Blogging – Page 2 – Nicole Munoz Consulting

6 Methods to Become a Successful Affiliate Blogger

By following the tips and advice in this article, you’ll be ahead of the game and on your way to becoming a successful affiliate. Remember to provide quality content and information and once you do that you can concentrate on making product recommendations. As your business grows, you’ll find other tips and strategies which work best for you and you can start experimenting a little more.

Here are the 6 steps:

1. Make the affiliate programs that you select really relevant to your niche subject to keep the credibility of your site and entice your members into purchasing the products they need. It goes without saying, but if you have a site about babies and parenting babies, it’s not a good idea to promote pet related products as these aren’t relevant to your target market.
2. Set up your own domain or blog. You can’t do this for every affiliate program, but if you find a product which has really helped you and offers a generous commission, you can set up a blog and speak about your experience using this product. Make regular posts and comments about how the product is helping you and your experiences with it and link to the product throughout your blog. You can also set up your own domain name to promote a product. This looks much more professional than an affiliate link and will be easier to remember too. It’s great for using when writing articles and content as well.
3. Try to find affiliate programs that offer ‘lifetime cookies’ or ‘lifetime customers’. This means that when you send a member to the affiliate site your affiliate link is tracked in their system and even if the member doesn’t purchase the product right away, you’ll still get paid if the person returns and buys from that affiliate program at a later date.
4. Write honest product reviews. Write informative and honest product reviews. This is a great way to give your unbiased opinion on a product and to build trust with your subscribers. And if a product is faulty in some way you can add that as a note, your subscribers will trust you more if they know your recommendations are honest and sincere.
5. Find the correct placement for affiliate links. As mentioned above, affiliate banners and graphics don’t usually work as well as providing informative content and weaving affiliate links where appropriate throughout that content. For example, you can write a quality article about helping your baby recover from colic and in that article you can link out to resources which will help the parents remedy this problem.
6. Redirect your affiliate links through your own domain. There are many benefits to redirecting your affiliate links. It’s easier to track and remember your links when you need them. If a program changes their links it’s easy to go back and change your links. You’ll also present a more professional image; many affiliate links are long and look like garbly goop; your visitors may be suspicious of these links. Redirecting your affiliate links solves all these problems.

What’s The Deal with RSS?

by Nicole Munoz

Another very important benefit to publishing a blog, is something called “Real Simple Syndication” or RSS for short. RSS is a content delivery channel, distributing your content to your audience wherever they may be. Blogs use RSS to automatically deliver your content to your readers without them having to visit your site everyday to check whether your blog had been updated recently.

To accomplish this, your audience needs to subscribe to your blog’s feed. Using an RSS Feed Reader, they can now read your latest posts from the reader itself. It works like a simple subscription form. You place your feed icons in a prominent place on your blog where your readers simply click on it and get subscribed.

RSS Feed Readers are available as desktop downloads or as Web-based applications. Many are free like Feedly.com and Newsblur.com.

Using RSS is a much better way of syndicating your content than e-mail because RSS goes beyond just e-zines. And if you were wondering how managing your blog’s subscribers could be possible, there’s Feedburner.com to answer your question. Probably the best in the business, Feedburner.com provides the most detailed stats about your blog subscribers, giving you the edge to improve your blog’s performance as you see fit.

Blogging Tips for Starting a Business Blog

by Nicole Munoz

After all the “back-breaking” work of setting up your business blog, it now comes down to the most important reason of having a blog in the first place – getting your content out to the world.

For some, this is an easy process. For many others however, publishing useful and unique content regularly can be severely daunting. Distinguishing yourself from other business bloggers takes a bit of understanding of who your core readers are. Put some time aside to research your audience and find out what they would like to read about. Here are some considerations to bear in mind when publishing your content:

Should I make my posts educational, newsworthy, informational, entertaining and debatable or, a combination of all those?

How long should my posts be (this is where getting feedback from your readers comes in)?

Should I consider a blog partnership (getting guest bloggers to write unique content for your blog)?

The initial excitement of publishing a blog can quickly dissipate when your “content well” starts to dry up. So where do you turn to for ideas and inspiration to get readers queuing up to read your work? Well, let’s start with how you can categorize your content in a way that could potentially skyrocket your readership:

The infamous Top 10 lists

How-To information

Reviews

Interview someone within your business niche

Latest trends and newsworthy information

Present relevant business case-studies

Recommend other business blogs that might be of interest to your readers

But all the above may be rendered useless if you can’t get to a source for inspiration. So here are some of the best places to visit when you need to get those creative juices flowing:

News sites – CNN, Yahoo News, Google News are just some of many News websites available to spark an interesting idea for a blog post. Dig into News stories and press releases to see what is significant for your blog. Cast your opinion on it and you’ve just got yourself a new post. But don’t stop there.

Look for News sites that are specific to your industry as well. For example, if you’re blogging about finance, head on over to Bloomberg Financial News and get ideas from there. About.com is another site that covers a gamut of topics that makes for such a great source for content ideas.

Online Groups / Social Networking sites / Forums – Message board forums, Facebook Groups and Yahoo Groups are a wealth of information. Your potential readers and customers could be lurking within these groups, freely exchanging the kind of information a market research company would pay thousands of dollars for.

Don’t ignore forums that are relevant to your industry. Like social networking sites and online groups, forums attract the kind of audience that could be interested in the information you are offering.

Social Bookmarking Services– Like social networking sites, social bookmarking services are all the rage today. These services allow users to rate and recommend topics that are popular with them. They are a portal into the hottest and latest trends as deemed by public opinion.

Visit sites such as Technorati.com, Delicious, StumbleUpon.com, Reddit.com and Digg.com to get blogging ideas. While there are a great number of other social bookmarking sites springing up onto the web quite regularly, those are the most referred to by professional bloggers for research.

High Traffic Sites – Another fantastic source of blogging ideas can be found at high traffic sites such as Alexa.com, Amazon.com, Ebay.com, Craigslist.org and Wikipedia.org. A wealth of ideas can be mined just from sifting through these sites’ categories.

Article Directories – Article directories offer you the option of re-printing the articles of your choice on your blog. This can come in handy if you’re having an off day but need something to whet the appetite of your readers. Even if you don’t intend to publish any of those articles, use them as a source of ideas for writing your next post.

Some of the more popular directories are EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com and ArticleCity.com. These articles are free to re-print but, read the terms on these sites on how to go about re-printing them.

Some Other Sources – Another idea-generating method is to look out for what people are searching for and decide if you could blog about these search terms. Visit popular sites like Google Zeitgeist and MetaCrawler.com for this purpose. You can use keywords tools like WordTracker.com.

Try searching for ideas using blog search engines as well. Try Technorati.com for potential ideas.

How to Write Quickly – Get Your Thoughts and Ideas onto the Page and Published In Less Time

by Nicole Munoz

How long does it take you to write a blog post or article? For many business owners, the answer is an hour or more. Yet an experienced writer can write three quality blog posts in the same amount of time. It’s not because they’re better writers. Rather, it’s because they have embraced writing systems and practices that support productivity.

As you read through the following ideas, know that not all of them will work for you. However, if you’re able to embrace just a few of them, you’ll cut your writing time down significantly.

#1 Work in Batches

Joe is a business owner and writes all his own content. On a productive day, Joe can write four or five blog posts in an hour. The trick that works for him is to focus on writing his content in batches.

For example, he might spend an hour writing reviews. Later, when he sits back down to his writing desk he might focus on writing a handful of tips articles.

There are many reasons why this system works. One of the primary reasons is that the batch approach doesn’t require Joe to shift focus. In his case, each article in a batch has the same basic format. He can approach them almost as if he’s writing from a template.

Batching content by format isn’t the only approach you can take. You can batch by topic or subject matter as well. For example, someone in a coaching niche might focus on writing motivation content for the first hour. When they return to their computer they might shift gears and focus on writing a few how to stay confident articles.

#2 Set a Time Limit and Goal

Another common practice is to set a time limit for your writing session. Give yourself an hour to write and set a goal. For example, if you’re writing a report, then maybe you want to have three pages completed by the end of your hour.

Once the hour is up, get up and take a break. Nothing slows down the writing process faster than forcing yourself to sit at your desk and write until you’re bleary eyed and exhausted.

If an hour seems like too long, set a timer for twenty or thirty minutes. Experiment and find a length and goal that works for you.

#3 Outline First

You can make writing a speedier process by outlining the content first. You don’t have to get too detailed with your outline, unless you want to. What’s most important is to identify the key points you want to make in your piece. That generally includes your subtitles and bullet points.

An outline helps you stay focused on what you want to say. You may likely find that you don’t pause to determine what you want to say next because it’s already outlined. You can flow from one point to the next without stopping.

#4 Templates

If you tend to write similarly formatted content, consider creating templates. For example, a review article or blog post will likely have a recognizable structure. You can visit the reviews you’ve already written and published and use them to create a template for future reviews.

The same is true for how to articles, tips articles, and lists and so on. A template approach means you simply have to fill in the blanks and can really speed up the writing process.

#5 Eliminate Distractions

It’s tempting to sit down in front of the television at night and work on tomorrow’s blog post. However, it’ll take you five times longer to write that blog post than if you wrote it without distractions.

You see, contrary to what many people have been taught, multitasking really isn’t possible. Each time you pull your eyes away from the television to write, you have to shift focus. It may take an entire hour to write an article if you’re distracted. Sit down in a quiet place and it may take you a mere ten to fifteen minutes.

Distractions aren’t always on television. Consider the following and ask yourself if they’re distractions for you:

Email
Social media
Music
Phone
Family members
Chores

You may find that the longer you sit at the desk trying to write, the easier it is to be distracted. The next tip may be a perfect solution for you.

#6 Write When You Can Focus

Are you a night owl? A morning person? Chances are there is a time of day that you feel more focused and productive. And there’s a time of day when all you want to do is take a nap.

The ideal time to write is when you feel focused. That might be first thing in the morning if that’s when you’re most alert. Get to know your personal productivity patterns and schedule writing time when you’re more likely to be successful.

#7 Be Opportunistic

Are you having a creative day? Are you feeling inspired or motivated to write? Seize those moments and capitalize on them. Those are the days when content will flow freely and you’ll be able to write quickly.

Even if you don’t “need” to write, allow yourself the opportunity to get ahead on your content. Or create something extra. Additionally, if you find you have free time during your week, and you’re feeling productive, use it to create content. Be opportunistic.

#8 Write Now, Edit Later

Do you find yourself rewriting the same sentence several times because you’re trying to make it grammatically correct? Do you use spellcheck more often than the “enter” key on your keyboard? If this sounds like you then you may benefit from trying this tactic.

Write your entire piece of content without editing anything. Let all those red lines under misspelled words sit there without being corrected. Don’t run to your thesaurus or your Chicago Manual of Style. Just write.

Once the content is completed, then go ahead and start the editing process. Use your spellcheck. Fix awkward sentences and format the content the way you want to.

The reason this approach works is simple. Each time you halt the writing process and edit, you’re stopping the thought flow. When it’s time to return to the writing process and putting words on paper, you have to shift gears again. It may not seem like the shift in focus is significant, however it does slow you down.

Give it a try. You may be surprised by how quickly you are able to write content when you don’t stop to edit. In fact, you may need to experiment with several of these tactics to find the strategies that work best for you. For example, you may find that outlining your content actually slows down your writing process because you feel too restricted. Conversely, you may also find that working in batches cuts your writing time in half.

Because content often needs to help establish credibility and authority, it’s important to take a look at the content research process. This is where many people lose precious time.

10 Blogging Mistakes You Are Probably Making

by Nicole Munoz

Blogging can be an incredibly rewarding way to make an online living. You get to build a community of people who listen to you and love what you say. You create a community of people who discuss your ideas. You make a lot of money. You get invited to speak at conferences. Your traffic goes up organically and you don’t have to spend anything on advertising.

That’s the dream, of course. Many bloggers live this dream today and more still will live this dream in the years to come. Unfortunately, not everyone makes it to the dream life.

Many bloggers get started – Then simply never reach the finish line. Some stop before they build a real follower base. Others build a follower base, then make a mistake and alienate their readers. Still others manage to reach a certain level of success, then hit a wall that they just can’t break through.

This happens mostly because bloggers make one of these ten mistakes. These ten mistakes are common blog-killing mistakes that bloggers all over the internet make. If you’re starting a blog (or already run a blog,) avoid these mistakes at all costs.

Mistake #1: Blogging Irregularly

Blogging is all about building a loyal base of followers that want and expect to hear from you. Once you have a successful blog following going, you’ll literally have thousands of people who would get angry or worried if you don’t post on time.

In order to build that kind of supportive audience, you absolutely need to blog regularly. Regularly simply means you post on a set schedule that you don’t change. It could be once a week, it could be twice a month, it could be every single day.

Your audience needs to be able to rely on you to produce content. When you’re beginning your blog, start off with a manageable load like once a week. If you’re sure after a couple months that you can handle a higher workload, then go ahead and increase it. Don’t start off trying to blog every day, or you’ll most likely burn yourself out.

Regularity is more important than post frequency. Set a regular schedule and stuck to it.

Mistake #2: Writing for Search Engines

It’s not hard to spot a blog post written for search engines. Their keywords tend to be in the title tag or bolded in the subheads. The author bends his flow to fit the exact phrase of the keyword in the text. They might publish several similar articles with similar content because they wanted to target several similar keywords, each with its individual page.

The difference might seem subtle, but it actually makes a huge difference. Your readers can tell that you’re not flowing naturally when you write for search engines, even if your content is good.

The irony is that it’s the websites that consistently and regularly publish high quality content written for real human beings that actually end up ranking in the search engines. It might seem like optimizing your content for search engines is a wise idea, when in reality you’ll end up alienating both the search engines and human beings.

Write for people, not search engines.

Mistake #3: Not Carefully Analyzing Your Blog Analytics

Your analytics data can tell you a lot about your audience and about how to better run your blog. Yet many blog owners don’t look at their analytics at all, or only give it a cursory glance.

Here are some of the important things your analytics can tell you:

Where your traffic is coming from. Is it from search? Is it from referring sites? Is it something else entirely?
What keywords people type in to find your blog. They might be completely different than the keywords you were deliberately targeting.
Who’s linking to you and who’s sending you traffic. If someone went out of their way to link to you, there may be other opportunities for partnership there.
Your best posts and your worst posts. What kind of topics did people like and what did they not like? Which posts get people to stay the longest?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Your analytics data can give you all kinds of insights into how your audience operates and where you should take your blog next. Don’t make the mistake of overlooking this treasure trove of information.

Mistake #4: Not Having Reserve Posts

If you’re writing every blog post as you go, at some point that’s going to come back to haunt you. Life will get in the way. It could be a car accident. Or perhaps you get sick. Maybe something in your romantic life happens that throws things out of balance. Or perhaps an employee stole your money and you have to spend all week dealing with the fallout.

Whatever the case may be, there are going to be times when you just won’t have the time to write new content. It’s not a matter of “if” but “when.” If you don’t have backup posts for these times, then you’re going to be late on posts or miss posts completely.

Don’t let that happen. Have at least three, preferably five backup blog posts you can turn to whenever you need a quick break. Whenever you use one of these backups, make sure you replenish it within the next few weeks.

In addition to helping you in a pinch, knowing you have a backup plan can also help you relax around your blog upkeep.

Mistake #5: Doing Your Own Design or Using Templates

Doing your own design or using a pre-set template is perfectly fine for the first few months of your blog. If your blog is less than 6 months old, it absolutely makes sense to save the money and use a template.

But once you’re ready to take your blog to the professional level, that’s when you should scrap your old design and go straight to having a designer do a custom design for you.

Why is this important?

First, unless you’re a fantastic designer, chances are you just won’t be able to create a design that’s all that great. Even if you use templates, you’re still not going to have a design that truly reflects your core brand.

Having a great designer re-do your website isn’t cheap, but it’s not horribly expensive either. It makes a big different on how people perceive you and your website. If you’re blogging seriously and professionally while having a site that looks unprofessional, you may not keep your audience’s attention.

Mistake #6: Not Moderating Comments Quickly

There are a couple considerations that tie into this mistake.

First, not moderating comments at all is a mistake. If you let your comment stream get filled up with spam, people aren’t going to take the time to read the comments or to respond to them. Even with spam filters like Askimet, you should take the time to moderate comments by hand.

The second and more common mistake is taking too long to moderate comments. If you don’t get someone’s comment up and online within 12 hours, chances are they’re just going to lose interest. When someone responds to their comment, they’re not going to come back to participate. They also likely won’t comment on your content again in the future.

The answer is to moderate comments, but make sure you do so in an efficient and timely manner.

Mistake #7: Not Responding to Comments

If you want to cultivate a community of avid readers, you must respond to your comments. The type of person who takes the time to respond to your post in comment form is also the type of person who’ll share your content on social media or backlink to you from their own websites.

Furthermore, people respect bloggers who take the time to respond to comments. When someone scrolls down and sees that you actually answer your commenters, they feel like you actually care about them. They’re more likely to read and more likely to comment as well.

Get in the habit of responding to every single comment on your site. This is what builds audiences and followers.

Mistake #8: Ignoring Social Media

Having social-media-phobia is no longer an option for bloggers. Just a few years ago, it was possible to succeed using just blogging. Today, the internet is intimately tied to Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools.

In the past, backlinks were built through blogosphere relationships. Today, often time’s backlinks are built through social media relationships and tools.

Readers also expect to be able to relate to you through social media. They want to be able to easily share your posts or like your fan page. They want to be able to interact with you regularly through Twitter. If you’re not on social media, you’re missing out on links, traffic and reader connection.

Mistake #9: Not Using Multimedia

Just as the world is getting more social, the world is also getting more multi-media. If you’re only presenting your content in text media, you’re going to miss out on a lot of viral opportunities.

For example, creating an infographic is a fantastic way to take advantage of social bookmarking sites like Reddit, StumbleUpon or Digg.

Creating videos is also a great way to gain more traction. Videos can help you get more visitors through YouTube, as well as get more shares on Facebook.

Podcasting allows you to gain access to iTunes’ massive user base. Audio also allows you to get your content into the hands (and ears) of people who don’t have time to read blogs, but enjoy having an audiobook to learn from when they’re on the go.

Don’t just use text media. Use multiple kinds of media to really engage your user base.

Mistake #10: Not Building a Mailing List

Head over to the site of any successful blog and you’ll almost invariably find an email signup box. Successful bloggers are meticulous about collecting email. It’s one of their secrets to success.

Having someone’s email allows you to get them to come back to your website over and over and over again. If you don’t collect their emails, the majority of your readers are just going to read your content once, then leave and never return.

Start building a list now, even if your site gets less than 100 visitors a month. It’s one of the fundamental building blocks of building a high traffic site.

These are the ten most common mistakes that bloggers make. Avoid these mistakes like the plague. If you post high quality content on a regular basis and don’t make any of these mistakes, there’s a good chance your blog could be the next leading resource in your industry.

Blogging Tips – Bonus Slide Shows!

by Nicole Munoz

Blog Media Showing 3d Character On Weblog Website

8 Simple Ways to Come up with Topics for Your Blog

8 simple ways to come up with topics for your blog from Nicole Munoz

8 Great Places to Get Images for Your Blog

8 great places to get images for your blog from Nicole Munoz

Writing A Guest Blog Post Checklist

by Nicole Munoz

Before putting together any guest post, make sure to review this checklist. It will ensure you cover all your bases when providing quality content and making it as easy as possible for the target blog to publish your content.

Note: “target blog” simply refers to the blog on which you want your blog post published.

Post Content:

Put your best foot forward with the content of your post. Here are some tips to help you do that.

Read Through the Blog: Look at recent posts and dig deep into the category you want to write about. You do not want to duplicate something that has already been done. Take note of the voice and style to see how your writing might fit in well. Also, take note of the perspective the blogger takes on certain subjects. While there may room for varying perspectives, you do not want to directly contradict the opinions of the blog owner.

Read the Comments: Understand the people who are reading the blog. What posts do they seem to resonate with? What questions do they have? How can you help with something they seem to be looking for?

Create a Quality Post: Obviously, you want to make sure your post is of the highest quality possible. If you want it to be noticed by the blogger and to make an impact on the audience, it just has to be.

Create an Original Post: You will also be creating completely original content and offering exclusive publishing rights, unless the blog does not require it. While you can write on topics you’ve covered before, make the text is original.

Create a Targeted Post: In addition to having a quality and original post, you want it highly targeted to the audience. Mention things that are relevant to the readers and link to previous posts and any relevant products the blogger may have.

Post Formatting

Formatting is also important. It shows extra care and attention and makes it easier for the target blog to publish your post.

Use good web writing format by using short sentences and paragraphs. Use bullet points and subheadlines to make your content easy to read.
Format your subheadings with <h2> tags or whatever is appropriate for the blog.
Format your links, so they can be pasted into a blog and be clickable. For example:

Jeff recently <a href=”http://clickme.com/previous-post”>fly fishing</a> here.

Include images as they can add interest to the post. Make sure you have created the images or you have permission to publish them. You can host the image on your site and include the html code for the blog to automatically, but you may want to also attach the image, so they can upload it themselves. Name the image something descriptive and make sure the file size is appropriate for web publishing (i.e. Not too big!).
Do keyword research and optimize the post for a relevant keyword. Don’t let SEO take over as the quality of your post is key, but doing that extra bit of work will make your post attractive to the target blog and will more likely result in long-term benefit for you.

Overall, it’s important to put your best foot forward. Don’t skimp on quality or polishing your post before submitting it. Do your homework, write your best work, check it twice and you’ll do just fine.

How to Find Guest Blogging Opportunities

by Nicole Munoz

There are a number of ways to find guest blogging opportunities and this guide will provide you an illustrated tour of how you can get great exposure through guest posting. Whether you search for blogs that publicly accept submissions, approach blogs directly, use a guest blogging site or a combination of all those methods, there are plenty of opportunities to be found.

Assessing the Quality of the Opportunity

There are a number of factors to consider when deciding whether or not you want to write for a particular blog. While you may have other considerations, the factors we cover in this guide include targeted audience, traffic and community interaction. How much weight you add to each factor is completely up to you and depends on what is most important for you.

Quality Assessment Method #1: Targeted Audience

Before you write your first word, make sure the audience is truly targeted for you. Would they make good readers of your blog and customers for your products? While there may be plenty of blogs who write on the same subject matter as you, they may not be the right fit.

For example, if you write on political subjects, writing for a blog that doesn’t match your ideology may not be the best idea.

Or if you have a cooking site that features “from scratch” recipes, you may not find the opportunity to write for a blog that promotes quick and packaged fixes for meals a good fit for you either.

Ultimately, it’s up to you decide if the target audience is right for you, but do your homework first.

Quality Assessment Method #2: Traffic

There is no sure method of knowing a blog’s true traffic, unless they tell you. If the blog accepts advertising or requests content submissions, you might be able to find this information published on their website. If you can’t find that, you can use a tool like Alexa.com to assess their traffic.

TIP: Never base your assessment on traffic alone. The higher the traffic, the more competitive it is likely to get posted. Use your judgement accordingly.

Here is an example of estimated traffic ranking of mashable.com. Below, you can see the average traffic rank worldwide (in green) and in the US (you can customize the data for any country, if you prefer). The lower the number, the more popular the site.

In this case, Alexa says that mashable.com is the 222^nd most popular website on the web. The ranking is based on users who use the Alexa toolbar and is often skewed in providing website with web savvy audiences higher rankings. However, any site that ranks in the top 10,000 or so is very likely to have a large volume of traffic.

To get a better picture of the popularity of a site, instead of relying on the single ranking from Alexa, you can compare the ranking to other similar sites.

First, you can click the “Related Links” tab to find related sites:

Because some of these are social networking sites, rather than targeted blogs, that mashable.com tends to write about, we’ll disregard Twitter, Twitpic, Tweetmeme and FriendFeed. In this case, TechCrunch, Reader/Write/Web, Wired, Search Engine Journal and/or Lifehacker seem to more closely suit our needs for comparison.

TIP: You can compare any related sites that you want. You don’t have to only compare the ones Alexa suggests.

We can compare traffic ranking by clicking the “Traffic Stats” tab.

Then you’ll see a traffic graph and below that, you can enter sites to compare. We have decided to compare Techcrunch, Wired and Lifehacker and clicked “traffic rank”.

From the graph above, we can see that Mashable and TechCrunch have comparable traffic, but Mashable seems to come out the winner more consistently. Wired and Lifehacker appear to have lower traffic levels.

If you want to see specific numbers of any of the sites you are comparing, you can simply search for that site in the Alexa search box.

Quality Assessment Method #3: Community Interaction

If interaction is important to you, you may want to look at how people comment and interact on the site. However, realize that commenting doesn’t always give an accurate reflection of a blog’s traffic. Some blogs are more interactive than others and most blog visitors will read and never post a comment.

That said, understanding the vocal audience of a blog may give you an idea of whether or not this is the type of audience you want to write for. Some blogs may be more controversial than you were bargaining for or may not moderate or control their community in a way that you are comfortable with. On the other hand, you may find a lower traffic blog with a very tuned in and thoughtful audience of people you would like to connect with. In that case, the guest blogging opportunity might be a good one for you.

Finding Blogs

Some blogs you come across may include guest post submission guidelines. If so, always make sure you follow the guidelines to the letter. If there is no submission information, don’t let this stop you from submitting a post for consideration. To find submission guidelines, always look in the website menus (top, side and bottom) of the page or search on Google for “websitename.com submission guidelines”, “websitename.com submit post” etc.

Whatever method or methods you use to find blogs, make sure you do a quality assessment before jumping right in.

Finding Method #1: Google

A Google search is simple. Enter your topic plus “blog” and browse the results. In the example below, we’ve looked for “basket weaving blog”:

Technorati

Technorati is a large directory and search engine for blogs. You can browse through categories, by selecting from the top of the page:

You can also use the search box at the very top of the page to either search for blogs OR posts on certain topics. In the example below, we are searching for “stamp collecting” blogs:

Technorati lists the blog according to their own ranking algorithm:

Alexa Related Links

When you already have some sites in mind or ones you’ve already submitted to, you may want to find related sites to consider.

We already talk about Alexa’s Related Links feature and it will come in handy for finding additional blogs to potentially submit to. In this example, we have searched for sites related to comicsalliance.com:

In addition to the list above, if you scroll down a bit, you can search sites by category as well.

Using a Guest Blogging Site

There are sites and communities popping up where you can collaborate with other blog owners.

One such site is MyBlogGuest.com. It’s a free site where you can connect to find guest blogging opportunities and even to find guest bloggers to write for your site. Let’s take a quick look at how this site works.

MyBlogGuest

You can sign up for free at MyBlogGuest.com. When you sign up, you will be prompted to complete your profile, including your social networking accounts, a photo of yourself, your websites, your blogging experience and more. This will make it easier for a potential blog to evaluate whether or not they want to work with you.

Once you’re all set up, you can navigate to the Forum and find the “Looking for a guest for my blog” forum. There you can find blogs who are looking for people to post.

You can also post your own offers in the “Looking for a blog to guest post”, so other blogs can view your information.

Final Thoughts:

As you can probably see, once you start finding site to guest post for, it becomes even easier to find more. You can also use your experience on certain blogs as leverage to get other blogs to readily publish your posts. Finding opportunities isn’t hard, if you know how to look.

How To Find Images For Your Blog

by Nicole Munoz

High quality, professional images will help your blog make a much stronger impression. It’ll help make your blog appear more credible, help you catch attention and help you hold and your reader’s interest. It can also help you hammer a point home.

In some cases, you’ll be able to generate your own images for your blog yourself. For example, you might take your own step-by-step pictures for a DIY homebuilding project you’re doing. Or you might take your own screenshots for a tech demonstration you’re doing.

But in many cases, that won’t be an option. Or you just won’t want to because of how much work it’ll take. In many cases, it just makes sense to find high quality existing images instead of making your own.

When you do, the #1 thing you need to look out for is the image’s license. You need to make sure you find the perfect image for the perfect post, but you also need to make sure you can get the appropriate license to use the image. So where do you find these images? Let’s take a look at some image sources, along with their licenses.

Source #1: Morgue File

Morgue File one of the best free stock image sources on the internet. The files on Morgue File can generally be used for any purpose without attribution.

You can reproduce the image, alter the image, use just a part or the whole thing, create derivative works and even redistribute the image. It’s as close to no license as you’re going to get. Note that images might have more stringent licenses. Make sure you check the license for the specific image you plan on using.

Source #2: Stock.xchng

Stock.xchng is another free stock image website. It also has an enormous selection of images. If you’re looking for free images, try checking both SXC.hu and Morgue File before making your selection.

The image license on Stock.xchng is quite similar to Morgue File, but a little more stringent. You can use the image in whole or in part and you can alter the image. You can create derivative works. You cannot give redistribution rights and you need to ask permission before using the images for print media.

Again, check the specific license for the image you’re using.

Source #3: iStockPhoto

iStockPhoto is one of the most well known stock photo sites on the internet. They have millions of extremely high quality images to choose from.

Stock photos you get on paid sites are almost always far higher quality than photos you’d find on free stock photo sites. Often time’s you’ll only be able to find a good photo on a paid stock photo site.

Generally these sites work on a sliding scale, depending on the resolution you need. The higher the resolution of the photo, the more you pay. Instead of using cash, iStockPhoto uses a credit system. You buy credits, then spend them on images.

Source #4: Dreamstime

Dreamstime is another major paid stock image website. Much like iStockPhoto, Dreamstime uses a credit system. They are generally less expensive than iStockPhoto, but the quality of the images also seems to be lower.

Dreamstime allows you to buy different kinds of licenses for your images. Two common licenses are their “Royalty Free” license and their “Extended License” license.

The Royalty Free license allows you to use the image on the internet, on advertising material, CD covers, presentations and other kinds of single-use media. The Extended License allows you to redistribute the image in web templates, in screensavers, on T-Shirts and other kinds of redistribution media.

Source #5: Open Clipart

Clipart is a very different kind of art. Clipart is generally made from vector graphics. It’s created graphics rather than photographed graphics.

Clipart generally isn’t used as the primary graphic. Instead, it’s used to supplement other images. For example, you might look for thought bubbles or “light bulb over the head” kind of graphics on a clipart site.

You could also use it to find arrows, checkmarks and other formatting related images.

Open Clipart is one of the biggest free clipart sites on the net. From the home page of this site, they say the images in the public domain, meaning you can use it without attribution in any way you want.

Source #6: Flickr Creative Commons

A lot of people on Flickr choose to license their images with creative commons. There are a variety of types of creative commons licenses that Flickr supports. Note that almost all the licenses on Flickr require attribution. Some of them allow you to alter the image, while others don’t. Some allow you to print the image, but you should read the license specifics. Some allow you to redistribute the image, others don’t.

Fortunately, Flickr sorts all the different kinds of licenses out for you. Just click below, then select the type of images you want to see:

http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

Once you’re in one license category, you can browse all of those images by hand, or search for what you’re looking for.

Source #7: Google Advanced Image Search

Another great place to look is Google’s advanced image search. Google allows you to search for images based on image license. To access the advanced search menu, click the “Settings” button on the right hand side of Google Image Search:

To select the license type to search, scroll all the way to the bottom.

Enter your keywords and any other specifications, such as size or geographic region, then hit “Advanced Search.” Only images of the license type you selected will be displayed.

Note that Google may not be 100% accurate, so make sure you double-check the license before you use it.

Source #8: Using Photo Dropper

Photo Dropper is a WordPress plugin that searches Creative Commons and licensable images for you, then drops it directly into your WordPress post. It’s very easy to use. Instead of having to go to an outside site to get an image, you can do it all within your WordPress interface.

Once you have Photo Dropper installed, just go to your post or page screens to use it. Click the Photo Dropper button to bring up the plugin.

Type in a search term. A number of search results will be displayed. Click the one that appeals to you most, but double check the appropriate license as the plugin is not foolproof.

Hit “Insert into Post” and the image will be added into your post. You’ll be given the option to edit the image, just as you would with any other kind of image insertion. You can change the size of the image, add alt text, add a link, change alignment or add CSS styles.

These are eight images different places you can find images for your blog on the internet. Again, make sure that you double-check the licenses for each image you use, as different images can be licensed differently, even on the same site.

Blog Maintenance Checklist

by Nicole Munoz

Running a blog is a bit like running a car. Every so often, you need to put some time and energy into maintaining it. If you don’t, will it still run? Sure, it’ll run just fine – For a time. But if you go too long without changing your oil, or go too long without replacing your brakes, you put strain on the system. Eventually, the whole thing could fall apart. The same goes for running a blog.

Much like a car, a blog is quite a complex system. Maintenance encompasses a wide array of issues, from interactions with readers to interactions with other websites to website security issues.

Here are some of the most important things you need to maintain to keep a blog running smoothly.

#1: Update Your WordPress Installation

Updating your WordPress installation is arguably the most important task on this list. If you’re running an old version of WordPress, there’s a good chance you’re running a version of WordPress that has known security vulnerabilities.

If so, it’s not difficult at all for hackers to find your site through Google, then easily compromise your blog. Updating your WordPress installation literally takes seconds. Make sure you update it whenever you see WordPress prompting you to do an update.

#2: Update Your Plugins

The second most important thing on your checklist is updating your themes. Though the WordPress core installation can pose a security risk, the reality is that the vast majority of WordPress hacks come from compromised plugins.

Most people don’t realize that a single compromised plugin can not only result in their entire WordPress installation getting hacked, but having every other WordPress installation on their entire server getting hacked as well.

Updating your plugins is easy. Just go to the plugins panel and click on “Update Available.”

Then click “Update Automatically” under the plugin you want to update.

Update your plugins to their newest versions whenever possible.

#3: Backup Your Site Periodically

Backing up your WordPress installation regularly, say every 2 weeks or so, helps prevent avoidable disasters. If your site ever gets wiped out, you can simply do a restore. If your hosting company suddenly crashes and loses your data, you can just re-upload everything from scratch.

Backing up your data is made easy by the myriad of different backup plugins you can choose from. Pick a backup system that allows you to automate backups and learn it inside and out.

#4: Moderate Your Comments

Comment moderation is not only an important part of maintain your blog, but a highly time sensitive one.

If you want to maintain a strong relationship between you and your bloggers, you need to moderate your blog comments quickly. People should never feel like they’re being ignored, especially after spending a lot of time to write out a thoughtful comment.

Try to moderate your comments at least every 24 hours, if not every 3, 8 or 12 hours. Never, ever let real comments sit unmoderated for more than 48 hours, or you’re either going to lose that reader for good, or they’ll stop commenting and become a passive participant.

#5: Check for Broken Links

Checking for broken links is something you should do about every three months.

When you’re blogging actively, chances are you’re going to be sending quite a few links out to cyberspace. The majority of those links will still work even months and years from today. But some of them won’t.

If a page you link to goes down, that reflects very badly on you. Users who click on a broken link on your site will instantly view you as less credible. They might also get frustrated, because there was a resource they wanted to access that they couldn’t get to.

To avoid broken link issues, scan your site for broken links every few months. Whenever possible, replace your old links with new resources. If there aren’t any comparable resources, then just unlink that hyperlink.

Source: http://brokenlinkcheck.com

#6: Check Your AdSense Ads

Every once in a while, check what ads are showing up on your site. Check your ads for individual posts as well. Sometimes AdSense will misread your site and post non-relevant ads. Also, sometimes you might be getting ads for competing services. In fact, competitors might sometimes specifically target your site to have their ads displayed there.

One of the best ways to check your AdSense ads is to use the AdSense sandbox: http://ctrlq.org/sandbox/

This allows you to see your ads, minus any retargeting. If you just visited your site, you’ll see a lot of ads that are targeted towards you specifically because of retargeting cookies. The sandbox allows you to see just the ads that are showing up organically on your AdSense ads.

#7: Check Your RSS Feeds

Get in the habit of checking your RSS feeds every 3 months or so.

Check to make sure your RSS feeds are working properly. Check on several different clients, including Google Reader and a desktop client. Sometimes feeds can work in one reader but not another. If something isn’t quite working with your RSS feeds, you want to know sooner rather than later.

Make sure that people can find your RSS feed by typing your site’s URL into their RSS reader. Don’t make people scour your site for a specific RSS link in order to subscribe.

#8: Check Your Analytics

Is your traffic going up or down? Are there specific pages on your site that people seem to be bouncing out of?

What kinds of topics does your audience seem to like? What kinds of headlines seem to catch their attention and get a longer stay? What kind of keywords are people typing in to land on your website.

Your analytics can help answer all these questions and more. Your analytics will help you figure out what your audience likes and doesn’t like, so you can give them more of what they want. It’ll also help you catch red flags early on. If your search traffic suddenly takes a plunge for example, you want to investigate why.

#9: Are You Still on Message?

Finally, re-examine all your posts over the last few months. Ask yourself: Are you still on message? Are you still covering the things you ought to cover? Or have you veered off course?

It’s easy to write a post that seems just a little off topic, especially if you’re feeling inspired by the subject or if there are current events that you want to comment on. But one “slightly off topic” post can lead to another and sooner than you know it, you’re completely off track.

It’s not a big problem. All you need to do is realize when you’re off track by re-reading posts from your past few months. Then re-center your message in your upcoming posts.

These tips will help you keep your blog in tip top shape. Use these tips to help your blog stay secure, to help make sure everything works, to maintain a good relationship with your readers and to stay on message.