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
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

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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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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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
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

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
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

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
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

You can download the entire set from here.

The download is completely free and Noel is just asking for you not to forget about the attribution if you are using those in your blog or web site.

Features:

• 256 x 256 px
• 64  x 64 px
• With & Without Gloss/Highlight
• StumbleUpon, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Delicious, YouTube, Flickr, Digg & RSS.

I just might become the “icon guy” from Crenk, but that’s OK, I’d rather be the icon guy instead of no guy, right?

• 150 Social Media Icons for Free – September 19, 2010
• Free Social Media Icons – August 29, 2010
• Free Black Icons Set for Social Media and Twitter – September 12, 2010
• Generate your Twitter-like Logo for Free – December 5, 2010
• Microsoft offers Free Harry Potter Theme – December 5, 2010

Free Grunge Social Media Icons originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

We’ve discussed earlier about the big impact generated by WordPress 3.0 and the positive feedback around it; 54 bugs were found on the 3.0 version with only two critical. We can track the errors and tickets generated in WordPress with WordPress Trac.

Since version 2.7, WordPress includes the “Automatic Update” option, which works smoothly. But if you need a manual update you can always follow this guide.

In case you were wondering about the WordPress counter, the number is over 11 million downloads now.

• WordPress 3.0 with over 6 Million Downloads – July 12, 2010
• Free Social Media Icons – August 29, 2010
• 100 Free High Quality WordPress Themes (new set) – August 21, 2010
• Tumblr Is Growing Fast: Perfect Tool for Quick Blogging – March 9, 2010
• Backing up your blog with BlogBackupr – June 28, 2009

WordPress 3.0.1 Released originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

There are three facts existing in today’s 2.0 worls about feeds:

1. FeedBurner represents, even before Google acquired this company, the preferred service used for RSS feeds.
2. All bloggers, web sites and companies, which base most of their strategy in number of visitors; know that having a nice way to show the popularity of your website is a key factor for attracting more loyal visitors, advertisements, etc.
3. FeedBurner values change tremendously every day, if you are not publishing on daily basis.

To fix this problem, we can use this code in functions.php which will use the average readers from the last 7 days, a number more accurate for our RSS feed (download the TXT for functions.php):

function get_average_readers($feed_id,$interval = 7){
	$today = date('Y-m-d', strtotime("now"));
	$ago = date('Y-m-d', strtotime("-".$interval." days"));
	$feed_url="https://feedburner.google.com/api/awareness/1.0/GetFeedData?uri=".$feed_id."&dates=".$ago.",".$today;
	$ch = curl_init();
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
	curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $feed_url);
	$data = curl_exec($ch);
	curl_close($ch);
	$xml = new SimpleXMLElement($data);
	$fb = $xml->feed->entry['circulation'];

	$nb = 0;
	foreach($xml->feed->children() as $circ){
		$nb += $circ['circulation'];
	}

	return round($nb/$interval);
}

Once done, you can call the function wherever you want in your theme files. Pass your Feedburner feed id as a parameter (download the TXT for this example):

<?php
$nb = get_average_readers('catswhocode');
echo "I have ".$nb." RSS readers";
?>

• How to Set Goals for your Blog – March 31, 2011
• 50 Ways to Promote Your Blog – February 6, 2011
• 95 percent of Blogs are Abandoned – June 9, 2009
• How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level – July 16, 2011
• Tiny Tiny RSS: Open Source Google Reader Alternative – July 12, 2011

How to Fix the FeedBurner Counter Problem originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Dan Zarrella always brings some interesting reports about social networks, the name of social media scientist fits perfectly on him; and this special report could make a huge difference among bloggers and writers. Here’s the graph:

Besides the massive Facebook sharing over the weekend, notice the following:

• The weekend is the time where fewer articles are posted but most of the sharing is happening there.
• The data is considering and remarking an average sharing line.
• One of the considerations of this increase over the weekend could be, as Dan says, that the most of the companies in the US blocks Facebook.

And you? When do you share the most?

• PDF to Microsoft Word Converter Facebook Edition – December 4, 2011
• Washington Post Facebook Social Reader News Application – November 26, 2011
• Dont Just Jump Ship to Apple So Easily – September 27, 2011
• Share and Listen to Music on Facebook with Spotify – September 23, 2011
• FTalk: Chat With Your Facebook Friends: GTalk Clone – August 15, 2011

Publish Over the Weekend and You’ll Get More Facebook Shares originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

How is this working out for them? Well, according to the neat infographic which they’ve sent us (see below), their traffic and user base is growing fast, and they’ve recently hit some major milestones.

• Facebook is the most used URL in Twitter Profiles – December 5, 2010
• Save your Photos, Videos and Documents in one Place with PhotoRem – November 7, 2010
• WordPress 3.0.1 Released – August 1, 2010
• How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level – July 16, 2011
• Tumblr Passes WordPress.com in Blogs – June 17, 2011

Tumblr Is Growing Fast: Perfect Tool for Quick Blogging originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Here are three widgets every professional should have on their blog:

1. A Twitter Feed. A real-time widget featuring your personal twitter account is definitely a good idea; it shows employers that you lead a good, lawful life (if you only tweet the good things, that is!). You can download one here.

2. A Summary Widget. These can be created using the text input features. While they’re not the most flashy – employers always read them. Details listed in a casual manner such as your previous employment, interests and personality are all great topics to summarize here.

3. LinkedInABox. LinkedIn is the professional social networking site which many use to house the best-of-the-best of their portfolios. So why not spread some of that love to your blog? Here is a link to the widget.

So do you think it’s time you gave your online presence a makeover?

• How to Set Goals for your Blog – March 31, 2011
• Tumblr Is Growing Fast: Perfect Tool for Quick Blogging – March 9, 2010
• Blogging Fight Back Against Twitter – November 26, 2009
• Meme will Challage Twitter in a World War – August 20, 2009
• Twitter Photo Sharing Service is Growing Fast: Third Party Services are Struggling – November 10, 2011

Three Widgets Every Professional Should Have On Their Blogger Blog originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

But it appears as though Twitter is slowing down and blogging is on the rise once again. The chart above illustrates the recent trend. The orange line represents Twitter and as you can see it grew alongside WordPress (blue line) between February and June. Then it took off by itself leaving WordPress in the gutter. But from September onwards, Twitter simple flattened out and WordPress went back on the rise.

I don’t think Blogs and Twitter are really in the same league. After all, people like information and entertainment – and squeezing that into 140 characters is too much of a task. Looks like blogging will be around for quite a few years to come.

• Twitter: Local Trends Go Live! – January 27, 2010
• Twitters Biggest Day Yet – January 13, 2010
• Meme will Challage Twitter in a World War – August 20, 2009
• Google is Offering $4 Billion Dollars to Buy Twitter? – November 20, 2010
• Tumblr Is Growing Fast: Perfect Tool for Quick Blogging – March 9, 2010

Blogging Fight Back Against Twitter originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

In it we detail such things like choosing you blogging platform, promoting your blog, using social networking for a blog and keeping your blog going once you’re over than initial hump.

It is available here to read free of charge.

Be sure to Tweet this post and share the PFD with your friends.

-Dean Sherwin

Author of Crenk PDF

• PDF to Microsoft Word Converter Facebook Edition – December 4, 2011
• Crenk is Getting Greatly Improved! – October 18, 2011
• How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level – July 16, 2011
• Crenk Still Being Punished by Google for NO REASON! – July 14, 2011
• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011

Crenk PDF Released: 10 Minute Guide to the Blogosphere originally appeared on: Crenk
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A while back, Yahoo! stealthily rolled out Yahoo! Meme in the Portuguese language only. Nobody was all too sure why they did this because as business goes, you’re supposed to promote, promote, promote! Now their reasoning is clear.

It was a test. To see if it stood a chance without causing the company any embarrassment if it failed. They are now tackling Twitter on the global front by launching the micro-blogging platform in the second biggest language in the world; Spanish.

While people all over the world do use Twitter, studies have shown that services are received better by the public when they are tailored specifically to their needs – in this case their language.

While I can’t see Meme over running Twitter on the English servers I can see the new Yahoo! service picking up steam in South America, Mexico, West Africa and of course Spain.

• Twitter and Yahoo Team Up for Real Time Tweets in Search Results – February 28, 2010
• Blogging Fight Back Against Twitter – November 26, 2009
• What Font Does Google Use in their Logo: Fonts of Leading Internet Brands – March 8, 2011
• Google is Offering $4 Billion Dollars to Buy Twitter? – November 20, 2010
• Tumblr Is Growing Fast: Perfect Tool for Quick Blogging – March 9, 2010

Meme will Challage Twitter in a World War originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

The service allows you to establish your own blog as a sub-domain of Today.com. E.g. Myblogsname.today.com. You can then customise using the Word Press tools and begin blogging as you normally would. I tried this out and my third post was featured on the international homepage within hours of it going live. This got my page quite number of views as I’m sure you would imagine.

Today.com do pay you, however, it’s not a set rate or pay per post (at least for most bloggers – there are some who gain popularity and get a pay per post). Instead they pay you depending on how many impressions your page gets. For each impression you, $0.002 is added to your account ($2.00 CPM). This may seem minuscule but if your blog gains popularity you could be earning hundreds each month.

Today.com is different from other blog providers as they actually publicize your blog on the homepage rather than just leave it to it own devices at the mercy of the search engines. Users can search for terms on Today.com and your blog will appear if appropriate.

All in all, it’s a good service that is a step above the rest with the highest industry payout. However, the blogs themselves are always kept looking similar to Today.com and as such you can only really customize basic features such as colour etc…

It could be a good earner for bloggers but keep in mind – to get regular readers and thus impressions you have to blog regularly (one or twice per day) and also publicise your blog. 6/10

• Yelp Walks Away from Google’s Half a Billion Dollars – December 22, 2009
• How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level – July 16, 2011
• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• Tips For Young Bloggers – April 16, 2011
• Why Create A Business Blog? – April 8, 2011

Today.com: Get Paid to Blog for Free originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

BlogBackupr

It works with all blogs that have RSS-feed, that is the minimum requirement. Among the features that you can find in this web app:

• Completely free.
• No installation required.
• Once you register, the backups are performed regularly without requiring your intervention.
• You can export and import all those backups whenever you want.
• Automatic restore supported for WordPress.org, WordPress.com and Blogger.com
• WordPress users include these backups: full posts, comments, pages, categories and media.
• You can have backups without giving your WordPress credentials. Will just use the public feed.
• CSS file and images from the blog template are also saved.

This is your administration site where you can execute all necessary tasks with the added blogs:

Go ahead, give it a try.

• Jetpack: Power Up Your WordPress.org Blog with WordPress.com Features – March 10, 2011
• WordPress 3.0.1 Released – August 1, 2010
• Protect your Blog with VaultPress – April 11, 2010
• WordPress 2.8.1 Beta 2 – June 27, 2009
• Tumblr Passes WordPress.com in Blogs – June 17, 2011

Backing up your blog with BlogBackupr originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

The main differences are related in bugs fixing about the previous version. Here are some of them:

• Translation of role names fixed
• wp_page_menu() defaults to sorting by the user specified menu order rather than the page title
• Upload error messages are now correctly reported
• Autosave error experienced by some IE users is fixed
• Styling glitch in the plugin editor fixed
• SSH2 filesystem requirements updated
• Switched back to curl as the default transport
• Updated the translation library to avoid a problem with mbstring.func_overload

To see all tickets that were fixed from Beta 1, check this link. I really enjoy watching this kind of transparency in projects, where you can give your feedback, insert about a bug and see the evolution about it: owner, priority, state.

Download WordPress 2.8.1 Beta 2.

• Backing up your blog with BlogBackupr – June 28, 2009
• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• [infographic] WordPress Numbers – September 11, 2010
• WordPress 3.0.1 Released – August 1, 2010
• Tumblr Is Growing Fast: Perfect Tool for Quick Blogging – March 9, 2010

WordPress 2.8.1 Beta 2 originally appeared on: Crenk
Join our Community: Twitter, Facebook

Within the articles Scott will guide you to the entire process about how to build this machine. Including all the tips regarding to the materials used, where to buy them, etc:

The Complete Series

1. Cabinet and Power
2. Monitor and Mounting
3. Control Panel
4. Sound and Lights
5. Paint and Art
6. Computer Hardware and Software
7. Success and Conclusion

Here’s a video that gives you a tour to the entire process:

Here are some of amazing facts about it:

• Cost = $441. Yep, only 441 dollars. But there are some disclaimers about it, for example, the monitor was recycled from an old one. But still, sounds like a great number to me.
• The work hours took him around 24 hours total, divided in six weeks. I know what you are thinking, if you start building it right now, by this time tomorrow you’ll have it all set

Don’t tell me that you are not considering the idea!

• Converting your Tablet in an Arcade Machine -For Real!- – April 29, 2010
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• 95 percent of Blogs are Abandoned – June 9, 2009
• Women in the Video Game Industry – October 25, 2011
• How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level – July 16, 2011

Building your Own Arcade Cabinet (shared) originally appeared on: Crenk
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Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but it’s probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views.

But why is this happening? Why people just suddenly looses motivation to write or share experiences, information, articles, etc? The article also remarks that people usually confuse the idea of blogging as a fast way to financial independence and rapidly find themselves discouraged.

But, besides the possible financial disappointment, is it twitter related to this? In a small way, I think.

Over an year ago (maybe more) when I started to hear about Twitter I found this short comic (from Gapingvoid), metioned also on an old post of mine about Twitter:

For some cases, I’m sure this is a very realistic comic. After all, Twitter it is a way of micro blogging, share information and (current) experiences. And it is easier and simpler to keep updated your Twitter account instead of your blog. It is the same? Absolutely not.

Blogging is so much richer, states as a permanent document (Twitter also does, but not so friendly to review them), or even as your historical experience in a given subject. It’s all about sharing: information, opinions, expertiece, experiences, etc etc.

My take? Never stop blogging.

• How to Set Goals for your Blog – March 31, 2011
• 50 Ways to Promote Your Blog – February 6, 2011
• How to Fix the FeedBurner Counter Problem – July 25, 2010
• Building your Own Arcade Cabinet (shared) – June 14, 2009
• Women in the Video Game Industry – October 25, 2011

95 percent of Blogs are Abandoned originally appeared on: Crenk
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Recently BlogRush has decided to close it’s “doors” and fade away. In an announcement by John Reese, BlogRush was suffering from lack of clicks, and users who no longer wanted to be advertised to. While that may come as a no brainer to the typical user, BlogRush prided itself on being unobtrusive and focusing on the needs and wants of the users.

Was this truly what BlogRush stood for? The site definitely had its fair share of critics. For example, Seopedia sticks out in my mind after they were so amazingly rejected by the site. You can read their entire ordeal here. Basically it appear that BlogRush depended on random people to be the judges of whether a site fit the criteria or not. The advertisement that was sent out by owner John Reese seems to focus less on quality judges, and more on mass quantity.

Mashable has a more scathing post from late 2007 where they say BlogRush was a throwback to the Web 1.0 era. They explain the process of earning credits by using their widget on your site, and sharing traffic with other sites increasing exposure and ranking within the network. He compares the concept to that of a pyramid scheme.

Despite the critics, John Reese stands by his product and claims that he is a risk taker. He admits that as an entrepreneur he has had some ideas succeed and some fail, but his success stems from not being afraid to try. He goes on to say that BlogRush was offered a “small fortune” but that he reluctantly turned it down to keep the purity of the idea. Not sure if I necessarily agree with the decision, but regardless, the site is down for the count.

It’s advised that users remove the BlogRush widgets from their pages because they are no inactive. So while click rates dropped, and BlogRush has come to an end, John Reese promises that he will continue to strive with new online ideas, and look to continue his innovative streak.

You can read the entire letter to users here.

• First Google+ TV Advertising: Sharing, but like real life – November 25, 2011
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• How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level – July 16, 2011
• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011

BlogRush Goes Six Feet Under originally appeared on: Crenk
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I was a daily reader of his site up until he switched to version 2.0 maybe a year ago.  At that point, it was clear that the focus was on ad placement and started to make reading the content that much harder.  John’s primary readers are bloggers and creative writers who are looking for ways to turn a profit on their own sites, they want information, not blatant advertising.  The overall layout was clean though with good graphics, but I stopped reading daily.

Today, Version 3 launched and John has moved the index of the site to be similar to one of the other super popular bloggers, Darren Rowse of Problogger.net with respects to being more of a magazine style with snippets of current articles, more ads and some static information.  Inside the site is supposed need less scrolling to read the articles and be cleaned up even more; I can agree to disagree with that.  He did finally do away with having exotic cars in his header, but that only appears to be because others ripped the idea and so he could fit more advertiser space in.  On my 1280×1034 screen I count 13 ads plus the top half of two more ads and one more ad promoting his e-book.  It’s a bit much.  The footer takes on the trends of other larger Web 2.0 sites with what must be close to 500 pixels high worth of information, sadly there is no button to take you back to the top of the page

With more than 30,000 RSS subscribers, 2,000 more following on Twitter people listen to what he says, but I think more is being emphasized on how it looks instead of better content.  John is still posting up photos of food and other random things and shares his insight on how to run a blog for money, but getting to the content for me isn’t worth the trouble anymore.

• 5 Of The Best HTML5 Websites So Far – July 17, 2011
• How to Take Your Blog to the Next Level – July 16, 2011
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• Tips For Young Bloggers – April 16, 2011
• Why Create A Business Blog? – April 8, 2011

John Chow dot com 3 launches, I yawn originally appeared on: Crenk
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I set off to search for a plugin that would allow me to accomplish the goal of restricting access to the entire blog, forcing a registration.  After a few minutes I ended up on Viper007Bond’s site.  I’ve used his plugins before, so I knew they’d be top quality.  He wrote a custom plugin called Registered Users Only which, will redirect all users who aren’t logged in to the login form where they are shown a user-friendly message.

Perfect!  Upload the .php to the /plugin directory on your server, activate it and tick one box in the Options screen, you are done.  As admin to the blog, you create user accounts for those people you wish to give access to.  Since it uses the standard WordPress login screen and user database, you can simply add them as a Subscriber and once logged in, can see the entire site.

Total installation time is less than two minutes!

While the idea of putting a blog online is usually done so that someone will read it, this certain situation started to make a lot more sense to me.  WordPress offers so much more than just a blog, it’s turning into a CMS, and a tool to allow, in this case, his business to expand and grow internally.  The more I thought about it the more I realized that a private blog has many other uses to it.

Parents who want to setup a blog for their children, either from day 1 in their life or as they enter the tween stage probably won’t to protect who sees photos of their kids and what activities they do.

This plugin restricts ALL pages of the site, that is the only option.   This fits the goals of my friend and I think many other people.  Be aware, this does not protect your RSS feeds.  I would suggest deleting all RSS feeds from your WordPress install to fully protect your blog, if that is your goal.

Download from WordPress.org

• Windows Phone 7 Theme for Your WordPress Blog – May 31, 2011
• WordPress 3.0.1 Released – August 1, 2010
• WordPress 3.0 with over 6 Million Downloads – July 12, 2010
• Tumblr Is Growing Fast: Perfect Tool for Quick Blogging – March 9, 2010
• Backing up your blog with BlogBackupr – June 28, 2009

Registered Users Only – WordPress Plugin originally appeared on: Crenk
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• Internet fame
• Potential to make money from ads
• Obsessed with statistics
• Conceited
• Enjoying knowing someone is reading what you wrote
• Etc.

Most of us enjoy knowing that someone is reading what we as writers spent time and energy to write, the side effects of money and fame can be nice as well, but how to achieve? One simple way that I’ve found is to ask people to view your site. But how? Where? Relying on Google search results can take time and not everyone reads your MySpace bulletins or the tweets you obsessively send via Twitter, digg.com isn’t working that well and neither is Stumble Upon, and it may not be in your budget to buy ad space on a more popular site right now, so what can you do?

Email blog owners who have written similar articles and let them know about the one you wrote. Yes, it’s that simple. Don’t do this with every article you write, pick your very best and send the links to the biggest and best blogs out there. Don’t ask them to review your site or link to it, simply let them know you have written similar material that they or their readers might want to use and you like their site. Be honest and don’t make it sound cheesy.

How do you find people with similar articles? Try Google Blog Search and look for articles written in the last week or month. Does this really work? Absolutely. I used this technique last week, here’s what I did and the results from it.

They filmed part of the Transformers II movie in my town last week and some co-workers got behind the scenes photographs of the set and a video. They gave me permission to blog about it, which I promptly did. Next, I did a Google Blog Search for similar sites and found the Transformers Live Action Movie Blog, the owners email is displayed on the left sidebar. This is the email I sent him:

I saw you recently published an article & photos regarding Transformers 2… wanted to share with you one my recent articles with more photos and a video (with more videos being edited now for publication).

Thought your readers might enjoy these: http://www.randomn3ss.com/2008/06/05/exclusive-filming-of-transformers-2-photos-and-videos/

That’s it. Within a few hours, they published this article that contains a link to my site’s homepage and the direct link to the article. More than 1,000 unique visits came to that specific article over the following 12 hours from the Transformers Live Action Movie Blog. I’d call that a success.

I’ve used this technique sparingly as not to become a burden on anyone, seem pushy or ungrateful for what others have done for me. Using this method though, I have successfully had articles linking to my sites on Lifehacker.com, GetRichSlowly.org, and several other very well known high traffic blogs.

I’d love to hear about some success stories from people who give this a try. Not every email you send will have great results, but it does work. Keep an open mind too when a fellow blogger approaches you with an idea or to share content.

• Is Google +1 the Beginning of the End for SEO – April 16, 2011
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Get more traffic to your blog with 5 minutes of work originally appeared on: Crenk
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