seo tips, blogging tricks, widgets and gadgets for you blog

Showing posts with label blogger tips and tricks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogger tips and tricks. Show all posts

Monday 12 March 2012

top-5-alternative-to-google-adsense


Top alternatives to Google AdSense
Let me tell you one more thing. Google AdSense places contextual ads on your website/blog, and operates on a CPC (Cost Per Click) basis. This means that ads placed on your website are related to your website/blog niche. And you get paid a certain amount for every click or number of clicks made on your ads. The alternative we are going to mention may have different mode of operations.

1. BuySellAds

BuySellAds is a direct advertisement network. This means you sell ad space on your blog to advertisers. It is one of the largest advertising network of its kind. But it has some restrictions too. You will need to meet the minimum traffic requirements to get approved. BuySellAds will automatically fetch you Google PR and Alexa statistics.
BuySellAds
Although BuySellAds is a great alternative, it is also hard to get approved with. Which is why you might want to look at other networks below, 

2. Chitika

Chitika is an awesome Ad network, very similar to Google AdSense. It only showscontextual ads, like AdSense. And just like AdSense, it works on a CPC (Cost Per Click) basis. Payment is made through PayPal (minimum payout $10) and Check ($50 minimum). An added feature in Chitika is, it has an in built affiliate program. So if you refer anyone to Chitika, and they make sales, you get a %age of their sales as referral commission. Another great thing about Chitika is, you can use it side by side with Google Adsense. Hence, you can employ multiple means of income.
chitika

3. AdBrite

AdBrite is another great advertising option. It operates on a PPC (Pay Per Click) basis.   You get paid on the number of Clicks on each ad. You also have the option of rejecting any ads, which means you can place ads most relevant to your website. With AdBrite, you get as much as 75% of your sales, which is a decent portion compared to what some other programs give you.
AdBrite
You can also customize ads to fit in with your blog template. And the best part is, AdBrite don’t put long and tough terms and conditions. They have a very relaxed minimum traffic requirement. So you can easily get approved.

4. InfoLinks

InfoLinks is an In-line Text Ad Program. It has ads in the form of texts, and not images. Hence, visitors do not get distracted. This form of advertising is best suited for high traffic websites. With InfoLinks, you get a revenue share of 70%. Payment is done through PayPal, Check, Bank Transfer etc.
InfoLinks

5. Clicksor

Clicksor is another In-line Text ad program like InfoLinks. With Clicksor, you receive payments every 15 days, with a minimum payout limit of $50. Payment is sent through PayPal, Check, or Wire Transfer. Clicksor gives you a share of 85% of your total sales, which is higher than any other program! Clicksor also has an affiliate referral program, and you earn 10% of what the referred person earns as commission.
Clicksor
There are, by no means, all the alternatives to Google AdSense. These are only some of the top ones in our list. We would like to know which networks YOU are using, and what you think are better than these 5. Blessings :)





create-your-website-badge-for-free


You have seen many blogs and directories using a small button for their promotion. You can see one for mbt too. This micro button comes in 80X15 pixels in size. I would create such buttons using Photoshop but amazingly thanks to dynamic drive you can now create a button online easily. The button maker tool provides you with multiple options of making a good looking button or badge for your blogger blogs or wordpress blogs. You can choose border style, background colors, font type and text. This tool is extremely easy to use and no expert tech skills are required to design a button. However I will be sharing some tips which could be helpful for most of you.

How to Design a good looking Button?

The tool lets you create "XHTML valid" micro buttons (80x15). We also use the larger sized 88x31 button instead. Follow these tips:
  1. Check Base Color is Transparent
  2. Uncheck "Border Color is Transparent"
  3. Choose "Button Size" as 80 by 15 pixels
  4. Keep "Border color" equal to #dddddd
  5. To change a color, simply click on a particular box(where color code is mentioned) and then drag your mouse over the Color Picker tool to choose your preferred color.
  6. Keep clicking the "update" button to see live previews
  7. Now right a small abbreviation for you blog e.g: MBT     (LEFT SIDE TEXT)
  8. And right your main keyword on the RIGHT SIDE TEXT e.g: Widgets
  9. If your left side text didn't fit in a column perfectly then increase the "Vertical Bar Position"
  10. When you are satisfied click the update button and then right click the image to save it.

How to use this button to promote your blog?

Now to link your blog to the button you need a HTML code which is shared below.
<a href="BLOG LINK" ><img  border="0" src='BUTTON LINK' rel="BLOG KEYWORD"/></a>
Replace BLOG LINK with your blog URL
Replace BUTTON LINK with the URL of your uploaded button on blogger
Replace BLOG KEYWORD with a keyword that describes your entire blog content. In my case it is "Blogger Widgets"

Use this HTML code and share it with your readers so that they could help you better promote your blog. I just hope this little tool will be useful for everyone who was looking for an easy way to create it. Have fun! :)

Saturday 10 March 2012

floating-twitter-widget-for-blogger


floating-follow-me-widget-for-blog

Follow Me On TwitterYou must have seen the Follow Me on Twitter link which remains on its place even if you scroll the page. Its a great way to get many followers on Twitter as your blog readers are likely to follow you on Twitter if they like your posts. So you get many new followers on Twitter and you don't even have to try hard for it. Doesn't it sound interesting??

I have created a Blogger Widget/Gadget/Plugin or whatever you like to call it which will add a Follow Me on Twitter link on your blog. Check the pic below or check the Demo


Twitter Widget















To add this Widget to your Blogger Blog, Click on the Add Twitter Widget button given below. You will reach a page with title Add Page Element. There you will see Select A Blog option. Choose your blog and keep the Title empty. Just below it you will see Edit Content. On clicking it you will see some code. 


Important : Find http://www.twitter.com/carelexxmalik  in it and replace carelexxmalik with your Twitter Username.

great seo tips for blogger to get more visiters


Increasing blog traffic is one of the major concerns of bloggers. After all its one of the important measure of your blogging success. Increasing blog traffic was one of the first articles i read online and it feels really good to write something about that i have learned over time.

To summarize the entire post in few words, I believe the major contenders in increasingblog traffic are your blog posts frequency (quality post with proper SEO) and posting timings. These few factors play the vital role in driving traffic to your blog.
And yea, consistency is a backbone too! So lets start with our exciting list of the top 20 ways by which we can boost our blog traffic.

1-Starting Off- Choosing Your Blog Platform

This can play a huge role in your blog's future performance and in determining your bloggingsuccess. Many top bloggers often use their own custom content managing systems. This means that they wont be using the popular blogging platforms like WordPress or Blogger and instead, they would make out their own blogging system, with posting tools, their own set layout of blog, their own custom commenting system etc.

different blogging platforms

This can be tricky for the beginners. So for this purpose, most recommend to use the popular content managing systems like WordPress, Blogger, Typed etc.

Just to know, there is nothing like perfect blogging platform. Its basically about fulfilling your needs. Some might be satisfied with Blogger and some with Typed/WordPress.So find out which one suites you best and then move on.

2-Make Your Blog As a Sub domain Of Your Website

As blogs are getting popular due to the way theypresent information and their interactive nature, many websites (companies) opt in for making a blog for them self too. Notice how we have Facebook blog or Twitterblog.

The whole point of the story is that in case we own a website already and we wish to proceed with having ablog too, then its a wise idea to get register your blogas a sub domain of your website. Why to start all over all with your blog? 

Having a blog as a sub domain in (blog.yourwebsite.com) would help out your website in gaining more visitors in future (as blogs attract a lot of traffic due to their interactive nature and the way they are updated regularly, unlike a website).

The page rank of your website (the Google ranking authority), that you have already gained over the years would flow toward your newly build blog and make flourish faster as it would if it had a separate domain name. (www.yourblog.com)

Say if you are just starting out with a blog and you don't have a website history, then you obviously would start out with an independent blog domain.

3-Proper SEO  For Your Blog And Every Individual Post

Posting with consistency over a long period of time would give you success, in terms of traffic, loyal readership and revenue. But that's not it. 1000s of posts with wrong search engine optimization (SEO) would not help at all.

We want every post to go out in the competition and rock the world. For that, its a wise idea to choose proper title tags or your blog and post pages.

     To summarize the Title strategy, its a wise approach to make your blog post title appear in the following order: (post name | blog name) e.g ( How to make money online | Mybloggertricks ). Choose proper keywords, that are friendly to human eye and are not just for the search engines.

    blogs title tags

    4-Show Yourself Authoritative Even If Your Are Newbie

     This might feel odd but its just how many top bloggers started off. No one in the world is perfect when they first launched their blog. So say you blog about cricket. And as i mostly say, that one could never get blogging success if hes not passionate about the topic he writes on. So its the first test you have to put yourself in.


    Consider that you are a huge fan of cricket and know quite a bit about it. So as you blogalong, you read more articles online related to cricket and then you share your knowledge with your readers in a way that you already knew it. So present what you know in a way that you know it well. Thats the main point i wanted to make here.

     It doesn't mean that you spread out wrong information (as you are a newbie). Its just that learn along and present it wisely.
      

    5-Participate In The Community (Forums, Blogs)

     This can be helpful to some extent. But i also believe that many beginners get distracted with this strategy and loose focus on the posting frequency part (that is the basics). Consider a news paper company. Take NewYork Times just for an example.

    News paper is kind of a blog, that is updated regularly (on daily basis). If you would get a newspaper the next morning with old news, would you consider having it again? Even if we consider that the NewYork Times were busy in making relationships with other bloggers, newspapers and community to increase their scope.

    The content is what people come to your blog. So do participate in blogs commenting systems (blogs of your choice, relevant to your niche) but schedule a time limit for it in your entire day plan. May be an hour or so. I personally don't do it on regular basis (to be honest. I try to focus on developing content for my blog).
    participate in community

    To find blogs in your relevant niche, say you blog about dogs food, then search in Google like, Top dog foods. That would bring a lot of blogs up. Start following them and participate.

    6-InBound And Out Bound Linking

    Linking content is really important too. Though this might not directly increase your traffic, but this would indeed increase your page rank (as discussed before) and then would bring quality search engine traffic for sure.

     In bound linking is basically when you link your post with some other post on your blog. Notice how i shared other old relevant post that were shared on Mybloggertricks in the past. This is inbound linking. You can directly mention old posts like (you might also like bla bla) or make the link within the sentence. Take an example of the next sentence.

    It is always important to know How To Inter-link Pages Smartly To Flow The PR Juice To Ever Single Page!. See? You can make the link part of your sentence too. Its works the same. In this way, the page rank that your present post have gained would flow to these linked posts, resulting them to get higher ranked in search engines.

    7-Increasing Post Frequency With Guest Bloggers

     There is a limit to the number of posts  that you can mange to write in a single day. May be 3-4 maximum.  So why not to take help of other guest authors that would help you out in the process. This is the general idea. But to note, you wont be getting any guest bloggers in your early blogging days and no one would feel like posting and associating them selves with a newbie blog.

    8-Posting Timings

     Hell important. Take on an example of this blog. There is nothing to hide guys. We feel like sharing our experience through these posts. :)

    So now days i normally publish posts around 11-12am. (which makes up 8-10am in US, from where most of the internet traffic lands on). This is the time where most of the people check on blogs (as per stats). I may visit tvtvfree in my office once a day, and if there is no new content (even if the authors would post later in the day, i wont get to read it).
    posting timings

    So its wise to publish out the article when most of the people tend to read it. So coming back to timings, when ever i get late in post, we tend to see a decrease in the Alexa rank! So posting on right timings would increase it dramatically. 

    9-Consider Using Ads When You Get Setup

     Imagine a blog with no or less traffic is full of ads. What impression would that give? A cleanblog with clear cut content gives out a more positive feel. That doesnt mean you should not monetize your blog, but i believe that as due to the low traffic, the Ads wont make you any considerable money, so why not to give a clean look to blog until you get some loyal traffic.

    That would be the time to introduce the Ads.

    10-Always Talk Hot!

    write on hot topicsMany of the readers here at MBT shared their views that how we published a post on Christmas Gadgets.Christmas is near so why not to talk about it? Its hot. This is one of the strategies of flowing traffic towards your blog. There is nothing to hide. Thats how the world of blogging works. 

    In fact this is what blogging is. What if a SEO blogger doesn't tell the top blogging techniques to their visitors? So if there is a particular dog disease out in the world, and you blog about dogs, do write about it.

    11-Content Layout- Addition of Pictures/Media

    Pictures are better than thousand words. We know that. Notice how pictures in this post make it more interesting to read. Its just some kind of natural force that makes you continue reading out the rest of the post.

    Its a must. Find any relevant video to your content to if you could find one.
      

    12-Learn With Your Analytics

    consider your stats Monitor your blog's top articles in terms on visitors, bounce rate, time spent etc and then try to improve those articles. Feature them in your feature post widget for your blog so that they get even more attention. Try to update the content, if there is any thing new to the post theme.

    Notice your top performing days which bring most of the traffic and try to utilize it. You may want to add an extra post on that top performing day. 
      

    13-URL SEO- Post link layout

    Like in WordPress, you write the post url separately to the post title unlike in blogger. In blogger, you can add some additional code to your templates, to make the post titles as your post url. The best SEO url strategy is to make the url same as the post title, with keywords that you are targeting. 

    14-Be polite, Humble Blogger

    Your relationships with your readers is crucial. No one likes rude attitude. When a reader leaves out a comment, greet him in a great way that he would be feel honored to share his thoughts again. This would increase the interactivity of your blog and if you continue to do so consistently, you would find a great people ready to praise you all the time.

    15-Table of Contents Can Help

     If you have a blog with tutorials, tips, then its a wise approach to have list of contents (sitemap) that would help navigation easy for the visitors. This can increase the number of page views dramatically. So like wise bounce rate would drop (that's what you want). 

    16-Say All What You Got

    Be natural and say it all. When the readers would know that you are straight about what you know and anything that you don't know, they would respect you. When you mention any thing that is still new for yourself, be positive and mention that you are still experimenting on that one.

    Every one is in the process of learning all the time. 

    17-Creating Curiosity And Fulfilling it

    create curiosity The ebook creation series that i have worked over the last couple of days has developed a curiosity among many of our friends here at MBT. Series of posts works pretty well for this purpose. Always mention what is coming next day so that readers would feel like waiting for it. 
      

    18- Drive Referal Traffic-YouTube

    YouTube has been really in, in terms of driving traffic to my blog. In fact my top performing article is backed by a YouTube video that brings in much of a traffic. You would have seen many top bloggers using YouTube videos to give an extra edge to their content.

    You can make a short video supporting your article and embed that into your post. Believe me that gives a great impression.

    19- Build a Brand- Work On To Be Unique

     Your blog looks and feel are very important in terms on developing a unique brand. Even if you use a template, work on to make it more personel so that it just belongs to you. Clean and clear design can impress the visitors and tend them to push the like buttons here and there. I often go for like buttons on blogs just by their first impression.

    It means a lot.

    20- Post Frequency Final Note:

     Many beginners dont get the post frequency part. They can never decide the right post frequency for their blogs. As here, i would recommend posting out 2 or more articles daily (they can be short around 400 words) and then stick to this for 6-8 months. The results would be self explainatory.

    So these are the top 20 tips that would lead you to drive traffic to your blogs may it beblogspot blogs or any other. The idea is universal. Again buddy, the power is in consistency. This is for the motivational purpose. If you don't stick to what you do, there is no use. So lets do it together and sketch our success with our own hands.

    Peace!

    facebook likebox version 2








    Custom Facebook like box - v2 


     







    Please note that in the demo of v2 like box the text Visit the Fanpage » has been moved little to right side automatically but it works perfectly when you add it in your blog.You can see live demo on my test blog.

    How To Add Custom Facebook Like Box-V2 To Your Blog?

    • Go to Blogger Dashboard > Design > Edit Layout.
    • Choose Add A Gadget > HTML/JavaScript.
    • Paste below code after making changes then save it.

    <style>
    #mbtlikebox{ 
          color:#000000; 
          font: bold 11px Verdana; 
          background:#E0E0F8; 
          padding:3px !important; 
          margin:5px 0px!important; 
          border:2px solid #ff0000; 
         -moz-border-radius:3px; 
         -webkit-border-radius:3px; 
          width:320px; 
        }
    #mbtlikebox:hover{ 
         border:2px solid #0000FF; 
         background:#F8E0E0;    
       } 
    
    </style>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.ak.connect.facebook.com/js/api_lib/v0.4/FeatureLoader.js.php/en_US"></script> 
        <script type="text/javascript">FB.init("");</script> 
        <fb:fan profile_id="153138708123803" stream="0" connections="10" width="320px" height="200px" header="0" logobar="0"   css="http://btsnts.googlecode.com/files/FB01.css"></fb:fan> 
    <div id="mbtlikebox"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" style="text-decoration:none; color:#365899;" href="http://www.facebook.com/livefreetv">Visit the Fanpage »</a><div style="float:right"><a href='http://tvtvfree.blogspot.com/' style="text-decoration:none; color:#365899;">Widgets »</a></div></div>

    • Now replace 232452756809175 with your facebook profile ID (Note - If you don't know ID then click here to get ID)
    • Change http://www.facebook.com/livfreetv with your facebook fan pageaddress.
    • To change  number of faces,width and height find this 
      connections="10" width="320px" height="200px" 
    • To change the color of bottom box edit CSS in code.
    • Note - I have highlighted two codes like this width="320px" - they should be same....