1. Start networking with other bloggers.  So you think you can do everything yourself, hah?  Well if you don’t try to network and build relationships with other bloggers in your niche you are missing out on a huge opportunity.  And I don’t just mean that you should spam a bunch of bloggers with your email begging for a link.  Just write them like you would a friend and ask if you can submit an article to their site.  If it is well written and it fits their niche, I’m sure they will accept it.  And then you have “an in” to be able to contact that site owner in the future to ask about other networking opportunities.  I have seen boat loads of traffic simply by networking with other bloggers, and it’s the single best advice I could ever give on taking your blog to the next level.
2. Focus on interacting with your social media fans.  Whether it’s Twitter followers or Facebook fans, you should be making it a point to interact with them.  If you just use your Twitter account to let people know about a new post on your blog they will hardly pay attention to it.  Social media is much more powerful when it is much more personal.  When you take the time to ask them a question, when you answer their questions, and when you take the time to comment on a photo, you are making your entire blog more personal to them.  And the more your readers feel like they know you, the more they will trust you and come back to your site more often.
3. Try something new and completely different.  Most bloggers are just trying to copy someone.  But this only helps the person you are copying.  Why not try a technique that no one has even though of it.  This can involve using video on your blog in a different way, creating unique infographics that your readers will love, or it can be as simple as having a contest now and then.  Anything to break the monotony of blogging will help give you that much needed boost.  Dukeo.com did something creative by having silly caricatures drawn of some of the top bloggers in the world and it generated a huge buzz in the internet marketing community.  That idea has been taken, but find another one and run with it.
4. Tap into new traffic sources.  So your traffic levels aren’t changing much?  Well where are you getting that traffic from?  The internet is huge and only getting more users on a daily basis.  Find out where they are and build roads to your site.  You can get these traffic sources through other blogs, traffic exchanges, email lists, PPV and PPC marketing efforts, article marketing, and many other places.  This game is always changing and there is always a new source of traffic out there.  But don’t forget the old ones either.

Phillip is a writer for a how to tips website at www.EZhowtotips.com where you can find all kinds of answers to how to questions.

• How to Set Goals for your Blog – March 31, 2011
• WordPress 3.0.1 Released – August 1, 2010
• Tumblr Is Growing Fast: Perfect Tool for Quick Blogging – March 9, 2010
• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• Creating a Unique Blog for your Business – May 17, 2011

How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level originally appeared on: Crenk
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Check out and download the theme here for free.

via LifeRocks

• Nokia’s Windows Phone 7 Mobile Phones Coming Next Week – October 24, 2011
• Samsung Rumoured to be Acquiring Nokia – June 8, 2011
• Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion in Cash – May 10, 2011
• How to Build a Portfolio WordPress Theme – April 2, 2011
• Windows Phone 7 Numbers: Over 11,500 Apps with 36,000 Developers – March 31, 2011

Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog originally appeared on: Crenk
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Of all the situations stated, the one at the end rarely manages to receive our calm response. We borrow money to pay off the electricity bill; we opt to take the bus, or hire a cab for the trip; but we cannot bring the neighbor’s internet connection to our house. Constant phone calls to the internet service provider lands up with several notes of promises and dates and, ultimately, no resolution. We are not able to download TV shows – end of story!

So, what exactly should we hold responsible, for making us so extraordinary deviant and crazy? It is the simple and easy accessibility to our favorite pastime! There are so many TV shows – separate favorites for kids, women and men – that it becomes humanly impossible to watch three different shows at the same time, on one single TV screen. It is not possible and it is not required!

When would the download factor come into play? If TV shows are all we want, TV shows are all we get! The internet provides virus-free links, fast and high-speed downloads, systematic and user-friendly approach to the desired shows and, ultimately, a solution to the unnerving it-is-my-turn-to-watch-TV fight at home. Furthermore, it is undeniably true that no matter what show, what season, what episode you are searching for, you are bound to get it, within seconds!

True also is the belief that you can watch your favorite TV show at one time, and put your favorite TV shows download at work, at the same time! I once tried catching two shows simultaneously, and all I could catch were the advertisements that would come harping every few minutes! That seems to remind me of another thing that we tend to avoid, as we set ourselves to catch shows after downloading them onto our PC!

We avoid advertisements – they are irritating, down to every sense of the word! It cuts short the pace of an amazing mystery, insufferably puts the supernatural drama to an abrupt halt and what it does to an intense romantic scene is something I will avoid mentioning here!

It seems that we will continue to do fine, as long as the internet connection stays on!

You can check out more from John here.

Random Posts

Download TV Shows – Ever Thought Of This Alternative? originally appeared on: Crenk
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I quickly wanted to drop an article about the recent funding of Gigaom. Gigaom is a technology blog network that has managed to grab an additional $6 million in funding, which brings their total to $15 million.

Gigaom will use the new funding to push out their Gigaom Pro analysis service.

“We have demonstrated that paid content (not paywalls) can work, as long as you can provide value to your community,” Malik writes. ” Just as we never positioned GigaOM to compete with traditional media outlets, I believe we are charting our own course with our GigaOM Pro research service. “And it is working. It is working so well that we really need to put more gas in the engine to grow it even faster.”

Its great to see that blog networks are still thriving!

• Women in the Video Game Industry – October 25, 2011
• WikiLeaks Needs Your Help To Take Down Corrupt Banks – October 24, 2011
• Infographic: Smartphone Apps – June 15, 2011
• Google Panda Got It Wrong! Scrapers Out Ranking Original Content: Crenk Example – May 18, 2011
• Implications of Switching off the Internet – April 16, 2011

GigaOM Adds $6 Million in Funding to Push High End Analysis Service originally appeared on: Crenk
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I have always been savvy with technology and computers – I started working with my first computer at the young age of 8 and when I was 10, I taught myself how to program in BASIC literally overnight. For some reason, though, I didn’t immediately jump on the Facebook bandwagon the moment it became mainstream. It seemed silly, frivilous and simply trendy. I had been using MySpace and enjoyed the ability to control the look and feel of my page. I managed to find a few old friends on it, but most of them never posted anything. Mostly I just used my page as a personal blog to track my mundane life.

Then one day, I finally took the leap. I joined Facebook.

At first the pages looked dull and boring. A stark contrast to MySpace’s colorful pages, flashing blinkies and auto-loading music and videos. But what I quickly realized is that everyone I had on MySpace was also on Facebook and… guess what… they were actually posting! Next I realized that not only were my old friends there, but so were dozens more. To date I have connected with nearly my entire High School class, a childhood best friend I thought I would never find, old teachers, college friends, remote family and even old boyfriends (most of whom I was already still on speaking terms with). While these may not be people I feel the need to converse with on a regular basis, I feel priviliged that I can know what great (or terrible) things are happening in their lives, offer congratulations or condolenses, provide advice, wish happy birthday’s or just simply “Like” their status because… well… I liked it!

Today, like many people, I am hooked on Facebook. I have not only used it to connect with friends, but I have also used it to promote businesses I have been a part of and to follow other businesses I have interest in. And let’s not forget the oh-so-addicting games. So what if Facebook never existed? Where would be then?

Perhaps MySpace would have remained more popular. Or perhaps social networking as we know it today wouldn’t exist – at least not at the level it is now. Businesses would still rely solely on expensive advertising, email marketing and banner ads. While these methods are still used, Facebook’s advertising has been, in my experience, invaluable.

Some say people would call, write or speak in person more. But let’s be honest here, when was the last time you called someone just to update them on your life or find out about theirs? In High School? 15 years ago or so? People tend to stay in their own circles – in their comfort zone. Facebook allows us to open up and reach outside of our circle. It extends our comfort zone.

One thing is for certain, the world would be a less “friend”lier place. I never would have found my childhood friend or connected with classmates who had been outside my circle in High School. This also means I never would have intended to attend a reunion, which I now look forward to. Facebook has given me the ability to reach outside my daily circle and laugh, cry and vent with old and new friends alike. It has rekindled friendships and connected me with people I thought I would never get to talk to again.

So despite the addicting games and countless hours easily wasted away with Facebook, I am thankful it was created. I am thankful I took the leap. I am thankful for finding friends.

Case in point: Life just wouldn’t be the same without Facebook.

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Where Would We Be Without Facebook? originally appeared on: Crenk
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So what are my top tips for all the budding young bloggers out there?

Pick a platform, and stick to it

There are many different applications out there which can facilitate your blogging adventure. You could easily spend months trawling through all the different platforms to find the one that’s perfect for you, but in my experience you’ll just be spinning your wheels. At this stage, the relative merits of Tumblr over Posterous are irrelevant.  A successful blog isn’t grounded on bells ‘n’ whistles, but great content. Pick a platform and start writing, you can make changes to the look of your blog at a later date.

Stick to a Niche

Pick a subject you want to write about, and stick to it. Writing solely about that subject, exploiting every little intricacy, and keeping up with the latest news is far more valuable than going off on a tangent. Doing this alienates readers and will likely leave your blog with very few visitors. It doesn’t matter if the subject matter is Apple products or pet Newts, immersing yourself in a niche is far more rewarding than taking a scattergun approach to blogging.

Keep an Eye on Your Traffic

If you really want your blog to be successful, you need to know how it’s performing, the best way to do this is to keep tabs on your traffic with Google Analytics. Despite its scary sounding name, the software is free and easy to use. With analytics you can get an insight into traffic fluctuations which can go some way to helping yoyr blog become more successful, for example if you recognised a traffic spike on the same day as you published a post about the best feed for pet Newts, then you’ll know there is a demand for information on this particular sub topic. You can then leverage this knowledge to gain more traffic in future.

Promote your blog

If you don’t promote your blog, no one’s going to know about it, and no one’s going to read it. The best way to promote your posts is through existing networks you might already have in place. This means publicising your posts on social sites like Twitter and Facebook. You could even create dedicated feeds that compliment your blog, which will get you more targeted followers.

Be Regular

If you can, make a post everyday. It doesn’t have to be a considered, one-thousand word article, it can be anything from a top 5 tips post, few sentences accompanied by an image, or a funny video. Whatever it is you chose to post, regularity is important, if visitors come to your site, see a great post but recognise that your blog hasn’t been updated they will be more likely not to come back. If you can’t post everyday, make it every other day, or even twice a week, so long as your posts are spaced evenly and are predictable.

Respond to Comments

If your posts are funny. Controversial, or informative as they all should be, the likelihood is they will attract comments. Reply to these comments. Ignoring comments will not only turn readers off, it will make them think of you as rude and arrogant, hardly the way to build a large following.

Heed these tips, sprinkle in a little passion, dedication and knowledge and you as a young blogger will be able to take on the best.

Guest post by: Joe is a blogger working for a company that specialise in personal car leasing

• 5 Tips For Young Bloggers – April 16, 2011
• How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level – July 16, 2011
• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• Why Create A Business Blog? – April 8, 2011
• Top Five SEO Link Building Tips – March 31, 2011

Tips For Young Bloggers originally appeared on: Crenk
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Duplication

It’s a common misconception that Google will penalise your site for containing duplicate content. Google doesn’t penalise you for duplicate content, it just doesn’t give it as much credit. This is because Google doesn’t want to index the same content twice, or more. This way it can be sure that the results it serves up from your search query are not repeated, which would in turn give you a bad user experience. Anyway, if you own a website and are a little concerned about duplication then the very least you should do is ensure there is only one version of your site on the internet. Here are 3 possible variations of your home page that Google could be indexing:

http://www.example.com/

http://example.com/

http://www.example.com/index.html

If you can find versions of your website along the lines of the above examples, then you are being affected by duplication issues. You need to specify which URL is the one you want Google to see. You can do this by implementing the correct code in you web.config file / .htaccess file / httpd.ini file, depending on your website.

Page Title

Page titles play a huge role in SEO and should never be overlooked. If your current page title is ‘Home’ or worse ‘Untitled Document’, then you are doing your website a serious injustice. The title for each of your pages should tell people what’s on the page. Effective use of targeted keywords in the title is also essential for SEO. Short page titles can seem a bit spammy, so the use of themed words and stop words can work well to combine several targeted keywords. Each page should have a unique title with the current recommended limit for a page title length being 70 characters.

Page Description

Page descriptions are another onsite aspect that you should be making full use of for SEO benefit. Page descriptions (or Meta descriptions) are the informative bits of text that provide an explanation of the content on a page. They are used by search engines to display a snippet below a link in a search results page. Meta descriptions are key for a successful click-through rate and provide the perfect opportunity to tell people what exactly is on the page in regards to what they have searched for. The best descriptions will combine a couple of keywords in to a compelling description of the page. Each page should have a unique Meta description of around 156 characters.

Robots.txt

Every website should have a robots.txt file. This is the file that a search engine spider will look for to be given direction. If your robots.txt file is empty then the default behaviour for spiders is to index each page and follow your links. If your robots.txt file contains < meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,nofollow” > then this will be impacting the visibility of your website in the search engine results pages.

URLs

URLs are another aspect of your website that can be optimised for maximum search engine visibility. Including the main targeted keyword for the page in its URL and locating that page as close to the root of the domain as possible will help. Also avoid using dynamic URLs that use ?, &, $, =, +, %, and other characters that have no SEO value. Also, try to avoid camel case and format each pages URL in the same manner.

Guest Post by: Dan dreams of being a dolphin trainer and swimming pool technician who treats above ground pools with Certikin along with other swimming pool chemicals like his friend Alex Harvey, he’s cool, You can find him on Twitter here @ harvey1dash8.

• Top Five SEO Link Building Tips – March 31, 2011
• Is Google +1 the Beginning of the End for SEO – April 16, 2011
• Did AOL Really Buy The Huffington Post for the Great Content? – February 8, 2011
• Monitoring your Search Engines Positions – July 2, 2009
• Get more traffic to your blog with 5 minutes of work – June 12, 2008

5 Onsite SEO Factors You Shouldn’t Overlook originally appeared on: Crenk
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• 100 Free Premium WordPress Themes – July 17, 2010

Unite: Amazing Premium Design WordPress Theme originally appeared on: Crenk
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Smart 404 is the best wordpress plugin for 404 pages. We have just installed smart 404 on Crenk it has really helped our readers that were find 404 pages.

Instead of just giving out a 404 page when content cant be found, smart 404 make an effort to guess what they were after in the first place and finds appropriate information. The plugin helps improve search results, pages, posts, tags and more.

These changes really help to improve SEO as Google and other search engines dont like pages that 404.

Download the plugin here.

• SimpleReach Slide: WordPress Simple Related Post Plugin – July 24, 2011
• Tumblr Passes WordPress.com in Blogs – June 17, 2011
• How to Add Google +1 Button to Your Website – June 6, 2011
• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• Tumblr About to Pass WordPress For Blog Hosting – May 11, 2011

Best WordPress 404 Plugin: Smart 404 originally appeared on: Crenk
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There are 2 sizes in the download package: 32 x 32px and 128 x 128px.

This hand-drawn icon set has almost all the items a web app. can need from actions to media or devices.

• WPZoom Release Free Social Media Icon Set – April 15, 2011
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• Awesome New Twitter Follow Buttons & Icons – August 22, 2011

Brilliant Free Hand Drawn Icon Set for Anyone to Use originally appeared on: Crenk
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Some people see business blogs as a big waste of both time and good money. This is because so many people just think of them as marketing tools. But that doesn’t by any means make them less effective. They are truly one of the most useful and successful tools that a business website can utilize. They can help to pull in massive amounts of targeted traffic to your main business website.

Whether viewed as marketing tools or not, people still read them and get a glimpse of the blog’s writer. This gives the company a very important voice that relates to their public and to their customers. The general public has always liked companies with a distinct personality that can connect with them. It makes them seem more like the people next door than some far away conglomerate.

These blogs give people a feel for what the company is truly about. They feel as though they have a voice and a say-so about the goings on, being able to give feedback and suggestions. They feel more like participants than just someone who comes to leave their money.

Aside from the benefit of giving your company a voice, there are more advantages to be had. One is having an industry authority in regards to your business blog. If your blog shows that your company can change and grow with your industry, then by sharing this with your visitors, they will gain you respect for your professionalism. This really enhances a company’s reputation. Once the public catches on that you’re on top of things, it snowballs, word gets out, and your business grows.

Because of this, your company is able to gain public trust, and they’ll find your products more appealing. Let’s face it, if you thought your products were sub-par, you wouldn’t be selling them.

A business blog can really reap big benefits for any company, and for your main site as well. By regularly keeping fresh updated content on your blog, the search engines will constantly index the site, giving it a higher page rank in the results pages. If you do some SEO work and optimize your blog for keywords that you add to your contextual links, you could see a massive surge in your page ranks. Using these things along with wise choices of domain names can give your website quite a boost toward success, and this is why so many businesses are adding blog to compliment their sites and business.

Guest post is written by Thomas Alling, the owner of the successful make money online niche blog. His blog features reviews and a free home business classifieds section.

• How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level – July 16, 2011
• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• Creating a Unique Blog for your Business – May 17, 2011
• Tips For Young Bloggers – April 16, 2011
• Technological Advances are Making Contract Management Easier for Businesses – April 14, 2011

Why Create A Business Blog? originally appeared on: Crenk
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Check out the full tutorial here.

• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• SimplyBiz: Free WordPress Business Portfolio Theme – February 18, 2011
• Vanadiumitic WordPress Theme: Free Magazine WordPress Theme – February 11, 2011
• How To Create Your Own Custom WordPress Theme – February 8, 2011
• SimpleReach Slide: WordPress Simple Related Post Plugin – July 24, 2011

How to Build a Portfolio WordPress Theme originally appeared on: Crenk
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Every blog needs to have goals.  Without goals you are just shooting in the dark, trying to succeed without knowing what success really is.  The problem most bloggers have is that they have very general goals that cannot be quantified.  They say their goals are to make money, to never have to work a 9-5 job again, or to go on a big vacation every year from the money they make on their blog.

But there are 2 problems with that mindset:

1.       Those are not really goals but a result of reaching set goals.

2.       There are no numbers associated with those goals.

In this article I will show you some goals you need to start setting with your blog.  Anything worth doing is worth doing right, and you will never hit a target if you are not aiming at it.  Having no target in your blogging is like using the lottery as a retirement plan.  Yes, some may hit the jackpot, but most will just end up losing money.

So what are some quantitative goals you can start setting?

Remember your goals need to be real numbers– something subjective and not objective.

Your goals can be to reach a certain number of…

1.       RSS feed subscribers

2.       Email subscribers

3.       Twitter followers

4.       Unique visitors in one month

5.       Rank in Google for a given keyword

6.       Indexed backlinks

You will notice that none of these goals have anything to do with money– at least not yet.  You see, when all of our goals have to do with making money we lose focus on how to actually DO it.  But when we focus on getting more email subscribers on our list and getting more targeted traffic to our blog then we will most certainly see a rise in our income levels as well.

One trap bloggers fall into is worrying so much on monetizing their blogs that they forget about the people that will be coming to their sites with the money.  These are the people that will allow you to quite your day job, so your focus needs to be on them.  What content are they looking for?  What questions do they have?  What will make them want to buy a product that you recommend?

Once you have determined what your goals are in real numbers you can set up a game plan.  How can you reach that level of email subscribers?  What do you need to do in order to get more quality backlinks to your site?

Your goals also need to have time frames.

Without a dead line for your goal to be reached you might as well not have a goal at all.  For instance, I can say I want to have 20,000 Twitter followers as my goal.  Then 3 years go by and I am still sitting at 5,000.   There is no urgency to reach that 20,000 goal if I have until the rest of my life to reach it.  The whole point in having goals is to reach them, and to make them a priority.  A dead line will put some fire to your feet to get things done.

You cannot succeed in reaching a goal if you make it impossible to fail.  It’s the chance that you might fail that makes reaching a goal so rewarding.  You may not reach every goal.  You probably won’t.  And if you find you are reaching every goal you set in a short period of time then you are probably not aiming high enough.  Set the bar a little higher and give yourself a challenge.

Set that time frame for those 20,000 followers.  Try to reach that goal in 3 months, 6 months, or a year.  Allow yourself the opportunity for failure, and then work as hard as you can to avoid it.

So to sum it all up:

1.        Set goals with numbers.

2.        Have deadlines with your goals.

3.        Setup yourself for failure.

4.        Will yourself to succeed and avoid that failure.

Guest Post by: Jonathan Souza is owner of CashCoach.net where you can find daily tips on internet marketing, social media, blogging, SEO, and more creative marketing techniques to get more traffic to your website.

• How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level – July 16, 2011
• 50 Ways to Promote Your Blog – February 6, 2011
• Best Blogs of 2010 – August 29, 2010
• WordPress 3.0.1 Released – August 1, 2010
• How to Fix the FeedBurner Counter Problem – July 25, 2010

How to Set Goals for your Blog originally appeared on: Crenk
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Unless you are lucky enough to have thousands of links pointing your site, you will have to do everything possible to make sure that you are making the most of the link juice that is flowing towards you. The Internet is full of resources about how to optimise your site, so I thought I would talk about some of the overlooked methods and tactics that can help squeeze the most out of your link juice.

Canonical

I love this term, but I think it can confuse many of us when we come across it for the first time. The canonical tag deals with duplicated content and pages, when you are using a canonical tag you are telling Google that whatever page the tag points to is the most important version of that page and it should be ranked as such.  The canonical tag can be used almost anywhere and this is because if Google sees any difference in a URL it will see that page as being different, even if they have exactly the same content Google will still see these pages as being different and as such may choose to rank one over the other.  Using a canonical tag can help to make sure that Google is ranking the pages you want it to.

www to non www

Like I suggested already if Google sees any variation in the URL it will count these as 2 different pages, this goes for the www version of your site and the non www version of your site, as Google sees these as 2 different pages your page rank can then be split between the 2 versions. Adding a canonical tag here can help but the best thing to do is instigate a permanent redirect from one to the other, you may lose some page rank but it is better than having your juice split between 2 versions of the site. Also be careful of trailing slashes (/) as again these will be considered as a different pages.

Nofollow and java links

This is where things move into the grey area of onsite SEO, If you are using Nofollowed and java script links you are trying to funnel link juice from one section of your site to another. So you have 2 options, adding nofollow will mean Google will see the links but won’t pass any juice through them. ( there is an on-going debate about whether or not Google will still follow these links). Using a java script link will mean the spider won’t see these links at all. There will be sections of every site that you won’t want to leak any page rank to, sections like your terms and conditions and your privacy policy. But I think it is also important to show Google that these pages exist so in these circumstances I would use a no follow tag. Java script is usually more useful if you are trying to conserve as much juice on one page as possible while still offering your visitors a user friendly site that they can easily  navigate through.

Silo

Silioning a site is a tough concept to try and get across especially in a paragraph or 2, if you want find out more check this post out ( be warned you could read this post 5 times before it will make sense). The shortened version is, you build your site around themes and you categorise each page or post under a specific theme. Your goal is to send a clear message to Google about what each section of your site is about, cross links between themes may confuse Google and blur the message you are trying to get across about the different these of your site. You want to keep your site as regimented and structured as possible if you are randomly linking between categories you won’t be able to do that. If you want to link from a post in one theme to a post in another them, if possible link to the main theme page of the other post.

I guess you are probably asking, what about Meta tags, and Url structure. Well a quick search will provide you with all the answers you need to these topics, hopefully the ideas I have mentioned are not covered quite as much as some of the more common methods. Using these tactics won’t give you instant success but if you can add them to your current strategy they may help just a little.

This is a Guest post by Neil Jones, who Specializes in launching ecommerce sites, he is currently plying his trade as head of marketing for eMobileScan. With 18 websites based all around Europe they are on course to be one of Europe’s largest online retailers of Industrial handheld computers like the Datalogic Memor and the Symbol MC70. Neil has been an online marketer for the past 6 years and in that time he has owned and run a range of sites all built around the ecommerce platform.

• Optimising Images For Search Engines – April 19, 2011

3 Overlooked Optimisation Strategies For Your Site originally appeared on: Crenk
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Within the plugin O’Nolan will be running a lot of different experiments to see if the WordPress community like the UI changes.

“If everything always fitted the current UI then nothing would ever change. If they fit exactly into the current WordPress UI then this would just be a patch on a core ticket and not a plugin.”

So far there is only one experiment running on the plugin, but I’m sure that will be increased over the next few months. So do you want to be a WordPress guinea pig?

• SimpleReach Slide: WordPress Simple Related Post Plugin – July 24, 2011
• Tumblr Passes WordPress.com in Blogs – June 17, 2011
• How to Add Google +1 Button to Your Website – June 6, 2011
• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• Tumblr About to Pass WordPress For Blog Hosting – May 11, 2011

Want to Test Out WordPress UI Changes Before Anyone Else? Here is Your Chance originally appeared on: Crenk
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It seems like the next version of WordPress is all about adopting new technologies and killing off old ones. The new version of WordPress will now require PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5 at a minimum. Additionally, support for IE6 will be removed and users will be asked to update to a new version.

It seems as though most of the changes will be performance based, but there are some great interface changes like full screen post writing that will also be improved.

• SimpleReach Slide: WordPress Simple Related Post Plugin – July 24, 2011
• Tumblr Passes WordPress.com in Blogs – June 17, 2011
• How to Add Google +1 Button to Your Website – June 6, 2011
• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• Tumblr About to Pass WordPress For Blog Hosting – May 11, 2011

WordPress 3.2 Receiving Performance and Writing Upgrades originally appeared on: Crenk
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• WPZoom Release Free Social Media Icon Set – April 15, 2011
• Free Google Plus Icon Set – August 19, 2011
• Brilliant Free Hand Drawn Icon Set for Anyone to Use – April 8, 2011
• Seven Icon Pack: Amazing 475 Top Quality Icons Free for Personal and Commercial Use – April 2, 2011
• Web Cupcake Icons – September 20, 2011

Free 41 Android Icon Set originally appeared on: Crenk
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WordPress has started bringing WordPress.com features to WordPress.org sites. Jetpack is a new plugin for WordPress.org sites that provides some amazing features. We have decided to start testing out Jetpack on Crenk and it has been great so far. Jetpack is completely and will always be free.

The Jetpack plugin includes:

• Stats
• Twitter widgets
• Hovercards
• Shortlinks
• Shortcode

• Protect your Blog with VaultPress – April 11, 2010
• Backing up your blog with BlogBackupr – June 28, 2009
• Tumblr Passes WordPress.com in Blogs – June 17, 2011
• Tumblr About to Pass WordPress For Blog Hosting – May 11, 2011
• WordPress Worm and How to Prevent Data Loss – September 8, 2009

Jetpack: Power Up Your WordPress.org Blog with WordPress.com Features originally appeared on: Crenk
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The theme is completely free and can be downloaded now at WPcrunchy.

• Free WordPress Theme Finder – October 16, 2010
• 100 Free High Quality WordPress Themes (new set) – August 21, 2010
• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• How to Build a Portfolio WordPress Theme – April 2, 2011
• Vanadiumitic WordPress Theme: Free Magazine WordPress Theme – February 11, 2011

SimplyBiz: Free WordPress Business Portfolio Theme originally appeared on: Crenk
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Click here for the full video tutorial.

• Rackspace Release Cloud iPad Application – March 14, 2011
• Crenk is in the Cloud: Rackspace Cloud – March 6, 2011
• Rackspace Crowds the Cloud – November 3, 2008
• SimpleReach Slide: WordPress Simple Related Post Plugin – July 24, 2011
• Webhostingtalk.com: What’s The Latest Hosting Buzz? – July 18, 2011

Installing and Setting Up WordPress in Rackspace Cloud Site originally appeared on: Crenk
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Its completely WordPress 3.0 compatible and free to download.

• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• How to Build a Portfolio WordPress Theme – April 2, 2011
• SimplyBiz: Free WordPress Business Portfolio Theme – February 18, 2011
• How To Create Your Own Custom WordPress Theme – February 8, 2011
• SimpleReach Slide: WordPress Simple Related Post Plugin – July 24, 2011

Vanadiumitic WordPress Theme: Free Magazine WordPress Theme originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Click here for the full tutorial.

• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• How to Build a Portfolio WordPress Theme – April 2, 2011
• SimplyBiz: Free WordPress Business Portfolio Theme – February 18, 2011
• Vanadiumitic WordPress Theme: Free Magazine WordPress Theme – February 11, 2011
• SimpleReach Slide: WordPress Simple Related Post Plugin – July 24, 2011

How To Create Your Own Custom WordPress Theme originally appeared on: Crenk
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Blog Promotion Basics

1. Make blogging easier and navigational.
2. Have good looking and attractive web design, so that people revisit your blog.
3. Patience is the key.
4. Self Motivation is required.
5. Have controversial articles and interesting discussions.
6. Have positive attitude and don’t frustrate yourself.
7. Be sure on your context, which belong to your niche.
8. Do some thing to your blog everyday, and traffic is seen. The more you do, the more you get.
9. Help out people with blogs similar to your level.
10. Be consistent and scheduled. Most importantly plan you every move.

Content is King

1. Write more and more unique posts.
2. Have more than 150+ resources and articles.
3. Guide people about something, teach them something new.
4. After you article is indexed by search engines, submit it to various article directories like ezinearticles.com
5. Write about Big shots and their controversy.
6. Interview big cool bloggers in your niche, and share about their views and ideas.
7. Look out for popular content that’s gaining traffic, and write about it in a humorous way.
8. Give a press release about unique news, if you have any.
9. Pay others to write good articles for you.
10. Be the first commenter on the posts of popular blogs, but let it be worth.

Viral and Social Networks

1. Create a Fan page on facebook. Also create a facebook app for your blog.
2. Customize the landing page of facebook.
3. Start an open group on Yahoo and invite people or have a widget on your blog.
4. Buy the accounts of popular YouTubers and then add your blog address to the descriptions of their videos.
5. Start Stumbleupon promotional ads campaign
6. Sign up at ping.fm and use twitterfeed.com to auto post your latest blog content to a bunch of social networks.
7. Have a facebook share and retweet button for every other post.
8. Have a squidoo page, as it will get indexed faster in search engines.
9. Include hash(#) tags in your tweets.
10. Twitter – Follow relevant, popular, and interesting people. And some will follow you back.

Bloggers and People

1. Tell you neighbourhood, family and friends about your blog.
2. Search for your niche and answer any questions people have.
3. Submit your content to dofollow social bookmarking sites.
4. Send out a Press release.
5. Signup for various communities and be active in relevant Ning.com communities.
6. Write some content as a linkbait.
7. If your post is relevant to other blogging sites, then try interlinking posts, so as to get deep inbound links.
8. Signup for every other social network you can.
9. Start a podcast and submit it to various podcast directories.
10. Talk to professional bloggers about your post and ask them to review it.

Viral Marketing

1. This one’s my favorite, (Funky) Forward a SMS saying “Forward this mssg to atleast 49 people, to get RC of 49 for full TT instantly” with a link of your blog address. And, its viral.
2. Install All In One SEO Pack for WordPress blogs.
3. Create a theme, that includes a link to your blog in the footer, and then release it for free.
4. If you are a developer, create a wordpress plugin and release it for free with a link to your blog within the admin area.
5. Sponsor some tweets and be an active stumbler to know what stumblers like.
6. Use blog search from Google to find fresh blog posts and then leave comments.
7. Write a guest post for a popular blog. You may not always get published, but when you do you observe a spike in Google analytics.
8. Use Thesis for better optimization and plugins.
9. Join relevant forums, add your blog address to your signature and start posting smartly.
10. Join a social blog network.

• How to Set Goals for your Blog – March 31, 2011
• How to Fix the FeedBurner Counter Problem – July 25, 2010
• 95 percent of Blogs are Abandoned – June 9, 2009
• How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level – July 16, 2011
• Tumblr Passes WordPress.com in Blogs – June 17, 2011

50 Ways to Promote Your Blog originally appeared on: Crenk
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Vandelay designs has put together an amazing list of the top Real Estate wordpress themes. All of these wordpress themes are very high quality and would be perfect for anyone looking to setup their own Real Estate site.

To check out the full list click here.

• 17 New WordPress Themes That Will Rock Your Personal Blog – March 16, 2009
• Free WordPress Theme Finder – October 16, 2010
• 100 Free High Quality WordPress Themes (new set) – August 21, 2010
• Twingly: The Blog Search Engine That Is Actually Moving In The Right Direction – December 30, 2008
• SimpleReach Slide: WordPress Simple Related Post Plugin – July 24, 2011

Top Real Estate WordPress Themes originally appeared on: Crenk
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The WP Mobile Detector plugin also includes an installer that will configure everything automatically. All you have to do is install and activate the plugin.

Included in this plugin is the Jester Mobile, Anakin Mobile, Casper Mobile, Colbalt Mobile, Mojo Mobile, Viper Mobile, and Bluesteel Mobile advanced mobile themes, all featuring the jQuery framework.

• Editorial Calendar Plugin: Helps You Never Forget Another Blog Post – April 29, 2011
• WordPress Plugin for Google Buzz – February 12, 2010
• SimpleReach Slide: WordPress Simple Related Post Plugin – July 24, 2011
• Tumblr Passes WordPress.com in Blogs – June 17, 2011
• How to Add Google +1 Button to Your Website – June 6, 2011

WP Mobile Detector: Automatically Display Optimised Mobile Versions of Your WordPress Site originally appeared on: Crenk
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