Send Me Your Blog Post Link

With the end of July, I have decided to get add new features to my blog. There will be many inclusions. I want to improve the blog as much as I can. From today you can mail me your articles. I'll be giving links to some good blog posts in the blogosphere once or even twice a week. If you have any good article that you have written over the past week, send it to me using the contact form. Give the following informations in the mail, so that I can link to your posts properly. I won't be linking to all the posts. I will read every blog post you submit and I'll most probably make a comment in the post. You can give links to any topic blog post which can be read by all age readers(I think you know what I mean!). So use the contact form now and send me your post with the following information:

1. Your Name

2. Your Blog Post Name

3. Blog Post URL

4. Blog Post description

Don't forget to include the above informations. Also there are going to be many more improvements on this blog. Subscribe to our blog so that you wont miss any post or improvements.

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How To: Remove The Blogger Bar From Your Blog

Few days ago, one of the blog reader asked a question on how to remove the blogger bar(The bar which all blogspot blogs have at the top). The reader, Greta, asked the following:

how can i remove the "blogger Bar" in my template ?
i dont see this at your nice blog !
do you have a tip for me ?

I'm also not a Guru in CSS or HTML but I know how to do this.It will give your blog a good look. The blogger bar looks like this:



Instructions on How to:

1. Go to Customize ==> Template ==> Edit HTML

2. Download the template so that if you make any mistake, you won't lose anything

3. Check the Expand Widget and templates option

4. Now find the following Code:

#header-wrapper {

Once you get this code, copy the following code and paste it above the previous code:

#navbar-iframe {

height: 0px;

visibility: hidden;

display: none;

}

After doing the editing work, your code should look like this:

#navbar-iframe {

height: 0px;

visibility: hidden;

display: none;

}
#header-wrapper {

Preview your template and then Save it. Now your blogger bar will be hidden.

The main purpose of doing this is to give the blog a good look. Now that my blog has a WordPress Theme for blogger, it looks more of a WordPress blog. So, if you wish to remove the blogger bar, then use the above instructions.

This has worked for me in this blog. If it is not working for you, then use the contact form to contact me. Even if you have any other questions, you can contact me and I'll try my best to give an answer.

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Have You Integrated Your Feedburner With Your Blogger Blog?

Feedburner announced the Feedburner Integration for Blogspot Blogs few days ago. Though I read about it many blogs, I didn't make do the integration for my blog because I never thought people would subscribe using the Blogspot's feed. Yesterday I decided to make the integration to see if there could be, by chance, anyone subscribing using that feed. And surprisingly today I saw an increase in the Feed count. The increase was not by 5 or 10, but the increase was 21. You see it right, it increased by 21. So if you still didn't integrate your blog's feed, do it now. You can see more about it in Feedburner's blog but before that see below for how to do it.

How to do?
Integrating your feed is very easy. You can do it few steps.

1. First Login to your blogger blog

2. Then Go to Settings Page

3. In the Settings Page, you will have an option called Site Feed

You will get an image like this:



4. In this page, you will have an option by name "Post Feed Redirect URL"

5. In the text bar, enter your Feedburner's feed link

And that's it, you are done. Now if you Login to your feedburner and see the subscriber's count it will be the same. It will take time to update. So see your stats the next day and you might see a surprising increase in your feed count. And if you have an increase, tell me in the comments or through the contact form.

And if you find this post useful, please Stumble it.

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Technorati Responds Quickly For Your Problems

Technorati is the site in which you claim your blog and ping everyday after you write a post. Technorati started to give me a problem. Whenever I pinged my blog nothing gets updated. It was only few days back. I wrote three posts and got nearly 6 links in which not even one of them was shown.

I went to see the support forum if anyone had the problem. Surprisingly, there was one thread which had 30 posts(replies) in it in 4-5 days. There weren't many blogs which got their problem solved. You can see it here:



You can see the thread here.

After seeing it, I decided to contact them. I sent a mail stating my problem. They gave me a Ticket number. 4 hours passed and there was no change in my status. I sent another mail with the ticket number included in the body. I went to the site and saw my blog's stats. The posts were successfully updated. But wait, why is my linkbacks not updated? I sent one more mail with the same ticket number and checked my stats in 2 hours. Surprisingly, the link backs were also updated.

In the forums, I still see few bloggers telling their blog is not getting pinged. If you have this problem, contact them right now. You will get responded soon. Technorati indeed does a good work there.

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Poll Is Running And We Are At Halfway

Few days ago i wrote a post, Right Time To Show Your Blog's Stats, which got few varied comments. So I decided to keep a poll for it. By this was I can find what most people think. The poll is running halfway. If you did not take the poll, you can take it from here:
Poll: When will you display your feedburner count?

The poll has got 28 votes and it will be running there for one more week to get more votes. Now whats the result so far?

No. of votes: 28

The options and the votes are as follows
1. From the start: 1 vote

2. 50: 3 votes

3. 100: 9 votes

4. 250: 4 votes

5. 500: 11 votes

6. Never: 0 votes

As from the above results, we can see that 500 option lead the poll. I wish to get at least 50 votes totally. So if you have not voted till now, please vote from here.

I will appreciate if you can link to the poll for your readers to vote. Thanks.

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How To: Add Most Popular Posts Column In New Blogger

Yesterday I wrote a post on 5 Reasons To Have Most Popular Posts Column. Now adding it in a wordpress blog can be done using a plug-in. In the new blogger blog(blogspot) you can add it by an easy way. Though there might be an external plug-in to add in new blogger, it is better to add in the below way. Using an external plug-in might slow down your blog. You can see in the right side column for my Most Popular posts. The main thing here is that you have to handpick the top articles which you think are best. Now let me tell you how to add it in the new blogger.

* Go to Customize ==> Template

* Now select Add Page Element

* In the window that follows, click on Link List

You will get an image like this:



* In the title you can give "Most Popular Posts" or "Most Famous Posts" or any other thing you wish

* Leave the "Number of links to show in list" empty if you don't know how many links you want to add

* In Sorting, select Don't Sort

* Now in the "New Site URL" option enter the link of your famous article

* In "New Site Name" option give the heading of your article

Add as many links you wish to have and then click on Save Changes.

That's it. You are done. You are now ready to enjoy the 5 things I said in the previous article.

If you like this article, why not give it a stumble?

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5 Reasons To Have Most Popular Posts Column

You would have visited many blogs from the day you started blogging. In most of the blogs you see a column of 'Most Popular Posts'. They would be the most visited or most linked post. Bloggers like Daniel, ChrisG, Brian and many others have this in their blogs. There are many reasons to have this in a blog. Following are the 7 main reasons to have the most popular posts column.

1. Increases Page Views:
When a reader visits your blog, the chances are more for him/her to visit the most popular blog posts. Most popular posts will have a magnetic headline. These headline will attract the reader to click on the post and read it.

2. Increase In Subscribers:
When I visit a blog for the first time, I decide whether to subscribe or not by reading recent posts and few other posts. If you can capture the hearts of your visitors by the most popular articles, they are mostly to become your subscribers. For this you should know how to Convert One off Visitors to your Blog into Regular Readers.

3. Gain Back links:
When displaying most popular posts, few of the posts might be new. There are bloggers in the blogosphere who will link to great articles in the recent days. They might just give it a link or sometimes they will add their views on the post linking to your post. So there are more chances for a blogger to link to your famous posts.

4. Exposure To Your Old Articles:
By displaying most popular posts, your old articles actually get more exposure. You can sometimes handpick few old articles that you thought would have been a success. Those articles can be linked.

5. They Stand As A Trade Mark:
If you see the blogs I mentioned above, you could see that the top articles are very different and they are the blog's trade mark. Every blogger has/should have their own trade mark post or Flagship Content however you call it.

Instead of displaying those long blog rolls and big banners(other than your advertisers'), you can display your most popular posts so that you can enjoy the above 5 points.

Do you think a blogger must have 'Most Popular Page'? Do you have any points to be added in the list?

And if you find the post interesting why not give it a Stumble?

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Moving From Google Reader To Snarfer

Google reader and Snarfer are well-known feed readers. As a blogger I read many blogs but not as many probloggers. First, I used Bookmarking toolbar that was already in Firefox. But when my number of increased, I moved to Google Reader. Though it was good, I was not much comfortable with it. So I saw what my subscribers used. Many of them were using Google Feed Reader. The second most used was Snarfer. So I decided to use it.

Snarfer is a good feed reader(This is not any sponsored post). I found it hard at first. But after few minutes of playing it, I got a good control over it. The main thing which I didn't like was that it had nearly 30 blog feeds already added on it. I deleted them all. Yesterday I started to add new feeds to it. Now there is 28 feeds in the list which includes many top quality blog. This is not over yet. I'm still adding blogs to if I find interesting content in it. I gave it a try to my blog's feed too. Here's how my blog looked:



With Snarfer, it was very easy to comment from the same window itself. You can get Snarfer for free from here. Why not download the software and try adding my blog's feed to it[:D]

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Guest Blogging - Is It Good Or Bad?

Guest blogging has now become famous and many blogs has guest posting. The main idea for a guest post is to give yourself and your content some exposure. If you can write a guest post at Problogger, then you will get your article read by many people and also you will get thousands' of new visitors and subscribers. Recently two videos were posted on youtube about Guest blogging. One is a post saying guest blogging is a waste of time. You can see Mark of 45n5.com in the video below:



As a response for this video, Nate Whitehill and Josh did a post on youtube which you can see below:



What is your idea on Guest Blogging? Is it worth the time? Do you Guest Blog?

Betshopboy Thought Therefore He Blogs

Betshopboy is none other than Chee Wee Nq who blogs at betshopboy blog. He write on how to earn income online in his blog. I came to know about his blog when he made a comment in my blog. Also he was the winner in Cashquests.com's competition. Now he has his own contest. When I went to his blog and saw that this contest was held to celebrate the date 07-07-07, which won't come hereafter, I decided to participate in it.

Not only was that a reason but also he provided good content and value to his readers. I read his article by name Top 5 Ways To Generate Traffic. He also wrote a good post yesterday on How to Write Attention Grabbing Post Titles.




The article on How to write attention-grabbing post was not like what every other blogger said. It had as many as 12 examples of what you can do to make the post better. I'm thinking of implementing few of the ideas.

This guy is not just a normal blogger. He has in fact got the "Featured on Ezine Article" badge. This is a great achievement for a blogger. You can also see his name in the Ezine Article list.

So if you want to learn some good tips on blogging, head over to his blog and read the articles I mentioned. You would probably subscribe to his blog after reading his posts. And If you are thinking to enter his contest, think no further. The rules for his contest are so simple but the prize is too good.

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This Week's Articles Of Interest

I have been writing few articles which you might or might not have enjoyed the past week. But being a blogger you have to link to other interesting articles in the blogosphere. This is very for your own blog and blog readers. Here are few articles which I interested me and will most probably interest you.

1. The 4 Pillars of Writing Exceptional Blogs:Leo Babauta of Zen Habits made a guest post on Problogger which was a very good read.

2. Top 25 SEO Blogs: This article is article ranks the top 25 SEO blogs combining various stats. You should give it a visit and study the top 25 SEO blogs.

3. Increase the chances of your posts being stumbled: StumbleUpon can get a good amount of traffic and also a long term traffic, if many people stumble your article. But how to make them stumble? You can know it there.

4. The One Phrase That Will Kill Your Blog: Cashquests' Kumiko writes why a blog with no comments cannot be a blog. You should read it. But you won't be able to make a comment on it as She has kept the comments Off. Maybe you can send her a mail or blog your opinion.

5. Social Media Evangelism: How to Turn Visitors into Supporters of Your Website: Dosh Dosh writes a great post explaining how you can turn visitors into supporters of your website.

6. Creating Compelling Blogs - How to Decide Your Blog Content: Chris Garrett helps his readers on how to create compelling content. You can learn from this article, how to target your blog readers.

Hope you will like the articles above. If you had missed my article which was much talked about this week, youcan it here:
The Right Time To Show You Blog's Stats

If you have written any good article, mail it to me using the contacting form. I'll read it and if I my blog readers will like it, I'll give it a link.

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Keep A Posting Frequency

Many bloggers have talked about post frequency. But this one is not the same. It has comparison and what you can do at certain situations. Kevin of blogging tips made a good analysis of JohnTP's blog. JohnTP's blog had only one post last month due to power cuts and other things in his place. What surprised me is that his number of subscribers is still the same. His blog has a subscriber count of nearly 1600. So Kevin said not to worry if your posting frequency drops. I agree with him if it for bigger blogs. But when it comes to smaller blogs, your posting frequency can change from 2 posts a day to 1 post a day or from 1 post a day to 1 post post per two days. But small blogs shouldn't have a long gap of posts.

Small blogs don't have many regular readers. To get more regular readers, a blog should provide quality content consistently. You have to post once a day. If it increases to twice a day, then it good. When you are starting your blog, select the number of post you will be posting every week. And not only select but also try to stick with it. You should be posting at least 5 times a week.

I normally post once a day. It has been working well for me. Three days ago I decided to post twice a day. And the next day when I posted twice, my blog's page views almost doubled. But if you are going to post five times a day, don't expect your blog's page views to increase by five times. Posting twice a day got me not only increase in page views but also increase in subscribers and Alexa rank.

So what is your posting frequency? Have you even left your blog without a new post for week?

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5 Things You Shouldn't Do When Advertising On Your Blog

Bloggers at one time or other start to monetize their blog. There are very few who don't monetize their blog. But one has to monetize as it is the reward for their blogging. When it comes to monetization, there are many ways to do it. You can have AdSense, you can write reviews, you can place direct text and banner ads and many more. Now considering the direct text and banner ads, there are 5 things you shouldn't do when advertising on your blog. Here are the 5 things:

1. Placing a paid advertising on a lower place in your blog:
When it comes to comes to the placement, you should place the ads where people can see it well. You can place a banner on top or place small squares on the columns. But whatever you do, place the ads on top. Top in the sense your readers should be able to see it without scrolling.

2. Placing your referral ads with the paid ones:
I have seen few blogs which has their referral ads like Text link ads and others placed together with the paid ones. There are blogs which say Featured sites and have their referral ads to show that they have advertisers. By doing this you are only losing the opportunity of getting new ads. People can easily find it when they place their mouse on the ad.

3. Keeping the prices higher:
When your blog is doing well and many advertisers are approaching you, you might ask for very high prices. You can increase a little but not too much. To check what is the correct price for an advertisement in your blog, you can calculate it using the Text Link Ads Tool. It shows you the best price. You can also calculate it on the basis of Cost per 1000 page views.

4. Advertising Unrelated sites:
If your blog is about money making and blogging tips or it is about technology, you should place the ads related to your niche and you should not be placing Gambling sites which will pay more. Placing such sites might even get you some bad results.

5. Placing Flash and Animation ads:
These type of ads will get your advertisers a very good result. But using that on your blog will lead you to losing your daily readers. It is a distraction for your readers. You should care for your readers. After all without them your blog won't be having much page views. So place only the simple and effective ads.

The above 5 things not only gives your advertisers a bad experience but also for your readers and you. You would have read all the five by now and you might be thinking of some way to give the advertisers, good value. Here's one tip for you which you can do when advertising.

1. Thank your advertisers:
Thanking your advertisers are the best way to have a good relationship with them. This also won't get any bad results from your readers. Instead your readers might be happy to pay a visit too. There are many blogs like daily blog tips, copyblogger and daily web ideas which thank their advertisers.

Please keep in ming all the 5+1 points which might help you anytime.

This Post Participated on a Blog Carnival called Blog With Me Baby: Advertising.

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Daily Tech News Now Has A Contact Form

I have been blogging for nearly 2 months and I always wanted to have a contact form so that it would be easy for my readers to ask any questions, tell their views, suggestions and also tell about what they don't like. Since this blog is in Blogger platform, it was not easy to have a contact form. I'm no good in CSS and Html. I really had a tough time to find this.

Today I was searching for blogger tricks which I can implement in my blog to make it look good and easily accessible. I came through this blog called the Blogger Tips And Tricks which had a tutorial on how to add a contact form to blogger. I read it and thought of having it in my blog.

Now this blog will be having a contact form on top right column above the about me. It will be a link which will take you to an external contact form. You can enter your message there and send. I'll receive it to my mail box. I tested it and it is working fine. I would wish to hear comments about my blog, your suggestions to improve the blog and also if you have got any questions. If I get any questions I will answer it sometimes in the blog itself with a link to the reader(I'm a follower of Darren).

The Contact form will look like this:
Contact Me

Waiting to receive your mails. Now whatever you want to ask, you can straight go to the form.

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Poll: When Will You Display Your Feedburner Subscribers Count?

Few days ago I blogged about The Right Time To Show Your Blog's Stats. I have been getting various responses in forums, mail and also one in a comment. Alexa rank can be found for any blog by using the toolbar or going to their site. Technorati rankings of a blog can also be found from the Technorati's site itself. The one which is tough to find or sometimes cannot be found is the feedburner subscriber's count. I have seen bloggers displaying it from start, I have seen bloggers displaying only after it crosses a value and I have also seen bloggers who never show their subscribers' count. When would you show? Please take the poll.

Article Submissions - Are They Useful?

Article submissions directory is a place where you submit your article with your information in it. When people need article for their blog or newsletter, they might take your article and will include the information you have given. In the information place, you give your name, what you do and also a link to your blog with an anchor text of your choice. So when people put your article in their blog, you get a link back. If people include it in newsletter, you will get high traffic. Not only this, but you also get to the top page of Google for few keywords you use, if your article is requested many number of times.

When I was new to blogging, 50 days ago, I was advised by few good bloggers that article submissions are a must for new bloggers to develop their blog. I submitted few articles. Normally most of the articles get moderate number of requests. One of my articles got 84 requests and it topped the Google search for the term "Earn Money Instantly". But it is no more on the front page. Though it got 84 requests, I got only two link backs according to technorati. From then I don't submit articles. Here are few of the top article submission directories:

1. Ezine Articles

2. Goarticles

3. Articles Base

I used Goarticles for all my submissions. Here are some Pros and Cons of Article Submissions.

Pros:
1. You get link backs

2. You get traffic

3. You get famous

4. You might top for few search terms

Cons:
1. Not all the time you are linked to your article

2. Most of the time your article won't be famous and you won't get much traffic

3. If you write it in your blog, you might get more visitors and subscribers than those from article submissions

4. Few people who come from the article, where you have placed a link, do not know what RSS is

I haven't been happy with the article submission. If you want to give it a try, you can choose any of the above article submission directory or Google search for it. If you have already used it, what do think about it? Is it useful? Did they meet your expectations?

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3 Ways To Popularize A Blog Contest

I wrote an article few days ago named, 3 Must Do Things For A New Blogger, which got me new readers and many questions.I had written in my article that Blog contests are a good way to get link backs, new readers and subscribers. Shawn Cornett, who read the article, asked me how small blogs can get more participants for their blog contest. Two weeks ago Daily Blog Tips had a group writing contest. Without much advertising, it got as many as 115 participants. Since it is a famous blog, the contest spread and many joined. But small blogs with very less readers don't manage to get much participants. Here are the 3 ways which you can follow to popularize a blog contest:

1. Spread the word to Contest Blogs:
In the blogosphere, there are few blogs which are specially meant to tell bloggers about contests. Two such well-known blogs are Contest Blogger and Blog-Contests. You can submit about your contest to these blogs for free. The second blog though needs a registration which is also free, I suppose. These two blogs are already famous and can get you a handful of participants. Contest Blogger has 196 subscribers now itself. So now you can see how much people it can send to your blog.

2. Spread the word in forums without spamming:
Forums are a nice way to tell a contest in your blog. Though make sure you don't spam. Confirm it with the forum owner whether you can post about contest. If you do it well, you will get some nice number of participants, if the forum is active. Evelester of Wordpress Reworked, got as many as 45 back links by just telling about her contest in forums. She gave a free theme customization for the winners.

3. Spread the word by what is called "word of mouth":
"Word of mouth" is what people call it. You can tell your friends, relatives who are blogging. Also you can mail other bloggers about the contest you have in your blog. But I see people writing about contests in other blog's comments. This is a spam. I have received it few times. But since this blog does not use any comment moderation, they get posted and I delete it later. Word of mouth can get you participants if you tell them effectively and the pros of the contest.

If you get 50 participants, they will blog about it in their blog and their readers might join the competition too. Say every 2 blogs gets you one blog referred, then you will have 75. The 25 referred blogs might get you few blogs. So you might get any number of blogs for the contest.

The number of readers, subscribers and back link also depend on the prize you offer. You can give a free theme customization like Evelester or something related to your niche and also something creative. I can't assure you how much back links or visitors you can expect because I have never held a contest in my blog till date. Maybe one in future. So if you have a contest, make sure you do the above things so that you will get many participants.

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The Right Time To Show You Blog's Stats

I have been frequenting many forums for the past 3-4 days and I found this question of when to show your blog stats by a member named Glblbuy. I have given my views in short in the article, 3 Must Do Things For A New Blogger, I wrote for the Daily Blog Tips contest. It was just a part of that article. In this post, I wanted to be more specific. Your blog might be brand new or it might be a blog with good number of readers and subscribers. But what is the right time to show your stats?

There are various stats you have for your blog:
1. Subscribers

2. Alexa

3. Technorati

Now let me just go deep into every category. And before reading this, understand that whatever I write here are just my opinion and you are free to do a counter of what I say.

1. Subscribers:
You maybe using various options for getting subscribers like FeedBurner, FeedBlitz or Zookoda. Whatever you use, you are given the option to view your number of subscribers. Keep track of it. If you ask me, the right time to show your feedburner count is after you reach 500 or at least after you reach 400. This is because when you have a less count, people don't tend to sign up for your feeds. Many say 100 would easily do. But if you want to be a professional blogger and want your blog to look professional, show your stats after it reaches 400. If you wish to become an established blogger, then in no time you would reach it. As far as I know, not even a single established blogger has less than 400 subscribers. If you think this is tough to reach, then getting yourself to be called an established blogger is also hard. So please wait till your blog reaches 400. If you don't have the time to wait till that, then wait till you get a 3 digit count. Now you can also increase my subscriber's count by subscribing to my blog.

2. Alexa:
Alexa is not a correct measure. It won't show the best of stats. But there are things like sponsored reviews which depend on your alexa rank. Also if you have an Alexa rank of less than 25,000, you are for sure an established blogger. Though Alexa is an incorrect measure, you should care for it too. Alexa has a tool which will show blog's alexa rank publicly. I would say that, the best time to show your blog's alexa rank is when you reach the top 100,000. Don't show it when you have a 6 digit or 7 digit figure(Thanks to Shankar who once told me about this). When you have it a six digit figure, people sometimes wrongly conclude that your blog is not a good one or your blog is not well known. It is always better to show after you reach 100,000(99,999 to be more appropriate).

3. Technorati:
Technorati ranking and authority has become a major part for every blog. If you have a technorati rank less than 20,000, then you are considered a good blogger. And if you have it to be less than 5000, you are a great blogger. The top 100 bloggers are the experts and Gurus. You can see a post about Hierarchy of successful bloggers in Daily Blog Tips. The right time to show your technorati stats is once you enter the top 20k. Although it is a bit tough to reach, with extra hard work you can reach it. For ex: If you link to this article from your blog, I would get a good technorati ranking [:)]. Once you reach top 20k show it in your blog if you wish. It will promote your blog and it will also lead to more bloggers link to your blog.

These are my opinions on the blog's stats. You can tell you views in comments, or in your blog with a link to this article(Increasing my technorati ranking so that I can show it soon). When will you show your stats? Also please tell me in comments if I had left any other stats so that I can include it in the next part.

Update:
Take the poll about stats from here.

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2 Blog Parodies You Would Love To Visit

When you become famous in any field, there are always copycats around you. You may have attained a place fighting hard, but the next day you would see someone doing the same thing what you did. This was no special in the blogosphere. There are many spoofs of A-List blog being created. Though most of them fail, two blog Parodies have become famous and has hit the nail. Now here are the two best Blog Parodies:

1. John Chow - John Cow:
John Chow - John Cow is the latest blog parody. You would already be knowing this. Still here is what these two sites are about:

(i) John Chow
John Chow, the dot Mogul, is very well known due to his evilness[:D]. He is earning a lot of readers and as well as lot of money these days. He has already crossed his $10000/month mark. he has had many obstacles like Google not showing his blog in the first page for his name, Technorati labeling his blog a rank of 50 and not showing his blog in top 100 and so on. But whatever maybe the obstacle, he never loses any of his readers. He in fact gets new readers everyday. You can see a picture of his blog below:



(ii) John Cow
John Cow is the blog parody of John Chow. This blog is just hilarious. I know what you are thinking. What did john Chow Say about this? He knows about the blog and is actually not minding it. He has visited the blogs many times and have even countered them in his blog. He also once gave an USB Cooler as a prize to John Cow blog in one of his contest with his autograph. John Cow has become really popular and has even hit the MyBlogLog hot communities. This blog is not even one month old but has 150+ subscribers. The blog had 125,523 pageviews in 17 days which is magnificent. Now itself a review on this blog is $200. This blog is now copied by two other blogs named john Buffalo and John How. You can see a snap shot of the blog below:



2. Shoemoney - Bootmoney
Surely you would be knowing shoemoney blog. But are you aware of bootmoney blog?

(i) Shoemoney
Shoemoney is a blog where Jeremy talks about making money online. He owns Auction ads and is a big money earner. He was also featured in the business week article on top money making blogs on the internet. He has a technorati rank of 70. He has a big subscriber base of 9800+ subscribers. You could have seen him on his blog with a check from Google for $132,994.97. A ReviewMe review on his blog will cost you $2500. Now don't go crazy over these. He earns money by hard work. Really a great blogger. The parody of his blog, doesn't look much like this blog. But it has few things in common.

(ii) Bootmoney
Bootmoney is a blog created to be like Shoemoney. This blog is also hilarious. But the site doesn't have much of stats. It has got 59 subscribers. The reason for this is that the blog is not updated regularly. What I find the to be the most hilarious one is the picture of this guy with an Azoogle check of $3 which you can see here. This blog's recent post has also got some pictures of Shoemoney.

These parody blogs have become famous because of the original blog's popularity and also because of the spoof blog's author. I enjoyed the spoofs a lot. Hope you enjoyed it too. These blogs are good unless it hurts the feeling of the original blog owner.

Now which blog is next going to be spoofed?

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2 New Forums You Have To Join If You Want To Improve Blogging

Blogging is like Music. It has no end. You can never learn everything about blogging. There maybe one or two things you have to learn each day. To learn about blogging, you can read blogs like Pro Blogger and also by joining in Forums. Though there are many forums about blogging, still new forums are created. So two such forums I found to be interesting are Blogging Tips' Forum and Chris Garrett's Forum. These two are the recently much talked about forums. I joined both the forums and had a great time learning. Surely a nice way to improve blogging. Now going deep about these two forums:

1. Kevin's Blogging Tips Forum:(Referral Link!)
Kevin is a blogger known for writing whats going on blogosphere everyday. His forum concentrates on everything about blogging right from blog design to making money, from Tips on placing AdSense to Search Engine Optimization. You can also use the forum(again referral!) to chat with other bloggers. I have been browsing the forum today for nearly 1 hour and learned many things about search engine optimization.

2. Chris Garrett's Forum:
Chris Garrett's is a well known blogger for creating flagship content and blog branding. His blog is quite new and yet has reached its 1000 post's mark. This forum is mainly for people who want to share any article which they have found recently to be useful. You can get direct help from Chris and other bloggers using the forum. You also get to know other bloggers of your niche.

So these are the 2 new forums you have to join if you want to improve blogging.

Forums not only makes you popular to other bloggers and improve your blogging, it is also a great way to get traffic to your blog. If you can answer a question of a newbie, then he/she is sure to visit your blog. Who ever finds your information useful will visit your blog. You don't actually need to put your blog's link every time unless it is needed. You have an option called signature where you can put your blog's link and it will appear at the end of every post. And please don't spam the forums.

Concluding:
1. Join the two forums to improve blogging
(i) Kevin's Blogging Tips Forum:(Referral Link!)

(ii) Chris Garrett's Forum:

2. You can learn about blogging

3. You get to many other bloggers of your niche

4. You get traffic to your blog

5. You have contact with the A-List blogger

So enjoy learning in the forums and be sure not to spam the whole place.

Update:
Chris' forum has introduced a referral scheme too. You can win a link on his blog or even a guest post by him written for you. He announced this after I blogged about his forum. So this is the update. make sure you join and refer members.

Blogging Tips forum will give four top referrers a cash of $50 each.

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Extremely Good Looking Car Wallpapers And Screensavers

Blogging is my passion. In the same way I admire Cars. My love towards sporty cars started at the age of 15 when I saw Michael Schumacher win F1 Grand Prix. There are many bloggers like me who have attraction towards cars. I search for Car wallpapers in Google and used to find good-looking wallpaper very rarely. Now I found a site, which has a lot of Supercar Wallpapers. I saw some high quality wallpapers and also some extremely good-looking Screensavers.

My favorite car company is Audi. As the site had wallpapers of every car company in a categorized way, I found the wallpapers of Audi's Cars very easily. I found this picture to be very cool and set it as my background. There was many Screensavers for me choose and I had a hard time picking the best one out of all the other screensavers because every single one was stylish.

Now I thought of going deep into the site so that I can learn better about it. The good news is that they maintain a blog for displaying the latest news on Cars. You will get all the motoring news from their site. I quickly added it to my feed. Now I can get all the latest news, from Ford to Citroen. I was amazed to the see their subscriber's count. It was ticking at 1402. Not bad at all. I think every website should maintain a blog like this. So if you want to get all the motoring news to your feed reader, go to their blog page and subscribe. It is after all Free.

Further digging their site, I found that they also sell used cars. Though they are used cars, you get them in a very good condition. They have a specially designed search to find used cars where you can give the informations like minimum price, maximum price and make. And you might worry about their service. They have a good service which you don't have to worry about. They have 1600 dealers nationwide with over 100,000 used cars offers offering everything from Audi, Ford & Honda to Volkswagen, Volvo and Vauxhall. So you can see their experience in this profession. You can even contact them very easily. They have a contact form. I contacted them using the form and I was surprised to see a reply from them in just 10 minutes.

So whether you want to download supercar wallpapers or get latest motoring news or even buy used cars, you can go to Vcars.

This is a Sponsored Review for Vcars.

Daily Tech News: A Runner Up In Daily Blog Tips Contest

Daily Blog Tips had a group writing contest last week. The main idea of the project is to write a blog post with the magic number 3 on it. I participated in the contest and wrote a blog post on 3 Must Do Things For A New Blogger. Every participant picked their favorites. Every link was considered as a vote. The top three posts with most votes will be considered as winner. The winner gets a $100 prize from Daniel, the founder of this project.

There were 115 blogs participating in the contest. The top three blogs with most votes were:

1. L’Amour De Blog: 3 reasons why blogging is like being in love - 13 Votes

2. 3 Reason Why Entrepreneurs Succeed! - 11 Votes

3. 3 Ways to Track Your Comments - 11 Votes

Congrats to the winners. Though my blog didn't make it to the top three, it was one of the 8 Runner Ups. Here are the 8 Runner Ups:

1. # Three reasons to try a marathon - 10 Votes

2. 3+1 Things Blogger’s Should Never Ever Do - 9 Votes

3. 3 + 3 + 3 Places Where You Can Get Free Icons For All Seasons And Reasons - 9 Votes

4. The 3 P’s for Creating a Successful Website - 8 Votes

5. Three essential steps to great blog posts - 8 Votes

6. How I built 10,000 links in 3 weeks - 7 Votes

7. 3 Must Do Things For A New Blogger - 7 Votes (My Entry)

8. 3 Sure Fire Way to Advertise Your Blog on a Shoe String - 7 Votes

Congrats to all the runner ups. Also my congrats to all the participants. Thanks to everyone who voted for my blog. I'm glad that many people liked my blog post.

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8 Unknown Facts About Me Which You Would Want To know

There are many facts which most of the people don't know about me. But since I got the tag from my friend Shankar Ganesh to write only 8 Facts About Me, I'm going to write only 8. Maybe in the next tag I will write more.

1. I'm a vegetarian too like Shankar Ganesh.

2. I never knew what was blogging 50 days ago. This blog is nearly 45 days old.

3. The first thing I got from the money I earned through blogging is a Nike Deodorant and a "Flirt" T-Shirt.

4. I'm a football player and I have played for my school team. Now I'm going to join college and I'll be playing there too.

5. I know an extra Language other than English and my mother tongue. It is French. Je suis etudie dans mon ecole(Sorry for not putting the accents over "e").

6. My first ever blogging friend is Shankar Ganesh who tagged me in this train. He is the first blogger who I spoke to, through Google Talk.

7. I'm a wordpress lover and a blogspot blogger. I like wordpress, it's options, it's style and many things. I hate blogger due to few reasons.

8. I have a computer with very less options (most probably than any other blogger) and I wish to upgrade it soon. It is a white computer with 256 MB Ram.

So now you know 8 things about me which you never knew before. If I get more tags like this, I will tell a bit more about me. Thanks to Shankar for the Tag. I have my own list of bloggers who I want to tag. And here goes the list:
Gabotron, Narendra, Karthik, Venkatesh.

Waiting to hear something great from you all.

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What Is Your Predicted Page Rank?

Google Page Rank update is round the corners and you might get a PR anytime. Every blogger is always concerned about his/her blog's Page Rank. It is a measure by Google which can tell you about how hard you work will get you back. Few days ago Blogging Tips.Com wrote an article on Page Rank Prediction. Kevin listed some tools which can predict your blogs Page Rank in the next update. The PR is predicted by the number of back links your blog has. You might not get a PR using that tool, if your blog has less than 100 back links. My 45 days old blog is predicted a PR 4 which is not bad. I could have tried for PR 5. You can use the following tools to check your blog's PR prediction:

1. iWebTool

2. PR Checker

3. Check Page Rank



For more you can read this blog post from Kevin on his blog called the Google Page Rank Tools.

What is your blog's predicted Page Rank? Is it what you expected?

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Pownce Experiencing Spams And Worst Search Results

Pownce, a file and message sharing site, is started by Kevin Rose. Kevin Rose is none other than the Digg's Owner. Pownce, though it is a "Join By Invite Only" site, it has started to see spams. Spam in the way of messages and also in the user names. I joined Pownce few days ago with the invite of my friend, Kuanhoong. I wanted to see whether the site matched the hype created by the bloggers. Many bloggers blogged about it and I wanted to give it a try. Indeed the site was pretty good. But it will take you some time to learn using it.

Pownce has one of the worst Search option. If you want to add a friend, you have to search by their name which is surely going to be a worst experience for you. I searched for the owner's name, Kevin Rose. I got the following results:

1. Marcus ROSEnow

2. Alexander AmbROSE

3.AmbROSE Heron

4. Michael ROSE

But where is the owner? Even if he is not there, there will at least be one person by that name. But I never got one such result in the first page. So I decided to search for my Friend, Shankar Ganesh. I got 6 results and he was the last one. The above 5 didn't have this name though. The search of Pownce is not really good.

Now coming to Spams, I tell you what kind of spam I saw. I found that a person has registered thrice by the same name. I searched for a name of my friend and got three weird results. These results had the same name. It is the same person who has registered thrice in the same name. I can say it is the same person by the user name. The user names resembled each other. The user names are some order which has something to do with one another. Surely you will also find it as spam when you see it. Don't worry, you will see one such case in Pownce soon. Use the search more and you will get it.

These are spams right? But I just don't understand the reason why people join like this. Though this site is "join only by invite", there are such people still joining the site. Every new member is given 6 invites which is what used by those people. And if you want to join the site for a good reason and not for spamming, you can get an invite from me. Just put your email address in the comments but please don't spam it. Let's say NO to spamming.

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15 Ways To Make A Good Blog Post Better And Even Best

We know content is king. For a blog, though content is king, it’s design has a small part in making it a hit. Likewise, to make a good article better, you have to present it in an attractive and easy readable way. There are many other things, which you have to take notice of when you are writing a blog post. Whenever, you write a post, you should always have in your mind, your blog readers. Analyze what they want and what they like. If you have been blogging for a pretty long time, then you should know what your visitors like.

I can give you 15 tips to make a good blog post better or even best:

1. Have an eye-catching name

2. Make sure your Grammar is correct and avoid spelling mistakes

3. Present your article in a easily readable way

4. Bullet all the points and give sub-headings

5. Don’t write long paragraphs

6. Don’t write a useless blog post because you have to write one on that day

7. Always keep to the point and don’t include unrelated points in it

8. Add humor to your article where ever it is needed

9. Make sure your links inside the article are properly inserted

10. Follow the “Keep It Simple” method

11. As I said before, read the minds of your readers and write what they like

12. Read every single mail of your readers and write a post on the frequently asked question

13. Write it in a way that your blog readers Digg it or Stumble it

14. Even if your article is just moderate, if you provide the information which your blog readers have been looking for, it will get more readers and also be Dugg

15. Always ask yourself, before publishing the article, whether it is in anyway useful for you or is it what you were searching when you were new to blogging

Keep these points in mind and make sure you satisfy all of them.

What do you think that will make a good blog post better?

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Will You Pay Someone To Comment On Other Blog?

I came across this site called Buy Blog Comments in Darren's blog and Kevin's BloggingTips.com. The question would have looked stupid to you. But it is a service offered by the website called Buy Blog Comments.

You might want to know what they actually offer. Now here's what:
As the PR update is expected soon, you might be commenting in other blogs which link to you if you are a top commentator. This site offers a service. They will find the blogs in your Niche which link to top commentators. They will comment on the blogs for you. They say that they will make sure there comments are not spammy. Now comes the cost for the service. 100 comments cost you $19.99, 500 costs $99.99 and 1000 costs $199.99. Now will you ever pay someone for commenting on other blogs? Do you think you will escape from being called Spammer? If you think you can manage well, then you surely can take up this service.

What makes me go crazy is that, they are now getting tons of traffic for free. They are linked from Problogger.net which gets a huge number of visitors per day. They have got a link from bloggingtips.com, which is now an emerging great blog. Though Darren don't do paid reviews in his blog, just think how much it would cost if he did. Surely more than $1000. Probably $2500 like Shoemoney blog. A review on bloggingtips is surely going to cost no less than $75. I have written about their site now in my blog which is worth $15 [hehe :)]. So without any costs the website is getting tons of traffic. Now the owner will be laughing at the site stats which is probably reaching 10K. Though the site is getting negative review, it is not going to stop people from going to the site and having a look and some end up buying.

What is your go on this? Will you be trying this or to be on the safer side, you won't?

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3 Must Do Things For A New Blogger

Blogging is a great way to earn money. But it can’t make you rich over night. This is not a “Get Rich Quick Program” which you buy for $7 or any money ending in 7 (7 is a magical number which can get you more sales). You may ask, “Then why do people blog?” It is because blogs can earn once you are get to a stable position. Most of the great bloggers, like Darren, started blogging not to earn money. They attained a stable position and got a better place (in fact the top position) in their niche. Few people have a misconception that they can earn good amount of money from first month. And we know this is one of the main reasons why most blogger’s fail. Though I’m not a Pro blogger or even an intermediate blogger, I can still give a few tips for the new bloggers. So here are the 3 must Do Things For A New Blogger:

1. Blog With Your Domain Name:
When people start blogging, they choose blogspot or wordpress.com (or any free service like me. For me there is a financial problem.). If you are serious about blogging, you better blog with your own domain name. You can use the free services, if you are totally new to blogging and don’t know any thing about it. You can learn using the blogger and then get a domain name. Now blogging with your domain name must remind you of the following 3 things:

(i) Choosing A Domain Name:
While choosing a domain name, make sure that the name is easy to remember. Avoid getting a name with hyphens and underlines. Prefer getting a “.com” and not any other. You can have the domain on your name or any search term of your niche.

(ii) Hunt for a better Host:
There are many hosts available. There are free ones and there are also paid ones. If you get many visitors to your blog, it is better to go for a paid host. When you choose a paid host, be sure to check whether it is Digg proof, Netscape proof and other social book marking sites’ proof. The traffic you get when your article hits the front page of Digg will be enormous. You blog cannot be down when the visitors wants to visit your blog. So go for a good host.

(iii) Don’t Show Your Stats In Your Blog:
Once your blog is setup, don’t show the stats of your blog like technorati rankings or alexa rankings. It gives the visitors a bad impression about your blog. If they find that your blog has a less alexa rank than their blog, they might stop visiting your blog. In my opinion, you should show your alexa rank only after you reach a 5-digit number. You can tell your technorati rankings once you get below 20,000. So be careful when displaying stats.

2. Getting Recognized In Your Niche:
If you want to be successful in your niche, you should be popular and recognized. Achieving this feat is not as easy as it sounds. If it were that easy, then there would be 1000’s of Darren Rowse and 1000’s of Steve Pavlina. To become famous, you should have a good number of subscriber base, huge traffic, very good content and many link backs. To achieve these, you can follow the following 3 things:

(i) Use The Social Book Marking Sites To Your Advantage:
Social Book Marking sites can get you a huge number of traffic. You ought to have a great content to hit the front page. Not only content will get you to the tops but also the heading you have. Use a catchy headline and give the content that they expect after reading the headline. If you hit the front page of Digg or Netscape, you will have a good time seeing visitors flow by your site. Stumble and Del.icio.us can get you traffic in long term.

(ii) Participate In Blog Carnivals And Blog Contests:
Blog carnivals are the best place where you can get good number of traffic and link backs. Link backs are very important for a blog. Make sure you don’t spam the place. Blog contests and group writing projects are by far the best way to get link backs. Unfortunately I wasn’t there to participate in the Darren’s Group writing project because I wasn’t blogging that time. BTW, the group-writing project took place only few months ago. I didn’t want to miss the group-writing project held by Daniel of Daily Blog Tips. So I wrote this post, which you might or might not be enjoying. Group writing projects will get you a good number of visitors, link backs and subscribers.

(iii) Hold Contests And Give Away Cash And Prizes:
If you want to get more link backs and blog readers, organize a contest in your blog. This is the latest trend. The cash or prize you give away is surely the worth. You can also give coupons and other items. Many bloggers have started to follow this method. If you have $50 or a good product to give away, then you can expect 50 link backs for sure. Not only link backs, but also you will get more blog readers and subscribers.

An extra tip for getting recognized is to do guest blogging. Guest blogging will get some exposure for you and your blog. But don’t guest blog unless you have something useful to say.

3. Monetizing Your Blog:
Every blogger should monetize their blog. It is a reward for your hard work. When it comes to monetization, few bloggers over monetize and few bloggers monetize less. If you want to know how much you can monetize, you need to read this line carefully:

“ Have advertisements in your blog and not blog in advertisements”

You would have most probably got the meaning of the phrase. I designed it on my own. So it might be little confusing. You can have advertisements on your blog. But your blog should not be created especially for advertisements. You need to look upon the following 3 monetizing tips:

(i) Having AdSense In Your Blog:
Though few bloggers say that having AdSense will make your blog look unprofessional, it is the best way to monetize a blog. You can’t earn much with AdSense if you don’t have good amount of traffic. But it can earn you few dollars. It is the best way to monetize a new blog. You have to embed the AdSense ad within your content to earn more.

(ii) In-Text Advertising – A Threat To Your Blog:
In-Text advertising is the one, which is used by few bloggers. In-Text Advertising can be found by a Double Underline, which shows an advertising box when you move the mouse over it. Though it will earn you few dollars, you might lose some of your blog readers. Once you get known and have a large number of people reading your blogs, then you can have the ads if you wish. The reason why you should not have this type of ad is that, the readers get confused between you normal links to the In-Text links. Avoiding these type of ads can get you more readers and also you will not lose your regular readers. Daniel of Daily Blog Tips has more on why you should stay away from In-Text Advertisement.

(iii) Don’t Throw Banners On The Face Of Your Blog Readers:
Few bloggers have the bad idea of decorating their blog with advertising banners. If you have more of these banners, then you are going to lose some of your readers in near future. As I mentioned a Phrase above, you should not have a blog in ads but ads in blog. Having banners also rely on your way of placing them. If you place the banners in the right way, then you have no problem. There are blogs, which have many advertisements. But the readers won’t mind them because the ads don’t bother them. Place less ads in your blog.

I hope that “The 3 must do things for new bloggers” interested you and also provided you with some useful information.

This entry is a part of Daniel’s Blog Project: Three.

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Are You Brain Washed By Youtube Videos?

Quiztron is the site I found today to be very interesting. There are many quizzes that you can take. You first select a quiz, then answer the list of questions they ask. The questions are like Choose the Best Answer. Analyzing the result, they give you an answer. I took a quiz on Youtube on the topic "Are You Brain Washed By Youtube Videos?".

I watch youtube videos a lot. Half of my net surfing time goes on youtube. So just to test myself I took the quiz. Here's the Result I got:

Are you being brain washed by youtube videos? There is still hope. Just turn the computer off now. Why are you still reading this? Don't you want to live a life independent of pop up ads, go now!! Oh, well, it's your funeral Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

Huh! It seems there is still some hope. Let me just finish this post, switch off the computer and go out. There are more quizzes you can take. Have fun with the quiz.

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Google Search For John Chow - What Do You See?

John Chow, The Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul, is no more ranked first for the search term "Make Money Online". He did some link baiting and got so many link backs. What he did is "Review Me and Link Back to the blog using the anchor text Make Money Online and few more and get a link from me". This at first worked very well for him. He got so many links that Google and Technorati got serious and he is no more ranked first for the search term "Make money online". Technorati also ranks him wrong. His profile page shows a rank of 54 but he is not there in the Top 100 blogs list. Not only John Chow's blog, one more blog I found ranked wrong. I wrote a blog post on it Here.

Now the most awful thing is that John doesn't rank first for his own name. Using this opportunity, a blog called BlogStorm, got a sponsored link in google search for the term "John Chow". Now, if you search google, you will find a sponsored link of BlogStorm saying things like:
# Where Did John Chow Go?

# Why isn't John Chow here?



This is really a good way to market their blog. What do you think now? Is John angry, right? Obviously No. Blogstorm didn't stop there but got a ReviewMe Review from John's blog. You know what John calls this? He calls it Smart Marketing. Hope John ranks back for all the search terms he use to rank well.

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John Chow Is Not The Only Person Who Is Ranked Wrong By Technorati

Pronet advertising wrote a post on John Chow Vs Google - Who's winning. It also said that Technorati ranked John 54 in his page and was not on the top 100 blogs. We know that as John told this already in his blog. But amazingly, John's blog is not the only blog ranked wrong by technorati. But there is/are more blogs ranked wrong.

I searched the top 100 list and also some of my favorite blogs in Technorati. First I searched for Performancing.com. It showed the rank to be 35. I was not happy with the results as I know that performancing.com would rank much higher. I searched again and found the rank this time to be 31. Weird? Yes. But what is more confusing is that, when I went to the profile page of performancing.com I found its rank to be 12. Now back to top 100 blogs list, I searched for performancing.com and it was not there in even one of the above three ranks. To my surprise, it was not there in Top 100. In Rank 12, it was Seth Godin's blog.



We know John got so many link backs by using the technique of "Review me and get a link back". Even Google didn't like it and removed his blog from the first page for the search term "make money online" which he topped few times ago. I don't know why performancing.com is not ranked in the proper position by technorati. Do you know any other blog which is given a rank below 100 and not put up in the top 100 blogs?

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A Look At The Top 5 Best Free Email Clients

Everyone in the day to day life use mail services and we receive dozens of mails each day. When it comes to checking those mails and responding to them, it becomes tough. You cannot Log In 10 times a day or so to check the mail. So we can use the email clients which will be running in our Computer and whenever you get a mail, you can receive it in your email client. Few might have already used it and few might not have. So here's a look at the top 5 most popular and Best Free email clients.

1. Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0
Mozilla Thunderbird is one of the most popular email client available in the internet. It gives you a faster, safer and easier way to access your mails. It also includes a built-in RSS reader which is a sure advantage for bloggers. Thunderbird can prevent viruses and stop junk mail so you can get back to reading your mail.



2. Incredimail Xe 5.31
Incredimail is a fun and powerful email client. It is also user friendly. I personally use Incredimail and it is working great for me. It has a lot of cool options. Your mails are notified by animation characters. You have so many different backgrounds, emoticons, ecards and animations. This is compatible with Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL. The free version does not give you full access to the graphic options. But whatever you get in this free options is very well enough.



3. MailList Controller Free 6.03
MailList Controller Free is an email client which allows you to send out personalized messages, manage multiple mailing lists, newsletters, campaigns, e-zines, announcements, support, and group mails. This free version also has limits. You can have one list with a maximum of 100 recipients.



4. Sendblaster Free Edition 1.4.7
SendBlaster Free is a email client which is especially for email marketing and mailing list. It is very user friendly. You can create a newsletter, select a mailing list and start its fast mass e-mailing engine. You can easily personalize the message. You can address the mails to the recipient name instead of normal "Dear Customer".



5. Email Director Classic Edition 7.4
Email Director is an email client which helps you to stay in touch with a large target audience. With Email Director, you have the following access:
Personal and bulk sending method.
Send file attachments with each message.
Automatic opt-in and opt-out address processing.
Auto Forwarder, Auto Responder and Auto SPAM Filter.



Note: To Download the above Email Clients, click on its name. These email clients are not placed in the order of top 5. These are one among the top 5 in my opinion.

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Feeds Option In Orkut

Orkut is a popular online networking community where one can exchange scraps and chat on certain topics like blogging or computer related or anything. Orkut is just a site like myspace or bebo. But orkut lacks few options. Orkut is becoming very popular and many features are being added to it. First they added the option to embed youtube and google videos. Now they have an option called the feeds.

It has been nearly a month since they introduced this option. This is great move by orkut. With this option, you can add a single blog or multiple blogs to the feed and read it when you are chatting with your friends. You get the updates there. One main disadvantage is that you don't have the options like Stumble, Digg or other things below a post.

The main advantage of this option i that you get the site-news to orkut itself and you can read while chatting. You can also use this option to get some exposure to your blog by adding your blog to the feeds. When others visit your profile, they can see your blog feed and they might pay a visit. Feeds option in orkut is surely an advantage for bloggers. Try the options and you'll see increase in traffic.

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Google Is Not The Only Search Engine

Now whenever one is asked to name a search engine, the first word to come out of their mouth is Google. Google is not the only search engine. Google has become so very popular that every internet user uses Google to search for things. Though few people still use other search engines, Google is the most used and best known.

I also prefer Google over the other search engines. But there are few things which you get more perfectly when you use other search engines like Yahoo. Not only search engines, there are also websites like Digg that can be searched for information. To understand that Google is not the only search engine, and also to search other websites, there is a software called the Ultimate Explorer 1.2 which searches 10 websites. The ten websites are namely Amazon, Digg, YouTube, Yahoo, Amazon, Drugstore, The Pirate Bay, Wikipedia, eBay, PriceRunner and the tenth one is obviously our favorite Google.

Ultimate Explorer 1.2 works only in Vista. This is the only disadvantage. If you are a vista user, you can download it from here:
Ultimate Explorer 1.2.

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Do's And Don't To Qualify For A Paid Review

Everyone start blogging for just the two below reasons or either of the two:
1. To earn money

2. To express their talent and share it with friends

Whatever is the reason to start blogging, they surely at one point of time think of monetizing their blog. Surely, monetizing doesn’t mean that the blogger is greedy for money. In fact one has to monetize his/her blog. It is just a way of rewarding oneself for their hard work. Few people have a misconception that they can earn money to quit their day job from the first day of blogging. If you have any thoughts like that, please do leave it outside and then enter the blogosphere. But yes, you can make few dollars from the first day or first month.

Now you can earn more money from the first month if you join the paid reviews sites. To list a few:
1. ReviewMe

2. Payperpost

3. Sponsored Reviews

4. Blogsvertise

5. Smorty

And more. Maki of DoshDosh has written on
A Definitive List of Paid Blogging Websites

The first and second options are not for you if your blog is less than 3 months old. If your blog is 20 days old (though I don’t know the exact number of days), you can join the rest of the 3 options. Smorty is a site in which you should join. Once your blog gets approved, you are given an opportunity to write about smorty and they pay you $6 if your review is accepted. Blogsvertise will put you in probation status and you will get very less money for the reviews. Sponsored review is the site I like the most. I joined it with my 20 days old blog and I got a paid review for $20 in which my share was $13. My blog had no page rank and also very less alexa rank.

To Qualify for a Paid Review:
I know many people who join these “Paid to review” sites and don’t get a single review to be done. It is not the fault of advertisers or the site. The problem lies in “your Do’s and don’t”. So here are some things you do.

Do’s:
1. You have a less traffic and PR blog, yet you ask for a high price:
Let me show you an example. Assume that you are an advertiser. You see two blogs. One blog offers a review for $20 and has a PR 0 and page views of 8000 per month. Another blog offers a review for $50 and has a PR 0 and page views of 7000 per month. Which one, as an advertiser, will you choose? Of course you will choose the $20 review. If you choose the $50 review then you might be new to marketing and blogging. So keep your review price low.

2. You frequently change your review price. When you bid for first advertiser, you say a review on your blog costs $40 and for second advertiser you say a review costs $30. Surely both advertisers won’t choose your blog.

Now here are some things you don’t.

Don’t:
1. You don’t give a good explanation about your blog. You should write what your blog is about. Tell the advertiser what your blog readers like. Elaborate them what kind of advertiser you want. Explain them point-by-point what you blog is good at. If you write clearly about your blog in the about section, the advertisers will know how clearly you will write a review about their product or service.

2. You don’t write a good review when you get a chance. The advertisers, who are searching for publishers, will take a look at the previous reviews if any. If there is no previous reviews, they will decide from the about page. If there are any previous reviews, they’ll look at it and will give you an opportunity only if you have done the previous reviews well. So prepare well and take your time to do any review. After all the advertisers have to get their money’s worth.

By just following these things, you can get more reviews and henceforth earn more money from your blog. Whenever you get any review, write your best. Don’t write only the positive side. Do tell your readers and the advertiser about the negative side of the product. Wishing you all the best.

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Im 75% Addicted To Blogging - How Much Are You?

Blogging has become my passion. I spend at least 4 hours a day doing something related to blogging. I always wanted to know how much I am addicted to blogging. Yesterday, I visited Daniel's Daily Blog Tips, where I found a post on Test Your Blogging Addiction. I thought of giving it a try myself.




75%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Huh! Im 75% addicted to blog. I don't think anyone has got 100%. But 75% is indeed too much. I thought it would be around 65%-70%. I'll have to control myself and try to move a little away from blogging (I know I can't do that). You can try it from here. Don't forget to post your resulting percentage in the comments section. Have a great day blogging.

Must Reads [01-07-07]

First day of the month July. I want to have a great start. Last week, obviously last week for June 2007 also, I read few inspiring articles. I also found many articles which gave tips on blogging. Always great articles should be rewarded and to keep up the word, I list some of the best reads or probably the must reads of last week.

1. Shankar wrote on his blog about 11 things to do before you hit the Publish button : Surely this article was a great hit and got him so many link backs. Shankar where's my share? :)

2. Nirmal, inspite of being busy with his new site, Cellularized, found time to write good posts on his blog. I found this article called Email Subscription Services and their Importance, caught my eyes.

3. Ashish Saini wrote a post on Adsense Referrals 2.0. He only told me about the AdSense referrals 2.0. Thanks for notifying me.

4. DJ Flush, the sizzling blogger with Sizlopedia who ranks very well in technorati, wrote an interesting How-to. The article was named How To Backup Your Firefox and Thunderbird Settings and was very useful too.

5. Pallab, a blogger who gets me to his blog by writing good content, wrote a blog post on Sandbox Your Way To Tension Free Web Surfing

So these are some blog posts which attracted me. Here are some blog posts which are written by well established bloggers. And these bloggers don't need any introduction. Only I need an introduction in their blog.

6. Daniel wrote on his blog about the 11 Principles to Design a Great Wordpress Theme

7. Darren Rowse did a blog post on 9 Reasons Why I AM An Amazon Affiliate.

8. John Chow wrote Why He Is Not An Amazon Affiliate which lead Darren for the above post.

9. Liz Strauss wrote an How To in her blog called the How to Get Maximum Benefit from Complex Link Lists

10. Kevin of blogging tips wrote on Top 10 mistakes new bloggers make which I found very useful and thought of linking to it.

I might have left some great articles. Don't worry that you didn't get a link back from this blog. After all this blog hasn't got a PR yet. In the next linking, I'll probably include your site article. Thanks.

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Spyshakers-Password Management Has Never Been So Easy

Ever wondered of handling passwords from your friend’s computer or any other computer than yours? Are you afraid of spyware? Don’t worry. Now with Spyshakers available, you can manage your passwords and your favorite websites from your friend’s or any other computer with no fear of spyware.

Want to know how this works? It is very easy. Go to Spyshakers and create an account. Then open the site in the sidebar. Log in to Spyshakers. You’ll be able to manage all the usernames and passwords of the sites from any computer once you are logged in to Spyshakers. If you were not able to understand this process, you can see it visually. They have a demo movie.



Requirements:
1. Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape/Seamonkey

What I like:
1. It is Free to use. But to get all features you have to upgrade to Platinum.

2. You can access your passwords and favorites from any computer.

3. Trusted and certified.

4. You don’t need to install any software.

5. Comes with anti-spyware and anti-virus counteractions.

6. Tabbed Browsing

What I don’t like:
1. Sidebars cannot be opened in Internet Explorer. Hence Spyshakers is not easy to use with IE.

2. Not all features are available for Free members.

Overall, Spyshakers is the future of password management. Don’t forget to watch the demo movie. Sign Up for the Free membership if you like it.

This is a Sponsored Review for Spyshakers.