Sitonomy | Find technical details easily about your competitior's site

I have just come across a great site that has the potential to help webmasters in numerous ways. In today's world, the competition between webmasters is very tight. Every webmaster is trying to get ahead of his competitor by doing Search Engine Optimization, aiming at particular keywords etc. One tactic to beat your competitor is to know what is it that they are doing and then do more than that. However, it's not easy to get access to that information about your competitor...until now!


Sitonomy is a website that provides you with enormous amount of information about your competitor's website. All you have to do is enter the website's URL and you will be presented with the information. Sitonomy tells you about the Advertising Networks, Blogging Platform, Ads Management, Widgets, Subscriptions, Stats Tools, Programming Language etc. of other websites.


Furthermore, there is an alternatives link in each category mentioned above that presents you with alternative solutions. For example, suppose that the site that you looked up is using Google Analytics as one of its Stats Tools. If you click on the alternatives link then you will get information about all other major stats tools such as quantcast, sitemeter, StatCounter etc.

Sitonomy is a great site and if you are a webmaster then I highly recommend that you use it. If you are new and want to build a website then look up what famous sites are doing and then use that information make your own website.

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Google blogging in 2008 - Google Blog
A grateful season - Google Blog
Year in review: 2008 - Inside Adsense

Posted by Dan at SEO and Blogging Tips.
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Should bloggers have an "About Me" Page?

First of all, I would like to apologize for not updating SEO and Blogging Tips regularly last month. I had gotten very busy with college exams and I had to choose between my education and blogging. I chose education. But now I am done with everything and ready to blog again.

Today, I am going to talk about About Me (or About Us) pages. You have seen them on famous independent blogs, group blogs and/or numerous websites. About Me pages are very common and can be found on almost every website these days but the question is whether you, as a blogger, should have an About Me page on your blog.

First lets make it clear what we mean by About Me pages. They are pages on blogs and websites that allow the readers to know more about the author of the blog/site. They are pages where blog authors reveal some information about their lives to their readers.

Should YOU, a blogger, have an About Me page?

The answer to this question depends on what kind of a blogger you have and what type of blog you run. Normally, I would suggest that having an About Me page is a good idea. Why? Simply because it lets your readers know you in more detail. The readers prefer to know that they are reading articles written but a normal human being and not just a machine. Furthermore, sometimes, knowing a little about the author helps readers understand the author's point of view.

But having an About Me page is not always a good idea. I would say that if your blog is fairly new then you should wait a little to create your page. Give your blog some time and let it develop a little before you write your About Me page. No one is interested in knowing about the author of a blog that contains only three posts.

Also, when you decide to create the page, make sure that you keep it short. Don't go talking about your family, dog, and girlfriend. No one is interested in knowing that much about you. Keep it simple! Just let the readers briefly know who you are, what you do, your hobbies etc. You may not even want to create a whole new separate page for it. You might have noticed that on SEO and Blogging Tips, I just have an About Me widget on the right. If anyone is interested, they can just check it out.

Overall, I would suggest that you do have an About Me page but just keep it short and simple.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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New search-by-style options for Google Image Search - Google Blog
Tracking Santa: the backstory - Google Blog
New in Labs: Turn an email into a Google Doc - Gmail Blog
A holiday break to play with all the new stuff - Gmail Blog

Posted by Dan at SEO and Blogging Tips.
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Submit Edge - SEO service that can help your site

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is not very difficult. If you practice is regularly on your blog or sites then you can easily learn the tricks in few months. However, sometimes you cannot spend months learning SEO. You have to act immediately to drive traffic to your website or blog. This is when you need outside help from sites that offer SEO services including link building.

Submit Edge is one such website that helps their customers do SEO. They offer several services such as link building services, directory submission, article submission, social bookmarking, search engine submission etc.


Some of the advantages of using Submit Edge over another SEO firm are:

• Manual directory submission
• Only one way permanent links
• Updated list of directories
• Provide full report once everything is complete
  

Submit Edge offers all of its services for very cheap prices. If you are a webmaster or blogger who does not have enough time to do all the necessary SEO then I suggest you take a look at Submit Edge and give them a try.

5 Important Steps You Should Take Before Exchanging Links

This month has been really busy for me and that is why I have not been able to update my blogs as regularly as I have always wanted to. Nonetheless, I try my best to keep sharing my experiences and knowledge about SEO, Blogging, Marketing and Moneymaking with you guys. Today, I am going to talk about exchanging links. As webmasters, we all know that link exchanges are good ways to drive traffic to your own website or blog, get backlinks and thus boost your website's PageRank. However, one needs to be very careful when exchanging links with other webmasters.

Link Exchange - What is it?
For those who do not know, link exchange is when two webmasters decided to put each other's website's link on their own websites. This is a common type of link exchange known as two way link exchange. The second type of link exchange is known as three way link exchange. In such a link exchange, a webmaster places his website A's link on the other webmaster's website B. In return, website A's webmaster places webmaster B's link on his website C. Thus, there are a total of three websites involved.

5 steps you should take before exchanging links

1. Carefully check the content of the website - You always want to exchange links with only quality websites that are regularly updated. Make sure that the content is interesting. Also, you do not want to exchange links with sites that contain adult material (and other content that Google does not like).
   
2. Check the website's PageRank - While content is important, a lot of webmasters also consider PageRank before exchanging links. Why? Just so that they can get a nice backlink for their site and thus boost its PageRank.
3. Verify the PageRank - If you consider PageRank as a major factor then I strongly suggest that you verify the website's PageRank. There are several ways to generate a false PageRank and you need to know how to detect fake PageRank.
   
4. Check if the website is a link farm - A lot of webmasters just create websites and then try to put as many links as possible on their website. Such sites with numerous irrelevant links are considered as link farms and linking to such sites can hurt your website's PageRank.
5. Check where your link will be placed - You don't want your link to be placed somewhere in the corner at the bottom of the page where no one will see it. Your link should be placed in a proper place where the visitors can easily see it.

Finally, I would like to say that sometimes you should not care about PageRank very much when exchanging links. PageRank is a good factor but it is never permanent. A website that has a PageRank of 6 today can completely lose it in the next update. Thus, try to get backlinks from websites with relevant and interesting content as well.

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Some Useful Links:
Voting tools for volunteers on the go - Google Blog
Make a date with data in Google Analytics - Inside Adsense

Posted by Dan at SEO and Blogging Tips.
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SpeakToMe - Learn to monitize your site properly

It is a very difficult task to make a site popular and get a good amount of constant traffic daily. However, once your site or online business becomes popular, it doesn't necessarily mean that your revenue will increase. In fact, if a site is not properly monetized, the chances are that you will not make much money.

There are different ways to monetize a site, depending on the type of the site. I recently came across a great way to monetize your website called SpeakToMe. Webmasters can use SpeakToMe to create their expert pages with several features such as webcam, chat, direct payment services and click-to-call. You have the choice of either hosting that expert page with SpeakToMe or embed it into your own site. Your clients can use these features to communicate with you and whenever they do that, you have the chance to make money. You can generate significant amount of revenue by charging your clients on a per-minute basis during each call.



One of the best things about SpeakToMe is that it does not cost anything to get started with it. You can begin to use this great feature for no cost at all. However, once you start making money, you will have to pay some fees.

Overall, I think that SpeakToMe is a great way to monetize your site and there are good chances of making some money if you use it properly. If you find it interesting, then go ahead and give it a try.

Google makes some nice changes to iGoogle

I wasn't a big fan of iGoogle few weeks ago since it takes quite some time to load and well, I didn't really need it. However, later on, I started using it and I am loving it. I can add feeds from my favorite blogs and stay up to date with everything. I can even have my Gmail and GTalk embedded. How cool is that?

When I logged into my iGoogle account today, I noticed some cool changes. Google seemed to have played around with several of the applications. So if you use one of those applications on your iGoogle page, then you must have noticed those changes as well. I check Google's official blog and found a recent post called: What's new with iGoogle? The main change is that Google has enabled canvas view for several applications. You can now view the applications in the same window instead of a different window (i.e. you had to open a new window to go to your GMail account).

Changes in iGoogle

- Here are some applications that have experienced the changes.

• News - New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post.
• Games - Sudoku Gadget, GoComics Gadget
• Entertainment - TV Guide, Flixter's movies gadget, iLike gadget
  
• Google - GMail, Google Finance

If you haven't noticed any changes, I suggest you try adding some of these gadgets. The new changes make iGoogle even better than before!

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Posted by Dan at SEO and Blogging Tips.
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Round Table

Recently, I stumbled upon a very interesting site and decided to share it with you guys. The site is called Round Table Life Insurance or just Round Table. As stated on the homepage, Round Table is a non-profit forum that is dedicated to providing honest and factual information to its readers. Readers can easily use Round Table to acquire detailed information about various insurance topics such as fixed annuity, mortgage protection insurance etc.

Note that you will not be able to get any answers to questions about best life insurance because Ronald Belham, owner of Round Table, prefers to keep his answers honest and unbiased. Instead, you can get information about how to find best life insurances. An example of an interesting question that I read on the site recently is, “What does short term life insurance mean?” If you have questions like this and would like to find reliable answers then I suggest that you definitely pay Round Table a visit.

Google PageRank Update - September 2008!!!!

Breaking news guys!!! There seems to be another Google PageRank update recently. I just discovered it today when I checked pagerank of my blogs. I searched online on different webmaster forums and it seems like other bloggers and webmasters are also experiencing a change in their PageRanks.

If you may remember, SEO and Blogging Tips's PageRank dropped from 4 to 1 in the last update. However, now it has increased to 3!! It still has not recovered fully but I am satisfied for the time being. May be in the next update, it will go up.

Also, another blog of mine had a PageRank 3 for a long time but now its PR is 4!!! Finally all the hard work that I put into that blog is paying off.

What about your blogs and websites? Did their PageRank change at all? Are you happy with the change? Please share with us.


Posted by Dan at SEO and Blogging Tips.
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Some useful links:
Our position on California's No on 8 campaign - Google Blog
Google Toolbar 5 now available for Firefox 5 - Google Blog
Is it right to search your own site? - Inside Adsense
New in lab: right-side Labels and Chat - Gmail Blog

Top 5 Reasons To Have a Poll Widget On Your Blog

Bloggers have mixed opinions about poll widgets. Some like them while others consider them to be a waste of valuable space. I am one of those bloggers who appreciate the value of having a poll widget on your blog. You may not know this but having a poll widget has several benefits. I am sure that you must have noticed that a lot of famous blogs have polls on their blogs. Today, I will be sharing with you my Top 5 reasons for having a poll widget. But first of all, what is a poll widget?

What is a poll widget?

Poll widgets are small widgets that you can place on your blogs or websites. The widget will ask the viewers a question and present them with some options. The readers can only vote once but sometimes they can choose more than one option for their answer. Once they have voted, they will see the current result of the poll.

Top 5 reasons to have a poll widget

1. Make your blog live! - No one likes a dead blog. Good blogs are always interactive and live. They are interactive and they let their readers contribute to the blog. Getting your readers to interact is always a good idea to make your blog successful.

2. Relevant traffic - Simply getting traffic to your blog does not make your blog popular. For a blog to truly succeed, it needs to get relevant traffic. But all the traffic tracking sites only tell you about how much traffic you are getting and nothing about the relevant traffic. So how do you figure that out? You can get an approximate idea about the amount of relevant traffic that your blog is getting through poll widgets. If you get more votes then you are getting some nice relevant traffic but if you are not then you need to do some SEO work on your blog!

3. Show off - Usually, it is not a good idea to show off a lot about your blog's success but sometimes it can be really useful. If you get great amount of relevant traffic then you should put up a poll widget. A high number of votes will tell your readers that your blog is very popular and they will appreciate your blog more and come more often!

4. Learn about readers - Another benefit of having a poll widget is that it lets you learn about your readers. You get to know about your readers' preferences and thus you can modify your blog according to that. Suppose, you put up a poll about post lengths. If most of your readers say that they find it difficult to read lengthy posts then you know that you should keep your posts short and concise.

5. New Post Ideas - Poll widgets are a great way to get some nice new ideas for your forthcoming posts. You can use polls to ask the viewers what they would like to read more about on your blog. You can also use the results of a poll to write a new post.

These were my 5 reasons for having a poll widget on your blog. I hope you learned something useful from this post.

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Link Love (2): 50 Great Tips To Increase Your Blog's Quality

I am sorry guys. I haven't been able to post Link Love recently due to heave work load. I promised I would share some nice articles with you every Sunday. It seemed like people really liked the last Link Love post. As I mentioned before, it is always nice to read other blogs and learn from them.

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Main Article:
50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level by Chris Brogan

Other Interesting Articles:

• The social web: All about the small stuff - Google Blog
• Ad perfect - Google Blog
• As It Turns Out, Content Is King - Court's Internet Marketing School
  
• Quality, not quantity - Inside Adsense
• New in labs: Reply add-ons - Gmail Blog
  

Using Twitter To Drive Traffic To Your Blogs

I had been hearing a lot about Twitter for the past few months but I was simply not interested in it. What good is a service that lets you post updates about your status? My Facebook account lets me do that, so why should I join Twitter? Well it turns out that Twitter is more than just about updating status. You can easily use it to drive traffic to your websites and blogs. You will probably not get too much traffic but it is definitely worth a try.

So How Does It Work?
Twitter does not have a lot of features. In fact, it has very minimum features. At Twitter, users are only allowed to update their status and send each other messages. That's it! Now you can choose to follow other members and get notified about their status changes. But before you start getting their updates, you need to start following them. Following a user basically means that you want to know about that users updates. It's like adding that user as your buddy on a networking site. Similarly, your followers will receive notifications about your updates.



How Do You Start?

1. Get an account at Twitter - Signing up for an account is a very easy process and will not take more than few minutes.
2. Start following - You need to start following as many people as possible on Twitter. It would be probably better to follow the people that have websites on the same topic as yours. However, there is no limit to how many people you can follow so just go ahead and start adding people. One good way to do this would be to find the profile of a famous blogger like Darren from ProBlogger and then just start following all of his followers.
3. People will follow you - Now that you have started following people, they will start following you as well. However, not all the people you are following will do that. I am following 850 people and only 129 of them are following me. Nonetheless, it's worth it and as time passes, you will eventually start getting more followers.
4. Update your status - Once you have a good number of followers, it is time for you to start posting your updates. Let other people know about your blog, latest blog posts and projects. The best thing about Twitter is that you can post URLs. Thus, when your followers see your updates, they will click on the URL.

Every time you write a new post or start working on a new project, just post an update on Twitter with the URL and you will get some nice traffic. Remember, Twitter will not be able to drive a lot of traffic to your blog or website but it will drive some traffic which can be very helpful at times.

I have an account at Twitter as well. If you would like to follow me and stay up to date with my blogs then check out my profile.

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Google's Browser - Chrome: Firefox And Internet Explorer Got Competition

One of the most famous companies and websites in the world, Google, has decided to enter the browser market which is currently dominated by Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. Ever since Firefox was introduced, Internet Explorer has constantly lost its users. However, Internet Explorer is still the most used browser in the world. With such tough competition, hardly any company has the guts to introduce their own browser. But Google has done so. Google has launched its own internet browser called Google Chrome.

Few days ago, Google announced on its official blog that Google Chrome is now live. The new browser has quickly grabbed everyone's attention and why should it not? It is launched by Google! Looks like Google is all set to conquer the entire Internet. As my friend said, soon you will be able to "search google with [your] google browser, on [your] google pc, running a google OS. Cool."

Chrome Features
Google Chrome is a very fast and clean browser with several features similar to Firefox and Internet Explorer such as tab browsing. It's user friendly and has some great extra features such as the URL bar that also acts as a search engine and a homepage that displays your most visited sites and their thumbnails! Moreover, the browser is just as fast as Mozilla's Firefox. Most importantly, Chrome is an open source browser which means that you can modify it the way you like it, if you have the required knowledge.

Going Incognito
An extra eye catching feature of Chrome is that it lets you surf the Internet in stealth mode. This means that when you use the Incognito window, your pages won't appear in the browser or search history. There won't be any cookie traces either.

Overall, I think Internet Explorer has some tough competition ahead. Chrome may not be as good as Firefox but it will definitely create troubles for Firefox in future. Remember, Chrome just released and is still in Beta mode.

If you haven't downloaded it yet then I strongly suggest that you do even if you have other browsers. I have both Firefox and Internet Explorer but I still downloaded Google Chrome and I love it! If you have also downloaded Chrome then please share your views.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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