.

When I started my blog, I knew I wanted to write about personal development, but I also wanted to mix in business.

I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t as clear as I should have been when I started, which in turn led to losing motivation six months in.

Luckily, I kept writing until I became clear about what I wanted to achieve. Sometimes the only thing you can do is take action, even if you have no idea where you want to go.

Step #2: Sign-Up Bonus (i.e. Bribe)

One of the first things I did when I started my blog was to create a sign-up bonus that subscribers get when they sign-up to my e-mail list.

One of the best ways to turn new visitors into loyal subscribers is to make your sign-up bonus easy to digest, but valuable.

It can be a short report on the common mistakes people make in your particular niche, or it could be a few tips on how to become a raging success.

The main point is to make it something irresistible. The more you can do that, the more likely someone is to sign-up to your e-mail list.

You also should make a sign-up bonus relevant to your content. This is a no-brainer, but it is something I see new bloggers do over and over again. They completely fail in the area of relevancy.

If you have a blog about cooking, you should probably have a report on one aspect of cooking. I even made this mistake myself and changed my sign-up bonus back to my original one not too long ago.

Since changing back, my email sign-ups have again increased dramatically and all is well on the Cloud.

I grew my blog from 0 to 1,012 subscribers in 101 days and then to 3,500 subscribers in 365 days. And I did it with one strategy: guest posting.

You do not have to use any other strategy to grow your blog other than guest posting. Guest posting gives you links, connections, exposure, and traffic.

I made the decision early on to become excellent at guest posting. I wrote close to 50 guest posts during the first few months of my blog, and the payoff was sweet.

Guest posting was one of the main reasons that I was able to grow so fast. The only mistake I made was to let my fears take over and avoid guest posting on bigger blogs.

I mostly stuck to smaller blogs, because it was much easier. Even though I focused almost exclusively on small to middling blogs, I did very well, my blog grew fast, and you can do the same.

You don’t have to learn countless traffic generation strategies. You only have to learn guest posting. Get good at writing guest posts and you will never have to worry about anything again.

Step #4: Bold Action

When I started my blog, I was determined to succeed. I knew I was going to face obstacles, problems, and challenges on my way to building a popular blog, but I knew I was going to get through them.

I was prepared to fail and make mistakes, but I was not ready to give up.

When you start anything new, you have to be willing to pay the price for success. If you want to build a successful blog or a profitable online business, you will have to learn new things, make mistakes, get out of your comfort zone, and put in a lot of work.

That’s just the truth of how things work. Most people start blogs because they think it’s a quick way to make money.

The truth is that there are no quick ways to become a success, or make a lot of money. Sure, there are exceptions, but long-term success always comes from hard work.

One of the main reasons I’ve come this far and not quit, even though my motivation tanked at one point, is because I’m doing something I love, which brings me to the last step: passion.

Step #5: Passion

If you want to create a popular blog, make sure it’s something you love doing.

By going after your passion, you will be happy to blog even if you aren’t making money right away, and even if you don’t have thousands of subscribers tomorrow.

When you do something you love, you naturally attract people into your life that also like the topic you’re talking about.

On the other hand, if you’re just doing something to make money, it will destroy your soul and the likelihood that you will give up at the first sign of trouble is much, much higher.

Whatever you do, make sure you’re doing something you enjoy doing. You don’t have to know exactly how you’re going to build a successful blog, because when you’re fired up with passion, you will get there sooner or later if you do not give up.

Action Steps

With all that said, I want to leave you with a summary of what we’ve gone through in this article.

If you want to build a wildly successful blog, follow these action steps:

    Become clear about your goal. What do you really want

    Find a topic you’re interested and/or passionate about.

    Create a mouth-watering sign-up offer that gets people to subscribe.

    Get really, really good at guest posting and do it often.

    Take massive action, even if you’re scared or don’t know what to do.

That’s as simple as I can make it. We tend to over-complicate, but in reality, every success is built one step at a time, one day at a time.

If you want a popular blog, you can do it, but only if you’re determined to make it happen.

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

How I Gained 3,500 Subscribers in 12 Months

Posted by Unknown No comments

How I Gained 3,500 Subscribers in 12 Months

This is a guest post by Henri Juntila. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

I started in December 2009 and by December 2010 I had 3,500 subscribers. And that includes a 6 month period where I lived in Spain and spent most of my time learning Spanish.

Today I have over 4,500 subscribers and growing fast. I use a very simple strategy to grow my blog. It’s very common, but I take massive action, and I get big results.

You see, building a successful blog with thousands of subscribers is not hard if you focus on the right strategies and take massive action.

In order for results to come, you have to have a clear mind, be motivated and know exactly how to turn visitors into subscribers.

And that is exactly what I will show you how to do in this article.

Step #1: Clarity

Before you start your blog, you have to have a clear goal of what you want to accomplish.

Do you want to make a part time living online?

Or do you just want to build a popular blog with thousands of subscribers?

One of the biggest reasons blogger’s fail is because they do not know where they are going. When you set a target, you can track your progress and make adjustments along the way.

For example, if you want to build a popular blog, the first target you might want to have is 1,000 subscribers.

Now, if you aren’t seeing steady growth in the amount of subscribers you have, you have to adjust your strategy, and the more you do this, the more likely you are to be successful.

Successful blogger’s are persistent and patient. They know that there are no quick-fixes or magic bullets. It takes hard work to build a blog, but once you gain momentum, you become unstoppable.

When I started my blog, I knew I wanted to write about personal development, but I also wanted to mix in business.

I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t as clear as I should have been when I started, which in turn led to losing motivation six months in.

Luckily, I kept writing until I became clear about what I wanted to achieve. Sometimes the only thing you can do is take action, even if you have no idea where you want to go.

Step #2: Sign-Up Bonus (i.e. Bribe)

One of the first things I did when I started my blog was to create a sign-up bonus that subscribers get when they sign-up to my e-mail list.

One of the best ways to turn new visitors into loyal subscribers is to make your sign-up bonus easy to digest, but valuable.

It can be a short report on the common mistakes people make in your particular niche, or it could be a few tips on how to become a raging success.

The main point is to make it something irresistible. The more you can do that, the more likely someone is to sign-up to your e-mail list.

You also should make a sign-up bonus relevant to your content. This is a no-brainer, but it is something I see new bloggers do over and over again. They completely fail in the area of relevancy.

If you have a blog about cooking, you should probably have a report on one aspect of cooking. I even made this mistake myself and changed my sign-up bonus back to my original one not too long ago.

Since changing back, my email sign-ups have again increased dramatically and all is well on the Cloud.

I grew my blog from 0 to 1,012 subscribers in 101 days and then to 3,500 subscribers in 365 days. And I did it with one strategy: guest posting.

You do not have to use any other strategy to grow your blog other than guest posting. Guest posting gives you links, connections, exposure, and traffic.

I made the decision early on to become excellent at guest posting. I wrote close to 50 guest posts during the first few months of my blog, and the payoff was sweet.

Guest posting was one of the main reasons that I was able to grow so fast. The only mistake I made was to let my fears take over and avoid guest posting on bigger blogs.

I mostly stuck to smaller blogs, because it was much easier. Even though I focused almost exclusively on small to middling blogs, I did very well, my blog grew fast, and you can do the same.

You don’t have to learn countless traffic generation strategies. You only have to learn guest posting. Get good at writing guest posts and you will never have to worry about anything again.

Step #4: Bold Action

When I started my blog, I was determined to succeed. I knew I was going to face obstacles, problems, and challenges on my way to building a popular blog, but I knew I was going to get through them.

I was prepared to fail and make mistakes, but I was not ready to give up.

When you start anything new, you have to be willing to pay the price for success. If you want to build a successful blog or a profitable online business, you will have to learn new things, make mistakes, get out of your comfort zone, and put in a lot of work.

That’s just the truth of how things work. Most people start blogs because they think it’s a quick way to make money.

The truth is that there are no quick ways to become a success, or make a lot of money. Sure, there are exceptions, but long-term success always comes from hard work.

One of the main reasons I’ve come this far and not quit, even though my motivation tanked at one point, is because I’m doing something I love, which brings me to the last step: passion.

Step #5: Passion

If you want to create a popular blog, make sure it’s something you love doing.

By going after your passion, you will be happy to blog even if you aren’t making money right away, and even if you don’t have thousands of subscribers tomorrow.

When you do something you love, you naturally attract people into your life that also like the topic you’re talking about.

On the other hand, if you’re just doing something to make money, it will destroy your soul and the likelihood that you will give up at the first sign of trouble is much, much higher.

Whatever you do, make sure you’re doing something you enjoy doing. You don’t have to know exactly how you’re going to build a successful blog, because when you’re fired up with passion, you will get there sooner or later if you do not give up.

Action Steps

With all that said, I want to leave you with a summary of what we’ve gone through in this article.

If you want to build a wildly successful blog, follow these action steps:

    Become clear about your goal. What do you really want

    Find a topic you’re interested and/or passionate about.

    Create a mouth-watering sign-up offer that gets people to subscribe.

    Get really, really good at guest posting and do it often.

    Take massive action, even if you’re scared or don’t know what to do.

That’s as simple as I can make it. We tend to over-complicate, but in reality, every success is built one step at a time, one day at a time.

If you want a popular blog, you can do it, but only if you’re determined to make it happen.

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

What Is Success....?

What Is Success....?

This past weekend I was browsing through my RSS reader, and I came across an interesting post titled What is success? Impact.

The author is basically questioning what should be considered success (on a professional level), and he comes to the conclusion that success should be measured as the positive impact his work will have upon the lives of other people.

The article caught my attention because I have the exact same opinion.

Obviously I don’t think there is right or wrong as to how we define success. The term itself is a subjective thing, so what success means to you might be different from what it means to me or other people, and this is perfectly fine.

That being said, I think it is useful to discuss about such definitions, because it helps us to analyze whether or not we are moving in the right direction.

For example, most people tend to equate success with money. That is, the more money you make, the more successful you are. But under this definition one could argue that a drug dealer who makes millions of dollars annually is a very successful person. I don’t agree with this. I could give you that such drug dealer is a savvy businessman, but I wouldn’t call him successful, because the impact he has on the life of other people is actually a very negative one. The same thing could be said about online spammers, scammers and so on.

Now take Linus Torvalds as another example. He is the founder of the Linux movement, which created one of the most successful open source projects to date, and enabled millions of people to use a free and very reliable operating system. I am not sure how rich he is, but even if he was broke I would call him a successful person, because he had a huge impact on the lives of people from around the world.

Note that these things are not mutually exclusive either. In other words, it is possible to make a lot of money and have a positive impact in the lives of many people at the same time (and often times they go together). Just think about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Sergei Brin.

But, I suspect that these folks were first and foremost motivated by the possibility of making something big that would impact many people. As Steve Jobs say, by the possibility of putting a dent in the universe. Sure, they were no philanthropists, so the money was welcome too, but I don’t think it was the only nor the main thing they were pursuing.

Which leads us to one question: are you working to make as much money as possible, or to make as big an impact as possible?

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

What Is Success....?

Posted by Unknown No comments

What Is Success....?

This past weekend I was browsing through my RSS reader, and I came across an interesting post titled What is success? Impact.

The author is basically questioning what should be considered success (on a professional level), and he comes to the conclusion that success should be measured as the positive impact his work will have upon the lives of other people.

The article caught my attention because I have the exact same opinion.

Obviously I don’t think there is right or wrong as to how we define success. The term itself is a subjective thing, so what success means to you might be different from what it means to me or other people, and this is perfectly fine.

That being said, I think it is useful to discuss about such definitions, because it helps us to analyze whether or not we are moving in the right direction.

For example, most people tend to equate success with money. That is, the more money you make, the more successful you are. But under this definition one could argue that a drug dealer who makes millions of dollars annually is a very successful person. I don’t agree with this. I could give you that such drug dealer is a savvy businessman, but I wouldn’t call him successful, because the impact he has on the life of other people is actually a very negative one. The same thing could be said about online spammers, scammers and so on.

Now take Linus Torvalds as another example. He is the founder of the Linux movement, which created one of the most successful open source projects to date, and enabled millions of people to use a free and very reliable operating system. I am not sure how rich he is, but even if he was broke I would call him a successful person, because he had a huge impact on the lives of people from around the world.

Note that these things are not mutually exclusive either. In other words, it is possible to make a lot of money and have a positive impact in the lives of many people at the same time (and often times they go together). Just think about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Sergei Brin.

But, I suspect that these folks were first and foremost motivated by the possibility of making something big that would impact many people. As Steve Jobs say, by the possibility of putting a dent in the universe. Sure, they were no philanthropists, so the money was welcome too, but I don’t think it was the only nor the main thing they were pursuing.

Which leads us to one question: are you working to make as much money as possible, or to make as big an impact as possible?

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

Basic SEO Settings For Wordpress Which We Forget

Basic SEO Settings For Wordpress Which We Forget

Actually there are a lots of things which we you might be doing for Search Engine Optimisation, but we most of the times forget that there are few basics which can produce very good results for you. Few of my Secrets I am Sharing with you.

    All In One SEO Pack :-  install all in one seo pack plugin in ur wordpress and after writing a post, always fill in the meta title, keywords, description, etc etc fields, Slugs are automatically prepared by this plugin, just develop habit of spending 3 minutes more before publishing a post to write the kewords, description, etc, this plugin will help you with columns to write the above fields.

    PERMALINK SETTINGS :-  this is what we always never care of  whenever you see any post of mine, you will see that the url posted on the address bar is comprised of the title of the post separated with “-” (hyphen signs), these links are known as permalinks.  This wil help you a lot in automated SEO and increasing rankings in Google and major search engines, cos its the URL which is the first key to SEO, well i belive in it personally, dont know what othere say or think.

How to Change Permalinks in wordpress?

     3. Google Analytics Plugin :-  installing a google analytics plugin helps not you but the Search Engines to trace ur website and index it inside them. this tool will also help you in getting the reports of the traffic coming inside.

     4. Google Sitemap Plugin :-  According to all major SEO’s I have heard always that Sitemap is the first guideline of google, so having a sitemap in your website will help the major search engines again, if you have read my earlier posts i had written the post about websites navigation or website’s architecture..

   if you havent read it yet go here: http://diwakardhyani.in/website-architecture-and-on-page-optimisation/

    5. Installing a Social Media Sharing Plugin :-  If you remember or have read the previous posts i had mentioned to use Social Media this is the best off page optimisation and has a weightage of +3. like you can see mine too.. there is a plugin with the help of which the article can be liked or shared.

     6. Privacy Settings :- Site Visibility: Select “Allow it for search Engines”

what else…. Buddy…     Dare to Dream… and please let me know that you are loving my articles.. hehe

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

Basic SEO Settings For Wordpress Which We Forget

Posted by Unknown No comments

Basic SEO Settings For Wordpress Which We Forget

Actually there are a lots of things which we you might be doing for Search Engine Optimisation, but we most of the times forget that there are few basics which can produce very good results for you. Few of my Secrets I am Sharing with you.

    All In One SEO Pack :-  install all in one seo pack plugin in ur wordpress and after writing a post, always fill in the meta title, keywords, description, etc etc fields, Slugs are automatically prepared by this plugin, just develop habit of spending 3 minutes more before publishing a post to write the kewords, description, etc, this plugin will help you with columns to write the above fields.

    PERMALINK SETTINGS :-  this is what we always never care of  whenever you see any post of mine, you will see that the url posted on the address bar is comprised of the title of the post separated with “-” (hyphen signs), these links are known as permalinks.  This wil help you a lot in automated SEO and increasing rankings in Google and major search engines, cos its the URL which is the first key to SEO, well i belive in it personally, dont know what othere say or think.

How to Change Permalinks in wordpress?

     3. Google Analytics Plugin :-  installing a google analytics plugin helps not you but the Search Engines to trace ur website and index it inside them. this tool will also help you in getting the reports of the traffic coming inside.

     4. Google Sitemap Plugin :-  According to all major SEO’s I have heard always that Sitemap is the first guideline of google, so having a sitemap in your website will help the major search engines again, if you have read my earlier posts i had written the post about websites navigation or website’s architecture..

   if you havent read it yet go here: http://diwakardhyani.in/website-architecture-and-on-page-optimisation/

    5. Installing a Social Media Sharing Plugin :-  If you remember or have read the previous posts i had mentioned to use Social Media this is the best off page optimisation and has a weightage of +3. like you can see mine too.. there is a plugin with the help of which the article can be liked or shared.

     6. Privacy Settings :- Site Visibility: Select “Allow it for search Engines”

what else…. Buddy…     Dare to Dream… and please let me know that you are loving my articles.. hehe

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

7 Ways to Promote Your Site With A Bit of Money

7 Ways to Promote Your Site With A Bit of Money

Some time ago I wrote an article titled “Are you marketing your blog?” where I argued that there is a myth around the Internet that bloggers and webmasters should not spend money on advertising. The myth comes in great extent from the success stories of people that managed to create popular websites without spending a dime on advertising or other paid promotion techniques.

The reality is that most of those successful websites were pioneers on their niche, hence why they became popular without spending money on advertising. Now a days the market is crowded and you have thousands of websites and blogs even for small segments. As a consequence paid promotional techniques are becoming an important factor of any successful marketing strategy.

Below you will find 7 ways to promote your website or blog with a bit of money. You can use them to generate raw traffic, improve your search engine rankings, gain visibility on your niche and so on. Despite the initial investment most of those techniques will pay off on the short to medium term. If you are expecting to make money with your website there is no reason to assume that you will not need to spend some as well, right?

1. AdWords: Google make billions of dollars every year from the AdWords-AdSense combo. Why is that? Because they work. Adwords is probably the most efficient method to generated raw traffic for your website. In order to get started you should create an account, add lots (by lots I mean hundreds if not thousands) of keywords that are related your site and set the maximum Pay-per-Click rate at $0.01. After that raise the rate by $0.01 every week or so until you start getting the desired amount of daily clicks. Notice that at lower bids the keywords will be reported as “Inactive for Search”. Do not worry about it, it just means that your ads will not appear on the search network (Google’s search results), but they will appear on the content network (websites of people that use AdSense).

2. Site-Specific AdWords: if you pay attention to the AdSense units you will see that most of them have a link titled “Advertise on this site”. This feature enables AdWords advertisers to create customized ads that will be displayed only on specific websites. Those ads work on a CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) rather than a CPC (cost per click) basis, but they can generate a good amount of very targeted traffic since you will be in control of where the ad will be displayed and of the message. You can get even better results if you use some creativity when designing the ads, click here for some examples.

3. StumbleUpon Ads: StumbleUpon is a very innovative social bookmarking site that allows users to discover great websites by using a browser toolbar. When the user clicks on “Stumble” he will be delivered a website that people with similar interested rated positively. The user is also able to give positive and negative ratings to any website that he visits on the Internet. StumbleUpon also offers advertising campaigns, called StumbleUpon Ads, where you can deliver your website directly to those “Stumblers”. It costs $0.05 per page delivered, but since the websites that appear on StumbleUpon usually have a high quality it is very likely that part of that paid traffic will convert into regular readers.

4. Text Link Ads: if you are trying to increase your search engine rankings to leverage organic traffic you should consider buying some text link ads. While those text links can also generate direct traffic the biggest benefit you will have is an improvement on your search rankings, specially if the links are placed on authoritative and relevant websites. There are several places to buy text links, including specialized companies like Text-Link-Ads and Text Link Brokers or online forums like Digital Point‘s market place.

5. Direct Banner Sales: most established websites sell banner ads or sponsorship plans directly. Those advertising deals usually are structured with weekly or monthly fees, regardless of the number of impressions or clicks that you will get. Despite this characteristic a banner placement can represent good value for money because apart from the direct traffic you will also create visibility and brand awareness. Readers of the website where you will display your banner will associate the message on the banner with your site or blog. Should they come across that banner or message two or three times it is very likely that they will get curious and decide to check what the buzz is all about. Another advantage of banner placements is the fact that people will unconsciously think that the author of the website endorses your content or product.

6. Sponsored Reviews: buying some sponsored reviews is a good way to kick-start a website. They will bring backlinks, traffic and RSS subscribers. There are many market studies confirming that “word of mouth” is the most efficient way to capture people’s attention, and that is just what you get with sponsored reviews. You can either pay a low price (sometimes as low as $5 per review) to get a large number of reviews from small sites or you can focus on large players (which can charge several hundreds of dollars for a single review) that are authorities on your niche. The best way to purchase sponsored reviews is through sites like SponsoredReviews.com, ReviewMe or PayPerPost.com.

7. Blog Networks: there are several blog networks founded around a traffic exchange principle. Basically you create an account for you blog and you earn credits by surfing other members’ blogs. Afterwards you can use those credits to make people visit your blog or to display your banners around the network. The interesting part is that most of those blog networks allow users to purchase credits with money, and the price is really convenient. You should be able receive hundreds of visitors or to get thousands of banner impressions for less than 10 dollars. Some blog networks that sell credits include Blog Explosion, Blog Soldiers and Blog Advance.

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

7 Ways to Promote Your Site With A Bit of Money

Posted by Unknown No comments

7 Ways to Promote Your Site With A Bit of Money

Some time ago I wrote an article titled “Are you marketing your blog?” where I argued that there is a myth around the Internet that bloggers and webmasters should not spend money on advertising. The myth comes in great extent from the success stories of people that managed to create popular websites without spending a dime on advertising or other paid promotion techniques.

The reality is that most of those successful websites were pioneers on their niche, hence why they became popular without spending money on advertising. Now a days the market is crowded and you have thousands of websites and blogs even for small segments. As a consequence paid promotional techniques are becoming an important factor of any successful marketing strategy.

Below you will find 7 ways to promote your website or blog with a bit of money. You can use them to generate raw traffic, improve your search engine rankings, gain visibility on your niche and so on. Despite the initial investment most of those techniques will pay off on the short to medium term. If you are expecting to make money with your website there is no reason to assume that you will not need to spend some as well, right?

1. AdWords: Google make billions of dollars every year from the AdWords-AdSense combo. Why is that? Because they work. Adwords is probably the most efficient method to generated raw traffic for your website. In order to get started you should create an account, add lots (by lots I mean hundreds if not thousands) of keywords that are related your site and set the maximum Pay-per-Click rate at $0.01. After that raise the rate by $0.01 every week or so until you start getting the desired amount of daily clicks. Notice that at lower bids the keywords will be reported as “Inactive for Search”. Do not worry about it, it just means that your ads will not appear on the search network (Google’s search results), but they will appear on the content network (websites of people that use AdSense).

2. Site-Specific AdWords: if you pay attention to the AdSense units you will see that most of them have a link titled “Advertise on this site”. This feature enables AdWords advertisers to create customized ads that will be displayed only on specific websites. Those ads work on a CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) rather than a CPC (cost per click) basis, but they can generate a good amount of very targeted traffic since you will be in control of where the ad will be displayed and of the message. You can get even better results if you use some creativity when designing the ads, click here for some examples.

3. StumbleUpon Ads: StumbleUpon is a very innovative social bookmarking site that allows users to discover great websites by using a browser toolbar. When the user clicks on “Stumble” he will be delivered a website that people with similar interested rated positively. The user is also able to give positive and negative ratings to any website that he visits on the Internet. StumbleUpon also offers advertising campaigns, called StumbleUpon Ads, where you can deliver your website directly to those “Stumblers”. It costs $0.05 per page delivered, but since the websites that appear on StumbleUpon usually have a high quality it is very likely that part of that paid traffic will convert into regular readers.

4. Text Link Ads: if you are trying to increase your search engine rankings to leverage organic traffic you should consider buying some text link ads. While those text links can also generate direct traffic the biggest benefit you will have is an improvement on your search rankings, specially if the links are placed on authoritative and relevant websites. There are several places to buy text links, including specialized companies like Text-Link-Ads and Text Link Brokers or online forums like Digital Point‘s market place.

5. Direct Banner Sales: most established websites sell banner ads or sponsorship plans directly. Those advertising deals usually are structured with weekly or monthly fees, regardless of the number of impressions or clicks that you will get. Despite this characteristic a banner placement can represent good value for money because apart from the direct traffic you will also create visibility and brand awareness. Readers of the website where you will display your banner will associate the message on the banner with your site or blog. Should they come across that banner or message two or three times it is very likely that they will get curious and decide to check what the buzz is all about. Another advantage of banner placements is the fact that people will unconsciously think that the author of the website endorses your content or product.

6. Sponsored Reviews: buying some sponsored reviews is a good way to kick-start a website. They will bring backlinks, traffic and RSS subscribers. There are many market studies confirming that “word of mouth” is the most efficient way to capture people’s attention, and that is just what you get with sponsored reviews. You can either pay a low price (sometimes as low as $5 per review) to get a large number of reviews from small sites or you can focus on large players (which can charge several hundreds of dollars for a single review) that are authorities on your niche. The best way to purchase sponsored reviews is through sites like SponsoredReviews.com, ReviewMe or PayPerPost.com.

7. Blog Networks: there are several blog networks founded around a traffic exchange principle. Basically you create an account for you blog and you earn credits by surfing other members’ blogs. Afterwards you can use those credits to make people visit your blog or to display your banners around the network. The interesting part is that most of those blog networks allow users to purchase credits with money, and the price is really convenient. You should be able receive hundreds of visitors or to get thousands of banner impressions for less than 10 dollars. Some blog networks that sell credits include Blog Explosion, Blog Soldiers and Blog Advance.

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

How to Find Advertisers for Your Website : The Ultimate Guide

How to Find Advertisers for Your Website: The Ultimate Guide

Direct advertising sales is arguably the best method to monetize a website. Finding advertisers for your site and actually closing the deals, however, is not as straight forward. Over the past 6 months I had more than 10 high profile companies sponsoring Daily Blog Tips, and through out this article I will share what I have learned along the way.

The Pros

    More money: The first advantage of selling your own ads is the fact that you will cut the middlemen out, increasing your revenue potential. Suppose you sell text link ads on your sidebar through a certain company, and the text links sell for $50 monthly. Since you are using the company network to sell the ads, they will eat 50% of the price, and you will end up earning only $25 monthly for each text link. If someone is willing to pay $50 for a text link on your site, though, it means that they are getting $50 of value out of it. Why, then, should you share that with someone else?

    Independence: Sure, large advertising networks have access to a wider pool of advertisers, and they have more credibility to close the deals. But if you have all the requirements in place (see the section below) and spend some time looking at the right places, I am sure that you will be able to sell your own ads just as efficiently as the larger networks.

    Flexibility: The third advantage of selling direct advertising is that you will have much more control over where and how the ads will be displayed (i.e., you can avoid intrusive advertising). Google Adsense is nice, but unless you blend it with the content – annoying some of the readers – you will get terribly low click-through rates.

    Credibility: Finally, having sponsors and direct advertisers on your blog might help your credibility. Even small and poorly crafted blogs can stick some Adsense units here and there. Having established companies that are willing to partnership with your site, on other hand, can signal that your content has quality and that the site is somewhat professional.

The Cons

    Time consuming: While selling your own ads has many advantages, it is no panacea. The first drawback of this monetization option is the time that it will consume. This time will be spent optimizing your website for the ads, finding potential advertisers, negotiating with them, and handling the administrative matters (e.g., making payments, tracking statistics, delivering reports and so on).

    Many requirements: Selling direct adverting is not as easy as making money from Google Adsense. As you can see from the section below, you will need to have a popular blog, a professional looking design, special software and the like.

    Unstable: Unless you close deals for very long periods, which is unlikely, you will find your self looking for new advertisers or optimizing your website to attract new ones every other month. The opposite is true for most advertising networks, where you just need to plug some code and they will do the rest of the work. (If your site or blog is just a hobby, therefore, direct advertising might not be the best option)

What You Need to Have in Place

    A popular website: Before landing direct advertising deals you will need to have a good amount of traffic on your site. There is no “magical” number here, but a good rule of thumb would be 1000 daily unique visitors. If you are below that mark you should focus on building traffic instead of looking for advertisers. Other factors like Google Pagerank, RSS subscribers and Alexa rank might also help. (Notice that small websites might also be able to sell direct advertising, but usually the time spent on that will not justify the results)

    A clear focus: You might have the most popular site on the Internet (well, not as extreme as that, but you get the point), but unless your site also has a very clear niche and a defined audience, advertisers will not find it very attractive. This means that you should avoid rambling about 100 different topics on the website. Advertisers want to deliver a message to specific people, and the more specific the better.

    A professional looking design: If you are planning to monetize your website through sponsors, you probably should invest some money into a professional looking design. Advertisers will be associating their product or service with your website, and not too many of them would be willing to get mixed with an ugly, MySpace looking site.

    Give visibility to the sponsors: This point is connected to the previous one. Not all templates and themes will be suitable for selling direct advertising. Preferably you want to have an idea of what kind of advertising you will sell (e.g., 468×60 banners, 125×125 banners, text links) and design your website according to those objectives. Advertisers want visibility, so reserve a good spot for them.

    Adserver software: In order to serve your ads, rotate banners and track statistics you will need to install an Adserver. If you are looking for a simple solution you should try WP-Ads. This WordPress plugin will serve ads for specific ad zones that you create. The only drawback is that it does not count clicks (only impressions). If you need a more sophisticated solution check OpenAds. You will need to spend some time learning how to use it, but it offers virtually all the features you will ever need.

    “Advertise Here” page: It is very important to have an “Advertise Here” page. On this page you want to give some details about the website, like audience, traffic and any other factor that might be of the interest of potential advertisers. Secondly, make sure that you have some link to that page on the navigation bar and if possible close to the zone where the ads will be displayed. You can see a perfect example of such layout on Copyblogger.com.

    Standard letter to approach advertisers: While some advertisers will contact you after reading your “Advertise Here” page, the rest of them will need to be directly approached by you. In that case, it is a good idea to create a standard letter to contact the advertisers. There is no “one size fits all” solution here, but you can follow some general guidelines:

    1. Introduce yourself and quickly explain what the email is about

    2. Explain why you decided to contact them and what they have to gain

    3. Give details about your site (traffic, subscribers, topic, audience)

   4. Give details about the advertising options (location on the site, max number of advertisers, monthly price)

    That is it, after that information the advertisers should be able to decide if they are interested or not. If they reply, then you will fix the details. Bear in mind that all the info I mentioned should be contained in 2 or 3 paragraphs. If you send an essay to potential advertisers they will just skip it altogether.

    Accepting payments: You might have everything in place, but if you are not able to cash payments – or more importantly, if advertisers are not able to pay easily – you will end up losing deals. PayPal is the best option here. Notice, however, that a personal account will not suffice. You will need at least a premier account to be able to accept credit cards.

Where to Find the Advertisers

Once you have your direct advertising program established, you will start to receive inquiries from people. On the beginning, however, you will need to hunt advertisers down. Do not get discouraged if get turned down initially, provided you have all the aforementioned requirements, sooner or later you will find someone willing to take a shot on your site.

    People linking to your site or articles: If a company is willing to link to your articles or to add your website under its “Links” or “Resources” section, it is also probably willing to discuss about advertising on your site. Keep track of those incoming links.

    People leaving comments/e-mails: The same principle applies to people leaving comments on your blog or sending you e-mails. If among them you see an employee or the owner of a company that could be interested on your website, bingo! Contact him or her and get the conversation going.

    AdWords advertisers: Through out your search for advertisers you will notice that most of the established companies are not aware of the benefits of online advertising. If a certain company is already spending money on Google AdWords, however, it is very likely that it would also be open to other forms of online advertising. Think about some keywords that are related to your topic and Google them. Check the sponsored links that will appear and contact them. (You can also check the advertisers that appear on the Adsense units of related websites)

    Other advertising networks: While Google AdWords is by far the largest advertising network on the Internet, there are many others that could be useful. Check the companies that are spending money on AdBrite, Text-Link-Ads, BlogAds, SponsoredReviews and so on.

    Banner advertisers on similar sites: Check out popular websites on your niche and see what companies are advertising there. Provided you offer them an interesting deal (i.e., a reasonable price for your size), I am pretty sure they will be interested.

    Create a “Potential Sponsors” bookmark folder: This technique produced outstanding results for me. I have a bookmark folder on my browser called “Potential Sponsors.” Every time I come across a company or website that could be interested in sponsoring my website, I bookmark it. Currently I have over 100 bookmarked sites on that folder, and I have not approached half of them yet.

How Much to Charge

    You need to provide value: It is all about value. A potential sponsor or advertiser will want to see some returns for the money he will be spending on your site, and this can be seen as visibility (impressions) and leads (clicks and possible sales). Make sure, therefore, that your advertising deals will deliver.

    The numbers: Remember that there are some pretty cheap advertising options out there (e.g., Google AdWords), and you will need to be competitive. Provided you reserved a good spot for the sponsors (sidebar or header, preferably) you could start charging a $0,5 CPM (cost per 1000 impressions). If your blog is generating 100,000 monthly page views, therefore, a banner spot on your sidebar should cost around $50. Start low and build your way upwards. Popular blogs (e.g., TechCrunch) have a higher CPM, sometimes as high as $10, but you will need a huge credibility to arrive there.

    Cross-check: You can easily check if you are charging a suitable rate by using Adsense units on the places where you will sell direct advertising. Analyze how much you would gain with Adsense, and adjust your rates accordingly. Secondly, you can also check similar sites that are already selling direct ads.

    Be flexible regarding the terms: Flexibility is key. First of all make advertising agreements on a month-to-month basis. People don’t like to commit to something they are not completely sure about. If someone proposes you a longer deal, offer a discount in exchange.

    Offer test periods: Unless you have a very popular website, you will find potential advertisers reluctant to spend real money. If you are confident that the deal will create value for both parties, however, you can use that on your favor. Offer a free test period whenever needed. Some of the times the advertiser will turn you down after it, but other times they will confirm the deal. Either way you have nothing to lose.

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

How to Find Advertisers for Your Website : The Ultimate Guide

Posted by Unknown No comments

How to Find Advertisers for Your Website: The Ultimate Guide

Direct advertising sales is arguably the best method to monetize a website. Finding advertisers for your site and actually closing the deals, however, is not as straight forward. Over the past 6 months I had more than 10 high profile companies sponsoring Daily Blog Tips, and through out this article I will share what I have learned along the way.

The Pros

    More money: The first advantage of selling your own ads is the fact that you will cut the middlemen out, increasing your revenue potential. Suppose you sell text link ads on your sidebar through a certain company, and the text links sell for $50 monthly. Since you are using the company network to sell the ads, they will eat 50% of the price, and you will end up earning only $25 monthly for each text link. If someone is willing to pay $50 for a text link on your site, though, it means that they are getting $50 of value out of it. Why, then, should you share that with someone else?

    Independence: Sure, large advertising networks have access to a wider pool of advertisers, and they have more credibility to close the deals. But if you have all the requirements in place (see the section below) and spend some time looking at the right places, I am sure that you will be able to sell your own ads just as efficiently as the larger networks.

    Flexibility: The third advantage of selling direct advertising is that you will have much more control over where and how the ads will be displayed (i.e., you can avoid intrusive advertising). Google Adsense is nice, but unless you blend it with the content – annoying some of the readers – you will get terribly low click-through rates.

    Credibility: Finally, having sponsors and direct advertisers on your blog might help your credibility. Even small and poorly crafted blogs can stick some Adsense units here and there. Having established companies that are willing to partnership with your site, on other hand, can signal that your content has quality and that the site is somewhat professional.

The Cons

    Time consuming: While selling your own ads has many advantages, it is no panacea. The first drawback of this monetization option is the time that it will consume. This time will be spent optimizing your website for the ads, finding potential advertisers, negotiating with them, and handling the administrative matters (e.g., making payments, tracking statistics, delivering reports and so on).

    Many requirements: Selling direct adverting is not as easy as making money from Google Adsense. As you can see from the section below, you will need to have a popular blog, a professional looking design, special software and the like.

    Unstable: Unless you close deals for very long periods, which is unlikely, you will find your self looking for new advertisers or optimizing your website to attract new ones every other month. The opposite is true for most advertising networks, where you just need to plug some code and they will do the rest of the work. (If your site or blog is just a hobby, therefore, direct advertising might not be the best option)

What You Need to Have in Place

    A popular website: Before landing direct advertising deals you will need to have a good amount of traffic on your site. There is no “magical” number here, but a good rule of thumb would be 1000 daily unique visitors. If you are below that mark you should focus on building traffic instead of looking for advertisers. Other factors like Google Pagerank, RSS subscribers and Alexa rank might also help. (Notice that small websites might also be able to sell direct advertising, but usually the time spent on that will not justify the results)

    A clear focus: You might have the most popular site on the Internet (well, not as extreme as that, but you get the point), but unless your site also has a very clear niche and a defined audience, advertisers will not find it very attractive. This means that you should avoid rambling about 100 different topics on the website. Advertisers want to deliver a message to specific people, and the more specific the better.

    A professional looking design: If you are planning to monetize your website through sponsors, you probably should invest some money into a professional looking design. Advertisers will be associating their product or service with your website, and not too many of them would be willing to get mixed with an ugly, MySpace looking site.

    Give visibility to the sponsors: This point is connected to the previous one. Not all templates and themes will be suitable for selling direct advertising. Preferably you want to have an idea of what kind of advertising you will sell (e.g., 468×60 banners, 125×125 banners, text links) and design your website according to those objectives. Advertisers want visibility, so reserve a good spot for them.

    Adserver software: In order to serve your ads, rotate banners and track statistics you will need to install an Adserver. If you are looking for a simple solution you should try WP-Ads. This WordPress plugin will serve ads for specific ad zones that you create. The only drawback is that it does not count clicks (only impressions). If you need a more sophisticated solution check OpenAds. You will need to spend some time learning how to use it, but it offers virtually all the features you will ever need.

    “Advertise Here” page: It is very important to have an “Advertise Here” page. On this page you want to give some details about the website, like audience, traffic and any other factor that might be of the interest of potential advertisers. Secondly, make sure that you have some link to that page on the navigation bar and if possible close to the zone where the ads will be displayed. You can see a perfect example of such layout on Copyblogger.com.

    Standard letter to approach advertisers: While some advertisers will contact you after reading your “Advertise Here” page, the rest of them will need to be directly approached by you. In that case, it is a good idea to create a standard letter to contact the advertisers. There is no “one size fits all” solution here, but you can follow some general guidelines:

    1. Introduce yourself and quickly explain what the email is about

    2. Explain why you decided to contact them and what they have to gain

    3. Give details about your site (traffic, subscribers, topic, audience)

   4. Give details about the advertising options (location on the site, max number of advertisers, monthly price)

    That is it, after that information the advertisers should be able to decide if they are interested or not. If they reply, then you will fix the details. Bear in mind that all the info I mentioned should be contained in 2 or 3 paragraphs. If you send an essay to potential advertisers they will just skip it altogether.

    Accepting payments: You might have everything in place, but if you are not able to cash payments – or more importantly, if advertisers are not able to pay easily – you will end up losing deals. PayPal is the best option here. Notice, however, that a personal account will not suffice. You will need at least a premier account to be able to accept credit cards.

Where to Find the Advertisers

Once you have your direct advertising program established, you will start to receive inquiries from people. On the beginning, however, you will need to hunt advertisers down. Do not get discouraged if get turned down initially, provided you have all the aforementioned requirements, sooner or later you will find someone willing to take a shot on your site.

    People linking to your site or articles: If a company is willing to link to your articles or to add your website under its “Links” or “Resources” section, it is also probably willing to discuss about advertising on your site. Keep track of those incoming links.

    People leaving comments/e-mails: The same principle applies to people leaving comments on your blog or sending you e-mails. If among them you see an employee or the owner of a company that could be interested on your website, bingo! Contact him or her and get the conversation going.

    AdWords advertisers: Through out your search for advertisers you will notice that most of the established companies are not aware of the benefits of online advertising. If a certain company is already spending money on Google AdWords, however, it is very likely that it would also be open to other forms of online advertising. Think about some keywords that are related to your topic and Google them. Check the sponsored links that will appear and contact them. (You can also check the advertisers that appear on the Adsense units of related websites)

    Other advertising networks: While Google AdWords is by far the largest advertising network on the Internet, there are many others that could be useful. Check the companies that are spending money on AdBrite, Text-Link-Ads, BlogAds, SponsoredReviews and so on.

    Banner advertisers on similar sites: Check out popular websites on your niche and see what companies are advertising there. Provided you offer them an interesting deal (i.e., a reasonable price for your size), I am pretty sure they will be interested.

    Create a “Potential Sponsors” bookmark folder: This technique produced outstanding results for me. I have a bookmark folder on my browser called “Potential Sponsors.” Every time I come across a company or website that could be interested in sponsoring my website, I bookmark it. Currently I have over 100 bookmarked sites on that folder, and I have not approached half of them yet.

How Much to Charge

    You need to provide value: It is all about value. A potential sponsor or advertiser will want to see some returns for the money he will be spending on your site, and this can be seen as visibility (impressions) and leads (clicks and possible sales). Make sure, therefore, that your advertising deals will deliver.

    The numbers: Remember that there are some pretty cheap advertising options out there (e.g., Google AdWords), and you will need to be competitive. Provided you reserved a good spot for the sponsors (sidebar or header, preferably) you could start charging a $0,5 CPM (cost per 1000 impressions). If your blog is generating 100,000 monthly page views, therefore, a banner spot on your sidebar should cost around $50. Start low and build your way upwards. Popular blogs (e.g., TechCrunch) have a higher CPM, sometimes as high as $10, but you will need a huge credibility to arrive there.

    Cross-check: You can easily check if you are charging a suitable rate by using Adsense units on the places where you will sell direct advertising. Analyze how much you would gain with Adsense, and adjust your rates accordingly. Secondly, you can also check similar sites that are already selling direct ads.

    Be flexible regarding the terms: Flexibility is key. First of all make advertising agreements on a month-to-month basis. People don’t like to commit to something they are not completely sure about. If someone proposes you a longer deal, offer a discount in exchange.

    Offer test periods: Unless you have a very popular website, you will find potential advertisers reluctant to spend real money. If you are confident that the deal will create value for both parties, however, you can use that on your favor. Offer a free test period whenever needed. Some of the times the advertiser will turn you down after it, but other times they will confirm the deal. Either way you have nothing to lose.

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

4 Steps to Increase Your Blog Traffic

4 Steps to Increase Your Blog Traffic

One of the most common complaints that I hear from bloggers is the fact that no matter how hard they try, they can’t grow their blogs past 100 or so daily page vies. Those early days are indeed the hardest, because you need to put hard work in without the certainty of achieving results.

If you are in that same situation, here is a simple strategy that

will certainly increase your blog traffic and make you break the 1,000 daily page views mark. In fact, the strategy could be used even if your are already over that number but have reached a traffic plateau lately.

Just make sure to execute the 4 steps as planned and to spend the two hours and a half every day (obviously if you have more time available you can expand the time spent on each of the four steps proportionally).

First Step: Killer Articles (1 hour per day)

Spend one hour brainstorming, researching and writing killer articles (also called linkbaits, pillar articles and so on).

Notice that your goal is to release one killer article every week. If that is not possible aim for one every 15 days. So the one hour that you will spend every day will be dedicated to the same piece. In other words, expect killers articles to take from 5 up to 10 hours of work.

If you are not familiar with the term, a killer article is nothing more than a long and structured article that has the goal of delivering a huge amount of value to potential visitors. If you have a web design blog, for example, you could write an article with “100 Free Resources for Designers”. Here are some ideas for killer articles:

    create a giant list of resources,

    write a detailed tutorial teaching people how to do something,

    find a solution for a common problem in your niche and write about it, or

    write a deep analysis on a topic where people have only talked superficially

When visitors come across your killer article, you want them to have the following reaction: “Holy crap! This is awesome. I better bookmark it. Heck, I better even mention this on my site and on my Twitter account, to let my readers and friends know about it.”

Second Step: Networking (30 minutes per day)

Networking is essential, especially when you are just getting started. The 30 minutes that you will dedicate to it every day could be split among:

    commenting on other blogs in your niche,

    linking to the posts of bloggers in your niche, and

    interacting with the bloggers in your niche via email, IM or Twitter.

Remember that your goal is to build genuine relationships, so don’t approach people just because you think they can help to promote your blog. Approach them because you respect their work and because you think the two of you could grow together.

Third Step: Promotion (30 minutes per day)

The first activity here is the promotion of your killer articles. Whenever you publish one of them, you should push it in any way you can. Examples include:

    letting the people in your network know about it (don’t beg for a link though),

    letting bloggers and webmasters in relevant niches know about it,

    getting some friends to submit the article to social bookmarking sites,

    getting some friends to Twitter the article, and

    posting about the article in online forums and/or newsgroups.

If there is time left, spend it with search engine optimization, social media marketing and activities to promote your blog as whole. Those can range from keyword research to promoting your blog on Facebook and guest blogging.

Fourth Step: Normal Posts (30 minutes per day)

Just like a man does not live by bread alone, a blog does not live by killer articles alone. Normal posts are the ones that you will publish routinely in your blog, between the killer articles. For example, you could publish a killer article every Monday and normal posts from Tuesday through Friday. Here are some ideas for normal posts:

    a post linking to an article on another blog and containing your opinion about it

    a post informing your readers about a news in your niche

    a post asking a question to your readers and aiming to initiate a discussion

    a post highlighting a new resource or trick that you discovered and that would be useful to your readers

While killers articles are essential to promote your blog and bring new readers aboard, normal posts are the ones that will create diversity in your content and keep your readers engaged.

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

4 Steps to Increase Your Blog Traffic

Posted by Unknown No comments

4 Steps to Increase Your Blog Traffic

One of the most common complaints that I hear from bloggers is the fact that no matter how hard they try, they can’t grow their blogs past 100 or so daily page vies. Those early days are indeed the hardest, because you need to put hard work in without the certainty of achieving results.

If you are in that same situation, here is a simple strategy that

will certainly increase your blog traffic and make you break the 1,000 daily page views mark. In fact, the strategy could be used even if your are already over that number but have reached a traffic plateau lately.

Just make sure to execute the 4 steps as planned and to spend the two hours and a half every day (obviously if you have more time available you can expand the time spent on each of the four steps proportionally).

First Step: Killer Articles (1 hour per day)

Spend one hour brainstorming, researching and writing killer articles (also called linkbaits, pillar articles and so on).

Notice that your goal is to release one killer article every week. If that is not possible aim for one every 15 days. So the one hour that you will spend every day will be dedicated to the same piece. In other words, expect killers articles to take from 5 up to 10 hours of work.

If you are not familiar with the term, a killer article is nothing more than a long and structured article that has the goal of delivering a huge amount of value to potential visitors. If you have a web design blog, for example, you could write an article with “100 Free Resources for Designers”. Here are some ideas for killer articles:

    create a giant list of resources,

    write a detailed tutorial teaching people how to do something,

    find a solution for a common problem in your niche and write about it, or

    write a deep analysis on a topic where people have only talked superficially

When visitors come across your killer article, you want them to have the following reaction: “Holy crap! This is awesome. I better bookmark it. Heck, I better even mention this on my site and on my Twitter account, to let my readers and friends know about it.”

Second Step: Networking (30 minutes per day)

Networking is essential, especially when you are just getting started. The 30 minutes that you will dedicate to it every day could be split among:

    commenting on other blogs in your niche,

    linking to the posts of bloggers in your niche, and

    interacting with the bloggers in your niche via email, IM or Twitter.

Remember that your goal is to build genuine relationships, so don’t approach people just because you think they can help to promote your blog. Approach them because you respect their work and because you think the two of you could grow together.

Third Step: Promotion (30 minutes per day)

The first activity here is the promotion of your killer articles. Whenever you publish one of them, you should push it in any way you can. Examples include:

    letting the people in your network know about it (don’t beg for a link though),

    letting bloggers and webmasters in relevant niches know about it,

    getting some friends to submit the article to social bookmarking sites,

    getting some friends to Twitter the article, and

    posting about the article in online forums and/or newsgroups.

If there is time left, spend it with search engine optimization, social media marketing and activities to promote your blog as whole. Those can range from keyword research to promoting your blog on Facebook and guest blogging.

Fourth Step: Normal Posts (30 minutes per day)

Just like a man does not live by bread alone, a blog does not live by killer articles alone. Normal posts are the ones that you will publish routinely in your blog, between the killer articles. For example, you could publish a killer article every Monday and normal posts from Tuesday through Friday. Here are some ideas for normal posts:

    a post linking to an article on another blog and containing your opinion about it

    a post informing your readers about a news in your niche

    a post asking a question to your readers and aiming to initiate a discussion

    a post highlighting a new resource or trick that you discovered and that would be useful to your readers

While killers articles are essential to promote your blog and bring new readers aboard, normal posts are the ones that will create diversity in your content and keep your readers engaged.

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

How To Choose A Blog Name

How To Choose A Blog Name

There are three simple rules to follow when choosing a blog name:

    1) It must describe your blog: it is probable that lots of people will see a link to your blog before having the chance to actually read it (in search engines, for instance). Guess what, if just by looking at the name they can figure what the blog is about they will be more likely to visit it.

    2) It must be easy to remember: suppose your blog talks about cycling, fitness and health advice in general. Naming it “The Cycling, Fitness and General Health Advice Blog” would offer quite an exhaustive description of the blog, but would it also be easy to remember? Stick with simple names.

     3) It must be equal to the domain name: this rule is often ignored by people, probably because finding a suitable domain that has not been registered yet is a difficult task. Still if your domain name does not match the blog name you will probably lose some readers along the way. When people visit your blog through a link they will just read the name of the blog. Should they decide to revisit the site a couple of days later they will just type that name followed by a dot com. If they do not find your blog once they hit enter they will just go somewhere else

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

How To Choose A Blog Name

Posted by Unknown No comments

How To Choose A Blog Name

There are three simple rules to follow when choosing a blog name:

    1) It must describe your blog: it is probable that lots of people will see a link to your blog before having the chance to actually read it (in search engines, for instance). Guess what, if just by looking at the name they can figure what the blog is about they will be more likely to visit it.

    2) It must be easy to remember: suppose your blog talks about cycling, fitness and health advice in general. Naming it “The Cycling, Fitness and General Health Advice Blog” would offer quite an exhaustive description of the blog, but would it also be easy to remember? Stick with simple names.

     3) It must be equal to the domain name: this rule is often ignored by people, probably because finding a suitable domain that has not been registered yet is a difficult task. Still if your domain name does not match the blog name you will probably lose some readers along the way. When people visit your blog through a link they will just read the name of the blog. Should they decide to revisit the site a couple of days later they will just type that name followed by a dot com. If they do not find your blog once they hit enter they will just go somewhere else

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Creating Htpasswd file for security

Creating Htpasswd file for security

HTTP authentication adds a secondary layer of WordPress security that protects the admin dashboard — or wp-admin — by requiring the user to submit further authentication. After creating the .htaccess file for protecting the WordPress wp-admin folder, you should create a username and password database file for HTTP authentication. In other words, you simply need to create an WordPress htpasswd file.

HTPASSWD files are used to protect your website or specific directories using HTTP Authentication, and contain a list of usernames and hashed passwords. Apache will use this information to authenticate users who want to access a password protected website or web page, by prompting the user with a HTTP Authentication dialog.

An .htpasswd file contains a list of usernames followed by the colon “:” character, and ending with a hashed password — similar to the example below:

steven:$apr1$k7QjkNty$tSd4grHRifUzCC8L9EBN51jones:$apr1$Z5SbWNdp$oJqAVhLCvVRMSgeEADeT6/

Creating a .htpasswd file

You can create an .htpasswd file using any of of two methods. The easiest and fastest method — ideal for beginners — is to use an online htpasswd Generator. The second method involves generating the .htpasswd file manually. The manual method provides more flexibility, although some technical experience is recommended.

The manual method

You need a tool called “htpasswd” in order to create a .htpasswd file. If you are running Windows you can install Xampp, or Apache web server for Windows — or any other similar server software that is typically shipped with the ‘htpasswd’ tool. To launch the htpasswd tool, navigate to the tool’s directory via command line. In a typical Apache installation, the tool can be found in the bin sub directory.

Once your command line interface is in the directory containing htpasswd.exe, type htpasswd.exe and hit enter. A list of available htpasswd.exe parameters will be shown for your reference. To create a new .htpasswd file, type the following command in the prompt.

“htpasswd –cm [passwordfilename] [username]”

You will then be asked to enter a password for the specific username. By default, the .htpasswd file will be generated in the same directory where the actual htpasswd.exe tool resides. You can use the ‘-c’ parameter to create a new .htpasswd file and the –m parameter to encrypt the submitted password using MD5 hash. If you wish to add more usernames to the current password file, just use the same command without specifying the –c parameter as follows:

“htpasswd –m [passwordfilename] [username]”.

Note: Installing Xampp or Apache on your computer requires a web server to be installed and running on your computer. If not configured properly, a web server could open a security vulnerability on your machine, so it’s not advisable to use any mission-critical computers if you’re not confident with this process.

Once the .htpasswd file is created, store/save the file in the same location specified in the .htacess file under the AuthUserFile directive. You can read more on how to use .htaccess files to secure your WordPress installation here: Ht access file and Security(learn more)

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Creating Htpasswd file for security

Posted by Unknown No comments

Creating Htpasswd file for security

HTTP authentication adds a secondary layer of WordPress security that protects the admin dashboard — or wp-admin — by requiring the user to submit further authentication. After creating the .htaccess file for protecting the WordPress wp-admin folder, you should create a username and password database file for HTTP authentication. In other words, you simply need to create an WordPress htpasswd file.

HTPASSWD files are used to protect your website or specific directories using HTTP Authentication, and contain a list of usernames and hashed passwords. Apache will use this information to authenticate users who want to access a password protected website or web page, by prompting the user with a HTTP Authentication dialog.

An .htpasswd file contains a list of usernames followed by the colon “:” character, and ending with a hashed password — similar to the example below:

steven:$apr1$k7QjkNty$tSd4grHRifUzCC8L9EBN51jones:$apr1$Z5SbWNdp$oJqAVhLCvVRMSgeEADeT6/

Creating a .htpasswd file

You can create an .htpasswd file using any of of two methods. The easiest and fastest method — ideal for beginners — is to use an online htpasswd Generator. The second method involves generating the .htpasswd file manually. The manual method provides more flexibility, although some technical experience is recommended.

The manual method

You need a tool called “htpasswd” in order to create a .htpasswd file. If you are running Windows you can install Xampp, or Apache web server for Windows — or any other similar server software that is typically shipped with the ‘htpasswd’ tool. To launch the htpasswd tool, navigate to the tool’s directory via command line. In a typical Apache installation, the tool can be found in the bin sub directory.

Once your command line interface is in the directory containing htpasswd.exe, type htpasswd.exe and hit enter. A list of available htpasswd.exe parameters will be shown for your reference. To create a new .htpasswd file, type the following command in the prompt.

“htpasswd –cm [passwordfilename] [username]”

You will then be asked to enter a password for the specific username. By default, the .htpasswd file will be generated in the same directory where the actual htpasswd.exe tool resides. You can use the ‘-c’ parameter to create a new .htpasswd file and the –m parameter to encrypt the submitted password using MD5 hash. If you wish to add more usernames to the current password file, just use the same command without specifying the –c parameter as follows:

“htpasswd –m [passwordfilename] [username]”.

Note: Installing Xampp or Apache on your computer requires a web server to be installed and running on your computer. If not configured properly, a web server could open a security vulnerability on your machine, so it’s not advisable to use any mission-critical computers if you’re not confident with this process.

Once the .htpasswd file is created, store/save the file in the same location specified in the .htacess file under the AuthUserFile directive. You can read more on how to use .htaccess files to secure your WordPress installation here: Ht access file and Security(learn more)

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

WordPress Security Scanner Plugin

WordPress Security Scanner Plugin

WSD Security Scanner Plugin for worpress: Helps you secure your WordPress installation and provides detailed reporting on discovered vulnerabilities and how to fix them. WebsiteDefender WordPress Security plugin is a free and comprehensive security tool that helps you secure your WordPress installation and suggests corrective measures for: strengthening passwords, securing file permissions, security of the database, version hiding, WordPress admin protection and lots more.

 Note: After installation, go to settings and use every feature of it to fix all the blackholes from where access to hackers can be done. it will guide you, you just have to follow.

    Easy backup of WordPress database for disaster recovery

    Removal of error-information on login-page

    Addition of index.php to the wp-content, wp-content/plugins, wp-content/themes and wp-content/uploads directories to prevent directory listings

        Removal of wp-version, except in admin-area

        Removal of Really Simple Discovery meta tag

        Removal of Windows Live Writer meta tag

        Removal of core update information for non-             admins

        Removal of plugin-update information for non-          admins

        Removal of theme-update information for non-admins (only WP 2.8 and higher)

            Hiding of wp-version in backend-dashboard for non-admins

            Removal of version in URLs from scripts and stylesheets only on frontend

            Reporting of security overview after WordPress blog is scanned

            Reporting of file permissions following security checks

                Strong password generator tool to protect from brute force attacks

                Integrated tool to change the database prefix

                Disabling of database error reporting (if enabled)

                Disabling the PHP error reporting.

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

WordPress Security Scanner Plugin

Posted by Unknown No comments

WordPress Security Scanner Plugin

WSD Security Scanner Plugin for worpress: Helps you secure your WordPress installation and provides detailed reporting on discovered vulnerabilities and how to fix them. WebsiteDefender WordPress Security plugin is a free and comprehensive security tool that helps you secure your WordPress installation and suggests corrective measures for: strengthening passwords, securing file permissions, security of the database, version hiding, WordPress admin protection and lots more.

 Note: After installation, go to settings and use every feature of it to fix all the blackholes from where access to hackers can be done. it will guide you, you just have to follow.

    Easy backup of WordPress database for disaster recovery

    Removal of error-information on login-page

    Addition of index.php to the wp-content, wp-content/plugins, wp-content/themes and wp-content/uploads directories to prevent directory listings

        Removal of wp-version, except in admin-area

        Removal of Really Simple Discovery meta tag

        Removal of Windows Live Writer meta tag

        Removal of core update information for non-             admins

        Removal of plugin-update information for non-          admins

        Removal of theme-update information for non-admins (only WP 2.8 and higher)

            Hiding of wp-version in backend-dashboard for non-admins

            Removal of version in URLs from scripts and stylesheets only on frontend

            Reporting of security overview after WordPress blog is scanned

            Reporting of file permissions following security checks

                Strong password generator tool to protect from brute force attacks

                Integrated tool to change the database prefix

                Disabling of database error reporting (if enabled)

                Disabling the PHP error reporting.

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Bulletproof Security Plugin Which Really Work For Wordpress

Bulletproof Security Plugin Which Really Work For Wordpress

I'm writing the names of few security plugins which really help in saving and securing your website from hacking.

Bulletproof Secuirty Plugin :-

It will help u to have a wonderful security for ur website. some of the key features and a screen shot of the installed plugin are:  Note: the settings should also be implemended, just installing it and expecting that ur website has been secure wont work for u. so once installed , go to the settings and try to use some brains and work on with it.    

 One-click .htaccess website security protection from within the WP Dashboard

    Secure .htaccess protection blocks XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection and SQL Injection hacking attempts

    Permanent online .htaccess file backup and restore

    Built-in File Editing, File Downloading and File Uploading

    Custom Code feature that permanently saves and writes your personal custom .htaccess code

    WordPress readme.html and /wp-admin/install.php protected with .htaccess security protection

    wp-config.php and bb-config.php files protected with .htaccess security protection

    php.ini and php5.ini files protected with .htaccess security protection

    WordPress database errors turned off – Verification and function insurance

    WordPress version is not displayed / not shown – WordPress version is removed

    WP Generator Meta Tag filtered – not displayed / not shown

    The Administrator username ?admin? check – check WP DB for admin username

    System Information Page: PHP, MySQL, OS, Server, Memory Usage, IP, SAPI, DNS, Max Upload…

    Security Status Page – Displays website security status information

    File and Folder Permission Checking – CGI / DSO SAPI check and display

    Help & FAQ page – links to BPS Guide and other detailed Help & Info pages

    Extensive Read Me! jQuery Dialog Help Windows throughout the BulletProof Security plugin pages

    Backup and Restore existing .htaccess files

    Backup and Restore customized / modified .htaccess files

    Add to, Edit, Modify the provided BulletProof Security .htaccess Master files

    Create your own .htaccess Master files or code and use BulletProof Security as an .htaccess file manager

    Website Developer Maintenance Mode (503 website open to Developer / Site Owner ONLY)

    Log in / out of your website while in Maintenance Mode

    Customizable 503 Website Under Maintenance page

    HUD Success / Error message display

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...

Bulletproof Security Plugin Which Really Work For Wordpress

Posted by Unknown No comments

Bulletproof Security Plugin Which Really Work For Wordpress

I'm writing the names of few security plugins which really help in saving and securing your website from hacking.

Bulletproof Secuirty Plugin :-

It will help u to have a wonderful security for ur website. some of the key features and a screen shot of the installed plugin are:  Note: the settings should also be implemended, just installing it and expecting that ur website has been secure wont work for u. so once installed , go to the settings and try to use some brains and work on with it.    

 One-click .htaccess website security protection from within the WP Dashboard

    Secure .htaccess protection blocks XSS, RFI, CRLF, CSRF, Base64, Code Injection and SQL Injection hacking attempts

    Permanent online .htaccess file backup and restore

    Built-in File Editing, File Downloading and File Uploading

    Custom Code feature that permanently saves and writes your personal custom .htaccess code

    WordPress readme.html and /wp-admin/install.php protected with .htaccess security protection

    wp-config.php and bb-config.php files protected with .htaccess security protection

    php.ini and php5.ini files protected with .htaccess security protection

    WordPress database errors turned off – Verification and function insurance

    WordPress version is not displayed / not shown – WordPress version is removed

    WP Generator Meta Tag filtered – not displayed / not shown

    The Administrator username ?admin? check – check WP DB for admin username

    System Information Page: PHP, MySQL, OS, Server, Memory Usage, IP, SAPI, DNS, Max Upload…

    Security Status Page – Displays website security status information

    File and Folder Permission Checking – CGI / DSO SAPI check and display

    Help & FAQ page – links to BPS Guide and other detailed Help & Info pages

    Extensive Read Me! jQuery Dialog Help Windows throughout the BulletProof Security plugin pages

    Backup and Restore existing .htaccess files

    Backup and Restore customized / modified .htaccess files

    Add to, Edit, Modify the provided BulletProof Security .htaccess Master files

    Create your own .htaccess Master files or code and use BulletProof Security as an .htaccess file manager

    Website Developer Maintenance Mode (503 website open to Developer / Site Owner ONLY)

    Log in / out of your website while in Maintenance Mode

    Customizable 503 Website Under Maintenance page

    HUD Success / Error message display

Makes Your World HappyyYYY...