BlogSire

Image via Wikipedia

Everybody who uses Wordpress would have their favorite plugins and whether its because it makes blogging easier for them or because it adds ‘bells and whistles’ to their blog they would love these useful tools. I thought I would list my favorite.

1. All In On SEO: This will help tweak your blog for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
2. Commentluv: We all love comments and this plugin will help to entice comments by linking to the persons last post on their own blog.
3. Dagon Sitemap Generator: I fond this really handy as it generates a fully customizable sitemap
4. Dean’s Permalinks Migration: I found this necessary as I used a permalinks structure that was not SEO friendly. The trouble is if I changed it it would break my all the old links to my blog. This plugin saved the day.
5. Wordpress Automatic upgrade: I found this to be essential as it will automatically update your wordpress to the latest version.
6. Zemanta: great utility for placing relevant images and links into wordpress
7. Show Top Commentators: Another plugin that rewards people for commenting on your posts.
8. Chitika eMiniMals: This is a gem as it increases the revenue per individual post. You need to be a Chitika member for this to work. You can join here.

Of course there are more that I use but these are my favorite.

Image via WikipediaI know of a lot of bloggers who would dearly love to add pictures to their post but don’t because it is all too hard. Unless they have their own photos it is just too time consuming to search the net for the right photo, especially one that they can legally use. This is where Zemanta comes in, and it is so easy to use. Once installed, and there are many versions from FireFox extension to Wordpress plugin, you just start typing your post as normal knowing that Zemanta is monitoring your work finding you the best links and photos as your work progresses. You just select the ones you want to use and Zementa places it automatically in your post.

There is no need to worry about copyright as all suggested content is copyright cleared being either clearly licenced as Creative Commons, or approved by stock providers. As you type the suggestions continue to change giving you a great selection to choose from. It will even insert your Amazon affiliate ID into any amazon links so that you can increase your earning potential.

All links and pictures in this post were inserted with a click of the mouse! How easy is that?

Note, I just tried to insert another picture and it overwrote the first one so it seems it will only allow one per post?

I would say that every blogger has heard many times over how important content is to ones post, how it is the number one factor that will bring return visitors and the all important high PR factor. The thing is how do people find your blog and all that good content? There is no point taking the time to write fantastic posts and then sitting on your rear end waiting for visitors to come and visit. Sure if you use the right keywords and stuff search engines may send you someone every now and again but it’s going to take you a hell of a long time to get a decent readership.

Let’s face it, nothing in life is easy and blogging is no different. You have to work at getting you ‘Blogging Name’ out there. One of the best ways is by socializing with other bloggers and you can do this by joining many of the communal blogging sites, by using places like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter etc, but I would say the most important way is by commenting on other peoples blogs.

A lot of bloggers also realize this, but where they fail is in their content. They feel that all they need do is to leave boring inane comments like ‘good post’, ‘nice blog’, ‘good job’ and other crap thinking that this will bring them the ‘hits’ that they require. How wrong they are, and for three main reasons. The first is that most blogs use the ‘nofollow’ attribute and so search engines ignore these comments. The second is that other bloggers hate these moronic responses and are now immune to them switching them off subconsciously and completely ignoring them. The last one is that the blog’s owner will more likely than not delete them and so the whole effort of the useless comment was wasted.

Now, if on the other hand the comment was relevant to the post and contained good content, you are showing others that you are knowledgeable on the subject and this will intrigue many a reader of your comment, which will have a huge potential for gaining those readers that you are pining for.

I want to direct you to a particular post on the popular Rambling Thoughts Blog! Neerav Bhatt, the owner of the blog, places such an importance on comments that he actually gives out prizes to people who write helpful comments on his blog. He does this for a reason, and that is because of the knowledge that good comments actually increase the value of his blog, and this is important to him, because although he is earning thousands of dollars via his blog, he is a little short of the Problogger whose earning potential has reached the six figure mark! Yep that is over $100,000 dollars a year. Now if that isn’t enough incentive to only put out good content comments, I don’t know what is.

A lot of people become bloggers because they think that they can make money through the venture and when the cash does not start flowing in they give up. The truth is that you can make money blogging but it isn’t as easy as starting a blog, whacking some adsense code on it and waiting for the money to roll in.

You have to work at it, writing good content and with time building up a good readership. Reading other peoples blogs is a great way of gaining knowledge in ways of promoting blogs, writing skills, seo tips and so on. It is also a good idea to leave comments on other peoples blogs remembering that comments should also be of good content.

Another way of making good money on you blogs is by doing paid posts. PPP is a company that offers many paid tasks for bloggers. While some bloggers prefer not to do paid posts as they feel it cheapens their blog, the truth is that if you pick the right tasks it can actually enhance your blog and give you many ideas for future posts.

If getting paid for blogging appeals to you you will actually get paid for reviewing this post, just click on this badge.

I am trying another Wordpress plug-in to see if it will generate more comments. Generally, when you comment on a blog your comment is not seen by the search engines because most blogs use the ‘no follow’ tags. With the commentluv plug-in installed not only is your comment seen by search engines, it will also link to the last post on your blog. Neat huh?

I am usually very careful when I do my paid posts to make sure that I do not go against the TOS of any of the paid sites. After all who wants to go through all that hard work only to have the post rejected. Unfortunately, the other day one of my posts was rejected by PPP, the reason being that the preceding

Your last non-PayPerPost post must have been within the past 7 days. “We are unable to accept your post because your previous non-PayPerPost post was on [8-march]. This post we’re rejecting was written on [18-march]. Although you have non-PayPerPost post on [18-march], interim posts written on the same day as your PayPerPost posts do not count. Sorry for the inconvenience and we do apologize that you will not be able to resubmit this post. Thank you!

Gee, how am I supposed to remember every single point in everyones TOS. Anyway, those of you who write for PPP may want to keep this point in mind.

I know it’s been done before but I wanted to have my own personal list of blogging commandments.

1. Thou shalt not plagiarize

2. Thou shalt not publish thy content without checking thy spelling or thy punctuation

3. Thou shalt always be courteous and reply to those who comment on your blog

4. Thou shalt make thy headings interesting to catch thy readers attention

5. Thou shalt use keywords to appease the Search Engine Gods and so that thy readers may find your posts

6. Thou shalt post regularly

7. Thou shalt post good content

8. Thou shalt visit other blogs and leave interesting comments to encourage others to visit thy blog.

9. Thou shalt promote thy blogs

10. Thou shalt not take thy reader’s intelligence for granted, so thy post should be factual and not misleading

Bloggers are able to bring more value to their readers and their blogs thanks to the fact that Blogcatalog has decided to partner with SezWho. With SezWho you are now able to add a comment rating system to your blog.

According to the email I received from BlogCatalog,

Now you will automatically be able to increase your exposure on all SezWho-enabled sites, expand your online network without having to join yet another social network, and have the option of adding a new BlogCatalog-SezWho widget to your blog.

Even if you don’t want SezWho features on your blog, you still benefit because your BlogCatalog avatar will appear on SezWho-enabled sites and link back to your profile page where new readers can discover your blogs.

I have SezWho on all my blogs and I figure that it adds a nice touch to them all.

When starting your first blog you may want to consider the following blogging tips. You want to make sure you pick a topic that you can write confidently about as this will reflect in your quality of your posts. Also pick a template that is easy on the eye and easy to configure so that you can add revenue-generating code such as adsense.

Always proofread your posts to make sure they are of your best quality checking both grammar and spelling. Also make sure you use punctuation and paragraphs in order to make it easier for your visitors to read.

When promoting your blog always link to the posts that you think are your best work as posting to the home page will always list your latest post which is not necessarily your best. You may also just want to highlight a post that you just want to get extra exposure, like the one that I wrote today called Women Suffer From ‘It’s All About Me Syndrome’

That’s right folks, I have found another way to promote your blogs and it isn’t going to cost you a cent. It’s called Blog Engage and it is one of the best ways I’ve found to submit all your favourite posts.

You can engage with other bloggers and there is the possibility of generating real solid traffic. Take the time to vote for the Blogs you like and just think that if you take the time to do this then someone is liable to vote for yours!

Remember that not only can you submit your blogs; you can also submit your favourite posts as well. Well, what are you waiting for? Join up now!!!!