Archive

Archive for October, 2009

Do Not Buy Blog Comments

October 26th, 2009 Comments off

I was surprised to discover a service for bloggers called BuyBlogComments, which sell blog comments for around $0.25. What they do is look for blogs with a similar topic to yours that have do-follow links, and post a link to your blog in a comment or even comment in your name. Their service is quite expensive though. You will have to pay $25 for 100 comments, $124 for 500 comments, and $240 for 1000 comments. I would not use their service for various reasons. One of them is because I prefer to do such things myself rather than pay someone else for doing them. I think that in my case it would be a waste of money. The sad thing is that bloggers who will be tempted enough to use their service will have an advantage over other bloggers who post comments on other blogs by themselves. You will not find comments written in my name that are not written by me, and I do not believe that such service is ethically justifiable. Most bloggers would probably agree that posting comments in someone else’s name is not the right thing to do. However, I do not think that services like BuyBlogComments will cease to exist if they have a lot of customers.

Categories: Biz, Blog, Web Tags:

Advice for New Bloggers

October 24th, 2009 Comments off

If you started blogging just recently, there are a few essential things which you should be doing. A young blog can have an almost endless potential, so it is important to take advantage out of it. Here are some things I recommend you do:

-Write high quality posts. This is the most important aspect of your blog, and you should never neglect it. Your blog is going to be successful if you are going to have useful content. Take your time writing your articles, and make sure that they will be useful to your readers.
-Market your blog. You can do it by writing guest posts, commenting on other blogs, sending friendly emails to other bloggers, participating in contests, and being engaged in discussions. You will need to see for yourself what works for you.
-Do not be afraid to experiment in early stages. Try different writing techniques, change your template, experiment with implementing videos and images. In the meantime, you will be gaining valuable experience. Try to observe how your visitors react to various changes. It is better to experiment when your blog is relatively new.

Ultimately, the most important things you should focus on is writing high quality content and marketing.

Categories: Blog, Web Tags:

Writing Guest Posts

October 22nd, 2009 Comments off

This time I would like to talk about how you can get some help writing guest posts if you are totally lost, and do not know where to start. Usually, the webmaster who requested us to write a post for him might explain pretty well what his expectations are. This might include details such as minimum number of words, any required images, or other media. However, in many cases they do not state what the requirements are. If this is your first guest post you will want to make a good first impression.

My recommendation is to check how other bloggers wrote a similar post. But how can you find bloggers who wrote a similar type of guest post as you are supposed to write? It is usually quite simple. There are actually a few ways to do it:

-Use Google to search for the topic you wish to write about, and add ‘blog’ or ‘guest post’. This should show up the blogs which had posts about the topic. If you are not an expert on the topic you are going to write, then I suggest you read some posts about it.
-Use Blog Catalog (blogcatalog.com/post-tag/) to search for posts tagged as the name of the topic you wish to write about. This will often lead you to blogs which also discuss the topics you want to write about.
-You can read my blog regularly, or use the search function to look for posts that I wrote to get an idea how to do it. Maybe you will get inspired by something.

Please note that I am not advocating stealing content from other websites, just merely looking for some help in writing posts. If you want to know my opinion about stealing content, let me tell you that I am totally against it.

Categories: Blog, Web Tags:

Blog Directories

October 21st, 2009 Comments off

As I might have mentioned before, submitting your website to different blog directories is an excellent way to increase your website�s Page Rank and attract new visitors. You will have more links pointing to your website, which will help your blog in the long run. I am only going to list directories to which I did not have problems submitting my blog, and did not have to pay anything. I got the idea of posting a list of directories after unsuccessfully trying to register to a lot of them myself. Most of them were either no longer existing, not accepting registrations, or you had to pay a hefty fee to be included there. As I said, I would like to list some recent directories where I included my blog. Some of them are blog directories, and some of them are RSS directories. I am sure being listed in both blog and RSS directories is beneficial to bloggers. Here is the list of blog directories: http://www.sarthak.net/blogz/add.php, http://www.fybersearch.com/add-url.php, http://www.daypop.com/info/submit.htm, http://www.blogrankings.com/addblog.php, http://www.blogpulse.com/submit.html, http://www.bloglines.com, http://www.blogdir.com/dir/formreg.php.

Here is the list of RSS directories, where you can submit your feed: http://www.feedsee.com/submit.html, http://www.weblogalot.com/Ping/, http://www.search4rss.com/?add=default, http://www.feed-directory.com/addfeed, http://www.anse.de/rdfticker/addchannel.php, http://reader.rocketinfo.com/desktop/AddRSSFeed.jsp, http://chordata.info/suggest.php.

Submitting to directories can be time consuming, but those who have taken the time to do it will tell you that it is worth it. This way you will obtain a lot of backlinks and get a lot of new visitors.

Categories: Biz, Blog, Web Tags:

Adsense

October 20th, 2009 Comments off

In the past I briefly wrote about AdSense. This time I would like to indicate for whom this might be a good opportunity, because I do not believe that everyone will reap the same benefits using this program:

-Only popular websites with a lot of traffic will really benefit. That is because the probability of a visitor clicking on an ad is small and is often 0.5-2%. You will need huge traffic to have a lot of clicks on your ads.
-Websites about FOREX, curing cancer, or other topics which involve a lot of money, will have a lot higher earnings per click compared to an average website. That is because ads are displayed based on the content of your website, and the earnings for each click might range from 1 cent to $3. The price depends on the category of an ad.
-Sites which already have a lot of ads displayed on their websites might discourage their readers from visiting their site by adding even more ads.
-Ads are served based on the website content. Websites about a very specific topic like, for example, computer monitors, will benefit far more from AdSense than websites which do not put emphasis on one topic like, for example, directory type websites. The reason for this is that visitors might actually appreciate ads which pertain to their interests.
-Webmasters that host their website on their own domain will reap greater profits, because they will be able to keep 100% of their income, unlike Blogger blogs, which will have to share their earnings with Blogger.

Categories: Biz, Blog, Education, Web Tags:

Hackers Still Posing a Danger

October 10th, 2009 Comments off

Recently, there have been many verdicts where judges punished hackers for their crimes. It seemed that this might convince hackers to stop dealing damage. However, it appears that hackers are still a threat. Some time ago, hackers took over Comcast�s website and left a message stating that they had �RoXed� Comcast. There was some serious damage done since many of the 14 million subscribers had problems accessing their web-based email. Fortunately, there was not any permanent damage done as far as we know, however, I think that this event shows that hackers are still out there. In fact, they might be even more dangerous than ever before. Some suggest that it would be a good idea to employ such individuals to protect companies from other hackers. Naturally, this is quite a controversial topic.

Categories: Tech Tags:

History of Bluetooth

October 9th, 2009 Comments off

A typical person has probably heard the term Bluetooth many times. I am sure that some of us have wondered what were the origins of this word. Although some might think it was created by technology geeks, in fact it was not. I am sure you will be surprised to find out that the name Bluetooth was the name of a Danish king who reigned from 940 to 981. Of course, Bluetooth is his name in English, not Danish. This famous king was renowned for his ability to help people communicate, and this is what he is remembered for. Today, Bluetooth is a wireless technology that provides links between computers, mobile phones, and other handheld devices. Because of Bluetooth it is so easy to connect to the Internet from various handheld devices.

Categories: Tech Tags:

Broadband TVs

October 2nd, 2009 Comments off

The Internet is becoming a lot more accessible each year, and while the prices of most products and services are rising, the cost of Internet connection is usually going down. Since so many people have Internet, this means that it could be used in even more ways than it is used now. Broadband TVs are slowly becoming a reality, and in a matter of years maybe even most TV sets will be permanently connected to a broadband network. You will be able to access YouTube clips of many important events and basically view whatever you want. I predict that broadband TVs will be very popular, but we will have to wait for this to happen. In the meantime the popularity of YouTube will be probably growing.

Categories: Tech, Web Tags: