Easy Way To Increase Google Adsense Earnings Quickly

It's been almost a month since I last posted in the MoneyMaking section. That's why, today, I have decided to give all my readers some great tips on increasing your Adsense earnings quickly. So you have a great website or blog and it gets some nice regular traffic. But for some reason you don't seem to be earning more than few cents through Google Adsense while others are making several dollars a day. In this post, I will show you a simple and safe way to double or even triple your Adsense earnings.

Before we continue, I would like to make it clear that I am not here to tell you how to make hundreds of dollars every day. I will simply tell you an easy way to make a couple of dollars everyday. If you are lucky and have a famous website with a lot of traffic then you can definitely earn a lot more.


First of all, take a look at how my Adsense earnings increased when I used this method on my blogs.As you can see, after July 22nd, I started earning more than just a couple of cents. I was earning $2-$4 everyday through this method.

So what is this method?
Alright, I am sure you are all eager to know what this method actually is. This method involves using Google Adwords Keyword Tool (GAKT). This is a great tool by Google that provides you with a lot of information such as advertiser competition, approximate search volume etc about keywords. However, the most important information of all is the Estimated Average CPC. You can get this information by clicking on the drop down menu that says "Choose Cloumns to Display." But what is Cost Per Click (CPC)?

The CPC is the amount an advertiser pays each time a user clicks on his/her ad.
By Google Adsense Help

So choose a keyword and look it up on Google Adwords Keyword Tool. I used "web hosting" as an example. Then, sort the Average Estimated CPC from maximum to minimum simply by clicking on it. As you can see, "managed web hosting" has the most CPC compared to others. Each click on ads generated from this keywords will get you $26.11. There are other nice keywords too worth more than $20 such as "best web hosting companies", "web hosting dedicated" etc.

Thus, when you are about to write a new post on your blog, think of the keywords that you will be including and look them up on GAWT. Use the information from GAWT to determine which specific keywords to use in your article. This way the Adsense ads displayed next to your articles will be worth much more. But don't think you will always be getting $25 per click because it is very rare. However, if you are lucky, it may happen!

So to sum it all up, before you write an article, do some research and try to use the keywords that will display the most expensive Adsense ads.

If you liked this post, then please subscribe to my RSS Feed or subscribe via email.

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Link Love (1): Open Your Posts Creatively To Get More Traffic

Starting today (August 24), I will be posting some nice and interesting links every week on Sunday. I believe that to learn SEO and other webmaster related stuff like blogging, marketing and moneymaking, you have to read articles from a variety of sources and that is why I will be providing you with links from other great websites and blogs. I encourage you to read those articles because they can be really helpful to you and can provide you with a different point of view.

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Main Article:

11 Ways to Open a Post and Get Reader Engagement by ProBlogger

Other Interesting Articles:

• Bring the political process to life in your classroom - Google Blog
• I feel the need...the need for feeds - Inside Adsense
• One account, multiple sites - Inside Adsense
  
• See what Obama, McCain and leading political pundits are reading - Gmail Blog

Google PageRank Update August 08 Is Here

Google just updated all the PageRank values recently few weeks ago. I was not very happy with it because one of my blogs which has PageRank 3 didn't notice any change even though I had been working so hard to get backlinks. But still I didn't mind much because I thought the blog would gain PageRank in the next update. However, when I came back home from work and noticed the PageRank of SEO and Blogging Tips, I was completely shocked!

My PageRank dropped from 4 to 1. That's from PageRank 4 to PageRank 1. How could that be possible? I checked my Firefox plug-in and it kept showing 1. I went to a PageRank checker website to verify and it is true. I have lost my PageRank. Not by one...not by two....but by three. I have heard that the PageRank update has just started few hours ago so there are chances that my PageRank might be returned to me by the end but the chances are very few.

Not many people know about this update so I wanted to give you a heads up on it so that you can go and check your websites' PageRank. Let me know how this mini update turned out for you. Did you lose your PageRank or gained it? What are you going to do about it now?


I am not going to be too concerned about PageRank from now on. I have realized that sometimes it can be completely random and false. I am going to focus even more on my content and work harder to increase traffic to SEO and Blogging Tips. Afterall, content and traffic matters the most.

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ImHosted - Web Hosting Services

Today, I across another great web hosting company and decided that I should share it with you guys. A lot of bloggers look for good web hosting services to host their own blogs independently. However, it is not true that having your own domain name and hosting will give you a better reputation. But some people prefer to have their blog hosted independently with their own domain name.

For such people, the most difficult thing is coming with a good hosting service to host their website. There are so many companies out there but the sad truth is that only few are good and can be recommended. The rest are completely trash. You will see so many web hosting ratings, web hosting reviews or articles titled "top web hosting companies."

Imhosted is a great ecommerce hosting company that provides more than just web hosting. It provides several great services like shared web hosting, ecommerce web hosting, e-mail hosting, online data storage, search engine submission etc.


If you visit their site, you can see their compiled list of 13 reasons why you should select their services. Some major reasons include 100% customer satisfaction, complete access and control, cheap hosting, quick set up, connectivity, reliability, speed and honesty. Also, I love their search engine submission service. Your website is useless if no one can find it through search engines. Their service will let your website gain a lot of popularity and increase your sales and income.

Overall , I think it is a great site for web hosting services. If you are looking for a cheap and reliable web hosting company, then you should definitely consider them.

6 Free Killer Blogger Templates Every Blogger Should Know

As you can all see, I have completely changed the look of my blog. The reason is not that I did not like my previous template but because I found a great template and couldn't ignore it. The template was so beautiful that I had to use it and the result is in front of you. The new template gives my blog a professional and clean look which I think is very important for a SEO/Blogging/Webmaster blog. For those who do not know, my previous template was PassionDuo for Blogger - Blue.

While searching for more templates, I came across some great blogger templates that I had never seen before. They simply blew me away. I have always hated how there are so many good templates available for WordPress for free but not for Blogger. But not now...here are Top 6 Blogger Templates that will blow you away.


6. Dicas by Dicas Blogger
A great looking simple blog that will surely attract readers. It's a three column template with a nice big header on the top and soothing color scheme.

Demo | Download

5. Dark World by akOOgle
This is another simple "wordpress" looking template with a great color scheme. It is only two column but still a great template to have if you like a simple blog.

Demo | Download

4. Funky Zine by Blogger Tricks
Blogger Tricks has come up with another great looking 3 column template with tons of space. The template even comes with four ad blocks. It is a great template for blogs related to technology.

Demo | Download

3. Pepper by Blogger Tricks
One more template in the list comes from Blogger Tricks. This one has a beautiful color scheme and enough space to fit everything a blogger needs. The template has a nice RSS feed button and a built-in search feature.

Demo | Download

2. Indomagz by GossuBlogger
Give your blog a nice "wordpress" look with this great template by GossuBlogger. It has plenty of space for all your widgets and a nice section for the ads. Additionally, you can add a great banner on top.

Demo | Download

1. Visionary Reloaded by Blogger Templates
This is the template that I am currently using right now. It is probably the best free blogger template I have seen yet. There is tons of space to put your small widgets or gadgets. The color scheme is perfect and the nice big rectangle box on the right is a wonder. You can put several of your widgets there and not worry about wasting any space. This is a MUST HAVE template for all.

Demo | Download

There you go! These were my favorite 6 free blogger templates that I recently came across. All of these templates are featured in 60 More Beautiful Blogger Templates by Technobuzz.

If you liked this post then subscribe to my feed for latest updates.

Submitting Websites To Other Search Engines: Is It Worth It?

There are many webmasters out there who believe that there is no point in submitting your websites to search engines. They get crawled sooner or later anyways, so what's the point in submitting them? Then there are others who only submit their websites and blogs to Google. Let me tell you that both of these types of webmasters are idiots....now let me tell you why.

Right now, I don't want to talk about why it is important to submit your website to search engines directly rather than wait for the bots to crawl it for you. Today, I would like to talk about submitting websites to other search engines besides Google. According to Hitwise, Google received over 70% of the searches in US while Yahoo and received 18.65% and MSN got only 5.36%.

*Click on the image to enlarge it

As you can see in the image above, Google has been dominating the market in July 08, June 08 and July 07. Basically, Google is the king of the search market for the time being and a lot of people believe that submitting websites to Yahoo and MSN is not worth it.

But lets not forget that Yahoo and MSN own around a quarter of the search market. Google may be the king but Yahoo and MSN still hold some value and can definitely be a good source for traffic to your website or blog.

Take a look at the traffic statistics for a celebrity blog over the last month (July 19 - August 18). I would use the stats from this blog but I don't have sufficient data available from Google Analytics yet.

The blog has received a total of 4,714 visitors from search engines only. From those visits, 4,254 came only from Google while the rest came from a collection of other search engines. Take a look at the detailed stats below:

As you can see, the blog got 90% traffic from Google, 6% from Yahoo and 4% from other search engines. Now you might be thinking that if most of the traffic comes from Google, then why should submitting to other search engines matter. The reason is that every traffic counts and even 320 visitors in a month is better than nothing. Overall the blog gets 460 visitors from other search engines which means that around 15 visitors come every day from those search engines. Now I am only talking about a mediocre blog. Consider big websites with lots of traffic. The number will be huge this time and they will matter a lot.

While it is good to submit to Google, submitting to other search engines does not take more than a couple of minutes and can guarantee some great long run benefits. In conclusion, I will say that each site needs traffic even if it is famous and all the other search engines can definitely increase the popularity of your website. Don't forget that Google is not the only search engine. And what if it disappears tomorrow? You always need to have a backup plan. Never put all your marbles in one bag!

Here are some search engine you can submit your websites/blogs to:

• Google
• Yahoo!
• Live Search

Hopefully, you learned something important from this post. If you would like to receives more post like this in future then please subscribe to my RSS feed or subscribe via email.

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Noteworthy SEO Consultant and eMarketing strategist

There are hundreds of blogs and websites dedicated to SEO on the internet and it is not possible for me to present you with all the information on my blog. Thus, I think it is a nice step to introduce you to some other SEO/blogging websites and blogs that you might find interesting.

Today, I came across a SEO consultant and a blogger from Pakistan called Zafar Ahmed. He is a talented blogger who offers several services to webmasters to rank better on search engines. Furthermore, he provides some great information in his blog. Zafar Ahmad, SEO expert Pakistan, recently wrote a great post on his blog about some false SEO myths that I think you should definitely check out.

Furthermore, Zafar Ahmed provides some excellent SEO services and Internet marketing for some big businesses. I have not tried his services personally but I have heard that he is great at what he does!

Overall, I would say that I am really impressed with the content provided by this blogger. Take a look and you will see for yourself.

The "Writing New Blog Posts For More Traffic" Problem For Bloggers

Today, while I was discussing a topic at a forum with some members and came up on a problem that bloggers usually face when coming up with search engine friendly blog posts. So what is this problem?

Problem

Well, most of the times bloggers are always thinking of new stuff to write about on their blog. But smart bloggers are always thinking of some new topics that can get them good ranking at search engines and increase traffic. Thus, you do not want to write about something that has been written several times before because that just means you have tons of competition to deal with and who has time to do that? We just want to write a post and get to top and that can easily be done if there is not much competition. But hold on a second! We don't just want to write about any topic with less competition. Can you see where this is going? We gotta write about a popular topic that not many people have written about.


So suppose I choose to write about "email hosting" because according to SEO Book tool, 8448 searches are made at Google everyday...and that's just one search engine! In total, 11,919 searches are made everyday using that keyword. So if you write a post about email hosting, there are good chances that you will get some traffic. But wait up, how will you get that traffic if your blog/website appears on the third or fourth page of the search results because of all the competition that exists. I am sure tons of people have already written about email hosting!

So, if you want to write a post that would bring you a lot of traffic from search engine, you have to come up with a topic that has less competition and is popular. Make sure you keep this in mind, the next time you sit in front of your old computer and start typing your latest post.

How to deal with it?

One way to deal with this problem is to write about recent popular topics. That way, the topic is still popular but it has only been popular for few days and thus not many people have writting about it so there is very few competition. But how do you find about such topics? There are several tools that you can use online and Google Trends and Insights are some really good ones. These tools will let you see what the world is searching for and then you can look through them to find some recent terms and write about them. For example, a really hot topic right now is michael phelps wardrobe malfunction. Write about that and you will definitely get some traffic (but only for limited time!).

Another way is to just keep thinking and wait till you get a brilliant idea that will make your blog receive thousands of traffic instantly but as we all know, chances are very slim!

What do you think is a good way to deal with this problem? Do you have an answer?

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Forex Brotherhood - Learn To Succeed

Earning money through Forex can be quite risky if you do not know much about it. This is why there are lots of programs online to help you succeed. However, do all these programs work? Most of them do not but there are some that can be beneficial to you. One such program is Forex Brotherhood. Today I will provide you with a short Forex Brotherhood review to help you learn more.

Forex Brotherhood just released in August 2008 and is now available. It is the best Forex coaching program that provides you with several extra features such as support forums, daily reports, live webinars etc. The program is run by a professional called Jason Jankovsky. Newbies should definitely get their membership as soon as possible and start experiencing the benefits.


Here are some benefits:

• Direct coaching from the expert
• Great helpful software
• Live seminars with the gurus
• Support forum
• Articles to teach you more

The members will be coached by Forex expert Jason Jankovsky who has a total experience of twenty years. Jason will give live lessons twice for 45 minutes every day online. Broadcast will take place in morning when the market opens and at night when it closes. If you missed a session, then you can read the daily report provided by the host in print to catch up.

This is a great thing to try for the newbies and learn more about Forex trading. You will also be able to learn more with careful guidance. But make sure you hurry up because there are only 1000 limited spots.

SEO Service To Get A Better Ranking

SEO is not for everyone but I do believe that if we try our best and give it some time, we can easily learn how to optimize our websites and blogs. However there are times, when it is better to ask someone for help rather than try to do it yourself. Sometimes, webmasters don’t have enough time to do SEO themselves and thus they hire SEO experts to optimize their websites to increase sales.

Today, I would like to talk about a great service I came to know about called Rank Me Higher. It is basically a press release promotion company that promotes your websites by promoting press releases. Google is the most used search engine today and it is highly important that your website features on the first two pages for targeted keywords. However, they know how hard it can be sometimes to rank well in Google and other search engines and they are here to help.


Rank Me Higher owns a Press Released Website which is approved by Google News. All you have to do is send them the press release promotional material and they will edit it for any grammatical errors and typos. Furthermore, they will edit a little more to make it SEO friendly.

Rank Me Higher offers all of its services for a very low price. For only $50.00, you get a completely revised and SEO friendly press release, thumbnail and three anchor links and more. You can get some additional advantages for only $40.00 more such as get your press release converted into podcast.

Rank Me Higher is a great service that can be used for website promotion and rank better at search engines. Give it a try and see the results yourself.

Leaving Comments That Will Generate Traffic And Improve PageRank

Most SEO experts will always tell you that leaving comments on other (dofollow) blogs is a great way to not only bring some traffic to your own site but also improve your website's PageRank. So you tried doing that but your traffic seemed unaffected. You wait for the next PageRank update and do not notice any difference either. So what is it that's going wrong? Is it pointless to leave comments on other blogs or are you just not doing it correctly? I will tell you right now that it is the comments that you are leaving and not the method.

A lot of (popular) bloggers moderate the comments before publishing them on their blog to block spammy comments. Thus, just because you left a comment does not necessarily mean that it got published. This is why you need to make sure that you leave comments that always get approved by other bloggers and I am here to present you with some tips that will help you write such comments.


DON'T include links

Memorize this and swear to never forget it. Trust me with this one. Never leave your website's link in a comment unless the blog owner is your cousin. There is nothing worse than seeing a comment on your blog with a link. Regardless of how well the comment is written, webmasters are always prompted to reject the comment.

When you leave a comment, you have to enter some basic information including your name, email and URL. That is where you enter your website's URL address. If people want to visit your site, then they will click on your name which will direct them to the URL you entered before.

Some of you might be thinking of the situations when you want to include a link to one of your posts in the comment because you have to mention it to finish what you want to say. Well in that case, I would suggest that you write the title of your post and not include its URL. If people are interested in reading your post, then they will click on your name/URL and find the post with the title that you wrote. It's a lot more work for the readers but at least you do not seem like a spammer.

Be specific, not general

No one is interested in reading general comments that can be posted on any blog and any post. Such comments seem like spam. Here are some samples:

Nice post. Loved it!
Great work buddy. Keep it up!
Paris Hilton is hot and so is your post.
Some great tips you have there.

Comments like these show that you have not read the post completely and are just here to spam. Even though that might not be your intention, you have to stop leaving such comments. Ideal comments should be that challenge the writer or give him suggestions. You can also talk about the specific thing that you liked and what you did not.

Benefits of leaving such comments

Alright, so you have left comments on blogs like I mentioned but how exactly will they help you generate traffic and improve PageRank? First of all, whenever someone reads an interesting and intelligent comment, they are prompted to read some more of your articles. I know that I always do this! This brings significant amount of traffic to your blog.

Also, when the blog owner and/or readers see your post, they might want to exchange links with your sites and have more discussions with you. This helps you get a great friend in the immense blogging community. People are always interested in exchanging links with intelligent and dedicated bloggers. And we all know that exchanging links is a good way to improve PageRank.

These were some tips on leaving some good comments that will help you get traffic and improve PageRank. Remember, few comments like these will be more beneficial in the long run than lots of spammy comments.

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Some Useful Links:
Video units more widely available - Inside Adsense
Get your Google Calendar in 38 languages - Gmail Blog
Model your campus in Mexico using SketchUp - Google Blog
Where is Georgia on Google Maps? - Google Blog
Translations on your iPhone - Google Blog
Spice Up Your Blog with Google Gadgets! - Blogger Buzz
Keeping tabs on spam and viruses - Google Blog

Social Bookmarking Sites: How To Decide Which One Is The Best

It is a known fact that social bookmarking websites are a great way to bring some traffic to your blog/website. They can also be a great place to discover new interesting articles. However, in the past few years, a lot of bookmarking sites have emerged, making it almost impossible to submit your articles or post to all of them. So out of all these sites, how do you decide which ones you should use to share your articles with others?

What are Social Bookmarking websites?
For those who know little about social bookmarking sites, they are a great place to share and discover articles. Whenever you write a new article, you can submit it to such sites and share it with others and at the same time discover some new articles by other members. All social bookmarking sites have some sort of voting system to rank the articles. If your article is interested and others like it then they will vote for it. The articles that get the most votes are displayed on the homepage and thus gain more exposure. Some of the most famous bookmarking websites are Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Sphinn etc.


Submitting articles to social bookmarking sites can bring you a lot of traffic in short amount of time and can also be beneficial in the long run. However, not all the bookmarking sites are as beneficial as others. Thus, you have to be careful about which ones you choose to submit your articles since that can save you a lot of time. I have complied a short list of some important factors that you should consider before submitting your article to social bookmarking sites.

1. Niche
Not all bookmarking sites are general. A lot of bookmarking sites are dedicated to a special niche or a group of topics. For example, Sphinn is only dedicated to sharing news related to internet marketing. Thus, it is important that you don't use it for celebrity gossips! You should use bookmarking sites that match your article's niche to get the best results.

2. PageRank
With so many outgoing links, having a backlink from social bookmarking sites with high PageRank does not hold a great value but is still important in the long run. Thus, you should consider checking the PageRank of social bookmarking sites to see which ones have the highest.

• Digg - PR 8
• Delicious - PR 9
  
• Furl - PR 7
  
• Stumble Upon - PR 8
  
• Sphinn - PR 7
• Reddit - PR 7

3. Users
Submitting articles to social bookmarking site with very few members is quite useless since your article will not be getting much exposure. You need to make sure that the bookmarking sites you use have a lot of members. If there are a lot of users then that means there are more chances of you blog/site will getting some good amount of traffic.

4. Community
Sometimes you need to consider the community before you submit your articles. Are the members respectful? Do they like your post? Bookmarking sites are SOCIAL sites so you need to build some kind of relationship with other members and become part of the community. Thus, it is important that social bookmarking sites have a good supportive community.

5. Search Engine Results Page (SERPs)
Digg submissions often appear in Google result pages and thus provide extra traffic to webmasters. Thus, it is important that you choose bookmarking sites that have good SERPs. You want your submission page to have good ranking! Take a look at the fourth result on this google seach page.

6. Traffic
The main reason for submitting to social bookmarking sites is probably to get traffic (permanent or temporary). Thus, you have to try some bookmarking sites yourself and see which sites work the best for you. You have to see which sites get you the most traffic. Some webmasters get tons of traffic from Stumble Upon while others struggle to get any.

I hope this list helped you decide which bookmarking sites you should use for your posts/articles. Remember, social bookmarking sites are great for getting traffic and building backlinks.

Now I am a little tired after writing this article so I am going to take some rest and watch some old episodes of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. See you guys later!!

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Some Useful Links:
Translations on your iPhone - Google Blog
Keeping tabs on spam and viruses - Google Blog
Western Union expanded to additional countries - Inside Adsense
We feel your pain, and we're sorry - Gmail Blog
Spice Up Your Blog with Google Gadgets! - Blogger Buzz

Create Some Buzz With Buzz Bites Vending Machine

Recently I came across a very nice product on a website. The ad was about one of the best vending machines I had ever seen. As soon as I saw the ad, I decided to out its website to get some more information about this interesting product.

The product is called Buzz Bites Vending Machine. So what does it do? Well it is a small vending machine that sells Buzz Bites. First of all, this vending machine is not of regular size and that’s the amazing thing about it. It is very small and you can put it anywhere you want…next to a counter or a computer in the office. Furthermore, Buzz Bites are like coffee. They are chocolate energy chews that help build up energy. They are great for students, drivers, athletes etc.


This is a great small business opportunity for simple people to make money with vending machines. It is cheap and there is a great potential to earn a lot from it. Buzz Bites are just like a cup of coffee and we all know that no one can be satisfied with just one cup of coffee. People will keep coming back to buy Buzz Bites and thus you will be earning money every time!

Buzz Bites Vending Machine has been seen in a lot of places. It has been featured on The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Vending Times, Capitol Weekly, Whoopi etc.

If you like this product but are not sure if you want to buy it or not then you should apply for a free sample kit and information packet. It will be sent to your house overnight!

Danger Proof: Your Online Source To Security

I am a little tired of talking all the usual stuff everyday so I decided to bring you something different today. While I was surfing the net earlier, I came across a really nice and fascinating site. The site is called Danger Proof and is a great website to buy bulletproof vests from online. If you are interested in staying secure then read on!

Danger Proof is a great website which sells vests and accessories to keep you protected. You can buy a variety of products from there such as standard vests, concealable vests, side protection vests, full protection vests and bulletproof vests. You can also find some great accessories at Danger Proof. Additionally, all the products are reasonably priced.


All the products include images along with additional information such as short description and price to help you choose the best vest for you. Each vest comes in several sizes so that you can select the one that suits you the most.

Furthermore, Danger Proof provides its customers with great services. It provides free shipping to all its customers worldwide! Furthermore, the site is completely secure and you can buy vests easily without worrying. To get an idea of Danger Proof’s quality service, you can read some testimonials that their customer have left.

If you really like the site and would like to stay up to date with the latest offers, then I suggest that you sign up for their newsletter. That will allow you to know about the latest discounts and save money.

Overall, Danger Proof is a nice site with some great products at cheap price.

20 Small Steps Bloggers Should Take When Not Blogging

For the past few days, I have not been in the mood to write posts on SEO and Blogging Tips. Every time, I sit in front of my computer and get ready to type, I get distracted by other stuff. I am sure this has happened with you as well. Sometimes bloggers just do not feel like blogging. So how should they utilize that time and benefit from it? What should bloggers do when they are not blogging?

I have compiled a short list to help bloggers decide what they should do when they are not in the mood to write.

1. Clean up your layout: Arrange all the widgets properly to give your blog a professional/personal look.
2. Get rid of all the useless widgets that just waste space.
3. Add appropriate tags to the posts to make navigation easy.
4. Add some navigation links on the homepage that are most important to your blog (ie. home, moneymaking, marketing, seo and blogging on my blog).
5. Get RSS feed.
6. Add an email subsciption box to make it easier for your readers to subscribe.
7. Add a feed counter to show-off!
8. Submit few posts to social bookmarking sites.
9. Check your Technorati account to see if you got any new backlinks.
10. Get a Technorati account if you don't have one already.
11. Look for link exchanges.
12. Get a Who'samungus widget to know how many users are online.
13. Get a good looking logo for your blog instead of just plain text on the header.
14. Add a voting widget.
15. Check that all of your main links are working.
16. Read other related blogs just to see what your competition is upto.
17. Leave some comments on other blogs.
18. Post about your posts on other forums.
19. Read posts on famous blogs and get inspired.
20. Write a post about what to do when not blogging :)

So, if you ever get tired of posting on your blog and feel like doing something else but still related to blogging then keep this list in mind.

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Hot News from Google:
Defining invalid clicks and click fraud - Adsense Blog
Keeping up with the Summer Games - Google Blog

BidVertiser - Useless Alternative to Google Adsense

If you know Google Adsense then I am quite sure that you are familiar with an alternate moneymaking website for publishers called BidVertiser. Some of you may have already tried it while others may have simply ignored it and continued with Google Adsense. I actually gave it a try to see whether the program was actually better than Google Adsense or not. In this post I will describe to you my experience with BidVertiser.

BidVertiser - What it is and how it works!
BidVertiser is a program for both advertisers (to get traffic) and publishers (to earn money). Publishers can earn money from displaying ads on their website. Each time someone clicks on those ads, you will earn money. The twist is that advertisers will directly bid to display ads on your site.


There are quite some features that make BidVertiser different from Google Adsense (and other programs).

1. Ads Control: Adsense displays ads on your site according to keywords and thus you can not control which ads to display on your website. In BidVertiser, advertisers bid to display ads on your site and you have control over which ads to display.
   
2. Price-Per-Click: Price-Per-Click is determined by keywords in Adsense. Some keywords generate more expensive ads than others. Thus if a popular website has the same content as a new site, they will both earn approximately the same amount. However, in BidVertiser, advertisers bid for your ad space and thus popular websites earn more money.
3. Requirements: Some sites are unsuitable for Adsense but still suitable for BidVertiser. For example, you can not display Adsense ads on sites with little content or only flash content.
   

Alright, this was just some background info on how the program works. Now lets get to the real deal! BidVertiser seems so appealing so far. It has several advantages compared to Adsense but what about the disadvantages?

It is extremely hard to earn money through BidVertiser's publisher program compared to Adsense' publisher program. First of all, since BidVertiser ads are decided by bids instead of keywords, the ads displayed on your site are completely irrelevant most of the times. I have seen BidVertiser ads about gardening on a celebrity site! With such irrelevant ads, most of the times, your chances of getting some clicks on those ads are reduced to almost nothing. Yes, almost nothing! People will hardly ever click on irrelevant ads. This is why Adsense is much better. It shows highly relevant ads most of the times. Thus, you have better chances of getting clicks and earning money.

Secondly, BidVertiser does not have many advertisers. You will see same ads on your site almost everyday. Same ads may even bore your permanent traffic and your clicks will drop even more! Adsense, on the other hand, has TONS of advertisers and thus, you can expect to get new and fresh ads every now and then.

Finally, even if you do manage to get some clicks on the ads, you will not be earning money since bidvertiser ads are not worth more than few cents or dollars. On the other hand, Adsense has ads worth anywhere from few cents to several dollars!!

So should you use it? Well, sure go ahead and give it a try but don't expect to earn a lot from it. BidVertiser sure has a minimum payout of $10 via PayPal but it is extremely hard to reach it. I have been using it for several months and I have only $3.10 till now!

If you have used it before then please share your experience with us and let us know whether you liked it or not!

Image Source
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Some Useful Links:
Tackling information overload, 10 million documents at a time - Google Blog
Seeing New Orleans through street view - Google Blog
Tip: Customize your web clips - Gmail blog
Search quality, continued - Google Blog

Which Is More Important: SEO or Web Design?

Search Engine Optimization focuses on increasing traffic to a website while web design includes making the website presentable, easily accessible and attractive. One of the most heated webmasters' debates is the importance of SEO and web design. Which is more important? Should you consider spending more time on SEO or focus more on web design? Certainly, both are vital to a website's success but which is more essential?

The idea to write this post came into my mind when I read a thread on a webmaster's forum called Webcosmo forums. The thread received several interesting replies which I thought I should share with you guys. However, before we get into this debate, lets first start with some background information.


Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
What exactly does SEO do for a website? Simply, it gets you more traffic! With good SEO, your website will rank higher in SERPs and you will get more and more traffic. It is one of the cheapest way of marketing that never sleeps. Furthermore, your traffic will be targeted and thus will help you increase sales.

Web Design
Once a visitor reaches your site, good content is not always what he (lets assume it's a guy) will look for there. An attractive web design compels a visitor to stay longer and makes it easier for him to focus on the content without too many distractions.

So both SEO and web design have their own benefits but which one is more important? Without SEO your website will only get minimum amount of traffic regardless of what a great design your website has. Furthermore, without traffic all the hard work you put into the design will not even get appreciated. However, good SEO may get you a lot of traffic but a lot of that traffic may not stay longer than few seconds if your website has a horrible design.

Thus, I believe that both SEO and Web design are extremely important to make a website successful. However, since I have to choose one, I will pick SEO. But I am not saying that you should only focus on SEO and ignore web design. Take your time to build the website carefully. Spend sufficient amount of time on both but spend a little more time on SEO. This way you will get traffic and still have a reasonably attractive website.

This is just my opinion and I think that it would be better if I presented you with some different point of views.

I think those two are sort of different things, although design help SEO. I would prefer SEO. Because I have seen crapy looking sites make millions of dollars doing SEO right. For example Zappos.com is the biggest shoes, accessories site; looks crappy but they [make] millions every month.
By Manik (admin)

You can achieve both. An SEO site does not have to be dull looking at all.
By amritrr

SEO most likely...after all users search to get information..but we cant deny the web design helps a lot particularly in interface and user friendliness..to keep the user browse the page more.
By 2fk

It seems like most people support SEO over web design but still think that you should spend some time on design. Which view do you like the best and what's your own view? Please share it with us.

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Some Useful Links:
Seeing New Orleans through street view - Google Blog
Google in your language - Google Blog
You are not spam - Blogger Buzz
Tip: Customize your web clips - Gmail blog
Search quality, continued - Google Blog
More Transparency in Customized Search Results - Google Blog
A picture isn't always worth a thousand words - Inside Adsense

Submitting Websites To Directories - Worth The Trouble?

As most of you know, directories are a well organized collection of websites/blogs/forums that make it easier for users to find websites related to different content. Each link on a directory includes a short description of the website. Some directories also like to include traffic details and PageRank.

Submitting your websites and blogs to directories is a good way to get some backlinks and is recommended by many. Some also consider it a reasonable way to increase traffic. But is this really true? And if it is then is it actually worth the trouble? Should webmasters submit their websites to all the directories?

There are generally three types of directories: Free, Paid and Both. Free directories accept all links for free. Some directories may not ask you for money but may require you to add a reciprocal link to their directory on your website. Paid directories require you to pay to get your link approved. There are also other directories that are a combination of Free and Paid directories. They accept links for free as well as for money. You can pay to have your link listed as a featured link and thus gain more exposure.


Ideally, directories are supposed to provide you with useful backlinks and act as a relevant source of traffic but you rarely see that happen. Webmasters usually consider two factors before submitting their site to a directory: PageRank and Traffic. Does the directory have a high Pagerank and does it get a lot of traffic? Having a link on a directory with high PageRank and traffic can help improve your website's PageRank and can help you get traffic to your site.

However, it is not as simple as that and usually webmasters end up getting very less link juice (PageRank benefit) and traffic from directories. What are the reasons?

1. PageRank - Eventhough some directories may have high PageRank for their homepage, their innerpages, where your link will be placed, rarely have any PageRank. Thus, your website's PageRank does not get much boost.


2. Traffic - Ideally, whenever someone needs to find a website, they should go to directories and surf through the different categories. But who does that now? We have search engines to digg up websites for us without wasting any time. Thus, it is highly possible that your site won't get much traffic from directories because not many people visit them to look for websites.

So, lets get back to our main question: Is it worth the trouble? Yes! Submitting directories is still a good way to build some backlinks even if they may not boost your PageRank as much as you expected. Try to submit your websites/blogs to free directories whenever you have a chance. You do not need to pay and thus you are not wasting anything other than few minutes. Sooner or later, everything will all add up and you will notice the benefits. Remember, when it comes to SEO, every little thing counts!

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Some Useful Links:
Google in your language - Google Blog
You are not spam - Blogger Buzz
Search quality, continued - Google Blog
More Transparency in Customized Search Results - Google Blog
A picture isn't always worth a thousand words - Inside Adsense

Japan's Unique Tissue-pack Marketing Method

For a business to be successful, it needs to employ some great marketing strategies and methods to attract potential customers. However, one needs to be careful when selecting which marketing method to use since some methods work better for certain niches than others. Marketing process is not easy and requires creativity and imagination. Most companies need a market research consultant to help them out.

Recently I found out about an interesting type of marketing method called Tissue-pack marketing. It is a common and very successful type of guerrilla marketing method used in Japan. Basically, Japanese companies hire some people to stand outside crowded places such as subway stations and hand out tissue-paper packets for free with a small advertisement inside. It is said that approximately 4 billion tissue packets are give for free annually and around ¥75 billion are generated by companies through sales.


Benefits
Tissue-pack marketing has a bunch of benefits compared to other forms of marketing such as handing out flyers. While flyers are commonly discarded and ignored by people, tissue-packs are easily accepted because they can be used for personal use.

Some benefits of this marketing method are:

1. Ads go directly to consumer - Instead of having a poster on a wall, you are directly giving the advertisement to the consumers.
   


2. Prompts consumers to look at the ad - Since most people are going to use the tissues, they will also end up reading the advertisement.
   


3. The ad has a long time effect - People will not use all the tissues in few minutes and thus will keep the packet for a long time. Thus, they will be looking at the ad everytime they use those tissues.
   

Influence
Now tissue-pack marketing method is not only used in Japan but also in other countries such as America. A company introduced this method in US in 2005. Another company started using this method in Paris this year (2008).

Image Source
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Some Useful Links:
Google in your language - Google Blog
Search quality, continued - Google Blog
More Transparency in Customized Search Results - Google Blog
A picture isn't always worth a thousand words - Inside Adsense

NoDoFollow - A Firefox Extension To Distinguish DoFollow And NoFollow Links

Few weeks ago, I read about a very interesting and one of the most useful Firefox extensions called NoDoFollow on a website. After reading a short description, I decided to test it and see if it is really capable of doing that the developer claims. So what is this SEO tool that I am talking about? What does it do and how is it useful to us?

NoDoFollow is a simple 3 KB extension for Mozilla Firefox browser. The extension lets you know which links on a website are DoFollow and NoFollow. As most of you already know, the difference between DoFollow and NoFollow is very significant. Thus, sometimes it is very important for webmasters to know whether links on a blog or website are DoFollow or NoFollow.

How does it work?
The extension takes seconds to download and once downloaded you can easily use it. All you have to do after downloading is right click on any web page and then click on "NoDoFollow". Doing so will turn the extension on and all the links on the page will be highlited in either blue or pink color. The links in blue are DoFollow and the ones in red are NoFollow. Here is a screenshot to show you how it looks:

This small extansion is very useful to webmasters when they want to buy or exchange links. Buying a NoFollow link only provides you with traffic while a DoFollow link also helps improve your website's PageRank. Thus most webmasters check the attribute of the link before getting in any kind of deal.

Bloggers can also benefit from this tool as they can see which blogs have DoFollow attribute on and which blogs do not. Then, bloggers can comment on DoFollow blogs and leave their link to get some link juice.

Download NoDoFollow by Zacharyfox
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Some useful links:
Search quality, continued - Google Blog
More Transparency in Customized Search Results - Google Blog
A picture isn't always worth a thousand words - Inside Adsense
Back to school with more than 1 million users worldwide - Google Blog
Hello from A2 - Google Blog
We Knew The Web Was Big - Google Blog
Updates and Fixes for July 18th - Blogger Buzz
Easy as 1-2-3 - Adsense Blog

Free PR4 and PR3 Links Giveaway

Hi Everyone! I have just learned about a great opportunity for you all to get some free backlinks. The owner of Spring Of Life has decided to giveaway limited amounts of PR3 and PR4 blog links to some lucky webmasters. The link will be posted on Spring of Life (PR3) and GTA Save Game (PR4). The links are all free but there are some simple requirements which can be found on Spring Of Life.

This is a great opportunity for webmasters to get free links and help boost their PageRank for the next update. Remember that all links are DoFollow! The mentioned blogs get a lot of traffic everyday and already have a reliable number of regular readers. Getting a link on those blogs can greatly benefit your blog/website's traffic and PR at the same time. As mentioned above, there are some requirements but they are really easy. Just take a look at the original post and you will find all the details.

Act now because the offer is limited.