B.S.I. Investigation - An Island Life

B.S.I. Investigation - An Island Life

To be honest, unless I went digging through the code of this one, I don't think I could find anything at all I could add.

The writer utilizes entertaining photos to keep the reader occupied.
The blog utilizes prime space for ads that compliment the overall blog.
The design is great, clean and well organized.
The writer utilizes tags - which I'm a big fan of.
There is a contact option in a very visible location.

The absolute single tip that I can offer this blogger for monetizing this blog would be to participate in Commission Junction, Shareasale or similar affiliate opportunities and integrate them into her postings.

As an example: She could utilize a travel affiliate to link her own travel links to Travelocity or Hotwire, etc.

Another linking tip would be to anchor keywords with outbound links such as television shows, etc.

By linking those to top ranking blogs designed around those shows would probably do wonders for the traffic. Anyone have anything else they'd add as a tip?

B.S.I. Investigation - Merry's Kitchen

B.S.I. Investigation - Merry's Kitchen



Tip One: One the Wordpress Platform, you'll get the most mileage out of creating keyword rich titles if you use what's called pretty permalinks.

Instead of having a link look like this:
http://merryskitchen.com/?p=43

Your link would look like this:
http://merryskitchen.com/Ben-an-Jerrys-New-Ice-Cream-Flavors

This is done by going to Options, Permalinks and selecting the name based option. Be sure to update your changes at the bottom before exiting that page.



Tip Two: You have incredible opportunity to take advantage of Amazon links. When you are doing product reviews or recommendations, link to an Amazon affiliate link. Since you are on Wordpress, you can utilize the Amazon plugin that allows you to drag and drop links and pictures too.



Tip Three: Build on your About Page. You are offering some great advice, reviews and information, but people will develop a stronger loyalty if they feel they know you. We're always more prone to buy from a friend then a stranger.



Tip Four: Tag your posts. Technorati tags are a great way to drive traffic for specific topics. In Wordpress you can either insert them with a plugin or you can use Qumana or BlogDesk blog editors (both are free downloads) and insert them easily that way.



Tip Five: If you're looking to monetize your blog or find ways of earning -- I highly recommend signing up for ReviewMe. You're already offering product reviews so it would be a nice fit right into your content. You can see how I have my MomGadget Request a Review Page set up and use whatever portions of it you like if you would like to set up a page similar.

Merry ~ Thanks so much for letting me critique your blog. I've enjoyed looking yours over and might even have gained a few pounds during the investigation. I hope these tips help you and I wish you continued success.

Blogging 101 - Start to Finish

Be a part of round table discussion to help build and monetize your blog from beginning to end.

Discussion currently underway on the MomGadget Forum!

B.S.I. Investigation - My Fashion E-Mall Blog!

B.S.I. Investigation - My Fashion E-Mall Blog!

Tip One: Fashion blogs and eBay are both huge right now. It's a great niche to get into. The first thing I noticed that I would personally change is the template. You have a trendy niche and need a trendy snazzy template to go with it. Doesn't need to be anything fancy - perhaps just playing with the colors a bit would bring enough splash of color to the blog to make it "fashionable" to the eye.

Tip Two: Try moving your profile/about section down a bit and utilizing that top sidebar space for your profit generators. It's prime spacing for Google Ads or similar pay per click ads. A pay per sale ad might work if you have a hot item that you could get a solid click through rate on.

Tip Three: Every blogger that wishes to be taken seriously needs to have a way for readers to contact them. This shows your readers you're a real person and lets them know you value them enough to have them contact you any time they have questions or recommendations.

Tip Four: Labels or Tags - I'm a big believer in labels or tags. I have seen firsthand what a few quality labels can do for a blogs traffic. If you would rather not use the tags, perhaps highlighting key words within the text of your posts might be something to consider. It helps the search engines to zero in on those keywords.

Tip Five: Adbrite Ads - consider relocating your Adbrite Ads. If they were in a more prime spot and not hidden between other links, you would be able to generate more sales. You've got a great market for Adbrite Ads and should take full advantage of prime locations within your blog.

Sonia - Thanks so much for letting me critique your blog. I've enjoyed looking yours over and hope you'll find a tremendous amount of success.

Community and Networking Beyond Comments

Did you know there are many ways you can help to strengthen your community and networking ability where blogs are concerned?

As you're combing around the net looking for great content to comment on or link to, how many times have you seen an article that stood out as a "great article" but it didn't exactly fit into your content scheme?

Why not copy that link and send it to someone in your little network who might benefit from it. Most times, if they practice common blogging etiquette they will provide a hat tip back to you and your blog for the tip.

I try to remember send links to people as often as I can. I know how hard it can be some days to find good content and I always appreciate those links.

Do You Get Discouraged?

What have you found to be the most discouraging factor in blogging?

I'm curious as to what some people are finding to be the most difficult in a way that perhaps I can focus on those topics and how to combat them one at a time over the next several weeks.

So what is it? What gets you down in the blog?

B.S.I. Investigation - Coffee Shop Chatter

B.S.I. Investigation - Coffee Shop Chatter

Tip One: I love the title - it just exudes fun! In fact, I think your title is much too fun for your template. I like the browns but consider doing a little something to dress it up - perhaps a coffee shop or coffee cup background. Pictures do help increase readership and I think that would be a good start.

Tip Two: Blog Archives - Consider condensing those into the drop down format so it frees up valuable sidebar space. You have one sidebar so you'll have to make the most of every inch of it.

Tip Three: In your Gotta Get Goals post - Item number 2 - That's a very good goal to have and this blog is the perfect place to begin. I'm sure there would be lots of readers hanging on your every word if you could help put the romance back into their marriages. If you have a knack for romance, tap into it and share it!

Tip Four: Minimize your affiliate buttons in the sidebar - You'll likely do a much better business if you stick to "topic" products that are within your blogs topic. Having random ads for random products have statistically not done very well. It you'd like to mention the various products, try introducing them via a post specific to that product verses decorating your blog with them.

Tip Five: Make it easy for your visitors to contact you. Perhaps tap into that romance topic with this and invite reader question that can be featured once a week or so. This will help create content and prevent long periods of writers block.

Thanks MK for allowing me to critique your blog. Best of luck in your blogging!

B.S.I. Investigation - The Journey of a Mommy

B.S.I. Investigation - The Journey of a Mommy



Tip One: The first thing I noticed right off the bat was the site is very busy! Too busy in fact. I'd highly recommend cutting down on the number of scrolling text bars and the number of animated ads. To many distractions going on to prevent a person getting to the meat of your blog. The content.


Tip Two: Statistically, easy-to-read fonts will do much better then the funky more artistic ones. I'd recommend looking at a Times or Ariel font. Choosing a font that's more decorative gives the impression that you're not exactly blogging for an audience.


Tip Three: The email me button isn't overly easy to read. Perhaps making the button a clickable link would be beneficial. You always want to step outside your blog and try to view it as your readers would. Make navigation as easy as you can. Offer as many one click options as you can.


Tip Four: The Header here is absolutely adorable, but it's hard to read. Consider placing the header on a white background to make it stand out. Don't forget to make it clickable to the front of your blog too -- this is one of those easy navigation tips that some people tend to overlook.


Tip Five: Tagging - I think you may be missing the boat by not using Technorati tags. This is a great traffic generator and a great way to keep track of who is linking to you and your posts. Blogger has made it so much easier to tag with their labels option. It's there, it's free, give it a try.


I'd like to thank Jenni for allowing me to critique her blog. If any of my Work at Home Blog readers have any tips they'd like to add, please do.


After all, we are only as good as our readers tell us we are, right?

Blogging is not as easy as it sounds

Dan at The Wrong Advices offers up all the reasons why Blogging is so difficult. Below is just a small excerpt of the full discussion - so be sure to hop over and check out the complete details.

If you're considering blogging because you think it's 'easy' - leave that attitude at the door and see what other more veteran bloggers are saying.

There are over 50 million blogs on the web if you can believe that, and many of them have either been abandoned, or are updated infrequently.

The main reasons I see for this are:

1. People find it difficult to write regularly.
2. They don’t see any results for their efforts.
3. They lose interest and motivation.
4. They burnout.

Beginner Blogging Questions

How or where does one start a blog?

Before anyone starts a blog, I always encourage them to take a bit of time to sort out what it is they feel most passionate about and what they could talk endlessly about. That's most likely the best topic to start with.

If you want to test the waters with a free platform, that's a great way to go. Blogger is the one I choose.

MomGadget and my other "niche" blogs/sites are hosted through BlueHost and on the Wordpress platform. The cost is $95 for the year with each additional add-on site costing me $10.

How do you make money with your blogs?

I've been averaging over $4,000 per month for the last few months. It's taken me 8 years to get here and 90% of that income comes from my niche blogs/sites, not my work at home mom ones or even MomGadget.

My biggest Money Makers are listed in my sidebar - along with a few other individual products that I promote via my niche sites.

Can you have more than one blog?

I'd be lost if I couldn't. I'm currently sitting comfortable with 12 blogs. My husband said I had too many, so I let one go :)

How do you get traffic to your blog?

That's the most difficult part of blogging for me. There are several factors that go into luring traffic. It can be from networking, commenting on like blogs, making yourself visable on message boards, link exchanges and much more. That's where I put in most of my time - it's not so much the blogging itself.

If you can't dedicate at least one hour daily to networking to increase your traffic on top of doing the actual posting - which needs to be unique as much as possible, then you're probably not going to like blogging.

Social Networking - StumbleUpon

Some of you have probably heard whispers about a conference taking place in San Francisco called Elite Retreat.

The last couple of days, my mind has been a virtual sponge for anything anyone is sharing from the discussions that have taken place.

One such discussion was on the topic of Social Networks like StumbleUpon (link).

Without re-inventing the wheel, I'll simply provide a link to the discussion I started earlier on this very topic.

I hope you'll hope over to MomGadget and join in discussing this with me. I do plan on visiting various aspects of these discussions over the next several days as I work through the topics and learn more about them myself.

Care to grab a cup of coffee and join me?

B.S.I. Investigation - Work at Home Mom Revolution

B.S.I. Investigation - Work at Home Mom Revolution

Tip One: Breath some life into your template. I'm not the biggest fan of default templates, but if you must use one show a little bit of character and originality. Blogger offers little widgets that allow you to play with various colors and placements. Use those. It will show you're not boring.

Tip Two: Ad some contact information. If you don't provide your readers with a way to contact you with questions or interview opportunities, you may be missing the boat a lot more then you realize. Furthermore, there's far too many splogs out there. Sometimes offering up your contact link is all it takes to make you stand out as more then a splog.

Tip Three: Condense your archives to a drop down menu. You can do this in your blogger settings. It will free up valuable advertising space.

Tip Four: Sign up for Sitemeter and/or Statcounter. I use both. With these two little tools you can learn so much about your visitors. You can expand your network, link back to whomever is linking to you and capture a niche by really focusing on the search terms and keywords that are bringing people to your site.

Tip Five: I would make the Job Bank in the sidebar a weekly featured post or even monthly, depending on how often you update. Unless the job ad posters are paying for that space, you could be freeing it up for pay per click ads or Adbrite ad space.


Additional tips anyone?

Thanks so much to Lisa for allowing me to critique her blog. I hope Pam and others take away a little something with this review.

Interested in having your blog reviewed?

B.S.I. Investigation - Pam's Daily Ponderings

B.S.I. Investigation - Pam's Daily Ponderings

Tip One: The first thing I notice that needs to go or be filtered is the Blogger Swap button in the left sidebar. At the time of my visit, Nympho Girl was gracing the space with her presence and well, that's not exactly the image you're looking for to be located just below the adorable photo of your daughter and the one of you and your daughter. If Blogger Swap doesn't allow for filtering, I'd remove them altogether.

Tip Two: I would ad a little splash of color here and there. I know there are a lot of people out there who like the darker more "natural" colors and that's fine. Just show your visitors your an exciting and entertaining blogger by featuring a splash of color now and again.

Tip Three: Give a little thought to your blog post titles. People who use blog readers and feeds will ONLY see the title of your post in most cases. Make sure you are naming them in a way that's going to make them want to open it up and read it. Titles like "frustration" don't exactly peak a curiosity. If you're not going to name them to appeal to the readers, appeal to the search engines with keyword rich posts - had you used something along the lines of Missouri DMV goes Postal and Back you would have made your blog keyword rich for the term Missouri DMV which produced 2396 searches alone in the month of February.

Tip Four: When you are recommending products, check those products out to see if they offer an affiliate program or perhaps see if the product is offered through Amazon. Always try to link up your positive reviews with an affiliate link. Some of my best sells come from my own positive product reviews with text links.

Tip Five: StatCounter and Sitemeter - two little tools that will help you analyze your traffic and ultimately help you dig your niche. Monitor where your traffic comes from, what key terms and words they use to get there and build on that. I can't sing those praises enough! They are a must!

Anyone have any tips they'd like to add?

Thanks so much to Pam for allowing me to critique her blog. I hope Pam and others take away a little something with this review.

Interested in having your blog reviewed?

B.S.I. Investigation - Adventures in Baby Fat

B.S.I. Investigation - Adventures in Baby Fat


Tip One: I would highly recommend showing at least five posts on the front page. Keeping your blog limited to one causes your visitors to have to click more to dig deeper for your content. I don’t believe putting all your posts on the front page is beneficial, but five is a nice number to go with.



Tip Two: Try a different template or play with the colors a bit. Dark colors tend to detour visitors unless of course your content is “dark” then dark is good.



Tip Three: Use the archive widgets. Get your content out there so that your readers can scan through to see if there’s something they want to check in on. Your blog is very limiting to the visitor who is there for a matter of seconds, there’s very little to lock them in and keep them there.



Tip Four: Use your Adsense Widgets to get your ads out there. If you want to make money with your blog, you can’t earn if the ads aren’t there. Play with the template and move the ads around. That’s the beauty of the new blogger. There is lots of room to play.



Tip Five: Get an email link in place so that visitors can contact you. Allowing them the option to contact you with questions over a post is key in letting people know you’re real.


As with all other reviews, if anyone else has anything to ad, please feel free.

B.S.I. Investigation - For the Love of Cupcakes

B.S.I. Investigation - For the Love of Cupcakes


Tip One: I would recommend utilizing the space at your header to share a strip of Google Ad links. Those tend to do very well in that location - either above your header or just below it and above your main content area.


Tip Two: Add an email link. You should always want your visitors to know is they can contact you via email at any time – It’s nice to know that there’s a real person with real contact options behind the blog. With so many splogs going, this is a must for a serious blogger. Not providing an email link can often give the impression that you’re not taking your work seriously, so why should they?


Tip Three: Utilize the blogger widgets to offer up your archives. Allow your visitors easy access to your history of posts. I don’t see those options in your sidebar and think you’re missing great opportunities to lock in your visitors without them.


Tip Four: I would highly recommend joining Amazon.com and provide links to the various utensils that would help in making the lovely cupcakes you’re describing. You’ve got a nice niche there and Amazon would be a nice addition.


Tip Five: I’m not sure the ads you’re showing in your sidebar are exactly right for your topic. It might be worth moving the Google Adsense bar up and giving it prime space over the jewelry. Your visitors are going to be coming for cupcakes you should consider selecting items that are going to appeal to them. Think about the things that you might impulse buy if you were visiting your site and place those in the sidebar.

Anyone else have anything to add? Besides the 5 lbs I've just added to my hips from reading Crystal's blog? :)

B.S.I. Investigation - Simple SAHM

B.S.I. Investigation - Simple SAHM

Tip One: The very first thing I notice about your blog is the overpowering header. If you’d decrease the size of the image just a bit it would help to draw up the valuable content you’re offering. The image you are using now is 400 x 186 – perhaps try reducing it down to 200 x 92 or thereabouts.

Many professionals and experiments in visual habits of browsing customers indicate you have only a few seconds to lock that visitor in or you’ve lost them for good. I would at least make it to where you can see ½ to ¾ of your top blog post.

Tip Two: The next thing I would do is to condense your blog archive. More people will utilize a drop down menu to your archives then you’d think. There’s no reason to take up the valuable sidebar space with all that history that’s easily searchable. Free it up for better things.

Tip Three: Add an email link. One thing you always want your visitors to know is they can contact you via email at any time. Not providing an email link can often give the impression that your blog is a splog or that the writer doesn’t take their work seriously.

Tip Four: I would move my Google Adsense ads up to that valuable space under your subscription options. Google Adsense provides a great tool for helping to figure out the prime placement of those ads and you’re completely missing the boat with the location of your ads in your sidebar near the bottom.

Tip Five: Sign up for a free Stats feature either through StatCounter.com or Sitemeter.com (I use both) – check out your stats at least twice per week. You’ll begin to understand the habits of your visitors more – you’ll find where your readers are coming from – and with this information you can build on attracting other visitors the same way.

If you’re being linked to by a blog, you will have the opportunity to build on your community – if you’re being linked to via a search engine, you’ll have the opportunity to build on that keyword term or phrase to establish a higher ranking position for that term.

Does anyone else see anything that stands out as obvious that Traci might want to consider when making improvements to her blog? I'm hoping this isn't just all about me critiquing blogs, I hope that others will share their views as well.

After all - No one is as good as all of us!

B.S.I. Investigation - Native Earth Organics

B.S.I. Investigation - Native Earth Organics

Vickie left a comment asking that I check out her blog Native Earth Organics. I did and here are the tips I offered up:

Your site looks like it's a "banner store" - the thing about getting people to buy is by offering much more then just links to sell products. Give them tips, advice, support, etc.

Consider promoting products you've personally tried, use and are a repeat customer of. If you believe in the product, it sells much better. Everyone wants something that works!

Personally, I think text links within articles work best. It takes a lot of time coming up with the material that isn't an exact duplicate of something else on the net (search engines don't like copycats) but by doing this, you can set yourself apart from all others within your niche arena.

I'd go with less ads. Limit the options of clicking. If there's too much to click on, it gets confusing and your visitor will keep on going until they find a site that has more info and less ads.

Make yourself use this tool often:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

I find most all the titles and keywords for my articles/posts with this particular tool.

Example:
Do a search on Fiber on that tool.

Take every keyword or key phrase listed with over a 1000 searches last month and write about them. This is a great way to put together a goal and blog plan for months at a time. You'll never want for inspiration because you have your topics right there.

When you write a post, include the exact keyword or phrase at least three times.

Link the keyword or phrase only once to your affiliate with a text link.

Make sure to include the keywords in your tags if you use them. That helps to establish your placement for those specific terms.

Hopefully we'll hear back from Vickie in the near future with some updates on how things are going.

I'd like to thank Vickie for allowing me to publically critique her blog and provide the tips so that others can learn with her as well.

What keeps me from commenting on blogs

This has happened a couple of times today -- I find a really cool blog, I read the posts and get all excited wanting to leave a comment - then I realize that I must sign up and log in before leaving a comment.

Ummm Not happening!

I know spam is a big deal and a royal pain in the butt but they do have plugin's for that you know?

I've taken the time to install the plugin's and I take the time to check my comments for approving or deleting. It's not too much to ask so that people who want to leave comments, can.

That's really a big pet peeve of mine.

Anyone else practice the same policy? Will you sign up and log in to leave a comment or do you simply do what I do and move on to the next blog?

How do you monetize your blogs?

After speaking with a relative just a bit ago, I find I'm always 'talking up' or trying to 'sell' people on blogging. It seems kind of funny to me at times when people ask what I do and then to capture the 'look' I get when I respond with "I blog."

Everyone seems to follow that look with a "how do you do that?" and "how can you make money doing that?"

In my mind it's easy! And for others who have been blogging a while, it's easy. But to actually take the time to step outside my own little world and realize that not everyone knows what a blog is or even how you could possibly make money from it.

I thought it might be a fun little project to invite others to share how they monetize their own blogs.

I'll be putting together the most recent list of my "money makers" and will gladly share them here.

I'd like to invite you to do the same.

What I'm hoping to receive are posts that outline the affiliate programs you belong to, a ballpark figure on how much you make with them and how long you've been with the program.

Feel free to discuss some of the pros and cons of these programs.

Try and keep your post as elementary as possible so that those who are wrinkling their foreheads at the very thought can wrap their minds around the possibility.

AutoSurf Programs and Google TOS

There has been a bit of discussion on Auto Surf programs and Google Adsense TOS as well as other affiliates who deem auto surf programs to be a violation of TOS.

Rather then searching high and low, I thought I'd bring the question here in hopes that some of you might share the information you've found to be the most reliable on this topic.

Per Google TOS

Prohibited Uses. You shall not, and shall not authorize or encourage any third party to: (i) directly or indirectly generate queries, Referral Events, or impressions of or clicks on any Ad, Link, Search Result, or Referral Button through any automated, deceptive, fraudulent or other invalid means, including but not limited to through repeated manual clicks, the use of robots or other automated query tools and/or computer generated search requests.

Also, I'm interested in knowing if you are aware of other affiliate programs that may suspend or terminate for the use of or participation in auto surf programs?