TheLinkMedic has followers.
You've seen them while browsing for good stock photos for your blog's lead image.
The awkward, weird and just plain stupid ones that seem to absolutely make no sense.
Some of these I can barely see what concept they were trying to go for but ask yourself, what actual blog post could these be possibly be put in?
Keep in mind most of these I found on http://www.istockphoto.com/ which means they are not free, which begs the question -- Who's buying this stuff?
Profit Jackpot is one of those flashy named bundles of internet marketing software designed by Anik Signal an internet marketing super star who's made more money than you could imagine by making websites.
I always check out what Anik is offering because basically the guy is talented and really brings ground breaking methods to the table.
Apart from this blog I have several others set up for the purpose of generating some extra cash, networking and traffic. I built them myself and it's taken a lot of time.
What Profit Jackpot does in a nutshell is allows virtually anyone to do what I did without spending as much time and granted effort.
I've wrangled up some useful PSD files for web development and blogging here from around the web.
The highlight of the list is a great resource of free logos from Shaboopie, they're really well done and can easily be modified to make a new logo for just about anything.
There is also a random assortment of buttons, stickers and cool things you can use for footers.
Expect another post similar to this soon depending on it's response.
Shaboopie features some downright awesome Free PSD logo templates ready to be edited. You can get some very pro looking logos pretty easily. In fact, I used one of these templates to create my own new logo a while back.
So you have another new post, now what?
You've just spend hours and maybe days creating a new post and just hit the publish button.
Do you have a plan on how to help promote the post?
If you don't have some sort of check-list in place for your newly minted creation you could be missing out on its potential.
Unless your blog has a massive following and will virtually share your post in every conceivable way you better get out there and knock on some metaphorical doors.
They'll do anything to get you to click won't they?
You see them all the time, the links claiming to lead you to blogging Eden.
Even worse once you do click they offer no actual information other than that you need buy their product then you will know!
The truth is there is no real secret to blogging, it requires a LOT of work and dedication. Typically that's not the information people want to hear but it's true.
There is no one method or tip that is going to have your blog make the quantum leap to success.
I wish there was because I would be putting it in one of these stupid boxes and selling it myself.
I don't like to see people being scammed out of their hard-earned money and that's why I want to tell you this; DON'T BUY ANY TYPE OF PRODUCT that seems to too good to be true.
That's not to say some well-meaning people haven't spent a lot of time and put together some exceptional products, e-books and the like that genuinely are very informative. It's your money but all I'm trying to say is that there is always a free alternative. This is much of what my own site is about. Free resources.
I think many people feel that if they pay for something then it must be valuable. This is just a set-up for disappointment. When it comes to these type of over hyped "important information" products they are almost always a let down when you see it's mostly things you've already read.
So before you go joining the blogging occult and buying a fake box spend time on the great free resources that are out there and learn all that you can. *COUGH*
2010 was a great first year for the us to get up and running and established.
It took a few months to get the basic format established and figuring out my niche within a niche.
Starting out much like any blogger I was anxious to get some traffic coming in.
The purpose of this post is to give you an idea of where you can expect to get some actual traffic.
If you're not utilizing any of these sites/services you might want to look into them as they are my top referring sites for 2010.
1. Twitter - I run a pretty aggressive tweet campaign using software such as Tweet Adder that allows me to automate my tweets even while I sleep.
Doing this nets me many highly targeted visits, people click on my links because they found it interesting. My followers for the most part are some what interested in blogging, SEO or social media so I have a decent chance they'll check out my tweets.
Some other related referring sites: HootSuite
2. StumbleUpon - Believe it or not, when the dust settled for 2010 I received almost as many stumbles as I did traffic from my and other's tweets.I actually had a few days where I received a couple thousand stumbles that seemed to just blow up. If you're not stumbling your own posts or allowing others to do so you can be missing out on some considerable traffic.
3. Adgitize - This is an advertising program you can earn credits or buy them for exchange of showing your own ads. I did both using credits and investing a little bit of money. For the effort it did produce results. 4. Facebook - A no brainer here, everyone and their mother is on Facebook so it makes sense to spend some time on it, make a page, post on groups etc. It has been a solid source of traffic throughout the year. 5. Entrecard - This is another free advertising exchange service that is really great for meeting new bloggers and getting traffic. You can check out my full Entrecard review to see why it's holding down the number five spot. 6. Paper.li - Paper.li is a like a virtual daily newspaper about a certain subject. It's all based off Twitter's hash-tags so that's another reason to start tweeting. 7.Bloggeries - Bloggeries is a great place for any blogger to be, you can submit your own blog and participate on the forums. Honestly I received more traffic from the forums than the directory listing, so if you have a blog about blogging this is definitely a site you need to look into. Seeing as there are a few hundred different sites that gave me traffic this year I'll stop here.
Over 25 great sites to submit your blog and get it noticed.
10 Most Useful Blogging Communities To Help Promote Your Blog
I look forward to another year of blogging and expanding the site a bit. Thank you all for all the comments, retweets, e-mails and overall support!
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After The Deadline
Let's face it, most of us bloggers don't have English degrees and are prone to some easily correctable grammar mistakes. Myself included, so I set out to find a means of grammar checking my blog posts that is quick and simple. To my dismay almost all the "grammar tools" out there I found looked great but required money to use them in some way. This only made me more determined to find an alternative.
I then stumbled upon a Chrome Extension called After The Deadline. The more I read about it the more I became impressed with it. The claim that it uses artificial intelligence to correct your spelling, style, and grammar made it even more intriguing.
How does it work?
After installing it I was somewhat confused on how to use it as it appears in Chrome's address bar and you can't really tell how to use it from there. It recommends that you restart your browser after installing, I didn't see that suggestion myself. To use After The Deadline simply go to any box where you would input text, blog posts, twitter status and click the green ABC button. After a small delay your text is highlighted with errors.
Seeing what needs correcting is simple, words or phrases are underlined with either green or red. You can click on individual mistakes to access the problem. Advanced grammar mistakes are explained so you can rewrite your sentence to make it more grammar friendly. This will ultimately improve your writing and grammar naturally as time goes along you won't want to repeat your bad habits.
The Importance of Grammar and Spelling for Blogging.
Well written articles are very important when it comes to one of the main components every great blog needs: readability! There's a reason most people turn to blogs over Wikipedia for information. It's because blog posts usually aren't written as dry and informative as possible. It's often challenging to write in your own creative voice and maintain good grammar. While you shouldn't stress over your post's being 100% grammatically correct, it shouldn't be neglected either. Poorly written text can ultimately hurt your SEO goals and cause your readership to decrease as well.
I can't tell you how many blogs I just exit from simply because the writing is barely understandable. This is an essential tool if you blog in any language that's not your native one. AtD currently supports English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish text.
Lastly, AtD is artificial intelligence at best, use your own judgement call on what sounds right for the sake of your blog post. Viva Humans!
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If you're reading this you're obviously curious about CSS pretaining to blogging. With all the pre-made templates out there ready to be downloaded and installed you may say to yourself, "How can knowing CSS help make my blog better?"
In this series, CSS For Bloggers, I will not only show you why you should learn a little bit of CSS but also show you how to use it.
As a web designer myself for many years I would have never survived without my knowledge of HTML. It honestly wasn't until I got myself into blogging that I felt it was time to learn CSS. It has become a staple of my everyday blogging and designing.
Many of us bloggers get stuck trying to come up with great posts, or maybe we have just beaten the same topic to death. It's definitely good to have a niche but it's also good to sometimes do something new every once in a while.
Blogging about the same subject can become a bit tiresome. One way to counteract this and to breathe some new life into you and your blog is writing about something new and fresh. But what? Why not pick something that is insanely popular AND you find interesting. After all that's pretty much the whole point of blogging isn't it?
One way to see whats popular is by examining the global internet trends that are happening right now. You may even get lucky and find something very similar to your blog's main topic.
One thing you should keep in mind here is that your RSS subscribers, the people who read your blog everyday will see this post. You must treat each and every one of them as your biggest critic, after all they felt your blog was worth subscribing to and are expecting a certain brand of content.
With that being said, if I created a long post about how awesome Polamalu's superman tackle was I'm fairly certain I would lose at least a few readers. Accordingly, your "off the beaten path" post should at least be loosely related at best. It's a bit risky if you have a narrow niche but let's look at some of the benefits of using trends to find a suitable new and fresh topic.
Benefits of using Trends
1. Find a new popular topic to branch out on that may potentially attract new readers and as a result more traffic.
2. If you have varied blog with several topics or an anything goes type blog you'll have an endless source of topics. Think of South Park, there's a reason why they never run out of material.
3. It can get you out of your niche rut, or cure your writer's block if you stumble upon the right topic.
4. If you can write the post fast enough while still maintaining quality it may catch on pretty quick with it being so popular as it is. Strike while the iron is hot they say, and getting in on the ground floor of an emerging topic is always an amazing thing.
5. Even if you don't end up writing a blog post after examining the growing trends at the very least you'll be more cool. I'm just kidding, but you will have a small grasp of whats going on around the net and that's never bad.
So where do you start?
Well first and foremost I'm not saying you should write a post on the latest American Idol results because it's wildly popular to the masses. What should happen is once you have evaluated the emerging trend feeds if there is something there of interest to you go for it.
Basics
Meta Tags are a way to add a non-visable text to an HTML document. They were originally used to make web pages easier to find and
for search engines to categorize. The internet is essentially a massive database, finding a simple way to discover websites was a
necessity. Meta Tags were an invention to attempt to label a website using a short description and a series of identifying keywords.
A new HTML tag was introduced, placed in the <head> element and not readable on the page but parsable by a crawler or viewing the HTML source.
This day in age they are of questionable importance and there is a lot of confusion on
whether they are needed at all.
The Debate
Nearly every SEO website you visit will have information about meta tags, suggesting it's one of the best ways to optimize your website.
On the contrary there is a lot of evidence suggesting you do not need to worry about them as much as they claim. During the "search engine dark ages"
when they were first introduced many search engines started to utilize the meta tag. But not since the ancient days of Lycos and Hotbot have they been of very much use.
Mainly the reason meta tags faded from usefulness is they became an unreliable source of information about the website they were trying to index. Predominantly due
to keyword stuffing and other such ridiculous efforts to increase traffic. Keyword stuffing is the act of jam packing your website, above all, the meta tags,
with as many keywords as you can "stuff" in there. As you can see if every joker has placed iPod and Justin Bieber in their tags and do not have a Bieber fan page
or tech blog this can cause a problem.
If you're still not convinced we can ask the all mighty Google. Surely if meta tags were of any importance Google would take advantage of them in some way right?
Google admits that they do not use meta tags to judge page rank. Why? Essentially for the reasons mentioned above. Long ago, websites were
only judged on content. That is, only a web site's text even meta tags were looked at and not other various off page formulas such as quality incoming links did not come into play.
But this does not mean you need to phase them out all together.
Meta tags do have their use even at Google. The description tag is used to display search result
information about your site in the form of a "snippet". But it has no bearing on your page rank, it is simply used for descriptive purposes, go figure.
Google isn't the only fish in the pond of course, there are many other major SE's. Most of which will use meta tags in some way but won't allow them
to have much significance in the search ranking. For this fact alone it will not hurt to have an acceptable list of keywords
in your meta tag as a backup precaution. But with all of this being said if you wanted to leave them out completely, go for it. There are several other
SEO techniques that are incomparably more important that should be given more attention.
Implementation
The two main tags you need are the description and keyword tags. They are placed in between the opening and closing <head> tags.
Here is an example:
Visit w3schools.com for more technical information about meta tags
Ways to maximize your meta tags
There are two things you want to keep in mind when coming up with keywords for your meta tag.
One is relevance, you want the keywords to pertain to your website in some way. The other is frequency, you don't want to use the same words over and over.
On my tool's page I have outlined a few decent meta tag related tools.
And a healthy dose of keyword tools here.
There is one tool I want to bring to attention that I just found recently for keywords. It's called Meta Glossary. This online tool
allows you to search out relevant keywords based off of a single word. Some results for different words will be hit and miss, but depending on what you're looking for this
can be a great asset to have.
To have your meta tags analyzed go here. Take this with a grain of salt, but it will tell you if you are
repeating too many words and other various things.
The least you need to know
Meta tags lost their importance very long ago, they still have some use but the days of tricking out your meta tag for amazing search
ranking are over. Google uses them only for little descriptive snippets for your site and does not formulate meta tags into your page rank.
I know several web developers who have not used them in years and have seen no difference in their sites. It doesn't hurt to have them but
bottom line is you don't need to go SEO crazy when it comes to meta tags. Would love to hear your view, do you use them or not?
If you're just starting
your blog a great way to gain pagerank which will in turn increase visitors is
submitting articles. In the world of SEO this method usually gets swept under
the rug, mainly because it takes a bit of hard work. You actually have to write some
content. The truth of the matter is Google loves articles. They also like
seeing links to your site from various related website sources.
Why are articles good
for building pagerank? Well, Google spiders are
smart, sophisticated little critters and they have learned to sniff
out related content links. Where better to find a link and related content than
an article? Sounds simple doesn't it? One of the many things that will
determine your pagerank is how many inbound links you have. They need to
be quality links as well. Links from link exchanges and unrelated websites have
little to no effect and can actually do more harm than good. The good thing is
Google happens to consider articles one of these quality sources. Mainly it’s
because your article talking about a certain subject, then it’s linking to a
webpage of that subject. That is the one two knockout punch for a quality
inbound link.
What makes a good article? Following a few simple guidelines when writing an article can greatly increase it's effectiveness. I'm not gonna teach you how to sell your website or a product. This advice applies to optimizing your article for search engines. 
1. Know your topic and make sure it's relevant to your website. If you have a website solely about motorcycles and you write an article about hang gliders and then link to your site. Google will no doubt virtually completely ignore your article for this one reason alone. Just as true, if a human reads your article they're going to be quite mad when they show up to find the "Big Rex's Custom Choppers" staring back at them. So keep the article in the vein of your website and you'll be fine.
2. Once you have the topic of your site and the premise of the article sorted out the next thing you need to do is think about keywords. Keywords is a term used a lot these days when it comes to SEO. One caveat when it comes to keywords is do not over use them. Having a few well placed keywords in your article will go a long way. Think of keywords as a spice, a really hot spice like cayenne pepper. You just want to gently sprinkle the right amount on there. Using too much is called "keyword stuffing" and can greatly increase your risk of being ignored by a spider.
3. Think of a good title for your article. Make sure it's a bit unique in some way and contains those relevant keywords creatively. Instead of "Make money online" you might want to go with something like "Discover 10 easy ways to make some quick money online". The title is the first thing spiders and people look at so spend some time to think of a good one.
4. When writing the article keep it short within the 600-1500 word range. Once again, just like with the keywords you have to find a nice goldilocks zone so to speak. Not too short but long enough to ensure you've got some good informative content. A super long article no one will read and will no doubt have way too many keywords littered in.
5. Be sure not to talk about your site too much in the article. Do not put a link to your site or many other links but yours throughout the article. Just one well placed link at the end of the article is best. For example: "For more about anything motorcycles check out bigrexcustoms.com"
6. Submit it and forget it. Overtime link building like this will help drive a consistent stream of visitors to your site.
See also:
Over 20 great sites to submit your articles
Over 25 great sites to submit your blog and get it noticed
"Get Unlimited Supply Of
High PR Backlinks And Laser Targeted Traffic
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All Done In Minutes On Autopilot!"
Ask any blogger and they'll tell you they probably set out to write some more content for their blog but usually end up checking Facebook for 20 minutes instead. That's 20 minutes you could of spent working on your blog. As I write this I am only allowed to be on Facebook for 10 minutes today, thanks to a wonderful little extension called StayFocusd by Warren Benedetto.
Whatever your vice is you can essentially ween yourself off of it. Are my Farmville plants wilting? Ah -- I guess it will have to wait. Back to the post!
This extension has many other applications, imagine having this as a college student? Or maybe you work from home? At any rate it will do exactly as the extension claims.
Example: How to Disable and Enable Chrome Extensions
Install it and get to work! Now if I can only find a way to turn my TV off.
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So you have yourself a blog going but the only person reading it is you it seems. You may be thinking about promoting your blog but you're not sure where to begin.
A good way to get the ball rolling is submitting your blog to the various blog directories out there.
The truth is the main thing that will help build visitors is CONTENT.
You can submit your blog to all these sites listed below but without building a healthy blog with lots of original content to keep people coming back it will not matter.
Some are harder to get into than others. With the sheer volume of blogs some directories can be kind of picky as to what they list. I'll try to indicate the difficulty factor and ease of use of each one and weather or not it is human edited.
= Link Medic's Top Picks
= Easy Submission
= Human Reviewed
Updated Sep 21 - 2010
 Blogged - Social Network Blog Directory
-
Blogged meets all my critera, it's easy, quick, free and it's more than just a directory. It has some social elements as well which makes it
a much more of a usefull resource for you. Once signed up you'll definitly want to spend some time promoting your blog here. My
Blogged Profile is here stop by and follow me, i'll return the favor.
|
Blog Search Engine
-
- For the annual fee of 14.99 they will review your site and add it on their site. If your looking to invest some cash to gain
some traffic this isn't a bad choice.
|
Blog Catalog
-
- Much more than just a blog directory. It's a powerful website for any blogger. Your website is reviewed but it doesn't take much to get in. Another plus is you can manage a few different blogs. Sleak and easy to navigate dashboard design. It also hosts a number of blog tools and widgets.
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Zimbio - Interactive Magazine
-
- A lot of potential here. Zimbio can ping your blog and look for articles then you can post them on their website in one of the suggested categories. |
OnTopList
-
- I like this site for several reasons. One being that it's free and easy. Fill in the basics and put their link somewhere on your site and wait
for your site to be reviewed. Also they have the option to pay to be featured. Most of all I see visitors coming from this site.
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Blog Top Sites - Directory of the Best Blog Sites
-
- Very clean easy to use dashboard.
http://www.blogexplosion.com
-
- Interesting idea for a blog directory. Earn credits when you browse other peoples blog that you can apply to help get your blog more traffic.
If you're looking for something a bit more deep than just a directory check this out.
http://www.bloglisting.net
-
- Super easy and quick well categorized blog directory.
Blogorator.com
-
- Alows users to rate blogs for the directory.
Link Back Link
-
- This is a blog where the guy will essentially link back to after you link to him and give you and give a small review of your site.
Bloggeries Blog Directory - THE Human Edited Blog Directory
-
- This one is not free but the pricing is reasonable that was it's only saving grace.
EatonWeb Blog Directory
- Self proclaimed oldest blog directory.
Globe of Blogs
-
- Free and easy blog directory submission here.
http://www.bloguniverse.com
-
- Lengthy requirments and a fee to join.
http://www.bloggernity.com
-
- Easy to join but human reviewed for suitability.
http://www.biggerblogger.com
-
- Easy to sign up, small recurring fee.
http://www.bloggapedia.com/
-
- Nice looking directory that's very easy to navigate. Free listings as well as a featured option for 50$.
http://www.spillbean.com
-
- Very nice setup and delivery, must leave a link on your site or pay a fee.
Blogging Fusion
-
- Small one time fee or pay more for a speedy submission.
http://www.blogdup.org
-
- Easy signup and link submission.
http://www.blogtoplist.com
-
- Easy signup, get votes to gain more visitors.
http://www.blogarama.com
-
- Another quick and easy directory.
Blogdigger : Blog Search Engine - Search Blogs
-
- Nice directory, easy submission.
-- Sites not yet fully reviewed --
http://www.blogbal.com
http://www.sutradirectory.com/
http://www.blogsweet.com
http://www.getblogs.com
http://www.lsblogs.com
http://www.allforblog.com/
http://www.n1directory.com/
www.bigblogmedia.com
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Hi, I am Aaron Kay and I write and manage TheLinkMedic.com to help bloggers and other website developers improve their blogs. I made my first website when I was 12 years old and I've been having a blast ever since.
Now I'm 26 and still finding new ways to enhance my own blogging experience and what I find I share with you. I try to write for the pro and the newbie in all my posts. Click here to contact me with any questions, concerns or hate mail. :)
