chris-brennan.com

How to Create a Contact Form

I’m surprised at the amount of bloggers that don’t have a contact form anywhere on their blog. Why would you want one? Well if you are marketing something, whether it is yourself, your services, a product, a brand – anything at all, you need a way for interested parties to contact you but these days spam is a real problem so the last thing you’d ever want to do is publish an email address online. A contact form allows people to contact you via email whilst keeping the email hidden away on the server.

You can manually create a form with HTML but that?s quite a lengthy process and there is really no need unless you want something specific. If all you want is an easy way for your visitors to get a message to you, then the WordPress plug-in, available at The Marketing Technology Blog is great.

Once it is installed, from your WordPress dashboard go to ?Settings? to find a new option called ?Contact Form?. Click on this option to reach the contact form editor.

You will have to fill it in with your email address so that mail can be forwarded on to you, but this will remain hidden from your visitors so don?t worry. You will also need to fill in a subject line and some standard messages. It will also give you the option to create a question that your visitors must answer, this helps to avoid spammers.

Once this is set up, you will still need to create the form itself. You can use a WordPress page or post. All you have to do is to type %%wpcontactform%% in to the body of the page, then when it is displayed on your website, the text will be replaced by the actual form.

That?s all there is to it! I would recommend, however, that you send yourself a message via your form to test that it works!

How to Make an Archives Page

There are built-in archives features within WordPress, but they will show the full post and there isn?t an easy way to just see a contents table at a glance. Fortunately, plug-ins come to our rescue again with my favourite being one at idunzo.com

What this will do is create a single page that will display a single link for each post. It will group the links into months and it will also show how many comments each post received.

Once installed, the plug-in will give you a new option called ?SRG Clean Archives? within the ?Settings? menu. There are several checkboxes which allow you to adjust the output, but in many cases the default settings are just fine.

The process for making the archives page is similar – you have a piece of text to insert which gets replaced by the actual archives output when the page is published. However there is one subtle difference – you have to type in the text in the HTML view of the page, and not in the Visual view.

This is what to type in: <!–srg_clean_archives–>

This actually is an HTML tag (a comment) which is why you need to input it in the HTML view. If you type it in the visual view then that?s what you will see on your page when it is output.

Caroline Middlebrook has written a popular blog since September 2007 which brings in 4-figures a month. She demonstrates how to make money blogging and gives away free downloads of her free guides & courses.

If you really want to succeed in internet marketing and increase your online profits through blogging, then you need to follow these tips that will help you to make your blogging a success.

Step 1 – Finding an Informative Niche of Interest

Think of a unique niche or topic that fits your personal interest and something that you would like to blog about for life. You can use keyword research services like Google Zeitgeist or Yahoo! Buzz Index to find popular searched topics.

Step 2 – Create Your Blog

There are many blogging platforms to choose from. Though it is always best to blog with a domain and a paid host, if you are new to blogging, I would advice you to start with a free blog at first like Blogger because there is so many things you have to learn.

You need to include the keywords in Step 1 in the content of your blog. Try not to overuse these as it sends out bad signals to the search engines, and this is 100% not what you want.

Step 3 – Google, Google, Google

Signing up for Google Adsense will probably not make you a millionaire but it is an instant way of generating a small amount of money just by inserting the adsense code in the margin of your blog. When an ad is clicked on, Google will pay the publisher about half of what the Adwords advertiser is paying to run the ad. Google gets the other half.

Use Google Analytics to track your website performance and anonymous visitor behavior with the installation of a simple JavaScript snippet.

You may also want to submit your URL to Google’s index.

Step 4 – Find Something to Sell

If you don’t want to sell anything and are happy with the income Google Adsense is bringing in then you can skip this step. If you want to maximize your income and truly learn How to Make Money with Blogs you will want to find an affiliate program to join. A couple of affiliate programs I would suggest are ClickBank and Commission Junction. You can sell anything from office furniture, pet supplies, movies and clothing to PC games, Dieting tips and Audio software.

The program you joined will provide you code that you will need to insert into your blog, but be sure you do this correctly or you WILL NOT earn money from your visitors. If you do not know how to edit HTML, W3Schools HTML tutorial is a great place to start.

Step 5 – Social Bookmarking

There is no better advertising than word of mouth, but the next best thing is social bookmarking. You will want to make things easier for people to do this. Social bookmarking sites I use and recommend are OnlyWire and SocialMarker and they are used for people to share their bookmarks or websites that they have liked with other people in their online community.

I would not suggest you add your own links to these services, but provide visitors to your website the ability to do so.

Step 6 – Write an Article

Whether your blog is about a specific product, for example a certain MP3 Player you are promoting, or just about giving people information, I would suggest you to write an article or a review of it. Most article directories require articles of 500 words and over so I would use this as a rule when writing to ensure your article is published.

Submit your article to any of the 100’s which are out there. I personally use a few of the Top Article directories such as EzineArticles, Article Dashboard, Amazines.com, isnare and SearchWarp. I also use a nifty piece of software called Article Submitter which will submit your articles to over 600 article directories, which saves you lots of time and leaves you to focus on writing your blogs.

Blogging offers online marketers the best of opportunities to help feed information to those who need it. As well, growing popularity on the web is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging.

Setup your own free blogs with revenue and unpack the basics and strategies of blogging at http://hubpages.com/hub/Blogging-Basics-for-Internet-Marketers

There are many reasons why web hosting reviews are a good thing. But possibly the best thing is that they will give you an opinion that will not be based on anything but how good the site really is. No opinion will be biased, and no one will pay to receive a better review. Its 100% truth set out there for you to use.

Before looking into the reviews, I decided to check on what kind of web hosting services there were out in internet land. Imagine my surprise when the things that came up I had never heard of half of them. Maybe a bit, but there were so many things, and some of the talk was a bit advanced. But with a web hosting review they spell it out simply.

Looking for a shared web hosting service can lead you to a place where several people have their site too. The bad thing about a shared web hosting server is that the RAM is possibly shared by all those websites. That’ means that you may not get as much storage as you were hoping. Or a reseller web hosting service, where the current clients will rent out spaces.

Yet more are a virtual dedicated server, these VPS servers divide the resources into what are virtual servers. In this type of server it may come down to the customers to fix bugs in the system though. Moving on to dedicate hosting, this is where you will have your own server, and full control, but you do not own it. For dedicated there is another category called unmanaged which is a bit less expensive. Managed hosting is another type of dedicated hosting, but you do not get full control of these servers. That’s how they keep the server safe and in top service.

Going on what about the sharing server? It’s one where many sites are on one server. It’s a great option because these hosting services will take care of the problems, usually pretty good. However, a drawback is that you have limited storage room.

Say you love making your web page up with Microsoft FrontPage? Then you need to make sure the category you look into for reviews is the best site for that. There are many different design tools that can be used to create and correct the looks of your web page. The web hosting reviews divide up the different categories to help you out there too.

When you head onto the internet to start looking for one of the above web hosting servers it’s always best to look at the reviews. No doubt with the many types that are available it can easily be missed for the correct type for what you are looking for.

So if you are looking for the least expensive web hosting service, but care very little for how often it is off line, use a web hosting review. They will give you a non-biased review of all the different types of web hosting services out there. Many will break them down into specific categories to make it easier for you to read the reviews even. Everything is straight forward and extremely easy to understand. No technical words you may not know will be used.

In OK to Make Money Online today, let’s look at why your CTR (click through rate) just dropped to the floor. Maybe a friend, co-worker, or an article you read told you the latest thing was the new social networks, and that these networks could drive loads of traffic to your site. Then it occurred to you — more traffic, more money. But your CTR starting dropping just after you started getting tons of traffic from one of the social networks! Why?

Did you happen to notice at about the same time, Google started sending groups of ads to your make money site instead of the single high performance ad? On the other hand, did your ads turn into public address ads? Now listen up: social traffic is not buying traffic. Google and the advertisers already know this, and they will downgrade your ads to low performing ads. The advertiser wants qualified, targeted buyers for their products or services. They want people in the mood to buy so they can make money. They know some will be researching and some just looking, but if they did their job right, the customer will be back to buy.

When you direct traffic from a social networking site to your site, you must make it the latest buzz. The “must have that thing” to be cool. Again, you are directing a buyer. Who cares if it’s the latest pet rock craze they are a buyer. Nevertheless, if it is not a craze or the latest “got to have,” then Google will detect this and so will the advertiser. When this happens, Google will place low performing ads in your Adsense slots and you will not make money.

This makes sense to the advertiser and is good business for Google. The advertiser (and therefore Google) wants the people that click the ads to be purchase-oriented, not social. They want to turn that click into a purchase for the advertiser, and so do you so you will make money. If you are driving social traffic to your site, they are looking around, and not likely to be buying anything the advertiser is selling In response to this, Google will steer this traffic and the advertiser away from you by placing low performing ads on your site.

So the best thing you can do for yourself is write good articles that promote your keyword, and hence the advertiser’s product or service. Then Google rewards you with better performing ads. Remember: Google wants you to be the leading expert and the most popular guy/girl on the block. Not for the social network groups, but for the purchasing groups or groups that will be converted to buyers. And isn’t this what you want to do to make money.

Michael

The Internet is a huge collection of data and information. To date, it contains billions of web pages and sites that housed all sorts of it. Search engines are making our lives easier by furnishing us with results once we enter some magical keywords in its text boxes. With just a split of a second, multitude of web sites in lieu with your keywords are shown and are sorted accordingly.

If you happened to be a site builder or even an Internet blogger, getting your sites to be published on the top of those search engines requires hard work and labour. When I say hard work, it literally means tiring tasks and tedious activities to emerge at the top. As with any rankings irregardless of medium, proper dedication and the right amount of effort is the true concoction to achieve such most coveted place.

When one would create a blog there are four core divisions that must be met and done. First thing is to set the blog. Setting the blog is simply allocating a domain and a server as to where one would host and publish it. The second core aspect is writing its content. A blog is a good environment to circulate a particular piece of information. It can be staged on different topics that the author wants the world to know and to see or it can even be products that the writer wants to promote and patronize. In this second step, the author would now start inculcating his thoughts and output it in words understandable by his/her chosen audience. The writer then published the work on the domain or the site where the blog would be posted.

The third division is promoting the traffic to the blog. Of course when you would create a piece that you work yourself, it is but proper to let others read it and review it. But by merely posting it and not advertising it, it would just be a piece of trash. And to make it to the desired rankings, it is a must that your blog or your domain must be visited by a large number of visitors. Thus, traffic is an important aspect in creating a blog. After bringing in your visitors, it is time for the last division which is monetizing the traffic. Of course, with your readers, they can help you not only boost your rankings but also your earnings in the Internet realm.

Given the four aspects in blog creation, I must say it is really a gruelling task to uphold. But fret no more, the newest generation in uplifting these four tasks into easier ones is here. It is called Firepow.

Firepow is the newest blog posting software ever made available. This was created by Andrew Hansen along with his commendable employees. The difference between Firepow and other commercial software is it brings good results. When I say good results, these are outputs that everyone wants like being on top of search engines while generating the most income for us.

What’s even wonderful about Firepow, aside from giving us the ultimate achievement any blogger would want, is it offers convenience. Imagine having multiple blogs all at the same time hosted on different domains, Firepow can integrate everything in a single control panel and you would be able to see all of them in that area. Furthermore, you can update them anytime you like by clicking on the drop down menu and choose an activity. No hassles in logging in on the domains admin page and start the task there.

Since its release last July 2008, Firepow had received commendable reviews and it helped thousands of bloggers already. Thus, if you want to ignite your blog not with a spark but like a wildfire, reward yourself with Firepow and in return it will reward you like how it rewarded me. So begin the journey and check more about the product in this Firepow 2 review alongside with the newest Firepow 2 bonus for you.

Blogging is a powerful way to reach your target market, generate revenue through Google Adwords, or simply express your ideas. Consider starting a blog to help you reach your Internet marketing goals and objectives. Blogging is simple thanks to new websites and helpful tools that make it easy to set up and launch your blog.

It’s easy to find a number of no cost resources that are available for starting your own blog. The most popular blogging engine is WordPress followed by Blogger. These web sites allow you to start your own blog for free quickly and easily. All you need to do is register, choose a name for your blog, select a template and start posting – it’s that simple.

Some bloggers post comments to their blog each and every day and others post once a week. Regardless of how frequently you post to your blog, content can be focused on a specific theme or random topics. The most popular blogs focus on a specific niche and provide valuable information, content, and commentary that encourage interaction with blog followers.

Begin by registering on a blog website. Setting up an account takes only a few minutes and very easy to do. Choose a free blog site and consider what type of blog you want to produce. Ask yourself what your blog is going to be about. What will be the theme of your blog? What topic do you want to cover on a regular basis?

Determine how you will monetize your blog. If you want to use your blog to generate revenue, there are a few basic ideas you can apply depending on which platform you’re using. One of the most popular methods of monetizing your blog is with the help of Google Adsense. This is a popular option and very easy to add to your blog. Not only does it generate a small amount of revenue for you on a weekly basis, but it also provides relevant links based on your posts.

I have already had a good deal of success making money with my websites and blogs. One of the fastest ways to start generating revenue is by creating a link list and requiring advertisers to pay for their link to be included. Start by creating a section on your site of ‘recommended links’. In this area you will also place a link to how to add your link. This should be a link to a specific blog post or website page that tells users the steps needed to advertise on their blog. I personally use a link listing service to take care of this for me. Alternatively you could perform this manually through Paypal.

Many people monetize their blogs by using pay per post type programs. These networks bring together bloggers and businesses who want to reach an audience through their . Essentially, advertisers search for bloggers who are willing to write a post to promote their product and services or brand. You can sign up for one of these networks quite easily and be contacted when advertisers feel that your blog would be ideal for distributing a message. You write a blog post and get paid for doing so.

One thing to consider is that the success of you blog is based on a number of factors. I believe that by providing a targeted blog that offers original content is ideal. You will build a large following. This is essential because most of ways you can monetize your blog is based on having enough traffic to make your blog appealing to advertisers as well as blog readers.

A huge trail of controversies and myths still continue to exist within the blogosphere. This article was written to dispel some of the blog myths outlined below.

Anyone can start a blog. Not just anyone! Obviously, you should know how to use the computer, need an Internet connection and some experience using the Internet. You also need a host for your blogs; there are blog hosts that are free and some that cost a small amount per month. One last requirement is not just an ability to communicate your thoughts but also a willingness to do so.

Anyone can set up a blog. Some blogs are much easier to set up and use than others depending on your blog host (e.g., blogger, iblogs, typepad, tblog, etc.). Some blog hosts take you through a couple simple set-up steps and you’re off writing your first post but there are others that get far more technical than the average user may be ready for.

Blogging is grade-school. When in comes to blogging, it’s the actual writing that’s the toughest nut to crack. The more engaged and knowledgeable you are with your subject, the easier and more interesting your writing will be.

Most blogs are political. Nope, only some. Many blogs focus on political topics but most blogs are just bloggers discussing their lives, loves and travels. A list of the 50 most visited blogs at BlogHub (http://www.bloghub.com/top50blogs.htm) shows very few political blogs.

Blogs are in competition with the main-stream media. This is true in a few cases (not as many cases as bloggers would have you think). Just recently, there have been some very popular and influential social and politically-oriented blogs that have caused main-stream media outlets to back-track and change their coverage of important events.

Bloggers are just having fun criticizing everyone and everything and have no new information to add. True in some cases. Today, blogging is much more than the personal activity it used to be. Corporations, media outlets, public personalities, politicians and experts in almost every field have now joined the ranks of blog producers. Considering all this expertise, one would have to say that bloggers have a lot of new information to add to any debate.

You can’t believe anything you read in a blog. That’s a bit of an overstatement. You’ll get to read bad information and even intentional untruths in blogs but, for the most part, bloggers who state facts are stating what they honestly believe to be fact. Readers should be responsible enough to verify that any information they receive is accurate.