Holidays are Happy Days

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A well planned tour is a happy remembrance for ever. Tour packages are very complicated and require lots of study before you commit one. Whenever I wanted to travel overseas, I used to browse the cyberspace for information on the city, the hotels available, flights and any packages to that city. I have to browse a few sites to find the information I need. That’s until I came across HotelReservations.com, where Hotel Reservations is one of the easiest tasks.

HotelReservations.com provides information on hotels, flights, vacation packages and car rentals to destinations around the world. You get a complete array of options to choose from: just book the hotel or book the hotel and the flights or book the hotel, flights and the cars or hotel and cars or flights and cars. I hate packages where I am forced to take what I do not like. HotelReservations.com gives me the flexibility I always wanted from travel agents. I always wanted to pick and mix from different operators to get the best deal.

Hotel Reservation is a breeze with HotelReservations.com On the hotel booking page, they provide a complete list of hotels that match your search. The information provides a comprehensive review of the hotel you are interested in. The information includes the amenities, nearby attractions, driving directions, check-in/ check-out time and the star status. The pictures are very useful to understand more about the hotel. Not only they provide the charges for the different room types, but also they warn you when the rooms are almost full and only few rooms are left.

Booking a room marked as a Special Internet Rate gives you savings. As claimed by HotelReservations.com, they are able to negotiate special rates with the properties, because of the large number of lodging reservations processed. So, it gives you an opportunity to look for cheap Hotels or Hotels of class.

The site layout is neat, clean and tidy. It is very easy to browse and find information within the site. I found the “How to use this page?” link very useful at every page.

I have shared my experience with you and it is now up to you to explore further.

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This post is brought to you by HotelReservations.com.

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A quick round-up of September 2007

Only in September, I started to look at this blog seriously. The statistics show that I am just going in the right direction.

1. I did apply a new template to this blog. While there are still many glitches to this template, the nice look keeps me stuck with it.

2. I also got the approval from PayPerPost for this blog recently.

3. The hot newcomer to blogosphere this month is certainly BlogRush. While it is still in its early days, it is a potential winner for bloggers. We will wait for few more months to see the impact of BlogRush.

Some of my popular posts written in September:

• New Template for this blog


• How much is my blog worth?


• 63/100: That is the grade of this blog


• Blog Review: Calling All Palauans


• Recent Posts Widget for Blogger

Some of the interesting posts from other bloggers written in September:

• Make Money Online with Youtube from JohnChow.com


• Forget About Page Rank and Build a Better Blog from ProBlogger.net


• Using Categories and Tags Effectively on Your Blog from ProBlogger.net


• How to make visitors not come back to your blog - 5 Tips from BloggingTips.com


• Typo Tips from BloggingTips.com

Enjoy blogging. Best of luck to all bloggers for a better October month.

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Blog Review: BethEl's Place

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Blog Title: BethEl's Place
Blog url: http://bethelsplace.blogspot.com/

A nice blog with some well written content. The sidebar has been effectively used with photographs and colourful image advertisements blending in nicely. It is really a good strategy to use the image advertisements when you do not have enough pictures on your discussions.

I like the background colour of the blog and the little jukebox at the top. I note that the posts are using different font/ different font sizes/ different font colours. It is good to keep the same font/ size/ colour for all posts. If you need to emphasize/ highlight something, then you can use different font/ colour. Similarly, italic fonts are difficult to read and should be used only for smaller sections. The posts are using the default left alignment; the justified alignment would render a neat and tidy look.

I saw a nice logo of the blog, way down the sidebar. It would look good if this logo is moved to the header. There is no way to navigate the blog other than just scrolling down all the way. The author should make available additional means of navigation for the readers. The blog updates should be regular.

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Constructive Changes to BlogRush

Finally, BlogRush has put their words into action. Now, you can change the border color of the BlogRush widget to match your blog. Another important change is to control which post links from your blog will be displayed. BlogRush provides a post filter that you can use to filter out posts with certain keywords. John Reese, Founder of BlogRush has written a long letter to all the BlogRush members to address all the concerns raised. Read it for yourself, the full content is displayed below:

TO: All BlogRush Members
FROM: John Reese, Founder of BlogRush

ARE YOU READY? Because *everything* is about to change. Forget everything else up until now…

PREPARE FOR *BIG* CHANGES! (TWO MAJOR CHANGES ARE NOW LIVE.)

BlogRush CAN’T EXIST if we’re not sending you a lot of ongoing, targeted traffic. We fully recognize this and that’s why this is our ONLY FOCUS.

The BlogRush team has been hard at work making major improvements for you and we won’t rest until BlogRush is running 100% smoothly and sending you tons of targeted traffic! This is OUR MISSION. Please know that our entire team is working around-the-clock to make improvements and fix any problems AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.

(We sincerely appreciate your patience.)

We’ve encountered some problems since our historic launch just over a week ago, and we fully recognize that we’ve made some real ‘goofs’ with the system for our Public Beta release…

For example, our data center provider (one of the largest in the world) had a short, temporary outage (they had to replace a network switch) two days after our launch. We had no control over this outage but want to SINCERELY APOLOGIZE to those that saw this message on their blogs (where the widget should have been):

"We are currently experiencing some technical issues and the site will be back online shortly. Please come back in a few minutes."

We were completely *EMBARRASSED* when we realized this happened. That simple message was part of our application code and was meant to appear only on *OUR* WEB SITE PAGES if we ever experienced an outage. This was accidentally ‘marked’ to be a global error message for ANY outage — including if our widget ever had a problem loading. This was a major GOOF and we’re willing to admit it. Our code was planned so that in the case of a problem with our widget, NOTHING WOULD LOAD in its place. So a visitor to your blog doesn’t see an error or anything wrong should the widget ever have any technical issues.

This was quickly corrected and is now working properly. Should the widget ever have any problem loading in the future, your blog will be served a transparent space (which will show whatever background your blog design has) and your blog readers won’t really notice anything.

Again, our sincere apologies for our major goof. It was quite embarrassing.

NOW ONTO SOME SERIOUS ISSUES…

We also realize that we completely underestimated the number of unethical people that would sign up and proceed to CHEAT and try to ‘game’ the BlogRush system. These cheaters ruined the click-rates of many of our members (and burned through a lot of their credits using automated ‘exploit’ methods) and hurt BlogRush’s ability to send maximum traffic to our honest members’ blogs.

BUT ALL OF THAT IS ABOUT TO BE ERASED… LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED.

In the next several days to come, we’re going to be rolling out MAJOR changes to BlogRush. BIG changes. And these changes (again) have just ONE primary purpose — to drive more ongoing, targeted traffic to your blog.

We’ve listened to your valued feedback and constructive criticism and we have been working in TURBO MODE to make the changes you want ASAP…

—– HERE’S WHAT’S COMING IN THE NEXT 48 HOURS —–

100% MANUAL BLOG REVIEW.
Our team is going to be manually reviewing every single new blog that registers to participate in the BlogRush Network.

We’ll be applying some quality guidelines and criteria to our decision-making process. (We’ll be publishing these guidelines very soon.) If a blog does not meet our guidelines and criteria, THEY WILL BE REJECTED from the network and not allowed to join — i.e. they won’t be able to serve our widget, refer other users, or have their blog posts distributed across our network. They will have no access to any BlogRush services.

Our members, like YOU, made it LOUD AND CLEAR to us… BlogRush needs to only have members that have quality blog content — not blogs filled primarily with ads and other spammy looking JUNK.

The only accurate way we’re going to keep these junk blogs out of our network is to REVIEW EVERY SINGLE ONE BY HAND. And we’re willing to do it to protect the integrity of our network. I don’t care what it costs us to hire more people (if we need them) to review 100% of any blog trying to join our network. We will be reviewing ALL OF THEM from here on out.

* We realize that several non-English language blogs blatantly ignored our “ENGLISH BLOGS ONLY” warning on our Registration page. Rest assured, though, they’ll all be PURGED from the network when we do our QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT over the next several days (you’ll read about it in a moment).

As I’ve said several times before, BlogRush isn’t some passing “fad” or short-term service. We’re dedicated to building an incredibly valuable resources for bloggers FOR MANY YEARS TO COME.

We’ll also be doing a QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT of all of our existing member blogs. We’ll be reviewing every single blog that’s currently in our network (or that registers before the Manual Review Process becomes active.) And we’ll be completely *REMOVING* any blogs in our network that don’t meet our quality guidelines and criteria.

As you can probably tell by now, we’re not messing around. We have put a lot of hard work into the development of this service and we will continue to bust our butts to make it one of the best Internet services in the world. COUNT ON IT.

We’re also deploying several new Anti-Cheat measures to SHUTDOWN AND WIPEOUT the cheaters and unethical users that have abused our network. Sorry, crooks, but THE FREE RIDE IS OVER.

We’ll be dedicating an entire department to stay on top of any abusive behavior in our network. We believe that our new measures are going to instantly eliminate most, if not all, of our system abuse. It’s going to take us a few more days to roll-out all of these measures (and to complete our entire QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT) but rest assured, BlogRush is about to go through a major TRANSFORMATION.

And a quick word to any ‘cheats’ that might be reading this letter… it’s very possible that you may come up with something extremely creative that temporarily gets by us, but you should know something… IT’S NOT GOING TO BE WORTH YOUR TIME. And I’m not just talking about the tiny amount of traffic that you’ll receive before we shut you off.

You see, we have other plans in the works…

If you attempt to cheat or abuse our network in anyway, shape, or form, we will not hesitate to come after you. Our company is well funded and has plenty of resources. And we WILL use them to punish you to the fullest extent of the law (and civil court process). Oh, you think you can just hide behind some anonymous proxy IPs? Sorry, it’s not that easy. ANY reason you’d have to try and cheat the BlogRush network for traffic and any attempt you make to monetize that traffic will lead directly to your front door — whether it’s AdSense, any affiliate program in the world, any online pharmacy, porn site, casino… ANYTHING. We will follow the trail and it WILL eventually lead to you.

Our hard-working company provides the income for MANY families. As the CEO of our company, I take this very seriously. I HAVE TO. People that attempt to abuse or cheat BlogRush are affecting the livelihood of all my employees and their families. And I will do everything in my power to protect them — it’s MY DUTY.

So for all you cheaters that joined BlogRush and had your fun trying to siphon off some traffic, hopefully it was fun. And I’ll go ahead and make this statement right now… IF you were one of the people that has been cheating our network I’m going to give you ONE opportunity… quit now and we’ll pretend it never happened. I think that’s more than fair.

BUT… if you continue after this point, all bets are off. We WILL eventually discover what you’re doing, where you’re trying to send traffic, and we will prosecute you. I GUARANTEE IT. Sorry, but WE HAVE NO CHOICE NOW.

* If you’re one of our valued, HONEST users, I’m very sorry you even have to read stuff like that. I know it’s a waste of your time. Unfortunately, there are unethical people in this world that attempt to abuse and take advantage of others.
MOVING ON…

—- ALSO COMING SOON! —-

**** A LOT MORE CATEGORIES! ****
You asked for it, and you’re getting it!

We’re going to be greatly expanding our directory of categories to increase the relevancy of post links appearing in the widget on your blog — this will also increase click-rates (and traffic) for all members.

* Stay tuned over the next several days for more news about the addition of new categories.

AND…

**** IMPROVED REPORTING! ****
The current Dashboard stats are being under-reported for all users right now. This is the reason that users show discrepancies when looking at Google Analytics data (or other stats packages). We’re currently sending more traffic to our users than we’re reporting in the Dashboard because we are giving all users bonus credits everyday. We’ll soon be reporting all bonus credit activity so all the numbers will be accurate.

SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL LOW-TRAFFIC MEMBERS: In the near future we’ll be giving our low-traffic members (those that need more traffic the most) the BULK of our bonus credit allocations. You’ll get a ton more bonus credits than high-traffic members because you really need it. It’s only FAIR!

* Also we apologize to anyone that has seen a “negative” credit balance for their account. This is a minor bug that we’re taking care of. It doesn’t mean anything and you can just ignore it for now. We apologize for any confusion.

**** IMPROVED NETWORK DISTRIBUTION ****
A few of our users have noticed that they're building up credits faster than the system is using them. This will eventually balance itself out as the network continues to "adjust" to the growth levels and traffic patterns of each category — because our network provides syndication distribution based on daily average "cycles" and then adjusts moving into the future; so it's able to accurately predict how fast to use a certain user's credits, etc. — as compared to just using them all "as fast as possible."

—- AND HERE ARE *TWO* BRAND-NEW ADDITIONS THAT JUST WENT LIVE!!!! —-

**** BLOGRUSH “FLAVORS” ARE NOW ACTIVE!
You can go login to your account, click the “Settings” tab and then select “Flavors.”
You can choose from (13) different widget colors. You no longer have to only use our original “black” widget design that many users thought was ugly! (Hey, just don’t let our lead designer hear that… he thought his black design was “really cool.”)
Now you can select a color that more closely matches the look of your blog. Our users have been asking for this since we launched our Public Beta, and we’ve taken action to offer these new options.

* We have future plans for further widget customization but we’re working on one “stage” of improvement at a time! Please bare with us. We’re fully aware of the request for a more narrow widget as our current one doesn’t fit on some blogs. We’re trying to produce a solution and should have some news soon.

HERE'S THE BEST PART…
You don't have to copy and paste new code to your blog. Just go to that "Flavors" section for your account, select the flavor you want, then hit the "APPLY FLAVOR" button. That's it! Reload your blog in another browser window and take a look.
And if you want to see what a different flavor might look like, just pick another one, hit the "APPLY FLAVOR" button and reload your blog. PRESTO!

AND LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST…

***** BLOG POST CONTROLS *****
Under the “Settings” tab you’ll also find a new option called, “My Post Control.” Here’s what this awesome new feature does…

You can create POST FILTERS for your blog posts…

For example, you can add a keyword or phrase and create a new post filter. If you ever create a post on your blog (while you have that filter active — and you can add/delete them at anytime) that contains one of those keywords in the TITLE of your blog post, that post…

WILL *NOT* BE SHOWN ACROSS THE NETWORK. And you won’t use any of your syndication credits!

All bloggers post "off-topic" stuff from time to time, or short posts that don't have a ton of great content. Well, now you can easily keep any of those types of posts from using your valuable syndication credits and from being shown across the network!

This is GREAT for you because now you can control exactly which posts of yours will be syndicated. This can help you maximize your CLICK-RATES and, ultimately, the traffic you receive from the BlogRush network. AND it can help retain NEW READERS for your blog (your ultimate goal that can grow your blog’s traffic on a day-to-day basis.)

Here’s Why…
By selecting which posts get syndicated (by simply adding filters right BEFORE you publish a post on your blog that you don’t want to be used; or having setup one well in advance) you can make sure that you’re only syndicating your BEST POSTS. The ones with top-quality content. Your posts that a new visitor to your blog will enjoy and be much more likely to make a “YES!” decision to become a regular reader for you!

AND OH YEAH, ONE MORE THING…

This is only the very beginning for BlogRush. We have so much great stuff in store for you! As I said at the beginning of this letter… we will continue to work VERY HARD to make improvements and add-ons with ONE PRIMARY FOCUS…

To drive more ongoing targeted traffic to your blog.

I want to personally THANK YOU on behalf of our entire company for your interest in BlogRush. We’ve received a lot of criticism from many bloggers on the Internet, and we’ll be the first to admit we’re not perfect and a lot of it was WELL-DESERVED.

But please know, we’re busy working around the clock FOR YOU. You have our word on it.

Now go login to your account and try out some of the new “Flavors” for your blog! And also start setting up some Post Control Filters so you can start maximizing your content syndication.

I’ll be in touch when I have more "news" to share. Thanks for reading this long letter. I had a lot to tell you about.

Best Regards,
John Reese, Founder of BlogRush

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Related Posts Widget for Blogger

I have discussed before about the importance of providing various navigational aids for your reader, like a list of recent posts or a list of categories. A list of related posts is another important feature that should be implemented in each and every blog.

The longer you keep the visitors on your blog, the better. When a visitor reads a post on a particular category, it is natural to assume that he will probably be interested in other posts under the same category. This will improve the page visits and the length of the time a visitor spends on your blog.

I have discussed about the importance of tags in one of my previous posts Why should I tag my posts? In addition to the benefits discussed, tags help to extract a list of related posts for your current post. I have tried a few widgets for related posts available for free on the net. I have listed them below. Feel free to explore further on the respective sites:

1. Hoctro’s Place: This seems to be the starting point for others, who came out with few modifications. Even though there are some enhancements from others, which I have discussed below, I still like Hoctro’s version. It requires the code to be copied to just one location. It comes in handy as a widget. You just need to modify the default URL to your blog’s URL. If you like to set the maximum number of posts to be displayed, then there is an option to change this.

2. Jackbook.com: This is a slightly modified version from Hoctro’s. The advantage here is you need not modify the code to point to your blog. The process is already automated. Jackbook also overcomes one drawback in Hoctro’s version, which displays the current article also under the related posts. Another change is that the related posts will be displayed only on the item page and not on the home page. In Hoctro’s version, you could choose to do both. If you are not familiar with HTML, then I would recommend Jackbook’s version, as it is very simple to install.

3. Purplemoggy: This is a bit difficult compared to the above two, as it requires the code to be copied/ modified at a few places. I tried once, but it didn’t work for me. I am not sure why it is so. But, you can try to see if this works for you.

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Blog Review: Ask Ang

+++++ +++++

Blog Title: Ask Ang
Blog url: http://askang747778.blogspot.com/

The blog looks good. The dark background blends in nicely with the white text. The colour of the post title also looks good. I like those advertisements on the sidebar. While I always had been against using too many advertisements, this blog is one good example of how to use them to your advantage. The pictures and different colours of the advertisements add variety to the posts.

The blog is updated about 4 times in a month. While that frequency is all right with me, I find that there is no posting for the last one month or so. While you have such a long break, it is always good to leave a message to your readers that you will not be available for a certain period.

I am discussing about this repeatedly in most of my reviews. Keep your tags short and straight. Tags are like keywords and long sentences are not useful in classifying the information.

The author has to look into providing more ways to navigate the blog. Consider the use of a list of recent posts, list of related posts, archives by categories, and/ or list of popular posts. Many readers do not have the luxury of time to scroll through each and every post. Remember, by providing more navigational aids, you are holding them longer on your blog.

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Recent Posts widget for Blogger

If you have regular visitors, they are more interested in your recent updates since their last visit. By providing a list of recent posts, you are making their stay at your blog pleasant. Blogger do not have a standard widget for you to include easily into your blog.

Don’t worry. There is a small work-around that would help you to install the recent posts widget on to your blog. The trick is to use the “Feed” page element provided by Blogger. You just have to get a feed from your own blog. If it’s still fuzzy to you, the following step-by-step should make things clear.

1. Log in to your Blogger account
2. On the dashboard, click on the “Settings” link




3. On the Settings tab, click on the “Site Feed” tab




4. Check the field "Allow Blog Feed". Please select either "Full" or "Short" in the drop-down menu. You have to ensure that "None"” is not selected


5. Click "Save Settings" button at the bottom of the page




6. Now, click on the "Template" tab. This will take you to the “Page Elements” tab




7. Click on the "Add a Page Element" link at the section where you want to include the list of recent posts. You can include it in the sidebar or just below the post




8. In the Page Elements pop-up window, scroll down to find the page element "Feed"




9. Click the "Add to Blog" button


10. Type the feed URL of your own blog. In the example below, I have typed my feedburner feed for my blog. You can also use the Blogger’s default feed URL http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/post/default. Replace the yourblogname accordingly for your blog.




11. Click on "Continue"


12. In the window that pops up, you can configure your feed. Type in a suitable name for your page element, like Recent Posts or Latest Posts




13. Select the number of posts to be displayed. Blogger allows only a maximum of 5 items to be displayed
14. You can choose to display the date of posting and the author name if you want. You will see a preview of your feed in the box
15. Click on "Save Changes"

You have added the list of recent posts. More importantly, you have taken another important step to make the navigation of your blog easier for your readers.

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New template for this blog

I am using a new template for this blog. It attracted me once I saw this. This is originally a WordPress theme developed by flisterzblog. It is modified to suit Blogger by Jackbook.com.

Even though most of the problems are fixed, I am still having some problems like rearranging my page elements. The major mistake I did is I lost all the links to fellow bloggers that was in my page earlier. My sincere apologies to them. If you are one of them, whose link I have removed, please leave a comment. I will add it immediately.

If you see any other problems, please feedback to me. I will be very thankful.

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Blog Review: Calling All Palauans

Blog Title: Calling All Palauans
Blog url: http://callingallpalauans.blogspot.com/

This is a non-English blog. Going by the name of the blog, I think the blogger should be from the Republic of Palau, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean about 800 km east of Philippines. I believe the blog is written in Palauan or Belauan language. Since I do not really understand what is written, I am abstaining from giving any rating for this blog.

The first impression gives me the feeling that the blog is well-written. There are lots of pictures to support the posts. The advertisements are kept minimal or arranged to be unobtrusive.

While it gave me a good first impression, I have some comments/ feedback to the author after I took some time to sift through the blog. The blog updates have to be regular. I believe that there should be only very few blogs on Palau, so it is a good topic to blog. But, if the updates are not regular then you will lose your visitors. Right now, I note only about 2 posts a month. That’s not enough.

The Google search box is provided at the extreme bottom portion of the blog. To be more useful, this can be shifted to a prominent position like the top-left corner in the sidebar.

The sidebar is a very precious place and it has to be used effectively. While I appreciate the photographs on the sidebar, it doesn’t really help the readers. The author can keep some photos, but have to add more features to navigate. The author can consider a list of categories, your blog archive, your recent articles, related posts, and so on.

As I said above, this blog gives a good impression. With a little more rearrangement of the elements and regular updating, the author can keep that feeling intact.

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63/100: That is the grade of this blog

Few days ago, I wrote about the necessity of evaluating blogs in the article How much is my blog worth?. Today, I got a lead to a website grader tool from a posting on JohnChow dot com. Website Grader claims to have an algorithm that uses a proprietary blend of over a dozen different variables, including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.


I entered my blog details and generated a report. The report is very useful, it gave me lots of information and suggestions that took me by surprise. My blog's website grade is 63/100. Not bad at all! To be honest, I didn't expect my blog to do so well. What really does the number 63 means? This is the explanation given by the site:

"A website grade of 63 for assessmyblog.blogspot.com means that of the thousands of websites that have previously been submitted to the tool, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 63% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness."

The site also provides a score summary, a snapshot is provided below:



There are some suggestions based on the findings, which could really help you to further progress in this complicated blogging world. I have provided a screen-shot for you to understand what I am discussing about.


It is good to always evaluate and improve. Continual improvement is the key for success. If you are interested in this tool, please visit Website Grader. One good thing, there is no need to register with them. But, if you want some comparison with other sites from your category, they require you to register.

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Blog Review: Your Music, Your Way

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Blog Title: Your Music, Your Way
Blog url: http://partnership-yourmusicyourway.blogspot.com/

Your Music, Your Way! As the blog title suggests, this is a blog on music. The author provides links to some useful music-related sites. You can find links to free downloads of music.

The blog is quite new with very little content so far. The blog updates are not frequent, with about one month un-posted period between posts. If you want any success with blogging, you should update your blogs regularly. The general advice from some of the internet gurus is the blog should be updated at least twice or thrice a week.

As I always suggest, a list of tags/ categories should be provided in the side bar for easy navigation. It might not seem be to be an issue now, as the number of posts are not that many. But, once your blog gets older and you have much more posts, tags is a very useful way to navigate the blog.

I also noted that there are too many tags used for the posts. I counted as much as thirty different tags being used in just about five posts. Look at standardizing the tags. Very general tags might not be useful. For example, tags like apply, diverse, mixture can be avoided.

Try to fit in the right size of ads in your side bar. I noted that your AuctionAds advertisement is a bit wider than the sidebar. These small things do not give a good impression. As we all know, first impression is the best impression.

One good thing is the content is given the priority in the layout. I do not see many distracting advertisements. Keep it up. With a little bit tweaking, the blog should look good.

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How much is my blog worth?

Every blogger out there thinks that his/ her blog is the best in the cyberworld. When someone criticizes their layout or background color or the font used, they immediately get upset. So, it is good to have some kind of measure that could be used to evaluate blogs. The assessment should be based on a quantitave approach and should not be subjective.

In my opinion, such an assessment would be based on the amount of traffic that the blog generates, the number of sites that links to it, the amount someone would pay for an advertisement on the site, the number of subscribers to the blog, the blog's ranking on different search engines and so on. The assessment is really complex.

But, here is a site that calculates your blog's worth based on your Technorati authority alone. Dane Carlson's Business Opportunities Weblog has created an applet that uses Technorati's API to calculate the blog's worth. Its a simple formula that values each incoming link at $564.64. While this blog worth shows no significant insight into the blog itself, its really fun to see a dollar value attached to your blog.

My blog is worth $5,645.40.
How much is your blog worth?

If you are interested, please visit Dane Carlson's blog by clicking here.

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Delay in blog reviews

My apologies for the delay in reviewing the blogs that are in the queue. If you have started to think that I have dumped the blog reviews, the answer is "NO". I was tied up with my regular full-time work and didn't find time in the late nights to do what I have planned.

The last review, "Blog Review: They are Our Children", I did was about 9 days ago. Right now, I have about 6 blogs in the queue. Please be assured that I will complete all these reviews in about 10 days time. OK, the target is set for 23rd September for completing the review of these six blogs.

Hope I need not come out with another excuse!!!

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Are you a professional blogger? Take the ProBlogger Test!

Who is a blogger? Anyone who owns a blog is a blogger, simple as that. But, who is a professional blogger? The question gets tougher, right?

Since the advent of new technologies, blogging has become so simple. Anyone who knows how to use an internet browser can become a blogger in no time. With drag and drop features and easy to use interface, bloggers do not require any knowledge of HTML or XML. That’s the beauty of blogging now. This has brought the variety to the blogging community, from grandfathers to school children owning a piece of the cyberworld.

To be a professional blogger, you need much more knowledge than this. You probably should know HTML, Style Sheets, XML, user-interface design, SEO, marketing strategies and on and on. I know the list is not complete in any manner. Neither it is true that knowledge of all these techniques is necessary to be a pro. But, it gives you an idea that you should be a master of many fields to be called a pro.

Recently, I took a simple ProBlogger test at Daily Blog Tips. I did not perform well scoring just 45%. Hmm... I have a long way to go in this blogging profession. If you are interested, please take this test yourself. If you score 100%, you can be proud of it. If you score less, no need to be shy. I am there with you. While you take the test, I am rushing to the library to pick a book on XML. See you later.

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AuctionAds needs to be user-friendly

Recently, I signed up with AuctionAds and discussed about their aggressive promotion in my previous post AuctionAds is giving away $25 for new sign-ups. After signing, I found it a bit difficult to find information on this site.

The first thing, I was looking for, is their referral programs. They have an attractive program, where you will get 5% of the earnings of your referral for six months. But, what is disturbing is, they do not have an attractive banner to promote their service. All I could find is some text links. In these days of attractive videos and colourful banners, how in the world can any one promote a text link? Can AuctionAds look at providing some banners in the standard sizes?

Another major problem is there is no proper guide for a new sign-up on how to start. It took me sometime to figure out how to get the code for my ad. I was so disappointed when one of my referral complained on this. While it is so difficult to convince someone to sign-up for a service, the last thing you want is him to turn around and find fault with you. Can AuctionAds improve on this and probably provide a demo or a step-by-step tutorial for new sign-ups?

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AuctionAds is giving away $25 for new sign-ups

AuctionAds is actively seeking publishers and as a result they are having a big promotion. If you sign up now, you will get an immediate credit of $25 into your account. I just signed up with AuctionAds and got the $25 credit. Just remember that their minimum payout is $50.

AuctionAds allows you to make more money from your website by displaying live relevant eBay auctions next to your content. AuctionAds are fully compatible with Adsense; so there is no reason not to start running AuctionAds and start earning more money!

How it works?
Sign up with AuctionAds. Insert their ad code on your web site. When your site's visitors click on an Auction Ad listing and take an action on eBay you earn cash. Actions are defined as a Winning Bid, a Buy-it-Now or a confirmed user registration.

If this post has fashioned some interest in you, you can sign up at AuctionAds by clicking here.

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ProBlogger ranked as #1 money making blog

45n5 recently conducted a ranking exercise for online money making blogs and tried to come out with the Top 100 list. Even though the list is not complete as of now, consisting only about 73 blogs, they are hopeful to complete the list in the next ranking exercise. The Google PageRank, Technorati ranking and Alexa ranking are used in combination to determine the blogs ranking.

ProBlogger is ranked #1, followed by JohnChow dot com at #2 and ShoeMoney at #3. You can view the complete list at 45n5 – Top 100 Make Money Online Blogs

If you feel your blog is one among the Top-100, you can Add a Blog for consideration. New blogs will appear with the next rank update.

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3 Things All Affiliate Marketers Need To Survive Online

Every affiliate marketer is always on the look out for the most successful market. There is no magic formula that is readily available to achieve this target. It just needs good marketing practices that have been proven over years of hard work and dedication. With these top three marketing tips, you will be able to able to increase your sales and survive in the affiliate marketing online.

What are these three tactics?

1. Include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an initial understanding on what the product can do. Also include testimonials from users who have already tried the product. Be sure that these customers allow you to use their names and photos on the site.

You can also write articles highlighting the uses of the product and include them on the website as an additional page. Make the pages attractive compelling and include calls to act on the information. Each headline should attract the readers to try and read more. Highlight your special points. This will help your readers to learn what the page is about and will want to find out more.

2. Offer free reports to your readers. If possible position them at the very top side of your page so it they simply cannot be missed. By placing useful information into their inboxes at certain specified period, you will remind them of the product. Be sure that the content is directed toward specific reasons to buy the product. Do not make it sound like a sales pitch.

Focus on important points like how your product can make life and things easier and more enjoyable. Include compelling subject lines in the email. As much as possible, avoid using the word “free” because there are still older spam filters that dumps those kind of contents into the junk before even anyone reading them first. Convince those who signed up for your free reports that they will be missing something big if they do not avail of your products and services.

3. Get the kind of traffic that is targeted to your product. Write articles for publication in e-zines and e-reports. This way you can locate publications that are focusing on your target customers and what you have put up might just grab their interest.

Try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week, with at least 300-600 words in length. By continuously writing and maintaining these articles you can generate as many as 100 targeted readers to your site in a day. Always remember that only 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or get your services. If you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day, that means you have made 10 sales based on the average statistic.

The tactics given above does not really sound very difficult to do, if you think about it. It just requires a little time and an action plan on your part. Try to use these tips for several affiliate marketing programs. You can end maintaining a good source of income and survive in this business.

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How often should you update your blog?

How often should you update your blog? This is a million-dollar question lingering in every blogger’s head, especially new bloggers. Should I update it every hour, on a daily basis, weekly once, …?

Let’s take the example of daily newspapers. How often do you go to the shop to buy a daily paper? The answer is obvious. Once in a day, probably in the morning. How often do you go to the shop to buy a weekly magazine? Once a week, right? You will expect the next edition of a fortnightly magazine to come in about fifteen days time. You, as a reader, clearly know the frequency of the newspapers or magazines.

The same applies to blogs too. You, as the author of the blog, fix the frequency at which you want to update your blog. Spend some time to work out your schedule. If you think you can update your blog only twice a week, then set this as a target. If you have free time, then write more discussions and save them as draft. Just release them when you don’t have time to write a new post. This will avoid posting too many discussions some time and then there is a longer period when you don’t have any updates.

The idea is to let your readers know clearly what your intentions are. If the readers are aware that the blog will be updated only once in a week, they will come back next week to check for fresh content.

Of course, the content is important to keep the readers coming back. But, regular updates are as much important too. If they are disappointed too often, they will abandon your blog and will not care to visit again. Remember that you need not post frequently, but you must post regularly.

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Why should I tag my posts?

This post is about tags or labels or sometimes referred to as categories. Recently, I came across few blogs, while reviewing, which do not use tags for their posts.

Just imagine, you have hundreds of files in your office cabinet without any labels on it. You may argue that you are familiar with the files arrangement and you will always be able to pick the correct file. But, how about your poor colleague, who wants to find information when you are on leave? How will he identify the file he is looking for? The obvious solution is to provide labels that describe what is stored inside the file.

Hope it is clear now. Yes, tags can be used to categorize information in a blog. It provides an easy way to find information that is relevant to the reader. Each post in your blog should be tagged. You should also include a list of the tags in a prominent location on your blog.

Why should we use tags? One obvious reason is, you provide a better browsing experience to the readers. Secondly, services like Technorati use tags to classify posts. When a user searches for a particular keyword, there is a high possibility of your post showing up if you have used the same keyword as tag in your post.

Then, is it good to add many, many tags for my posts? I, personally feel, you should decide the tags for your posts even before you write anything. An entire blog should probably have somewhere around 10 to 20 tags. Anything more than that might not serve the purpose. I have come across a blog that used different tags for each post. So, the number of tags is almost equivalent to the number of posts itself. Not quite right.

Think of tags as an index page for a book. If the index is not interesting enough, I may not even open the book. Spend some time, think twice and get the tagging right.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

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Believe it or not: A blogger makes $17000 in a month

When I heard the news, I thought it is just a rumour spreading around. Then I myself had a chance to read the post at John Chow.com. The blogger claims to have made as much as $17828.61 in a month from his blog. The bulk of his earnings come from Affiliate sales and ReviewMe.

Still can't believe it? You are not alone. While we, the majority of the bloggers, are fighting hard to make even few dollars in a month, it is really hard to believe the truth. Anyway, there are lessons to be learnt from this blog. Read the post John Chow dot com Income Report - August 2007

The author even says that Google AdSense had not been among the top earners for him and he is going to drop it off soon from his blog.

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Blog Review: They Are Our Children

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Blog Title: They Are Our Children
Blog URL: http://theyareourchildren.blogspot.com/

A blog with a noble mission on “The Urgency And Importance of Supporting Unfortuate Children Everywhere”. Most of us are fortunate enough to have a happy childhood, fond memories of school days, long-lasting friendship with our schoolmates. But, some of the unfortunate children are deprived of this. This blog aims to help these children by providing you the tools you need to change their lives.

The blog is relatively new, started off only in May. The updates are not regular. The blog should be updated at regular intervals to get repeat visitors. The author should rearrange the sidebar to get it organized.

All the posts should have at least one label/ tag. Remember that labels/ tags are very important for the search engines or services like Technorati to classify the information. I would suggest a list of categories/ labels to be included in the sidebar. The list of categories would make it easier for the reader to navigate the blog.

I am happy with the background, the font color and size. But, it would look neat if the author can use justified alignment for the posts.

As mentioned in the blog “We cannot live only for ourselves. One child's voice silenced, one child left unfed, one child left uncared for, causes all of heaven to weep”. I wish all the best for the blog to be successful in this noble cause.

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The 3 Most Common Mistakes in Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is considered as one of the most effective and powerful ways of earning money online. It is easy to join, implement and earn commission on a regular basis. Everyone gets a chance to make profit through Internet by joining the affiliate marketing programs.

However, as you would expect with any other business, there are lots of pitfalls in the affiliate marketing business. It is better to avoid some of the most common mistakes that will cost the marketers a large portion of their profit.

Mistake number 1: Choosing the wrong affiliate
Many people want to earn from affiliate marketing as fast as possible. In their rush to be part of one, they tend to choose a bandwagon product. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon, try to choose a product in which you are truly interested in. For any endeavor to succeed, you should take some time to plan and figure out your actions.

Pick a product that appeals to you. Then do some research about that product to see if they are in demand. Promoting a product you are more passionate about is easier than promoting one for the sake of the earnings only.

Mistake number 2: Joining too many affiliate programs
This is the most common mistake most of us do. Since affiliate programs are very easy to join, you might be tempted to join multiples of affiliate programs to maximize the earnings. You may also think that there is nothing wrong and nothing to lose by being part of many affiliate programs. True, that is a great way to have multiple sources of income. However, joining multiple programs and attempting to promote them all at the same time will prevent you from concentrating on each one of them.

The result? The maximum potential of your affiliate program is not realized and the income generated will not exactly be as huge as you were thinking initially it would. The best way to get excellent result is by joining just one program. Then give it your best effort by promoting your products enthusiastically. As soon as you see that it is already making a reasonable profit, then maybe you can now join another affiliate program.

The technique is to do it slowly but surely. There is really no need to rush into things, especially with affiliate marketing. With the way things are going, the future is looking real bright and it seems affiliate marketing will be staying for a long time too.

Mistake number 3: Not buying the product or using the service
As an affiliate, you main purpose is to effectively promote a product or service and to find customers. It is difficult for you to do this when you yourself have not tried these things out. Thus, you will fail to promote and recommend them convincingly.

Try the product or service personally first before you sign up as an affiliate to see if it is really delivering what it promises. If you have done so, then you are one of the credible and living testaments aware of its advantages and disadvantages. Your customers will then feel the sincerity and truthfulness in you and this will trigger them to try them out for themselves.

Time is the key. Take the time to analyze your marketing strategy and check if you are on the right track. If done properly, you will be able to maximize your affiliate marketing program and earn higher profits.

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So Many Affiliate Programs! Which One Do I Choose?

You need to think twice before joining an affiliate program. Do a little research about the choices of program that you intend to join into. Get some answers because they will be the deciding point of what you will be achieving later on.

Will it cost you anything to join?
Most affiliate programs being offered today are absolutely free of charge. So why settle for those that charge you some dollars before joining?

When do they issue the commission cheques?
Every program is different and unique. Some issue their cheques once a month, every quarter, etc. Select the one that is suited to your payment time choice. Many affiliate programs are setting a minimum earned commission amount that an affiliate must meet or exceed in order for their checks to be issued.

What is the click per sale ratio?
This is the average number of clicks to a banner or text link it takes to generate a sale based on all affiliate statistics. This factor is extremely important because this will tell you how much traffic you must generate before you can earn a commission from the sale. If this ratio is very high, then do a check again on whether to continue with promoting this affiliate program.

How are referrals from an affiliate’s site tracked and for how long do they remain in the system?
You need to be confident on the program enough to track those people you refer from your site. This is the only way that you can credit for a sale. The period of time that those people stay in the system is also important. This is because some visitors do not buy initially but may want to return later to make the purchase. Know if you will still get credit for the sale if it is done some months from a certain day.

What are the kinds of affiliate stats available?
Your choice of affiliate program should be capable of offering detailed stats. They should be available online anytime you decide to check them out. Constantly checking your individual stats is important to know how many impressions, clicks and sales are already generated from your site. Impressions are the number of times the page, on which the banner or text link is displayed, was viewed by a visitor of your site. A click is the one clicking on the banner or text links.

Does the affiliate program also pay for the clicks and page impressions besides the commissions on sales?
It is important that page impressions and clicks are also paid, as this will add to the earnings you get from the sales commission. This is especially important if the program you are in offers low sales. This is also very useful if your site is relatively new and attracts only less number of visitors.

Who is the online retailer?
Find out whom you are doing business with to know if it is really a solid company. Know the products they are selling and the average amount they are achieving. The more you know about the retailer offering you the affiliate program, the easier it will be for you to know if that program is really for you and your site.

Is the affiliate a one tier or two tier program?
A single tier program pays you only for the business you yourself have generated. A two tier program pays you for the business, plus it also pays you a commission on the sales generated by any affiliate you sponsor in your program. Some two-tier programs are even paying small fees on each new affiliate you sponsor. It acts more like a recruitment fee.

Lastly, what is the amount of commission paid?
5% - 20% is the commission paid by most programs. .01% - .05% is the amount paid for each click. If you find a program that also pays for page impressions, the amount paid is not much at all. As you can see from the figures, you will now understand why the average sales amount and click to sale ratio is important.

These are just some of the questions that need to be answered first before you enter into an affiliate program. You should be familiar with the many important aspects that your chosen program should have before incorporating them into your website. Try to ask your affiliate program choices these questions. These can help you to select the right program for your site from among the many available.

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