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Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Ten Ways to Write Great Blog Posts That Get Attention

Millions of blogs fight for readership online (over 75 million by some counts), with thousands more being created every day. Making yours stand above the rest may seem like a daunting task, but here are ten suggestions for making your blog posts stand out from the crowd.

1. Write each post title so it grabs the reader's attention. It is the first thing someone reads, and it should get your reader's attention right away. Your title should both pique the reader's interest and be informative. Do not write "Business Writing Advice"; instead, say "The Best-Kept Secret to Reducing Your Business Writing Worries." Longer titles have the advantage of describing in detail what your post is about; 8-12 words are a good range.

2. Keep sentences short and clear. A little goes a long way. Readers are busy people and they will not spend hours detangling complex syntax or sifting through blocks of text. Also, use strong language. Start a new paragraph every few sentences, and limit each post to 250 words, if possible. If you cannot write it in under 250 words, split it into two entries.

3. Break up the text. Use numbered lists, bullet points, and subheadings to make your posts easy to scan. Lots of white space on the page is a good thing-it allows your reader to take mental breaks and let the knowledge soak in. In addition, with the inevitable clutter of banner ads and side text, this technique puts some distance between your writing and all those distractions.

4. Keep current. No one wants to read old news. Your job is to stay up-to-date so your readers do not have to themselves. Read newspapers. Scour the web for references. For example, if you write a blog about business communication, subscribe to Google News Alerts using keywords related to the field, such as blogs, podcasting, instant messaging, business letters, memos, and business reports, so you will always be well informed. Posting items from last month or last year will lose your reader's interest faster than you can say "Enron."

5. Be bold. Timidity is an easy path to anonymity. Do not be afraid to create and state your opinions. Of course, there are some situations in which objectivity rules-but you have to give people a reason to read this blog by you and not by the person next door.

6. Be accurate. If you make a statement, be prepared to back it up. Know what your sources are and quote them accurately. Misinformation spreads like wildfire online; do not be the spark that sets it off or the wind that fans it.

7. Contribute to the conversation. Links are great-but then what? Do not just post links to the same tired sites, offer your reader something new. Contribute to the conversation. Your goal is to be the site to which everyone else is linking-so you had better have something worth writing about.

8. Stay focused. Once you have defined the theme of your blog, stick to it. A blog about piggy banks has no business posting about the latest innovation in alternative energy. Such a deviance will only confuse your reader and chip away at your virtual authority.

9. Use key words liberally. Keywords are, well, key. Harness your blog's search engine potential by dousing your title and post with effective keywords that will help interested parties find your page in the vast, muddled blogosphere. This is one of the most important elements of getting your blog read-go at it with gusto.

10. Be consistent. Keep a schedule and stick to it. Post frequently-at least several times per week if you want to increase your potential of attracting new readers. Let your blog languish for weeks without updates and your audience will move on to fresher ground.

Maintaining an informative blog that people want to read takes hard work and good writing skills. Find what makes your writing unique-and flaunt it for all it is worth.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Adsense Income Secrets to Success

Adsense sites need planning and work to be successful. If you are thinking of producing sites for adsense income, or perhaps you already have sites that are not producing a good income if any.

To be successful, takes a lot of work no matter what you may read because there are so many people promoting products that promise to make adsense income easy.

Well some of these products may help, but there is no simple solution to receiving great income quickly.

Extensive planning is required before you start. It is important to carefully consider the topics or niches that will be targeted. It is very important to see what type of competition there is for certain niches.

If you are beginning with your adsense sites, it is better to start with niches that are not too competitive. The reasons for this are that in any niche it will take time to get traffic to the sites and make money.

Extensive keyword research must be carried out before building new sites. It is far better to target say 20 keywords that are not at the top of the keyword results.

Many newcomers make the mistake of seeing the high prices that certain words achieve, but do not realise what is involved to compete with these words.

So choose 20 related words to the main keyword, and then build a page for each of these sub keywords. It is very important to have closely themed sites as well, meaning that you are not trying to offer information on a variety of subjects.

Search engines are now looking for sites that offer their visitors good quality information following the keyword searches entered.

It is also important to have sites that are easy to navigate, so that visitors are able to find what they are looking for easily. Clear navigation linking is essential.

Another point to remember is that search engines will reward sites that are constantly updated with new content. It is best to work to a plan with new sites that allow new content to be added on a weekly basis.

Incoming links to sites are very important to achieve good rankings in the search engines. There is only so much on site optimisation that can be done. This includes different keywords and descriptions for each page, use of H1, H2, H3 tags etc.

It is essential that good quality original content is offered to visitors. Due to the abuse that occurred in the past where many people were using various software to produce hundreds of pages of worthless content in literally a matter of minutes to try to make money with adsense.

It is a good idea to work on getting links back to sites on a weekly basis also. Another good idea is to register with directories also on a regular basis.

Adsense can be a good source of income, but it involves a lot of work before the results appear. Extensive research must be carried out to check competition. It is vital to do thorough keyword testing. Then produce sites that are closely themed with a separate page for each targeted keyword. Then new content and links must be on the agenda for good adsense results.

How to Profit with A Content Website

Placing ads on websites has been one of the most popular ways to generate income online. Why? Because it's easy to place ads, it is free to sign up to most advertisers, and you can still have a simple content-based website - no need to accept credit cards, create sales pages, buy products, or anything other than your normal webmasterly activities.

Unfortunately, many people who create good content sites never succeed at monetizing them - either they don't get enough traffic, or just don't get enough clicks on their ads. Luckily, there are many techniques to solve any problem you may encounter. The easiest of this is ad placement. Now, proper ad placement will differ slightly depending on the type of site, layout, content, and other factors, but there are some general guidelines to follow:

- Make sure you read the AdSense terms of service - many people earn money and lose it because they violate the TOS and get their account terminated. Don't lose your money for no reason.

- I would recommend using the maximum number of allowed ads - including content ads, referral ads, and a search bar. This will increase clicks significantly, since a user who has no interest in your content ads might still search on your search bar or download products from your referral buttons.

- Make sure your ads don't look like ads; That is, don't put different colored borders (generally no border is best), don't use contrasting colors (try to match the colors of your site), and try to ensure that the fonts on your site are similar (the same, if possible) as the ad fonts. This way, the ads will look like they are part of YOUR site, and your visitors will be more likely to click them (they look like links).

- In general, VERTICAL ads placed on the RIGHT side of your site will do well. Why? Because people read left to right (in most languages), and their eyes will follow your content right to the ads on the right. Makes sense, doesn't it? Then why does everyone still use the 'leaderboard' and other horizontal banners? This is not to say that horizontal ads will never work, but statistically vertical ads will probably do better in terms of click-through rate.

Once you have figured out your ad placement, you might need to control your ad content. Luckily, Google allows you some control over what ads are placed on your site. You can exclude certain advertisers (usually to exclude competitors), use content targeting to tell Google where to look for the keywords you want in the ads, and you can specify the category of the ads you show.

In general, you should always use 'ad channels' to track your ads - this will show you the stats for one ad unit (or more if you've added more to a channel). You should generally use a separate channel for each ad unit, as this will allow you to tweak your ads for maximum profitability. When you make a change to an ad, note what that change did to your click-throughs, average amount earned per click, and anything else you might want to track. This will show you exactly what tweaks improve your earnings, and by how much. The AdSense reporting tool is very good for this, especially if you use "This month, by channel" to track your changes and results.

Those tips should increase your earnings slightly, but there are many more ways you can improve, including:

-getting more visitors
-putting up more sites
-targeting your ads even more
-tracking your visitors' stats
-and more!

If you would like to learn more about AdSense, and how you can earn a full time income with your websites, you'll want to get "AdSense Empire" - a complete guide to setting up or improving your earnings quickly and easily. Check it out here:

http://www.theinternetincomesystem.com/AdSenseEmpire/

To your continued success in building your Internet empire!

by: Peter Stolmar