minecraft Blogger

Alright, this we a little bit of a misleading headline. Guest posting isn’t dead for most people, but it is however dead for some people.  Matt Cutts from Google announcedtoday that guest posting for some people is dead.

Cutts states in the video that people who are spinning content, writing crappy post, short posts, or posts that provide no value or new relevant information will be deemed as crap and not help you in your rankings.  What does this mean for the thousands of people submitting guest posts to this blog every month?  Pretty much that you can stop cause it’s not really going to help you at all.

Guest posting should be valuable to everyone, including and most especially the reader.  The reader should be able to read a 600+ word post about something that’s new to them.  Not something that’s been rehashed out 10x on 10 different blogs.  Make sure your content is unique and awesome.  People want to create good content, something that helps them out.  Google is going after short 200, 300 and 400 word post that are only written for a link.  If it’s written only for a link, then it’s probably not going to be worth your time.

Good news for all you peeps out there that are doing honest guest posting and actually putting time into your post, you’re in for a treat.  Your link will be valuable, I would imagine authorship and other things will start playing a large role in leadership online.  So start making sure your author tagsare enabled and working.

Last week, I covered how to monetize your blog with affiliate marketing. Of course, that just begged the questions: What should a blogger look for in an affiliate network ?

Now, affiliate marketing is a business model that emerged long before blogs ever existed, and it evolved to  help the merchant make sales. Helping webmasters make money was only an incentive to help merchants make those sales.

The result was that affiliate webmasters built websites that were more oriented toward promoting products. User experience (UE) was only an afterthought — i.e. make the just bearable enough so that they don’t leave before you can refer them to the advertiser’s site.

Blogs, on the other hand, are a social medium. They stand out from mere websites because they let you hold a conversation with your users/readers. It only makes sense, then, that UE is one of your priorities. After all, if you neglect UE, sooner or later you won’t have any readers left and no traffic to try and monetize through any medium, never mind affiliate marketing.

If you’re going to monetize through affiliate marketing, you’re going to need to find and affiliate network or affiliate program that’s more relationship focused . That is, you’ll have to choose a network that (1) is more than self-serve, and (2) will provide support to all affiliates equally.

These attributes are important because as an affiliate blogger , you have to do more than just buld your traffic. You have to retain it. The affiliate marketing potential of a bloglies in the influence it has over its readerscommunity. That influence stems from a relationship you develop with your readers. It only makes sense, then, that you work with an affiliate network than appreciates that importance of relationships.

If you aren’t already an affiliate blogger , it will help to have some help along the way. After all, when you first join an affiliate network or program, it takes some time to figure out its ins and out.

Every network has has an array of products to promote, and affiliate managers often know which products work best on which sites/blogs. Being able to chat with one those managers will help you choose which products in the network to focus on promoting.

Affiliate networks/program are also all powered by different affilate software. If you want to really optimize your affiliate marketing efforts, you’ll want to get the most out of that software and the analytics it provides. Dedicated affiliate manager can also help you with that.

Finally, some affiliate programs offer more marketing tools than others. As a blogger, there are a few different ways you can promote products (e.g. sidebar ads, in-post links, etc…). An affiliate management team that’s willing to look over your site, recommend tools (and programs that offer them), can save a lot of time and energy when it comes to setting up your affiliate account.

Providing support across an entire network requires staff and that can be costly. Consequently, some networks only provide support to some of their biggest affiliates. This happens with both smaller networks that don’t have a lot of resources, and massive networks that prefer to work with so-called super affiliates . In either case, such networks only want to invest in support when they see an immediate return.

On the other hand, there are network that see affiliate support as a longer-term investment. That is, they believe in the long tail , and know that if they invest in an affiliate, that affiliate will become a better affiliate and make both of them more money. They also know that that affiliate will also stay more loyal, and continue to (effectively) promote products within the network for years to come.

As a blogger, you’d probably be more comfortable with a network that offers such dedicated support . First, they’ll be there through your growing pains, giving you the kinds of support mentioned above. Secondly, they’ll listen to your (and other affiliates’) feedback, and that intelligence will trickly back into the network/program, making it a better, and more competitive place for both advertisers and publishers.

To succeed as a blogger, you have to passionate not only about your topic, but about your readers/users. You have to build a community and develop relationships with its members.

If you’re going to monetize your blog through affiliate marketing, then, it makes sense to choose an affiliate network/program that shows a similar appreciation for relationships and treats its members as a community. A network/program that takes the time to develop a relationship with you and it other members will not only provide better support, but will better understand what you and the rest of the network members (the community) need to succeed. Not to mention, that relationship approach is also likely to attract better advertisers who are actually interested in growing their program, rather than just moving a couple extra units during a seasonal down-turn.

A huge part of blogging is generating traffic. Otherwise, you don’t have any readers, and then it’s kind of like you’re writing emails to yourself, and that just makes you kind of creepy

One the interesting things about generating traffic as a blogger, though, is that blogs are very SEO friendly. This means that long after you publish a post, it’ll generate organic traffic. As an affiliate blogger, then, you have an opportunity to make commissions on sales that you refer long after you write about them. In fact, longtail traffic is probably the largest opportunity that affiliate bloggers have to make money.

Last week I posted about how categorizing your affiliate contentis important to reap the benefits of longtail traffic. This way, when users search for product reviews months (or years) down the line, they have a better chance of finding your reviews, and you can make a commission on any sale that results from their interest and your content. Another way to enhance the search engine visibility of your content is through deep and internal linking.

Deep & Internal Linking
Now, every time you mention a product, you have two linking possibilities: (1) you can use an affiliate link and possibly make a commission on anyone that clicks on it, or (2) you can link back to a previous review and build the authority of that previous content.

Basically, you face a trade-off: do you stack up on affiliate links and hope to convert current readers, or do you link back to previous content and increase the search ranking of an older post?

Well, consider how you’re mentioning the product. If it’s one of the post’s main points or items, then use an affiliate link. However, it’s just a passing mention of the product, then link back to a post that features the product and contains an affiliate link itself. The anchor text you use to link back to an older post will help boost its search ranking, and that will give it traction over time. In turn, that older post has a better chance attracting organic traffic and then converting some of it into sales.

Similarly, if the newer post also features the product, you’ll probably have an opportunity to use the product’s name more than once. So the first time you do so, use an affiliate link, and the second time you mention the product, link back to a previous post. That way, you cover all you bases.

Six Links of Separation
Internal linking is like building a your net or web out of your blog. The more links you have tying your content together, the stronger your web is: with each post it grows larger, and with each link it gets stronger. Build it large enough, and you catch a lot of traffic. Build it strong enough, and you’ll be able to refer that traffic down just the right sales funnel, and make a commission in the process.

Over the past few months, Google-owned Blogger has seen more than its fair share of updates and enhancements. From a whole new look to the Blogger dashboard to inline comment forms and star ratings, it seems that Blogger is giving more attention to the needs of its users.

On Friday, Blogger users were happy to seeadded to the recent list of enhancements: post “reactions”; Google Gadget integration and a whole new look for the regular Blogger dashboard.

Let’s take a look at these new features in detail, along with a few other updates which Blogger users should be aware of.

Those using the experimental features of Blogger in Draft now have access to the new “Reactions” feature. This offers blog publishers the ability to add a “mini-poll” beneath each of their posts with customizable options for readers to vote on the quality and usefulness of the post.

The Reactions feature is offered as an alternative option for readers to leave feedback about a blog post.

You will need to log into Blogger in Draftin order to add this feature to your Blogger blog. Go to the Layout>Page Elements page, and click on the “Edit” link for your Blog Posts widget.

On this pop-up page, you will notice “Reactions” as a new feature which may be added to the posting section of your blog:

You will need to tick this box and save your new settings to be able to use this new feature in your blog. However, depending on the style of template you are using, you’ll also need to perform one of two steps.

You will need to refresh the code for your template by choosing a fresh template or reverting the widget templates to default (from the Edit HTML screen). This is because the existing HTML code for your blog will not yet contain the code required for the “reactions” widget to display beneath your posts.

Once you have chosen a new template or reverted the widget templates to default, you will see the “reactions” enhancement appear beneath your posts.

You will need to add the code for “reactions” to your template manually.

Unlike many of Blogger’s recent updates, this is a simple matter of copying and pasting code.

Go to Layout>Edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard, and check the “expand widget templates” box. Then use your browser’s search function to locate the following line:

Immediately after this line, add the following section of code:

Then preview your template. If you have pasted the code correctly, you should see the new reactions feature appear beneath your posts. Then you can save your template and enjoy your new blog enhancement!

Being owned by Google, it makes sense that Blogger will naturally integrate many of its owner’s services into the system.

For some time, Blogger in Draft users have been able to add Google Gadgets as sidebar widgets with a few simple clicks. Now this feature has been taken out of beta and is available for all through the main Blogger dashboard.

The integration of Google Gadgetsmeans a far greater variety of widgets is now available to add interactive features to our Blogger dashboard through the actual dashboard (rather than having to find the appropriate feature and JavaScript codes elsewhere.

From weather widgets to the most popular entries on Digg and everything between, Blogger users can now choose from literally hundreds of gadgets for use in their blogs, and can even create their own which can be added with ease to Google’s directory of gadgets.

Another feature of Blogger in Draft has also been rolled out for use with the regular Blogger system: the new feature packed dashboard.

The ability to choose which blogs are displayed by default, tabbed navigation for the latest Blogger feeds, and links to Google tools/resources for which you have accounts are all part and parcel of this interactive and intuitive new look.

Blogger has updated the “Flag this blog” link which appears in the Blogger nav-bar on many Blogger powered blogs. Now when you choose to flag an inappropriate blog, you are offered the chance to add information about why you feel the blog in question is inappropriate or contravenes the terms of service.

As the Blogger team have pointed out, flagging a blog does not cause this to be flagged as a spam blog. Instead, flagging a blog brings this to human attention, and further action will be taken if deemed necessary.

Also, there is a new “features” pagewhich explains all of Blogger’s standard features and enhancements. This is great for checking out any of the updates you may have missed.

Through the many recent updates and enhancements for Blogger, many of the most requested features of this platform have already been addressed: the ability to import/exportblogs, an inline comment formand star ratingsare already well-integrated for those using the experimental features of Blogger in Draft. However, there are still some features which could make Blogger a more competitive and much loved blogging platform.

Post summaries is a feature which most Blogger users would certainly love to see added to this platform. It has been available for WordPress users for years, and while Blogger users do have a work-around solution, it does require much editing of the template and extensive editing for each post made. I’d like to think that the Blogger team are at least considering adding this feature in the future, though no-one can say when it may be available for use.

The integration of Google Analytics and Google Reader may also be possibilities for future enhancements. There is already speculation that analytics for Blogger is already in progress, while the adddition of user-defined feeds for the new dashboard seems a natural enhancement.

Blogger rarely leeks any hints about new features which are in progress, though you can be sure I will post about them here at Blogging Tips!

If you have any comments or ideas about Blogger’s new features and enhancements, please feel free to leave your comments below.

You can’t succeed with your blog if you can’t drive good traffic to it. However, if you are a new blogger, how can you suppose to drive traffic to your blog, especially if you’re so clueless about blogging in the first place? The answer is simple. Here are 5 biggest traffic tipsyou can follow, if you’re a new and clueless blogger:

Pillar articles are articles that you write as your main blog content. For example, if you have a blog about acne treatment, your pillar articles can be in the form of 10-part tutorial articles on how to understand more about acne and get rid of it once and for all. These articles will become the basic of your blog.

Of course, you have to give something good for your readers all the time. It means that your blog post must be valuable enough for your readers to read it. However, it is also important for you to give them something special once in a while. This is where premium post is needed for your blog.

Premium post is a special post where you give your readers more detailed and in-depth information about the topic. It can be a tutorial, guide or even regular list articles (the only difference is that it is more detailed). You should at least write premium post and publish it to your blog once a week.

Connect with other blogs early so that you can build good reputation on the search engine as soon as your blog is established. Yes, it is easier to postpone writing guest post to other blogs until you have at least 100 posts in your blog. But, it is not necessary. Publish 10 good posts to your blog and start guest posting right away. This is important to build good traffic and readership in your blog.

How much forums can influence your blog traffic? The answer is “a lot”. If you are a reputable member of an established forum, you can easily drive traffic to your blog just by putting your blog in your forum signature. That’s why it is important to participate on many forums in the same niche as your blog.

Perhaps, if you are a newbie blogger, you will think that branding isn’t important, or you can’t build a good brand for your new blog. But, think about this.

Branding is a long-term investment for your blog. Yes, you can’t build brand for your blog in just 1-2 weeks. You need to nurture and develop your blog for years until your blog brand is recognized.

What I suggest to you is to start building your brand from the start in order to avoid regret later. Remember, this is a long-term investment for your blog.

Traffic is something that most new bloggers are struggling about. However, if you’re a new and clueless blogger, you should be able to start driving quality traffic to your blog if you follow the tips above.

This guest post was written by Yash Sehgal, who is a technology enthusiast and actively writes on topics covering Blogging,Internet Marketing,SEO,Technology at www.techmadoo.com,aiming to help newbie bloggers by providing basic blog tipson his blog.While he is not writing,he is busy fiddling with latest gadgets and helping people out in their technical queries.

If you need extra income, you should consider doing affiliate marketing…

Monetizing a blog can be difficult, especially when you’re just starting out. How can you tell what your readers actually want?

This was my greatest challenge when I launched my blog.

Prior to the launch of my blog, I had read several e-books and posts – and the authors advised that I monetize my blog with affiliate offers.

As a newbie, I followed the laid out rules. I even filled my sidebar with affiliate banners and started blogging.

Day in and day out, I’d log into my clickbank account, hoping to see $50 – $100 in sales but nothing happened.

I was fed up and decided to take a better more logical approach. It was when I started promoting health affiliate products.

If this sad story sounds familiar, hang on and I’ll show you the 5 things you must NEVER do when promoting any affiliate product. It worked for me and I’m sure your own case will not be different.

I made a terrible mistake when I first started my affiliate business. Of course I didn’t know the negative effect of using hype at the time, but I was using it nonetheless.

If all you do is exaggerate the benefits of a particular offer, without considering your ideal customers’ interest, you’ll lose the trust they have for you.

Hype is an ugly marketing trick. Have you ever felt unhappy when the so-called gurus tried to exploit you? Making money as an affiliate marketer calls for honesty and integrity. Potential customers are counting on you to show them the way.

Don’t disappoint them with your hype and dishonesty. The bottom line is to promote only offers that are truly helpful. If there is any part of the module that isn’t so good, make it known to your readers.

Does this sound weird? After all, as affiliates we’re supposed to sell in order to make commissions. All right, I understand you perfectly, but there is a clause there.

The truth is that affiliate marketers are not supposed to sell anything. In fact, it’s not their primary duty.

The role of an affiliate marketer is to motivate, inform and educate potential buyers. If you try to sell the offer, when you eventually lead the prospects through to the salesletter, converting them would be difficult.

Instead, presell in an honest manner and creatively lead the person to the store to complete the sale. Use valuable content to teach people what to do. Teaching sells so well online – use it.

That’s how to pre-sell. Share your best information and don’t hoard any no matter what happens.

I know a lot of affiliate marketers who send new products every week to their subscribers. This can be irritating and I advise you don’t do it.

The email list is a vital component of your blogging business. You should nurture your subscribers and get them to trust you.

Once you can achieve that, it’d be a lot easier to monetize the list and make more money.

Bear in mind that sending an affiliate offer that you know would be helpful to your list isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s one of the reasons why you should collect leads in the first place.

What I’m saying is that you should minimize promotional email blasts. Balance the free information you share with premium offers. That’s how to build a reputation online, which money can’t buy.

The sidebar is a viable spot to add affiliate banners. But don’t overdo things and confuse your readers.

You’ve got to understand that people came to your blog because they’ve got needs in their lives. Every day, millions of people search the web, looking for answers…

Quality content is the only answer you should provide. Yes, with quality content you could easily recommend a helpful affiliate product and make money too.

If you do place advertisements on your sidebar, there is no need to have more than four banners of your favorite affiliate products – keep the sidebar clean.

Preferably, promote offers you currently use to run your business, or promote products you would try yourself. It’s the easiest way to persuade readers to purchase and share with others.

And when they buy through your link, you’ll earn a commission and who knows how much that’s going to be.

What are you waiting for to start making money via affiliate marketing? Remember, bloggers who don’t make enough money from this profitable business model don’t have the required knowledge to make it work.

What you need to get started is an affiliate marketing coachthat knows what works, and knows how to take baby steps to achieve your internet marketing objective. Leave a comment below if you enjoyed this post. Thank you for reading…