I'm really not sure what effect comments will have on a certain blog. I’m just assuming that, other than showing your pages' popularity to others, it also has to have some sort of effect on your keyword density for the page. That, in turn, partially affects your keyword rankings for that page.

I’m sure some people have had posts where people get angry with you for one thing or another. Maybe a debate, maybe not. While you may not want to keep these posts, you really have to differentiate between comments that disagree and the comments that flame (which is what you DON'T want). There are also a few things to keep in mind when editing comments.

WordPress blogs hosted at WordPress make it so that you can edit comments. Not only can you edit the name, URL, and email, but you can also edit the comment itself. Now you can take out that second link people try to include in their comments, or you can edit out personal notes from friends that you don’t want others to see. The same goes for Blogger. Although you cannot edit the comment, you might as well delete it if it's private or unwanted.

Remember: when editing a comment you should always check for three things. The first should be the name. If you’ve seen the name around your blog before, you may just want to delete the comment. If you edit a repeat commenter's comment, you might end up with a not so friendly response and lose a reader. After you’ve looked at the name, go to the URL. Change this to one of your other blogs. Free backlink for you. Third, if the email address appears fake, chances are the person doesn’t want to be known. You can edit these comments as well because chances are they won’t be back. Using these techniques to your advantage can help your blog overall; it'll look cleaner and more friendly.

-Aud

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Hey everyone,

For most people, advertising your blog is crucial to your success. Well, today, you might want to try out some marketing techniques (for free). If you’ve ever wanted to give affiliate marketing a try, or wanted some free advertising for your blog then give Facebook a try. Recently, Facebook has been giving out free advertising coupons for anybody to use. I haven't tried it out myself yet, but I have no doubt that it works seeing as how successful Facebook has become. Here are the coupon codes:

First $50 Coupon Code: T5V6-1JKV-TNH9-2MRH

Second $50 Coupon Code: 2JXY-WTFK-72Y0-VJ6Y

Third $50 Coupon Code R1X5-0NH7-5FXW-5YEC

For the final $100 code, you must sign up for the Visa Small Business Application, which I have provided the link for here.

Just add the application, and check your email. The application will prompt you to fill in a bunch of information about a business. You are not required to do this however, you can delete the application as soon as you get your code.

To credit your account with these codes go to your Facebook advertising page. Click ‘ads manager’, ‘billing’, ‘funding sources’, and then ‘enter coupon code’. The coupon will then show up on your account. They will also show their expiration date. Remember: you must have a valid credit card in order to sign up.

See you guys soon!

-Aud

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Is it just me or does everybody else notice how blogs at WordPress seem to get Page Rank rather easily? Being a member of StumbleUpon I have opted to search through WordPress sites only. Anything WordPress that was shown to me was a result of clicking Stumble.

When I was going through the sites it seemed as if almost every single WordPress blog had a page rank. I’m not talking about Page Rank of one or two, but I saw the majority of them having three’s, four’s, and even five’s. Most of them had few or no backlinks at all! However, they had a Page Rank most bloggers would pay for.

Now there are the obvious benefits of obtaining a page rank, but we won’t go through that here. This post wasn't meant to encourage you to sign up on WordPress instead of Blogger. Why WordPress? Even though you can't advertise on WordPress, you may in the future plan to purchase your own domain. Well, if you have a Page Rank blog of your own that you can give unlimited backlinks to, then it'll be way more effective than the forty bucks or less you’ll make on Blogger with AdSense.

Just try throwing up a WordPress blog and a few posts. Then, come the next Page Rank update and see what you’ve received. You may get lucky and hit something. I shall consider this as well; I have a Wordpress blog myself. Although Blogger may be lacking in terms of Page Rank, it is nevertheless still a good choice. This post was meant to clarify some questions I got from the other posts. Again, hope it helps!

-Aud

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Apparently, one of the most popular ways of making money with your blog is through affiliate accounts. An affiliate is when you get paid for bringing business to a certain site. It usually involves either the person clicking on one of your specially coded links that have a referral code on them, or a banner displayed on your site with the same referral code on it.

The question is, when do you review these affiliates? If you are in the same niche that I’m in, then there may be a wise time to review them. If I were to put up some reviews of the sites I wish to show you in hopes of you signing up, I wouldn’t want to do that as my first post. It would end up unnoticed. Not many people will search through your archives, especially if they aren’t easy to search through. There is a time and place for everything.

It is recommended that if you post it after you have about 200 RSS subscribers then you'll have about 200 people who will potentially read the post and maybe even sign up. Keep in mind a review should always be honest to your readers because there is no point in lying to the reader, they will only sign up and quit. Faking a post is the worst thing you can do. You will get nothing out of this and you will have wasted your reader's time. In some instances, you may lose readers.

You should only review them after you get a decent amount of daily traffic. This amount will vary depending upon your blog's niche. I would suggest somewhere in the neighborhood of 200+ daily different people who read your blog (Google Analytics will provide this information), or 200+ RSS subscribers. The longer you wait, the better your chances are for success.

If you happened to have posted these offers before, then why not throw links to yourself in the middle of an article? Point an article on the topic of the affiliate site to your review. People will usually click this link to another one of your posts if they have an interest in it.

Another rather common way of getting these links out there would be in a monthly earnings report. If you are eager to share with your readers how much you are making each month, then why not put some amounts that you've earned from each program. With links right next to your earnings, you can have your affiliate code in there. This way they will choose some of the more profitable sites and hopefully sign up; this method serves as a source of appeal.

Remember: the longer you wait to actually dedicate a post about them, the better you’ll do. If you have already reviewed them, don’t republish it. You can use many other techniques to display your affiliate codes somewhere else on your site. There's always more than one way to do something. In this case, I will have to say that's true.

-Aud

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When you're me, you probably don't post on a day to day basis. I post from time to time, not daily. I’ve had plenty of time on my computer today that I spent wasting my time checking stats for various blogs, as well as spent time on forums, and even reading other making money blogs. When you want to run a very successful blog, you have to set your priorities. If you want to make money with your blog, you have to follow through on these priorities on a daily basis.

One method to make sure you have a post to publish everyday would be by writing the next days post the day before. Then when tomorrow comes and you realize you haven’t written that day's post, then you will have time to make up for it by writing one up and publishing it.

It’s all about getting into a routine. I suggest doing it on a day-to-day basis if possible. Even though I'm not doing this myself, I would not leave my blog sitting there for more than week. I’m still rather new to having my own blog and have to find a way to work in the daily tasks that require my time on the computer. It may take a little getting used too, but the main point is, don’t delay.

If you delay writing and publishing it once, you are sure to delay it again, and again, and eventually failing to do so at all. If I am to leave my blog idle for more than a week, then I will ensure myself that I will write up another post in order to make up for it. Remember to always prioritize your tasks! :)

-Aud

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When I'm looking at other blogs, I see this every once in a while and wonder, "What the heck were they thinking?" The topic clearly states one idea and throughout the post they start talking about irrelevant things. I’m not sure what the logic is here. If you are trying to increase the word count (which isn't how you would do it anyway) then you are only hurting your topic. This happens to me every once in a while. I start talking about one tip to help you blog more efficiently and it starts to stray into some other irrelevant topic. The topic isn’t terrible, but the sudden change in topic might be the difference between less views and more views.

Hopefully, most of us will usually recognize this and stop. I pull out some information that's not really necessary for the topic. There are some instances where a brief overview is needed. If that is the case, you will probably see me say something like, “I’m not going to get into that here”. This simply suggests that I will be writing about this in the future. Why try to cram it in a post when I can simply write about it in tomorrow’s post on that topic? The post would be much more accurate and detailed on the idea than it would be if I had left it in another topic. Of course, this can also lead to an open-ended discussion about what I wasn't going to talk about.

I suggest having a pencil and paper or better yet, the Fire Fox extension Quick Note available when you are writing. I usually just open up Notepad or Microsoft Word and type a few sentences down.You can jot down basic ideas for other future topics. It will help you when you have writer's block because you can then look and choose topics you might write about in the future.

Let's get to the point: don’t cram multiple ideas into one post. It will help you in more ways than one. You will be better off on Google’s search engines for more content, more keywords, and you will also have another article to submit to social bookmarking programs. A more detailed post on a topic you plan to write later is better than a small paragraph in a post about something else. It's best not to get off topic, which is what I tend to do on blogs such as these. Don't make that mistake and always check and reread your post. It doesn't take a lot of effort, trust me.

-Aud

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Hey everyone, I know I haven't really been active the past week. I was preoccupied with a few life related problems. However, I won't get into that here; it's irrelevant. :) Anyways, what I have to say today is really about this blog I've found interesting seeing as how I chose Blogger over Wordpress. This blog convinced me otherwise. Themelab presents a couple of good ideas on why Wordpress would be a better choice. I have already been through that process on one of my previous posts, but I have to admit, he was really convincing. Although I'm not planning to get my own domain soon, I might consider hosting this blog on Wordpress. In addition, Themelab also had some really nice looking CSS Wordpress templates and layouts. It also provides a LOT of resources; not just themes, but downloads that you might want for your blog. Just something I wanted you guys to check out if you had time. It might help you out if you're still having trouble deciding on which blogging platform to choose. Good luck!

-Aud

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Just thought I’d let all of you bloggers out there using the popular CPanel (if you haven't heard of it before, click here to check it out). It is probably the biggest site for hosting. Almost all of the larger hosting companies point you there. Unless you are a brilliant and experienced coder with CPanel, then you probably aren't likely to install the WordPress blog by downloading and editing the files like WordPress teaches you to do.

We settle for an option called Fantastico where it will install the blog, and sign you up. It’s very easy. The only thing was, it was a bit lagging behind in WordPress updates. However, it was just updated recently. Feel free to update your blogs now! If you plan on buying a domain, then Fantastico is a pretty good option. Hope this tidbit of information helps!

-Aud

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Continuing on from my bookmarking post a few weeks ago...

When do you bookmark and when do you NOT bookmark? Well, this is a question many bloggers usually face. Do you add your own content to sites like StumbleUpon and Digg in order to receive some instant, artificial traffic, or do you avoid submitting your own work for various reasons? There is reasoning to either side of the story.

There are quite a few negatives. The first being, your accounts on these sites may get tagged for spamming, as well as get your blog automatically banned from being submitted on these sites. Your content appears better to those very strict Stumblers who carefully examine your posts, submitters, and votes given to determine if you are abusing the site. A possible outcome for abusing this is a permanent ban from the site itself. Definitely not good. :(

Your content will also do better. If you aren’t the one submitting it, that means somebody else actually liked it enough to submit it. It’s obviously of some good quality. It’s more likely to be popular even if you haven't gotten your first +1 feedback. It’s a great benefit to let others submit articles of their own.

However, remember that there are positives that you can get out of submitting your own unique and special content. Obviously, if your site needs RSS Subscribers when you submit your own content, then you will have a free and somewhat targeted traffic coming to your site (depending upon which social bookmarking site). Having 300+ visitors to your site increases the chances of having somebody subscribe to your RSS feed. While it is a long shot, if you use the right tags, over time you may manage to snag a few.

Adding content to certain sites also puts your link in the user's feed, giving you a link back to your own site. I’ve found backlinks from www.username.stumbleupon.com before. Even though it may not be much, it’s a free and easy backlink! This can be extremely helpful for certain bloggers.

Last but not least, there is the traffic factor. To some, it may just be the desired encouragement. Nobody wants to blog to a blank audience (as I have stated before). If there is nobody to read your content then you may get discouraged. Adding content to these social bookmarking sites gets you some traffic, and maybe some feedback even if it is positive or negative. It doesn't matter, as long as it is traffic and feedback! It can help clarify exactly what you are doing well and what you should plan to do, as well as what you may want to change. The users of the bookmarking sites can get very harsh at times with their constructive criticism, so make sure you are willing to receive it. Don't start arguments, fights, etc. It will only make your blog look worse.

To bookmark, or not, it's up to you.

-Aud

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Comments and feedback are one of many factors in determining a blog's popularity. They have numerous benefits to both the commenter as well as the author of the blog. By commenting on a blog, you can affect future posts that are more geared towards your needs.

There are several positive outcomes that can result from commenting on a blogs post. If you are in the same niche or of the same type of blog, you can try to add on to the blogger's knowledge by informing them of additional information. Not only does this increase their knowledge, but it helps you show your knowledge and experience to the blogger and anybody else who reads the comments. If you comment on other blogs you will also receive a link back to your own blog by filling in the URL. You will be noticed by the blogger, and he may even head over to your site. Lastly, you may even be targeted and recognized by the blogger as a long time

Likewise, there are also advantages for the blogger. Their blog appears popular because people are commenting on it. This can tell new visitors that the blog is an extremely popular blog, even if it isn’t it may give this impression. Comments and views will also encourage the blogger. Myself and any other bloggers out there included do not enjoy the feeling of publishing to nobody. We blog, at least partially, to share our knowledge and put out our thoughts, expressions, and feelings for your benefit. Comments can help us learn from you, help encourage us, and they make it more fun to blog.

To give a a bit more motivation, anybody who reads this post can earn a free backlink to your blog by simply posting a comment. I will recognize you in an upcoming post to show my gratitude. Include the phrase ‘benefits of commenting’ or something relevant in your comment that is at least two sentences long and you’ve got yourself a backlink. I enjoy doing this myself as well. :)

-Aud

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At times when a blog is just starting out, even the artificial bookmarking traffic can be beneficial in picking up a few subscribers. I’m not really into submitting my own articles to these sites, and usually wait for one of my readers to present some feed back if possible, but that doesn’t always happen. If you are in desperate need of traffic and subscribers, then you may want to look into these social bookmarking sites.

Digg is one of the biggest out there. It started off as more of a tech-computer geek site, but has since turned into a place for users to submit all kinds of content. If your blog is more of a computer oriented site, then you will probably have great success here. Either that, or sites with pretty amazing posts. Honestly, the posts on this blog aren’t really suited for Digg simply because it is regarded as simply another spam addition (unsurprisingly) to the list of sites labeled "Getting Rich".

StumbleUpon is probably the easiest to use for several reasons. The biggest of which is, they don’t have to be caught by your title to be sent to your site. They only have to have the content area you submit it to in their interests to be sent to your page. This will have deadly effects on your bounce rate, but traffic is traffic. Basically any kind of content is suitable for StumbleUpon as long as you submit it in the correct category.

There are many negatives that come with adding your sites to social bookmarking sites, but you can outweigh these with the positives. All of these sites will become more effective as your account status is raised by constant quality additions to the site, as well as careful critiquing of content submitted by others. I find that feedback is key to success in whatever you do with your blog. Good luck!

-Aud

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So you’ve decided to start a free blog over hosting your own. Unfortunately, there are some instances when this is the only option for you. When choosing your free blogs domain name there are many things you need to keep in mind. It can help or hurt you in the long run depending upon the name you choose.

First you have to discover the point of your blog. Is it an extremely tight niche blog purely focusing every post on one word? Sometimes, the more specific, the better. Other times, it may be the other way around. If the majority of your posts are going to focus on one main term or if you would like to receive traffic primarily from only one designated group of people then it’s rather easy to pick a name. Your search engine results will be much better for the term ‘make money blog’ if your domain name was, makemoneyblog.com. That’s just the way it is with the search engines. Obviously, domain names can be costly and might not be worth it. Make sure you identify some keywords that people can use in order to tell your blog apart from others. The more unique, the better.

Secondly, the free domains available on your blogging platform and actual domains available for self hosting are different. You may find one that is available on Blogger or WordPress, but you may not be able to ever register it by yourself because somebody else has taken the domain for self hosting. You want to have the option to be able to move it into your own domain, yet retaining your site's original name. So after you find one you like, check godaddy.com to see if it is available. This will prevent you from having somebody snatch your desired domain name. :)

After you’ve found a couple of keywords and somehow incorporated them into your domain name that is available both on your free blogging platform and your godaddy, you are ready to create your free blog. There are many other things that you will need to do to start in order to efficiently use this keyword advantage, but you are off to a great start. Many people are sometimes forced to restart their blog due to the fact that it is not attracting enough viewers. The fact is, some of their keywords just aren't right for their type of blog. Keep this in mind before starting your own.

-Aud

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Sometimes, many of us will get tired of blogging, researching, marketing, and everything else you do on the computer. Why not take a break once in a while? Believe it or not, there are games out there in which you can make money. It’s not going to be huge amounts unless you get very skilled or lucky, but it could cover the cost of a few domains. These sites are similar to GPT (Get Paid To) sites, except that they are more entertaining.

One such example is a site called Moola. If you look in Wikipedia, it is rated the 11th best site to waste your time on :P . The point of the site is to take the free penny you can get at any time and double it. Doubling a penny 27 times earns you a million dollars. The maximum being 30 times. Obviously, you’ll settle for a payment before you get that high. Doubling it 10 times and you’ll make $10.00, and doubling it 15 times and you’'ll make $300.00.

What you do is you take the penny, and select a game you wish to play. You will then view an ad in which you must answer a basic question about it (this is how they fund your penny). You will then be matched up with an opponent and you can play it out.

There are two games which in my own opinion, I think have the best chances of winning. The best would be high low (Hi-Lo). You get a card, you guess higher or lower. If you are correct you will move on, you will start over. It’s pretty easy to learn, and yet, fun to play. The other game involves some skill and a bit of luck. It’s a mining game where you and your opponent each start out with 6 gold nuggets labeled 1-6 as their weight. You and your opponent each put one nugget on the scale at the same time. The person using the heavier nugget wins the combined weight in points. The person who has the most points wins and doubles up. :) There are plenty of other games; some are worth more than others. The minimum payout is $10, which won't take a lot of time to accumulate (depending on your luck).

Even so, if you are looking to take a break from all of this blogging or whatever you are doing, and instead test your luck in earning a free domain name or a free hosting plan, then this would be the way to go. You can have some fun and earn a bit of money while you're at it. Maybe cover up some expenses here and there. Have fun. :)

-Aud

P.S. Earn your first 32 cents by signing up for Moola under my referral link HERE.

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Few of you have probably thought "I have no time to blog, I have this and this to do". Well, usually, that's not the case. When you're blogging, you usually do it when you DO have time. That’s one of the good parts about blogging, whether you're making an income from blogging or not, you get to make it on your schedule. Nobody out there is forcing you to do anything. In fact, if you wanted to (which I don't think many of you would :) ), you could leave your blog for a few days, weeks, or months! At a normal day job, you have to work when you are told to work, and usually do what you are told to do.

While this freedom does result in a high percentage of failed blogs (yes, indeed), it can also be a positive thing to those of us who do succeed. If you have something important to attend to (party, meeting, any sort of social gathering), then just leave your blog for a day. It's not like you have to blog every single day. Sometimes, one has to know when to stop blogging and when to resume blogging.

Blogging lets you work on your own schedule. If you set goals for yourself, this can be one of the best aspects of blogging, but if you like to procrastinate (we all do, haha) and then working whenever you choose to without being told what to do...then blogging may not be quite as successful. Hope this advice helps.

See you soon!

-Aud

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The blog theme is one of the most important aspects of your site. Now, I am not saying I know exactly how a blog should look like, but if your site is unattractive, readers will usually read the article that they came for and leave. There are hundreds of thousands of free themes out there, but is it worth it to purchase one from a coder who knows what they are doing and can customize it to your liking?

There are obviously quite a few benefits to purchasing your own theme. The first being you will be the only blog out there with that exact layout (not the case with me). You will be able to customize everything about it down to the smallest placement. You can optimize certain parts of your site, make your banner ads seemingly invisible to your readers, yet still have them there to sell them, and many other possibilities. Buying a theme will make your blog way more unique and personal than the average blog, and it is almost always the determining factor in whether or not your blog will succeed. Sometimes, it will be worth it.

Unfortunately, there is always a flip side to the coin. Sometimes, you should not purchase a theme specifically for your blog. If you don’t think you can earn the money back easily, then don’t buy one. It is as simple as that; there are so many free themes out there that you could easily pick one to your liking. With thousands of them readily accessible, one of them is bound to be your new favorite theme. If you plan on running a small niche blog that you only hope to pick up loose change with Adsense or other advertising programs, then you will not need a specialized layout. You can simply use a free theme, and you’re well on your way.

I sincerely believe in purchasing your own theme to make your site flawless. However, when it came time to pick out a theme, I went with a free one. The reason is that I really don’t have the funds to get a quality theme coded at the current time. If I were to get one coded, it wouldn’t have all the cool features I wanted. So I decided that I will use a free one until I have earned enough money for a layout for my blog. Hopefully, in a couple of months.

Thanks for reading!

-Aud

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Yes, starting a free blog is obviously the first step any blogger (unless you are willing to spend money) should take. There are many different reasons why one would start a free blog. There are also many different places you can set up your free blog, each with its own benefits and downfalls. Personally, I use Blogger, but that does not necessarily mean I dislike other blogging platforms. Again, each of them have their own strengths and weaknesses.

The two major blogging platforms that I will go over are Google’s Blogger and WordPress. Each service will allow you a few different services that may or may not suit some bloggers, and each offer different blogs in general. The following advice will be based on my previous experiences with each of these services. Having used both extensively for free blogs, you can trust that I know what you are looking for.

Just a tidbit of history; WordPress has been around for about five years now. It was developed by a team of coders, and now it is owned by its creator. It has not been sold to any large industry like Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft. It has more freedom because it’s creation was purely for bloggers, versus the various Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft blogging services who were only looking for financial gains. With this comes many features that can help you create an award winning blog.

There are several features I like about this blog. The Autopost has got to be the biggest. I can schedule a post to automatically be posted at whatever time, day, month, and year of my choosing. That way I won’t have to worry about upsetting my audience while out of town. I can simply write some posts ahead of time and enjoy my vacation. They have a stats system implemented into your blog so you can discover how many people view your blog each day; what posts get the most views, what the most popular search engine terms used to find your blog are, what links they clicked on your blog, and much more. This is similar to Google Analytics, which I will discuss later on.

Then there would be the top dog Google’s blogging service called Blogger. Blogger contains a few things that you may like especially for a free blogging service. You can find certain themes online that are made with CSS to update your blog. They allow you to change the layout without paying monthly fees. Their widget system is a lot better. Not only do they have more and better widgets, but customizing them into the layout is much easier as you can get a visual while doing it. The last big point is that you can sell advertisements on your blog. They are Google Adsense capable, and will also allow things like Entrecard, Yahoo Ads, Project Wonderful ads, and any other ad service you can find out there. You can also sell 125×125 ads on the side. :)

So which one should you consider? It all comes down to what you want your blog to do. Both blogging services are great, however I personally have a favorite. Remember, this is based on my opinion, you are always entitled to your own.

WordPress Users:

1. Interested in the Autopost feature
   
2. Dislike Google Analytics updating stats daily, WordPress does every new visit
3. Wish to move their blog to their own domain eventually (you would want to use WordPress for your own domain instead of Blogger for many reasons)
4. You have no interest in putting up ads
5. Your only way of monetizing is with affiliate links in your posts; but you can also secretly sell links in Blogroll

Blogger Users:

1. Want their free blog to be able to make a lot of money (not guaranteed, you need EFFORT)
   
2. Interested in ad services like Entrecard for both traffic and advertising
3. Have no plans of moving to their own domain in the future
4. Willing to use Google Analytics

So this is what I have listed. The big differences between the blogging services as well as which free blogging service you should use when starting your blog. I hope this has helped you at least somewhat, and if you need additional information, feel free to ask or comment on this post.

-Aud

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Hey everyone,

First off, welcome to my blog! :) My name is Aud. I have decided to make a business blog because business is what I intend to major in as well as become well associated with. My blog will usually include some tidbits about my life, but usually just online marketing tools and advice. If I find something worthwhile, I will post it here and try to help out everyone! I will also provide some beginner blogging tips for some of those who need it. I am fairly experienced in blogging; I have previously used Wordpress, Squidoo, Blogspot, etc. Each and every one of them focuses on a major topic. This one will mainly focus on Business/Marketing/Blogging. If my blog helps, please show your support by subscribing to my RSS feed. I know this might not be the best blog in the world, but hey, I'm trying! :)

I am a college student intending to major in business. I enjoy helping others with blogging as well as marketing. Outside of using the computer, I like to draw, play the piano, and play badminton.

See you guys tomorrow!

-Aud

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