Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income is not your average get-rich-quick paperback. You won’t find any outrageous and sensational claims in this book. In fact, authors Chris Garrett and Darren Rowse are quick to make the point that blogging isn’t a magical cash cow but something that can fill your bank account only if you know your stuff. Then they proceed to teach you all the techniques they themselves have used to achieve wealth through blogging.

Making money from a blog is no different than any other career—you need the right tools and techniques in order to be successful. The book offers a very brief explanation of what blogging is then moves on to help you choose a topic that will draw in the traffic you need to make it profitable. You’ll also be taught how to properly set up a blog, making it visually appealing as well as interesting to your target audience.

Of course, marketing your blog is essential if you want to profit from it and Garrett and Rowse teach their readers how to analyze the market in order to take advantage of it. Unless you know how the market trends and what consumers need you won’t be successful no matter how good your blogging skills are! They then go on to teach you a number of ways to promote your blog. After all, without promotion the only traffic you’ll have is accidental surfers and that’s every blogger’s nightmare.

Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income doesn’t stop there, however. You will learn about niches and why they are so important. A niche is a part of the market that is very specialized, a subject that stands by itself. One example of niche writing is the Little Leather Library collection published in the 1920’s. They are not common but there is a definite interest in them for one segment of the population. That particular niche has a small but fairly well-to-do consumer base. Garret and Rowse teach you how to choose one or two niches that are right for you and give you the tools to exploit them.

You will learn the difference between direct and indirect monetization, too. An example of indirect monetization is one you’re probably familiar with in some way, affiliate commissions. This method funnels money to you as a result of someone else’s efforts. Direct monetization would include freelance writing that creates earnings based on how many people read your material. You’ll find out how to do effective and profitable advertising that promotes your blog and puts it in the top results of search engines.

Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income isn’t just another scheme for parting you from your money. It’s an informative book that gives you the tools and techniques you need to start your journey to financial independence.

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Hi There my name is Brian, I’m the owner of a popular social network for bloggers named Blog Engage. I also own a personal blog about SEO and Marketing check it out if you wish. I want to thank Bjorn for inviting me to guest post on his blog. I hope you enjoy my article and please do join us in discussions below.

I hear it often and you probably have as well. Don’t start a blog about making money online or blogging about blogging the market is to saturated. I would like to take this statement and burn it if I had the chance.

Never let anyone determine what your going to do with your life. If you want to start a blog about blogging the you go ahead and do that. If you want to start a blog about blogging then you go ahead and do that also.

You’re probably asking yourself right now what is he thinking about we honestly have to many blogs within these two niches already. Perhaps you are right but I’m telling you right now if you follow these simply steps and suggestions you can start a blog in any niche you want.

Tell me something I don’t already know

When blogging in a specific niche you have to be innovative and unique. You have to come up with ideas to share with your readers that no one has ever thought of before. When you can create new content and interesting ideas it doesn’t matter how saturated a market is the people will listen.

Be the first one to know about it

When your telling your readers about new deals or offers in the make money online niche you have to be the first one to know about it. Being the first one to know about a new opportunity gives your over saturated blog a head start on the game. Subscribe to the popular blogs RSS feeds and start paying attention to your industry news. You have to be the first one on the scene with the news.

Promote it like there’s no tomorrow

Part of being first or telling me something I don’t already know is promotion. Great you have an original idea but how the heck will I learn about it? How are you going to reach me with your news. Your story can be great but if you have no one reading your blog it’s not going to do so well.

Join all  the large social networks such as digg, reddit, blogengage, stumbleupm and promote your articles. You have to get the message out to the people so thy can follow it back to your blog. In today’s economy if you build it they will not come, you have to bring them there.

So next time you think about starting a blog don’t let anyone boss you around or put a damper on your parade. You can do it you just have to follow my suggestions and excel compared to your competition.

Provide new and exciting content, tell us something we don’t already know and keep on coming up with new ideas that are superior to your competitors. Please just do not let other people tell you what to do with your blog. If you want to blog about blogging or blog about making money online you do it and be proud of it.

Question Period

What’s your thoughts on the whole idea? Are you a fan of starting blogs in saturated fields or do you prefer to just blog about something else non related? I’m a  guest poster here so please do share in discussions with me.

Thanks,

Brian

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As of now, the new WordPress 3.0 is available for download. This 16th major release of the WordPress team is another quite big upgrade, packed with new features that are intended to keep WordPress, which is currently one of the biggest content management systems in te world, up to date with all the new technologies and needs.
What is new in WordPress 3.0?

• New and configurable navigation menu’s
• Single and Multi user (MU WordPress) in one
• Shortlinks created by WordPress, in the post itself
• Improved plugins listings
• Post Types (default ones, and ability to create your own)
• Taxonomies to group posts together. This was already done by Categories and Tags, but now WordPress has the ability to add your own cutom taxonomies
• A lighter interface
• Contextual help
• And 1,217 bug fixes and feature enhancements

If you feel like giving the new WordPress 3.0 a try, you can download it from the link below the video

Download WordPress 3.0
WordPress Training Package

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The article below is a guestpost. If you are interested in writing a guest post on icantinternet.org, check out the guidelines for guestposting in the menu above.

The author of this post is Shahul- a broadband analyst from VAC Media, who reviews, writes and publishes latest internet trends for UK broadband comparison website.

Starting a blog and writing an article would be easy for someone who has time to invest. But gaining trust is being patient and planning our investment of time. Reliability is what humans expect from every product, so is our blog. Being reliable isn’t very hard. It’s simple as trying to be- who you are, in a more professional manner.

I wish to share a few tips that can help a writer or blog to gain trust from its readers.

1. Craft the content

Crafting the content starts from deciding on what topic to write. It’s not about writing for a schedule. Search for the requirements of a reader, unique content, more specific issues etc before deciding a topic. Let the topic be more clear, simple and if required catchy too! But don’t try to make all the topics catchy which can create too much of hype for the blog.

Also I don’t believe in word limitations. Some say large contents get well than smaller contents and vice versa. However it depends on the topic, so do not scratch too much on something that is of no good.

2. Provide open and Genuine facts

Any content in your blog- let it be a post, news, or something to say about yourself, try to provide open and genuine facts. Writing an article without a proper research would let you mention incorrect information. It’s more important not to lose trust than to gain it.

3. Choose the best images

I have seen many good articles with the worst images. May be they concentrate more on SEO and loading time. But it’s important to note that the world is behind real time and visual searches. An image can tell your reader more than what is written.

Spend at least three fourth time of writing a content to chose a relevant image for your post. Creative images like graphs, scribbling on a notepad, hand drawing, etc, can certainly improve your reader’s experience. Creating something unique would make the readers to understand your involvement towards the work.

4. Check and recheck your content

This is one of the most important work that you do before you hit the publish button. If I am going to be lazy to read my content then who else will. An article should be published only when you are really satisfied and happy that you have done a great job!

“An actor does a thousand touch ups before he or she is ready for the shoot!”

Also take time to correct and sharpen the article if it’s a guest post. No article is the best for the first time. The more you fine tune, the more it looks good.

5. Publicize using proper social media

Once the content is created, it is important to publicize it to the target audience. I have seen many blogs which would allow sharing through all the social media possible. That’s seriously of no use and I am sure no one can manage all of those. May be we can maintain a common share me button, otherwise mention only the social media which you actively participate.

For example: Social media like Digg is used for technology updates, Twitter is used for technology and instant happenings and Facebook is common sharing platform. Integration of these resources can also be done using few plugins.

6. Respond to every comment in depth

Response to the readers is crucial and easy way to gain trust. Be it a new or frequent user of your blog; respond to every comment with detailed information. If it’s an appreciation acknowledge it, if someone identifies a mistake correct it and thank the reader for the intimation. If it’s a query then understand the issue and guide him with clear and detailed information. Make sure that the user do not search for an extra information or contact you back with a different question on the same issue.

Replying to comments is not just restricted to the blog it includes social media as well. Thank and appreciate someone who likes your post.
[ad]
7. Openly accept the superior

There might be few instances where a writer would get a more intellectual reader. Do not argue too much especially if you know that you are wrong. Instead accept and appreciate his efforts. If possible offer him a chance to write on your blog, may be that can go viral. However it is important to overcome the situation and make it a win-win situation.

Also while using social media like Digg and Facebook you would come across many new and inspiring ideas. Do take time in leaving a word to appreciate their efforts.

8. Maintain a regular post interval

Consistency is what people look for when they come back for the second time. The first time someone likes a site would bookmark it. The second and third time they watch it more closely. If a reader does not get a post when he actually expected that’s the ultimate failure of the blog.

To overcome the situation you can write on few general topics from the niche and schedule it so as to find enough time for other posts.

9. Proper link outs

A regular reader would start looking for your recommendations. The blogs or websites that links out of your site are considered more valuable for a regular reader. Links which are irrelevant and broken can upset a reader which can turn up losing trust on the blog.

10. Stay focused on what you want

It’s important to read and know more about blogging and marketing a blog. However it’s important to impose something, that makes our blog unique than the rest. Do not miss out on any chance that helps you market the site. More the scheduled the blog is more the readers you gain.

Also do not expect all your of your posts to go viral. You will never know when a post would go viral. But it’s important that you do not lose interest and keep crafting every post that you publish.

There are more than 10 things that can help us gain more trust. But these are something which I consider more important. I would appreciate if you can share your thoughts on this topic.

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Why Your Residential Community Should Have a Blog

Face to face interaction is becoming less and less common these days. Befriending neighbors in your residential community is not like it used to be. Instead of having neighbors over for coffee, people are chatting online. Something that could really bring a residential community together in this age of technology is having a community blog. Such a blog would not only help to bring neighbors together, but it would also serve several other uses for the community as well.

One of the most compelling reasons to start a blog for your residential community is to entice newcomers to your town. A blog that lists useful information about local events might just entice out-of-towners to realize that your city is just what they had in mind for a relaxing getaway. Just think - if someone is interested in playing a round of golf as they pass through Utah, they may do a Google search for “Utah golf community”. A Utah community that has a nice golf course might attract those people thanks to their informational blog. Increasing the number of visitors to your community will bring in more revenue, which will in turn make the blog a wise investment.

The fact of the matter is that a community blog could be a great source of advertising income for the community and an efficient way to stimulate the local economy. Local businesses could be given priority for advertising and they would of course be reaching their target demographic of local residents. These local residents will keep coming back again and again as the blog will hold much useful information for residents of the community.

Local businesses should be given prime advertising space to encourage residents to buy local and therefore increase the local economy. The community blog could then bring in some revenue thanks to the marketing from the local businesses. This money could be put toward school funds and community improvements. Putting good information like good deals and community events will have people coming back again and again. Such a solution would increase community spirit and encourage residents to get involved with community events. Indeed, when it comes to bettering a community both financially and socially, there is no better way than to start a community blog.

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Affiliate marketers using WordPress know that integrating the right plugins will increase efficiency and usability, which will maximize the performance of the sites. These ten will each prove to be a worthwhile plugin to your toolkit, a step toward greater success.

1. WordPress Link Cloaking Program: if you like to include links to your selected affiliate programs or products in your posts, but don’t like to take the time to do it – or don’t want to forget to do it – this program will do it for you. Designate word groups or phrases and when you type them into your content a link will be automatically created.
2. phpBay Pro: if you are an eBay affiliate, then this is definitely a plugin that you should be running on your blog to embed eBay listings that are easily optimised for search engines. A similarly polished plugin is available from the developer for Amazon affiliates.



3. AdRotator from Clickbank: this plugin may be used with Adsense or function as an alternative to it if you’re unhappy with the low return on the Adsense ads that get fed to your site. It will randomly select an ad from your specified collection and display the advertisement where you want it.
4. Amazon Media Manager: a must for affiliates with Amazon and Amazon Marketplace, this plugin does just what you’d expect. It allows you the simplest way to adds products from Amazon to your WordPress blog, and keeps track of what you’ve added, allowing for quick and easy organization.
5. Wp-Amazon: seamless synchronization is simplified even more by making the entire Amazon catalog available through WordPress. It creates an “Insert from Amazon” link for below your posting area on entry and edit pages. Click it and open a search page for Amazon.com that allows you to peruse what’s there by product lines.
6. CafePress WordPress Plugin: this tool lets you effortless combine the PrestoGifto API, the CafePress API, and WordPress functions to crafts your pages. Product layout is simplified, thumbnails can be added and their size adjusted, and you select from a wide inventory of fonts, colors and styles. Choose any of the nearly 60 million products CafePress sells and feature them anywhere on your page, including sidebars or footers, or create their own unique page if you wish.
7. Chitika eMiniMalls Sidebar widget for WordPress v2.0: a lot of affiliates are having fun and success with Chitika, and this widget let’s you skip the course on HTML and simply drag and drop a Chitika eMiniMall into your sidebar.
8. Bidvertiser WP Widget: this tool allows you to make use of BidVertiser ads on your blog or site with just a couple of clicks.

[ad#r]

9. Adsense Deluxe: the beauty of this plugin is that it allows you to easily add Google or Yahoo! ads into your content wherever you want. Never need to cut and paste Adsense code again! And you control which ads you employ.
10. Adsense Injection: this is another plugin that allows you to optimize your Adsense usage. This one takes random paragraph breaks in your content and interjects Adsense code. You can choose the colors and formats you want the otherwise random selections to be chosen from. There’s one injection per article, which includes 1-3 ads.

If creating pages that consistently make money is your goal, these 10 WordPress plugins will give you the business in the best possible way. Each is a proven winner when it comes to producing a healthier bottom line.

James Adams is a blogger and designer who works as a contributor and editor of the CreativeCloud design blog for an ecommerce store specialising in the HP 339 ink cartridge and other media supplies. He covers topics ranging from modern art to vintage print ads to gadgets and printed media design.

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This post is a guest post. For more information on submitting your own guest post for icantinternet.org, check this page.

What makes the compelling content? What extra ingredients you should add which will make the content compelling so that everyone starts linking to it like crazy? Well these are the few questions which every blogger, internet marketer and every other person (including me) thinks while promoting his website. What follows next are the few not so obvious tips which will help you to make your content more compelling.

Uniqueness is not everything – What? Shocked? Every article on creating compelling content recommends writing unique content. Of course, if you have something really unique it is great. But is it possible? No because every topic you can imagine is already written millions of times on web (except if you are a scientist and have discovered something new). What is important is the style you are using while writing. Your content should have a personal touch so that your readers can associate themselves with you.

Clear and Concise – In the last point we discussed about the style of writing. This point will elaborate more about it. Write in a clear and concise way so that the message you want to deliver reaches your audience easily. Avoid using slangs or jargons which are difficult to understand. Remember that your visitors don’t have time to think, they want everything without doing any effort. So make your content straight and simple.

Credibility is important – No matter what you write, how much research you’ve done and how many hours you put into it. It won’t go viral if you don’t have any loyal following that trusts you and can help you to promote it. Imagine if you and Darren Rowse of Problogger write the same thing at the same moment almost everybody would link to Problogger and you will become invisible in the crowd. So lesson learned is to make your content look compelling you need to have some credibility.

People love interactions – Interaction should not only be in the form of comments, it could be in lot of other ways like inviting them to contribute a tip to the article or linking to their posts, doing quizzes and surveys etc. Asking your readers to help you and giving them some exposure in back is a great way to build huge compelling lists. Take a look at the huge list of last minute gift ideas by toilet entrepreneur here which might not be possible without reader contributions.

Speak what others want to listen – Your content should speak what your visitors want to hear. It should address the problems they are facing and provide them with the effective solutions. It should help them to make their lives easier.

So as we’ve seen that to make your content more compelling you need to have credibility, high user interaction and clear and concise content which can deliver your message in an effective way and can help your readers in making their lives easier. What are your opinions about it? Feel free to share it in the comments below.

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Have  you heard about the BlogEngage Weekly Word Challenge? If you haven’t yet, you should check it out. The idea is that everybody who joins the challenge writes a post every week with the voted word in the title. What is great about this weekly word challenge is that it forces you to be creative around a specific topic. It forces you to write. Besides this, it helps you receive extra links and extra traffic, and extra social activity too!

So I hear you thinking, what would be this weeks word(s)? You guessed it right, my favourite blogs

So, here it is, some of my favourite blogs:

Problogger.net

blogussion.com

freebloghelp.com

dailyblogtips.com

shirleyszone.com

source-blogger.com

theinfopreneur.net

famousbloggers.net

blogengage.com

themoneycult.com

This is just a small collection of blogs that I regularly read, and enjoy. I haven’t written any descriptions next to it, since I would like you to explore each one of them, and see the value they have, without me steering it in any particular direction. I suggest you no only visit and read these blogs, but also comment on them, and check back on your comments (or check follow up via email). Many of these bloggers don’t just write great blogs, they’re also great people, and can be become great friends to you too!

Cheers, and I hope to see alot of extra great blogs in the comments!

(Oh, and my appologies to all that I forgot to mention, I’ll probably update this list in the coming days )

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Many people who write content for the web will advise that it is important to learn and understand how to use search engine optimization (SEO) effectively. While SEO is important, it is not the only thing that makes an article show up on the top page of search engine results. More and more frequently, search engines are using a technique called latent semantic indexing, or LSI, to help rank and index web content.

With SEO in mind, many content writers do extensive keyword research, carefully selecting the keywords and phrases that are likely to get their content to the top of the search engine results page. Then, they focus on using the right amount of those keywords in the article, hoping that the combination of research and keyword use will be enough to succeed.

But consumers are getting smarter with their searching, and search engines are competing more than ever to offer a more personalized and detailed search experience. Rather than just taking into effect the repeated use of certain keywords, search engines are now reading content to determine if the overall content is relevant to the keyword phrases. If the article is considered to be highly relevant, then it will appear higher in the search results than an article that is deemed to have little overall relevance to the keywords used.

For example, if an article about baseball features the keyword phrase “baseball glove,” the search engine is also going to scan the content for related keywords, such as “baseball bat,” “outfield,” and “baseball team.” In short, the search engine is checking the content to make sure that the entire article is relevant to baseball and provides value to the reader. In the end, the more relevant the content, the higher the content will rank within the search results.

[ad]An additional benefit to search engines using LSI is more precise results overall. Many words in the English language have more than one definition. By using LSI, a search engine can look at the overall body of content to determine which meaning is most applicable and index the content more specifically.

While SEO will continue to play an important part of effective online writing techniques, paying attention to LSI is growing increasingly important. Search engines adjust their parameters to be the most useful for those who are searching content, not those who create it. As a result, the online content writers who pay attention to the subtle changes in search engine function will see the best results over the long-term.

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[ad]1. Be passionate about your topic

I said it before in “Real Successful Blogging”, and I am saying it again. Passion is not a bonus, it is a must.
If you are passionate about your topic, you will be knowledgeable, you will know your market (the other people who are into that specific topic), and you will be able to follow up on the developments in that area. Something that would bore you to death if you are blogging about a subject just for the money instead of the passion.

2. Reach out

Blogging is not about you, it’s about others (ok, and you too). Reach out to others, write about whose blogs or articles you liked. This works twofold: first, people are always looking for reviews and views on things. Do other bloggers like this blog or website or tool? Do other photographers like that camera? Second: the people you are blogging about will appreciate the mentioning and the link (that is, if it is positive ) and will return the favor.

3. Be heard, be social

Get your word out, and people will link to you.
This can be done by speaking at a conference, setting up a large project or contest, participate very actively on forums, perhaps even as a moderator.
Try to stay on top of things, so that you can not only participate in conversations, but you can start them. If you can then also blog about these topics, it will definately get you authority and links.

4. Look real

If you want people to remember you, to want to link to you, to believe you, you need to look real to them. The first way to do this, is by the way your website or blog looks and feels. For instance:
* What’s your domainname, is it something that looks real, not scammy? Can people easily remember it?
* Does the layout and the design of your site add to the content and the message you want to bring? For instance, a yellowish, bright playful webdesign doesn’t add to your message if you’re an undertaker.
* How’s your content? Interesting and unique? Or boring or copied from somewhere else?
* How is your about page? Does it say something about you? Will people remember you by it?
* How is the useability of your site? Is it easy to understand? Or does it look good, but is hell to use?
There’s no need to answer positive on all these questions right away. But they are a good strategy to follow to increase your credibility on the internet.

5. Conversation

Markets are conversations, your readers are your audience, and your market. Have conversations with them. You do this through your blogposts. They can do that through the comments. Invite them to comment on your posts. Make it a two-way conversation, make it a community. [ad#r] After a while, a part of your audience will start communicating with you through their blog, and this is where the links start coming in.

6. Keep building

Rome wasn’t built overnight. Nor was Microsoft, Apple, or any other great success story. You need to keep working on it, keep building on your website, on your credibility, on your market position. This can take years, but you will get there eventually. Just keep building on it. Day by day.

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