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4 Reasons to Promote Your Blog on Facebook and Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 07:01:00 +0000

This may come as a surprise but a lot of people hesitate when it comes to blog promotion on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes it’s because they don’t want certain people to know about their blog, other times it’s because they don’t want to look like they’re spamming up their friends and followers feeds, and sometimes it just comes down to the fact that they don’t know how or even realize that they should be doing so. However not using Facebook and Twitter for your blog promotion is a massive mistake. Here are four reasons you need to use Facebook and Twitter for marketing your blog:
1. More exposure: It’s pretty simple really. You post your latest blog posts on Facebook and Twitter and more people are going to click on the link to read them. You can’t leave all of it to chance and people finding you through search engines because, unless you’re a mastermind with keywords and SEO, increased traffic just isn’t going to happen as quickly as when you’re promoting on these two sites.
2. New connections: Having a social media site to promote your blog gives you the opportunity to form new connections with readers and bloggers alike. You are able to interact with them in a way that your blog on its own doesn’t afford, which deepens the relationship and gives you a more loyal audience. Both of these are vital to the success of your blog.

3. Better search engine indexing: Tweeting out links to your new posts or sharing the links on Facebook means that your posts are in more places around the web. The more places there are linking to your posts, the more likely it is that the major search engines like Google or Yahoo are going to index your posts. Better indexing means more people finding your blog through searches. More people finding your blog equal more traffic. It’s an all-around win.
4. Both offer unique audiences: It’s unlikely that you have the exact same audience on both your Facebook and Twitter accounts, so promoting your blog in both places means that it will reach more people. Because Twitter allows you to include hashtags, you are going to reach a broader audience that extends past people that are already following you. And because people can share posts they like on Facebook it opens up the door for new people finding your blog all the time. Facebook and Twitter are two of the biggest social media websites available. Not taking advantage of them for promoting your blog is just passing up a free opportunity to reach more people. So use it! You’re only hurting your blog by not.
Author Bio:
This is a guest post from Laura Backes, she enjoys writing about all kinds of subjects and also topics related to internet service providers in my area. You can reach her at: laurabackes8 @ gmail.com

Photoblogging - How To Start A Photo Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:32:00 +0000

Photo blogging is a different kind of blogging, which is primarily focussed on pictures and not on text or articles. The pictures are usually accompanied with a caption or a brief description and rest is left for the viewers’ imagination. Unlike the usual blogging, in photo blogging you don't have to think much before posting a new post. But that said, it doesn't mean the authors of the photo blogs are not talented or it's a matter of seconds or minutes to publish a new post. Their talent and creativity is all visible in the pictures taken by them. Photographers see the same things that we do, but with a different angle and that is how the pictures are presented.
Nowadays, the content of the photo blogs is not limited to the pictures taken by the cameras. You can see a number of digital pictures on Internet, created by either modifying the pictures taken by cameras or creating them from scratch in photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop (shareware) or Paint.Net (freeware).

Photographers can blog and display their pictures either as a hobby or a profession. People show case their work on these blogs, either giving away the pictures for free or copyrighting their work and selling them online.
The pictures are usually presented as thumbnails with watermarks and the actual full size image is made available for download after a successful payment, either directly by email or using sites like DepositPhotos. You can also check out DepositPhotos' official blog for the latest trends in photography and photo blogging.
To start a photo blog, you should either be a good photographer or you should have a good professional camera. In short, if you get more than 10 likes for the pictures uploaded by you on Facebook, then you are already in a position to start a photo blog.

Where to blog...
You can either create a blog of our own, on any of the blogging platforms like Blogger or Wordpress, or you can create an account at websites like Flickr. Personally I would suggest you to host and display your images on your own blog, as that will give more credibility to your work. But at the same time you should also use sites like Deposit Photos to sell the pictures, this will give more exposure to your collection.

Promote your work...
Use the potential of social networking to publicize your work across the Net. Post links to your work in sites like Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg etc. But remember there's a difference in promoting and spamming, and in the long run spamming will do more bad than good for your blog and business.

Be creative...
As applicable to any work, creativity and novelty is the key to get successful in any niche. Do a proper research before buying a camera, play with its settings, try post modifications in different picture editing software. And bring in the best content for your viewers.

And protect what you want to sell...
"If it's online, then no one can guarantee its protection" - this is applicable to almost anything available online. But that doesn't mean you can leave your hard earned work open to thieves and data pirates. Use different techniques to keep pictures safe from getting copied.
If you are planning to sell pictures on your blog, then display only thumbnails along with watermarks. Also do have a "License" or "Terms of Use" page on your blog, clearly mentioning the copyright terms and conditions.

A suggestion...
At times do publish some good quality pictures with a "free to use" license. This will get you more viewers and regular visitors. And these visitors will sooner or later become your clients or will get you more clients.

For more ideas and inspiration head over to this list of 50 Inspiring Photoblogs on SmashingMagazine.

4 Tips for Organizing And Uncluttering your Blog Archive

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Fri, 13 May 2011 17:40:00 +0000

A guest post contributed by George Baker, who regularly writes for SparesNextDay.co.uk

A well organized blog has a tone of respectability as well as being easy for your followers to search through for their favorite articles. Unfortunately, many bloggers let their blog devolve into a mess of discombobulated pieces. In the name of creating order out of the chaos that is far too many blogs, here are my top 10 tips for organizing your blog archive.

1. Use Pages on Your Blog

The most important thing that you can do to improve the fluidity of your blog experience is to add pages. Pages make it much easier to find what people are looking for. Pages don't get lost in the infinite black hole that is an archive; instead, you can put them anywhere you want on your homepage and, actually, on every page within your blog. This means that pages are always vying for attention and will, as a result, get that attention.

2. Use Pages on Your Blog Well

Just having pages doesn't mean that your blog is automatically well organized. It takes work and the intelligent, calculated use of pages. Don't have too many pages and make sure that the information entombed in your pages remains relevant, easy to navigate, and aids, rather than hinders, the organizational process. What this means is that your pages should closely cluster blog posts from related topics.

Think of pages as a tent that you invite a party to discuss a relevant topic; the party is a bunch of like-minded people getting together to make points around a topic or two, but if you invite too many people with opinions that are way out there or have nothing to do with your topic, then the party quickly degenerates into a bunch of arguing back and forth or, worse, inane statements and meaninglessness. You must have vital connections and a vital discourse withing the page. Therefore, group your pages precisely and according to definable topics.

3. Group Posts According to Categories

Pages are nothing without categories. Categories and sub-categories are how you define what a post is about. The most important thing with categories is to find, with each and every blog post, just what it is about and label it accurately. Otherwise, there is not only misdirection but a cornucopia of information. Contrary to popular belief, more information is not automatically better information. Better organized information is better information.

Don't categorize every single blog post independent of all your other blog posts. Find common ground and cut down on excess categories. By cutting down on over-categorizing, you can simplify not only your life (because you are the one who has to fit blog posts into categories) but your blog reader's lives. This is because it makes finding what they are looking for a breeze. Nothing deters curious readers than having to pick their way through an endless, dark labyrinth without so much as a map. Categories are the map. Give your readers a readable and understandable map, with a good legend and a clear key. They aren't looking for bewilderment and chaos; they are looking for a blog! Give them a blog. Otherwise, it is highly likely that they will no longer be your reader.

4. Legitimize your Blog with Linked Sources

Far too much of blogging is nothing more than opinion and pure fluff. The surefire way to counter this is to include your sources. If you have been writing about the economy, throw in a link to an online Wall Street Journal article that talks about either what you have been talking about or something similar. If you get some information from another website, link to that website. If you liked an idea from another blog, don't try to pass it off as your own; link to that blog and build a virtual friendship.

Also, by including links to authoritative and interesting articles outside of your blog, you broaden the minds of your readers by giving them another view on whatever topic you were writing about. Sincere and intelligent readers will treasure the additional information and meaning that you have made possible. Plus, this helps to improve the collective consciousness of our planet. What can be more important than that?

Image credits: activerain.com

Help out with all the vacuum cleaner bags at work is what George is trained to do, as he mainly deals Numatic vacuum bags.

Check & Download DDA 2011 (DDA 2010 HOUSING SCHEME) Draw Result Now

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:06:00 +0000

Off Topic Alert: This post is not about blogging.

Download the complete list of DDA 2010 Housing Scheme Successful Applicants
[2.2 MB PDF File]

The draw was conducted on 18th April, 2011 at the Sector-62 office of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC).

Right now the servers of DDA are unable to take the load of curious applicants trying to check their results.
So, if you want to check the status of your applications, then download the complete list of successful applicants right now from this link:

List of DDA 2010 Housing Scheme Successful Applicants
[2.2 MB PDF File]

Wishing You Best Of Luck :)

Three Quick Tips for Attracting Traffic to Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:43:00 +0000

A guest post contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who regularly writes for OnlineUniversities.com

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been the hot topic in all areas of the blogosphere for years now. Now that creating and maintaining a blog has become fairly simple, bloggers and wannabe bloggers are all about getting readers and creating traffic. While there are dozens and dozens of tips and tricks to mastering SEO available on the web, these three tips are simple and often overlooked.

One of the most important aspects of optimizing your blog is learning to link intelligently. This is an area that people have significant trouble with (and for good reason). Linking in a way that appears both natural and unobtrusive can be tricky. When you link out in your blog posts, you should always be aware of how the links are related to the content you provide. Not everything that you discuss in you blog will warrant a link. You must determine where it is appropriate to use convention to link and where a little more creativity is necessary. The biggest deterrent in a blog is over-linking, however it is also important to realize that under-linking can have very dire consequences as well. If you mention Wikipedia in a blog post, it is obviously not necessary to link to Wikipedia in general because everyone on the internet knows what it is. However, if you mention a specific page from Wikipedia it is not only good that you link to that page, in fact it is necessary.

Another great tip for optimizing your blog is launching your blog posts without comments enabled initially. Unfortunately, many readers will base what they read on how many other people have read it. We've all done it. You click on a post that has an interesting looking title, scan the page, see that there are no comments, and decide that it's not worth reading. Obviously, this doesn’t always happen, but there is something kind of sad about a blog with 0 comments on every single post. The site looks dead and unpopular. The simple solution turn off the commenting option. This way no one can see that there are 0 comments on your blog. After you submit a post, pay close attention to the number of RSS subscribers you have and the number of unique visitors you have each day. Once your RSS subscribers tops 100 or you get more than 300 unique visits a day open up the comments. Using this technique keeps particularly tech-savvy visitors from judging your blog based on popularity.

Finally, many bloggers underestimate the value of guest bloggers for their site. Having already established bloggers write content for your site will help attract their readers to your page and will strengthen your SEO. Of course, it is important that you choose your guest posts and guest posters carefully. The guest posts that you choose should be relevant to your blog's interests and aims. However, it may also be useful to support guest posts that counter something that you have discussed previously. This way you are catering to all spectrums of the general audience and you demonstrate that you are open to discussion. Fostering varied discussion in your blog can be important to generating more interest in it. Another important thing to look for in guest blogs is links or direct references to other posts from your page. If a guest blogger discusses other blog posts you have written, it will encourage readers to read more of your work and it establishes that that guest writer is familiar with your blog.

This guest post is contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who regularly writes for online universities. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: katherynrivas87@gmail.com

Image credits: sdnn.com

Cloud Computing - for The NOT SO Technical Netizens

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:30:00 +0000

For the last several months, I have been using and suggesting my readers to use OpenDrive to host their files online, which also allows them to hotlink their files; An important requirement if you want to host and embed MP3 players in to your blogs.
While using this service I got a chance to use their cloud computing based OpenDrive Desktop too. Here, in this article, I am not going to tell you the technical basics of Cloud Computing, viz. IaaS, PaaS, SaaS etc. but just the basics - how can a person with a PC and an Internet connection get the benefits of it. Before I explain "how to use OD-Desktop", have a look on the basics...

So, what exactly is Cloud Computing?
In cloud computing all your data is stored in clouds (okay, it's not actually "clouds", but these are "servers" installed in several countries across the world). The data is updated in real-time when you update the files on your PC (provided you have an active Internet connection). And finally, you can access these up-to-date files from anywhere & anytime.

I already have a back up on an external HDD, Why should I again upload this data to other servers?
You might be having your data on your external HDD, but that data is usually old and doesn't always get updated when you edit your present files. Moreover you do not carry this hard-disk always with you and neither can it be accessed by mobile devices (mobile phones).

I have stored all my important files on other file-hosting sites, like Rapidshare, 4shared, ADrive etc. Isn't that enough?

Sure, you have your files stored on various online sites. But again, the files uploaded here on these sites may not the be latest versions of your edited files.
You might want to have access to your latest résumé (CV) or a copy of your internet browser's bookmarks etc., everywhere you go. So, for these types of files, every time you edit them, you will have to log in and re-upload the new files yourself at these file-hosting sites.

Now using cloud computing, whenever you create or edit a file on your PC/Laptop, these files are automatically added/updated in the cloud (the distant server) too (provided you have an active Internet connection). So now, you can download these new/edited files from any computer/mobile device, using a login-ID and password, of course.

To start using Cloud Computing for your dynamic files, first of all you need (1) a cloud - a company that provides a server to you where you can store a copy of your files and (2) a software (again provided by the same company) to regularly send the new & updated files to their server.
So, I would suggest you to register at OpenDrive and use their software OpenDrive-Desktop.

Once registered, download their OpenDrive-Desktop and install it on your PC.
It will be displayed in your "My Computer" area, as an additional drive. Within this drive, you can create folders and sub-folders in the same way as you do it in your PC and store files in them. Whenever you add or edit files in this drive (or in any folder within the drive), the files will be updated in your OpenDrive account too. So, next time while using a different PC/Laptop or a mobile phone, you can log-in at OpenDrive.com to access your latest up-to-date files. Moreover you have an option at OD to make the files "private" or "public" - to share selected files with your friends or colleagues.

5 New Official Dynamic Blogger Templates

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 17:36:00 +0000

Today Blogger has introduced five new dynamic blogger templates. Using the latest web-technologies, including AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3, these templates deliver a host of benefits to you and your readers:

* New layouts: different views suited to different types of blogs
* Infinite scrolling: (like Twitter/Facebook wall) read more posts without having to reload or click to a second page
* Speed: download images as you view them, not all at once in advance
* Interactivity: there are now more ways to experience and engage with blog content

And the best part is, you don't lose your current template, to use these new dynamic templates.
For example, right now you can view BloggerStop in all these five templates:

1. BloggerStop - Flipcard
2. BloggerStop - Mosaic
3. BloggerStop - Sidebar
4. BloggerStop - Snapshot
5. BloggerStop - Timeslide

To view your own blog in any of these templates, simply type your blog-address and add "/view" to it.
For example,

http://www.MY_BLOG.blogpost.com/view/

In case dynamic templates are not already active/enabled for your blog, then do it yourself from
Blogger Dashboard -> Settings -> Formatting -> Enable Dynamic Views and select the option "Yes".

Temporarily, to make any of these templates as default, for all your visitors...

<head>

And immediately BELOW/AFTER it, paste this code:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=http://YOUR_BLOG.blogspot.com/view/snapshot/" />

Similarly instead of "snapshot", you may use other templates too.

Give your feedback to Blogger Team from this page:
Feedback - Blogger Dynamic Templates

All Hail to Blogger

10 Things Every Blogging Office Needs

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 16:14:00 +0000

A guest post by James Adams, editor and contributor to the CreativeCloud blog.

Being a professional blogger isn’t as simple as waking up one morning and stating, “I am a blogger, look out world!” Like any other discipline or endeavour, being a successful blogger means that you have to take the job seriously. That means working with dedication, planning and forethought. Having the right tools is an essential part of being a blogger, as you need the right tools in order to get the job done.

1. Computer or Laptop: There is no doubt one of the key tools of the modern journalist and the pro blogger is the computer. After all, the computer has become the informational link to the world. Blogging is all about information and staying current with what is happening in the world around us. This means that your computer is an essential tool in your blogging toolkit. While it is not necessary to have a top of the line gaming computer, you should have one that can get the job done or you will lose hours and hours on productivity. Making sure that you have a quality anti-virus program and firewall might be savvy addition as well.

2. Top-Notch Monitor: A reasonably large high quality monitor is an essential tool not just for bloggers, but also for anyone spending a lot of time at the computer. Eyestrain can greatly impair your productivity and make working nothing short of unpleasant. Spending a little extra money for a quality monitor is a savvy move.

3. Broadband Access: It should come as no surprise that access to a broadband connection is essential for blogging. While some people do still use dial-up Internet, you will experience major setbacks if you don’t have access to a fast connection. If you are using a laptop computer, be sure that you have a 3G dongle device for your mobile broadband access.

4. The Smartphone: A good smartphone is an absolute essential for the blogger. This is particularly true if you have one with a good deal of functionality and apps. A smartphone can function something like a modern Swiss army knife and may include GPS, recording capability, note taking capability, as well as essential features such as a camera and video capability. Also a smartphone allows you to connect to the Internet whenever you like from virtually wherever you like. This can prove invaluable for any number of important reasons. Of course, your trusted smartphone also functions as a phone too! All of these factors combine to make the smartphone a simply essential tool.

5. The Notebook or Notepad: Sure a notebook or notepad might be a bit “old school,” but you never have to worry about the battery on your notepad running out! This makes the time honoured, battled tested notepad something of a practical real world essential. It is something that you should not be without for quickly jotting down ideas on good old-fashioned paper.

6. Pens, Pens and More Pens: Pens are always a must for the blogger. Not all note taking is digital... at least not yet.

6. A Good Desk: Having a good desk might seem like a no-brainer, but if you are going to be spending hours upon hours writing, you need to keep the importance of a good desk in mind. A good desk will also help keep you organised and enhance your productivity.

7. The Chair: A comfortable chair, one that you can spend hours in, is probably even more important than having a good desk. After all, back problems will quickly end your workday.

9. A Bookcase: You never know when you might want to include a reference to a book in your blogging endeavours. A bookcase is important for staying organised. Don’t skip this inexpensive item that is essential for keeping books in order.

10. A Quality Keyboard: Lots of blogging means lots of typing. This makes an investment in a comfortable keyboard a must. Don’t just assume that the keyboard you received with your computer is adequate.

Image credits: Ben's Biz Blog

James works at Office Kitten, a UK based supplier of envelopes for businesses and other office stationery.

Add A TweetQuote To Your Blogger Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:10:00 +0000

In HTML/CSS, when you quote a piece of text from other websites/web pages, then it is usually done through customized quote boxes, called as blockquotes. You can read, add and customize these blockquotes in your blog from this tutorial:
Customize Blockquote In Your BlogSpot Blog

Now, in this tutorial you will be able to add a sub-type of blockquotes: Tweetquote, to your blog.
Many tweets go viral on Twitter and many a times, we do find tweets worth sharing with our readers on our blogs. So, here is a creative & professional way to (re)publish tweets on your blogs:
@BillGates congratulating Warren Buffett, for being awarded with National Medal of Fredom:

Congratulations to my dear friend Warren Buffett on National Medal of Freedom - http://bit.ly/eN9rh1

-@BillGates

There are just two steps to follow, in this tutorial:

STEP #1
Log in to Blogger, go to Design -> Edit HTML and find this code:

</head>

And immediately ABOVE/BEFORE it, paste this code:

<style type="text/css">
blockquote.tweetquote {
border-top: 1px solid #FFF;
border-left: 1px solid #FFF;
border-right: 1px solid #46A8B8;
border-bottom: 1px solid #46A8B8;
background: #D1D0C6 url(http://files.main.bloggerstop.net/uploads/3/0/2/5/3025338/twitterquote1.jpg);
background-position:top left;
background-repeat:repeat-y;
margin: 0 20px;
padding: 10px 20px 10px 45px;
font-size: 0.9em;
}
</style>

You may use a different background image in your blog by editing the code highlighted in BLUE color in the above code. And SAVE the template.

STEP #2
Now, while publishing a post on your blog, whenever you want to quote a tweet, do it in this way:

<blockquote class="tweetquote">PASTE THE TWEET HERE</blockquote>
-<a href="http://LINK_TO_TWEET">@TWIT_ID</a>

NOTE: Remember the code highlighted in RED, that has to be used everytime you want to quote a tweet.
Your tweet can be of any length (you may use tweets from twitlonger too, as the background cloud pattern will keep on repeating itself). That's it...Publish the post.

Image credits: OneHalfKiller

How to Choose Brilliant Images for Your Blog Posts

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 04:40:00 +0000

A guest post by James Adams, editor and contributor to the CreativeCloud blog.

An image - worth thousand words!

We are living in a world that rewards instant gratification; people do not want to take the time to read a book, if the movie is available. In other words, "a picture is worth a thousand words." It should not be difficult to see why illustrations are important when keeping readers interested in your blog posts. Pictures can help readers to follow your writing more easily, breaking up the text so that it doesn't look like one long, tedious piece of work.
Here are some tips on how to choose the best images for your blog posts:

(#1.) Relevance - blog posts are generally there to persuade readers to show interest in a certain topic, product, or service. Adding pictures to help illustrate those concepts can only help, but don't go overboard. Shy away from adding pictures for the sake of adding pictures. Make sure that you are putting up illustrations that are going to add to the relevance of your text, not take away from it. It is easy to add too much, so try to keep it straight forward and to the point, just like the text.

(#2.) Copyrights - always remember that not all images are available for your use. There are copyrights for images that are on the internet as well as copyrights for images that are in print. If you want to avoid any problems that you might encounter with copyrighted materials, use your own images. Go looking for images that give relevance to your post and take the pictures yourself. If that doesn't seem like a viable option for you, there are public image sites that you can locate off of any search engine. Most search engines will provide you with an image option; type in the object or term that you are looking for and browse through the hundreds of images that are available to use without objection. If you find an image on another blog or site that you would like to use, remember to be courteous. It is polite to send a short email or contact the owner of the site asking for permission to use the image.

(#3.) Editing - it is important to do minor (and sometimes major) editing on your images before just sticking them up on your blog. It is more than aggravating to have to wait an eternity for a page to load because the file is too large. In fact, in this "instant gratification" world, no one waits for a page to load for very long without just moving along. If you have a file to add that is of larger size, put a thumbnail up on the page. If users want to wait to view the full photo, they have that option. If not, it doesn't create problems when loading. When finalising photos or images for your blog post, keep clarity in mind. A clean and crisp image gets the point across a lot better than an unclear one. Photoshop is a great tool to use before putting pictures up on your blog; you can add or subtract from an image as needed, and sometimes it is needed.

(#4.) Avoid - there are some things that you should try and avoid when choosing images for your blog post. For instance, animations are great and can potentially add just the right ingredient to your post, but it is important to think about internet connections. Some people don't have the fastest connections, and you don't want to alienate parts of your audience. It is also a good idea to stay away from background images; they can slow the process of loading your page down to snail pace. Account for those readers who may want to print your post without the background attached.

(#5.) Include - there are images that are better to use than others and should be highly considered. You want to make sure that you are using unique illustrations. If people have seen the image a thousand times, it loses its weight. People associate certain objects with a product or service and you want your readers to associate illustrations with your work. Include pictures that capture the essence of what you are trying to relay to your readers, it doesn't have to be completely literal. Capitalise on reader satisfaction by using photos that mean something to them; use pictures of people, kids, animals. Everyone likes to laugh, so adding a humorous image is a tool that will keep readers returning to your page. This is your chance to shine, to set yourself apart from similar blogs or from those that are selling the same product or service. Images can very easily turn into a mascot for a particular product, site or service. Mascots can be very beneficial to a business and finding a good one starts with searching through images that are relevant to your end goals.

Image credits: The Thinking Blog

James Adams normally reviews consumables for Canon printers at the UK's biggest online supplier of printer cartridges, Cartridge Save.

PCNames - Instant Domain Availability Checking Tool

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 09:10:00 +0000

Purchasing domains these days is definitely more than just having an online presence. It is in fact, no less than the real estate business. Just as a piece of land or a house you can purchase and sell IP numbers (domain names) online. Be the first one to guess the value of a domain name, register it and you will be sitting on a gold mine a few months/years later.
But nowadays, to purchase a domain you have to check not only at the domain registrars but also at various domain sellers and re-sellers (in case the domain of your choice has already been registered by someone else) - making the whole work a lot more tedious for you. But luckily, now PCNames is there to make the process simple and easy.

The FAQ section of PCNames has got all the basic information about Domain names (right from "what a domain name is?" to "what is domain squatting?" etc.). Moreover they also provide some extremely useful Tips for both the newbie & experienced domain buyers (and sellers).

Any domain name search at PCNames shows the results for various different TLDs highlighted in Green (Available), Red (Not Available) and Blue (Registered but Available for Sale). All your recent domain-searches are shown in a tabular form and from that list you can buy the domain(s) of your choice from any of the listed domain registrars (GoDaddy, Yahoo or Network Solutions (NS is NOT recommended by me)). Once you click on any of the registrars you will be redirected to their website, where you can complete the transaction.

If you are an experienced domain reseller, then you may also try their Bulk Domain checking tool and if you are new to this, then try their Domain Generator tool for some quick (but limited) suggestions.

Christmas Decoration Tools For Blogs - A Round Up

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 08:03:00 +0000

It's Christmas time again and I am sure you want to decorate your blog just the way, you decorate your Christmas tree. So, here's a round up of all the Xmas special tutorials already published on BloggerStop that will help you to add different Xmas add-ons to your blog.

1. How to add Christmas stars, balls and snowflake icons to your blog;

Decorate Your Blog With These Awesome Xmas-Icons

2. How to add Christmas Carols to your blogspot/blogger blog

First of all, download the carols in MP3 format from these sites:
(i) Christmas carols
(ii) Christmas songs
And of course, you can search Google for more Christmas songs.

Then, follow this tutorial to add these carols to your blog:

Add An MP3 Music Player To Your BlogSpot Blog

3. How to add falling snowflakes to your blog

It has already started snowing around the world. So bring that snow to your blog too;

Add Falling Snowflakes / Flowers / Leaves to Your Blog

4. Bring back the child in you and your visitors...

Embed/Add Christmas Games To Your Blog

Traffic Exchange Widgets - Wahoha vs MGID vs 2Leep vs ZapArena...

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 17:12:00 +0000

The Good...

A few years back, there were only a few social networking sites (Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Delicious etc.) which used to circulate the content across the Internet. But there are a number of limitations to these sites;
Firstly, none of these websites guarantee any minimum amount of traffic to you. Secondly, visitors coming from these sites are mostly the registered members of these sites (although the number of members in these sites is very large but definitely limited). And finally, in almost all these networks only a dozen or so popular websites get maximum benefits (read traffic). Nowadays you can expect significant traffic from these sites only if you have a breaking news or something really bizarre.

The Better...

So the next option to make your content viral is to use "manual" traffic exchange sites/widgets like LinkWithin, BlogExplosion and EntreCard etc. where you have to manually visit other blogs, and in exchange other members of those sites visit your blog.

Again, even this system cannot promise traffic forever;
First of all, you have to visit other blogs, whether you are interested in doing so or not - a complete waste of time and sooner or later you will lose interest in doing that regularly. Secondly, the traffic coming from these sites is mostly non-targeted and they usually leave the website from the landing page itself, raising the blog bounce rate. And of course, this type of traffic exchange is also completely limited to the number of registered members.

The Best...

Recently, you would have noticed many blogs (including BloggerStop.Net) with a new type traffic exchange widget. This is how these widgets work:
These widgets show different content from various blogs/websites on your site (you can place the widget anywhere on the blog - at BloggerStop, it is there right below this post). The links are shown in the form of small windows with some text (titles). See the example below this post (widget from MGID).

If you send 100 visitors to other blogs via this widget, then in return, your posts will be shown on other blogs in a similar way and you will receive anywhere between 250-400 visits (150-300%).

Now, if you are ready to add this kind of widget to your blog, then you will find a number of websites (from MGID, Wahoha, 2Leep, ZapArena etc.) offering exactly the same service with similar claims of around 150-300% traffic. But to make your job easier, I have already tried all of them and selected the best one for you.

The two main criteria of selection were:

1. The overall design of the widget and the title & picture selection (unique for each post submitted from the blog). A "Perfectly Cropped" image is the most important part of this whole system. As you know that 'a picture speaks a thousand words', so your picture has to be the most attractive one among others to receive maximum clicks.

2. The stats shown by by these traffic exchange sites must match with our records (Google analytics or StatCounter etc.), but unfortunately it wasn't the case in almost all of them.

The widget I have selected for BloggerStop and which I suggest to my readers is the one from MGID.

Here are the some of the reasons for selecting MGID over others:

1. According to Alexa MGID is ranked one of the US top 500 most visited websites with more than 17 million unique visitors per month;

2. MGID has more than 3000 US partner sites. And they divide their partners/publishers posts into 30 different categories, so that their visitors come from similar websites/blogs.

3. MGID collaborates only with family-friendly, safe for work sites (no gratuitous or inappropriate adult content);

4. Recently their system was updated & optimized & the exchange ratio for most of their partners (publishers) has substantially increased. Therefore most of the publishers are now getting 200%-500% visitors back;

5. Their partners, who also use other similar services, have reported that their widgets are much more clickable. This means that their partners receive even more traffic in return.

6. Many of their partners receive from 5 to 15 page views per user; that's called quality traffic;

7. MGID's proprietary system filters provide a unique click ratio of close to 90%. This provides you with only the best traffic;

8. MGID works with blogs, media corporations, networks, and magazines etc. (e.g. AOL, Break Media);

9. With offices in Los Angeles, New York, London, Moscow, Kiev, and Shanghai, their highly experienced team can provide exceptional customer service 24/7.

So, join MGID, grab your widget code and paste it below your posts (recommended) or in the sidebar. Wait for a day or two, your posts will be visible across hundreds and thousands of blogs and you enjoy the traffic.

Image credits: PromotedProfits

10 Tips For Optimizing Your Blog For Printing

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:03:00 +0000

A guest post by James Adams, editor and contributor to the CreativeCloud blog.

With a few simple steps you can optimize your blog for printing, add printable vouchers, and save your blog viewers a lot of ink and paper. In less than 10 minutes, you can improve the professional look and functionality of your blog and convince visitors to comeback, whether it is to buy from you or to simply visit again seeking more information. You can make your blog look great on the screen and on the printed page. Blog plugins allow you to increase readability by choosing which elements from your blog are included on the printed page.

Plugins to Optimize Your Blog for Printing

Quick Online Tips and HP suggest using plugins designed to make your blog printer-friendly. A few popular plugins that omit unnecessary information from the printout are: PrintWhatYouLike, PrintFriendly, Cleanprint and HP Smart Web Printing. VoucherPress adds functionality to your blog to print custom business content for your consumer.

1) PrintWhatYouLike (WordPress version 1.5 or higher)

PrintWhatYouLike is a free plugin that will automatically format your WordPress blog for printing and allows users to save the blog in a .pdf format. You can also sign up for a free account and customize how you would like your blog to print.

2) PrintFriendly (WordPress version 1.5 or higher)

PrintFriendly adds a "printer friendly" and a ".pdf" button to your blog so that users can use to create a printer-friendly version and save paper and ink by customizing which areas of the blog are included in the printout. It is free.

3) Cleanprint (WordPress version 2.0.2 to 3.0.1)

Cleanprint is another free plugin that allows the user to customize which areas of the blog are printed. This plugin is unique, however, because it allows the blog to be printed in a professional "magazine-like" format with logos and headers intact, but optimized for a printed format of the blog. One drawback is that it is only compatible with selected WordPress themes.

4) VoucherPress (WordPress version 2.8 to 3.0.1)

The VoucherPress is a free plugin allows you to create and print customizable certificates and vouchers and to collect visitor e-mail addresses for your database. It can be customized to contain unique offer numbers for tracking and the user can set expiration dates for each offer once a particular number of visitors have downloaded a certificate or voucher from your blog.

5) HP Smart Web Printing (Blogger and Drupal compatible)

HP Smart Web Printing is an Internet Explorer plugin that converts your blog into a .pdf format where users can choose which areas of the blog are included on the page.

Printer-Friendly Blog Design Tips

Your blog may look organized when you view it on the web, but have you ever tried to print out pages from your blog? Most blog themes have been designed and optimized for viewing online, but when visitors want to print pages to read later, they end up with an unreadable mess. With a few simple modifications to your blog design, you can create an eye-pleasing format that is readable online and in print.

1) Add a CSS style sheet

Marketing Tech Blog and WordPress for Style recommend adding a print.css style sheet to your blog. You can choose which areas to display and change the text formatting and the margins of the page. The style sheet code will need to be added to the header of each page of your blog.

2) Change the margins

The Search Written usability blog suggests changing the margins of the page within the print version of your blog to maximize printable area and save paper and printer ink for your blog readers.

3) List the URL for links

It is also helpful to set your print version up to print out the URL for links on your blog entries since you can't "click" on the page once it is printed! You can also list the URL as a footer in the printed version if you don't want the URL to interfere with the text readability of your print out.

4) "Un-float" tables

Going to Print recommends "un-floating" tables in your HTML for printed versions of your blog, this prevents blog areas from printing across two different pages.

5) Set the page background to white and table backgrounds to transparent

Another great tip from Going to Print is to set all background colors to "white" and all table backgrounds to "transparent" in the print version of the blog to save ink and increase text legibility.

Conclusion

It is easy to make your blog printer-friendly with a few easy modifications to your design and the use of clever plugins that make your blog look professional and optimize the visitor's experience when printing your blog pages so that they will want to return again and again.

James Adams works at Cartridge Save where he writes reviews of newest Lexmark supplies. When he has time, James enjoys writing about advertising, design and tech.

3 Unconventional Offline Marketing Techniques for Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 18:40:00 +0000

A guest post by Alvina Lopez, who writes on the topics of accredited online schools.

We've read all that we can, about how to drive more traffic to our blogs. We know everything there is, to know about SEO and writing guest blogs and 'dofollow' links and so on. After a while, though, some of that stuff, as helpful as it is, can get a little old and we find ourselves wanting to have a little fun with how we market our blogs.

That's where unconventional offline marketing comes in. While you'll still want to devote a vast majority of your resources to the standard methods of attracting traffic to your blog, you should also consider having fun with some different approaches to offline promotion. Of course, be sure that these methods won't turn people off to your brand. It's all about balancing the marketing with how it affects your readers.

Here are a few ideas to consider as you try to attract new readers to your blog. Feel free to take these and adjust them however you can to suit your content and niche. And remember: have fun!

Undercover Marketing

This technique requires that you subtly place advertisements for your blog in places that many readers might not expect to see an advertisement. Consider your niche carefully when you do this, as you'll want to try to target the audience that would best fit your content. If your blog is about personal finance, then consider printing cheap bookmarks and hiding them in books in the financial section of local book stores. If your blog is about food or drinks, you could print stickers and stick them on the backs of products in grocery stores so that people will see them after they've purchased them. You can also enlist your friends to help you spread these subtle advertisements in other cities.

Gimmick Marketing

This might be a little more expensive and risky, but it can't hurt to try a one-time advertising gimmick and hope it generates some attention. Again, think carefully about how you want to represent your brand. For example, remember Battlecam.com? That's the site that paid a man to paint the domain on his chest and streak an Obama rally. You don't have to be as crazy as that to get good buzz; something as silly as hiring a guy in a bear suit to stand in Times Square with a sign could be enough to get a bit of new traffic.

Crowd Marketing

Have you ever walked the strip in Las Vegas? If so, you might have been surprised to suddenly find yourself holding a card for one of the many clubs or casinos in the area. Most likely, someone held it out and you took it without even thinking. You'd be surprised at what people will take when they're hurrying through a crowd. If there are any crowded areas like this nearby, you can print up a bunch of cheap business cards and simply hand them out to people. When you do so, make sure to thrust it into their hand so they don't have an option to turn you down. The simple human connection could be enough to get them to remember your url.

By-line:
This guest post is contributed by Alvina Lopez, who writes on the topics of accredited online schools. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com

BloggerStop's 2nd Birthday - 3 Domains Giveaway :)

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:52:00 +0000

Two weeks back BloggerStop turned 2 (on 23rd Sep) and today I am 22 :) [we both are Librans... yay :)]
So, to celebrate our birthdays, I am giving away 3 free domains :)

In these two years this blog has already met some of its objectives and is yet to meet many more. These are some of the milestones that BloggerStop has set, with strong & continuous support from its readers:
As of now, BloggerStop has over 1 million pageviews, 400 posts, and around 10,000 comments, & all this has bolstered BloggerStop to build good reputation in the Blogosphere. Thanks to the 2000+ subscribers, over 600 Blog followers and 400+ Facebook fans for constantly encouraging me to publish posts with better quality. Although I have been trying my best to reply all the comments and mails I receive, but of course I do have to balance this with other priorities of my life. So, sorry to all those readers, whose comments/mails were left unanswered by me.
And I am happy that BloggerStop has made its presence in all the 192 countries around the world (which are part of the United Nations). In fact as of now, BloggerStop has visitors from over 210 countries.

To share the happiness with all the readers of BloggerStop, I am giving away three (3) domains for free. To participate in this contest, simply spread the word:
1. Tweet it; you'll get 1 entry-point.
2. Share it on Facebook; you'll get 1 entry-point.
3. And for writing a blog-post (about this blog & contest), you'll get 5 entry-points.
Comment on this post (with your links) to get your entry-points.

A participant can earn a maximum of 7 entry-points (1+1+5)

The contest will run for two weeks, starting from today & ending on 19th October. After these two weeks, 3 winners will be selected randomly (Draw at Random), and the results will be announced on 20th October, 2010.
Winners will receive gift cards, to register a domain name of their choice with these TLDs:
Winner #1 will get a .com domain
Winner #2 will get a .me domain
Winner #3 will get a .biz domain

TinyPic Is Down Forever - Code 010394

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 03:29:00 +0000

*UPDATE: The problem has been solved. See the bottom of this post for Tinypic's explanation on the issue. Now the image links have started working again and you may upload new images too.

Tinypic Image Unavailable CODE 010394: Without a warning, on September 23, 2010 Tinypic has completely stopped its services for all International users (non-US). This not only restrict the users to upload new images to Tinypic, but also to link/use the images that are already uploaded by them.
A few months back, Tinypic stopped new-user sign-ups, but something like this was completely unexpected.
But don't worry, as we do have a temporary & a permanent fix to this problem, keep reading...

This is what Tinypic-Team says:

Tinypic is no longer accepting uploads from international locations, and links are turned off. If you have content on Tinypic, you can still view the URLs and the content, but only on Tinypic. To upload, share, or link content, please go to Photobucket.com to register an account. You will need to upload your content again to your Photobucket account, but you will be able to share and link your images and videos. We’re sorry for the inconvenience and hope that you enjoy Photobucket, our premier image and video site.

But why join Photobucket?
Photobucket is also owned by the same group of people, so after this instance, millions of users around the world no longer trust their service.
Moreover, it is definitely NOT an option at least for me with a storage limit of just 500MB and bandwidth limit of 10GB/month [PB - Free vs Pro].

Temporary Fix
As of now, to quickly view your images and re-upload them to a new image-host, edit your direct-links like this:

Presently a direct link from Tinypic looks like this:

http://i40.tinypic.com/mihsgg.jpg

So, immediately after http:// add the letter "o" in lower-case:

http://oi40.tinypic.com/mihsgg.jpg

Switch to New Image-Hosts (that's the permanent fix)

The two most popular alternate options (that allow hotlinking/direct-linking of images) are ImageShack.us and Imgur.com

I am selecting ImageShack over Imgur, due to these reasons:

Although both of them allow hotlinking, but again both of them lack a good User-Interface (UI) and have at least one major drawback:

At Imageshack, for free users a bandwidth limit does apply:

Imageshack allows 2000mb per hour for each image hosted. Gif images are limited at 500mb per hour. Peak time is from 6:00am to 3:00pm PST. Off peak there are no limits.

And these are the two reasons for not joining Imgur:

Total Account Images 225

Standard accounts are limited to the 225 most recent images. After that, the newest uploads will be shown and the oldest uploads will be bumped out of the account (not deleted, just hidden from within the account). There is no limit to pro accounts.

Image Removal

With standard accounts, images over 1 MB will be compressed until they are less than 1 MB. With pro accounts, your images aren't touched in any way unless they are over 5 MB, in which case they will be compressed until they reach 5MB in size.

So depending on your usage, you may select any one of them. Or if you know a better service, kindly mention it in the comments section below...

*UPDATE: Tinypic has resolved the issue, and has also apologized to all its users:

We heard from many of our users in regards to these changes and we appreciate your feedback. Tinypic has restored linking to your images and enabled uploading. Please rest assured no content was removed from the site. We tried to notify users on Tinypic and requested they move their content to Photobucket. Unfortunately this messaging was insufficient and has taken many of our users by surprise and we apologize. Our intent was to begin combining some of the best features of Tinypic and Photobucket, thereby offering users a better experience. Any changes in the future will be better communicated. Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience.

7 Ways to Reduce Blog Spam

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:58:00 +0000

A guest post by James Adams, editor and contributor to the CreativeCloud blog.

Bloggers know that dealing with spam cannot be avoided. Every day spammers find new ways to automatically post comments to blogs, and some can even create blog posts. The technology in use by blog spammers slows your blog to a crawl, as links for all sorts of crazy things are plastered into comments all over your blog. Here are 7 ways to reduce blog spam that can help you reclaim your time and your blog’s performance.

NOTE: Most of the methods discussed here will work only on WordPress based blogs. Albeit Blogger too has recently introduced its own SPAM fighting tool, but it is still in its infancy and so I have mentioned some of the alternative tools/strategies along with the points discussed below.

1. Install and enable Akismet: The first line of spam defense for your blog is a plugin that comes with WordPress. Akismet also has an API that can be adapted to a variety of Web applications. Once this plugin is in place and active on your site, the majority comment spam will be sent directly to your comment spam folder and will never be displayed to visitors on your site. Akismet alone however won’t stop spam: some spam will get through and spammers will still be able to overload your site with their bots.
Blogger Strategy: You can use Akismet in Blogger/BlogSpot blogs, by installing alternate comment-forms (Disqus or IntenseDebate).

2. Blog comment settings: Change the number of links allowed in comments. Because comment spammers are notorious for their links, be sure that you set your blog to a low number of allowed links in comments. In WordPress, the recommended level is “1,” unless you want to have every comment go into moderation. This technique is effective in reducing the number of spam comments that are displayed on your blog, but it does not prevent access to your site by spammers. Another setting you can use to combat spam is the “Spam words” list. By creating a list of words you consider spam, you redirect all comments with those words to your comment moderation queue. In WordPress, these settings are found in the “Settings,” “Discussion,” “Comment Moderation” section of your dashboard.
In Blogger: The exact spam detection checks employed by Blogger are not known, but it does filter out some comments as SPAM with 2 or 3 active links in them. As of now, there is no publicly available list of 'Spam words' and there's no option to create one yourself for your blog. You can recommend these features to Blogger over here: Blogger Help Forum.

3. reCAPTCHA: This plugin works like the CAPTCHA images you type in all across the Internet. These things are annoying to many users because of the difficulty associated with figuring out what each image is. Still, requiring random human input before accepting a comment will stop automated spammers in their tracks.
In Blogger: You can activate CAPTCHA (word verification) at Blogger Dashboard -> Settings -> Comments.

4. Stop comments without referrers: If you are experienced at Web programming, you can modify your .htaccess file to block comments that are received from users with no referrers. There are several ways to do this and you can disable your blog if you do something wrong, so be sure to back up your original .htaccess file and only follow directions from a reputable source. You can also use a custom WordPress function to make this happen. Search the WordPress site and Google to find out all your options.
In Blogger, adding or editing htaccess files is not possible, so this is limited to WP users.

5. Close comments on old posts: In your WordPress dashboard you can go to the “Discussion” section of your “Settings” area and define the age at which posts close to comments. This reduces the amount of spam that comes to your blog and also helps keep your online community fresh.
In Blogger, you cannot completely close comments for older posts (you CAN do it manually by editing each and every post), but you can activate and limit comment moderation only for your older posts. Go to Dashboard -> Settings -> Comments and against Comment moderation select the number of days.

6. Wp-Ban will do a lot for you in the fight against spam: Rather than just routing spam comments to your spam folder, Wp-Ban actually prevents spammers from gaining access to your site. Every comment in WordPress is stamped with the user’s IP address, so all you have to do is populate a list with the addresses or domains of all your site’s spammers. This makes a huge difference in the volume of spam you get delivered to your blog: just remember however, it is not foolproof.
Again, for Blogger/BlogSpot blogs, this can be done only via Disqus or IntenseDebate.

7. Change the name of your comment file: In WordPress, almost everyone’s comment entry file is called “wp-comments-post.php.” Rename the file something different such as “wpcom.php” and then go into your WordPress dashboard to edit your theme to include the new name. Because the one file spammers look for isn’t there, they will not be able to leave spam.

Blog spam is a nuisance that rarely goes away by itself. In fact, the longer your blog is operational, the more spammers will attack your site. Use these 7 ways to reduce blog spam and get some relief. Be sure to try more than one of these methods to maximize the amount of spam you block.
If you are working on Blogger/BlogSpot platform and comments-SPAM is a serious problem on your blog, then I would advise you to switch to either of the freely available alternate comment-forms (Disqus or IntenseDebate). You can read more about their SPAM-fighting strategies here: Disqus & IntenseDebate.

James Adams covers developments in tech for a leading online ink cartridges specialist where he writes reviews of newly released hardware such as the HP 350XL.

Spam Comments Moderation In Blogger/BlogSpot Blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 20:27:00 +0000

Being closely associated with Google, Blogger has always been focusing on improving the SEO attributes of its blogs. Working in the same direction, the recent development is the integration of Google's Spam filtering technology into Blogger. For you, it's just another new tab in your Blogger Dashboard: Comments...

NOTE: This feature has not yet been added in all the blogs. So, if the tab is currently absent from your dashboard, then do not worry - it will be added soon.

If the tab is already present in your blogs Dashboard, click on it. Now if you have activated "Comment Moderation" in your Blog Settings ( -> Comments), then you will see three sections under the tab "Comments", like this:

NOTE 2: To better manage your blog-comments, moderate them directly from your email.

And if you haven't activated "Comment Moderation" in your blog, then you will see only two options under the tab Comments, viz. Published and Spam.

Now, this "Comments" section not only allows you to manage all your comments from one place, but the "SPAM" sub-section is the main advantage and purpose of adding this new section to the dashboard.

According to Blogger;

Blogger now filters comments that are likely spam comments to a Spam Inbox, much like the spam folder in your email. When someone leaves a comment on your blog, it will be reviewed against our spam detector, and comments that are identified as possible spam will be sent to your blog’s Spam Inbox, found at Comments | Spam.

You can help improve our ability to automatically detect spam comments by checking your Spam Inbox and deleting spam comments and marking real comments that may have been flagged as spam as Not Spam.

NOTE 2: Spam filtering currently only applies to new comments.

So, log in to Blogger and see if you already have the new tab or not. And moreover, you can report any issues with the new spam system by clicking on the “Report spam filtering issues” link on the bottom of the Comments | Spam page, or by visiting this Help Forum page.

Image Credits: Message Defense

3 Blogger Business Card Templates - Your Online ID Cards

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 09:49:00 +0000

In the this highly competitive 21st century, you must have your unique online identity, which can be accessed from anywhere in the world. By registering your own name as a domain name you get an edge over others during interviews and business deals. So make sure that you do have your unique domain where you can host your profile, achievements etc.

To make a business card like website, all you need is a domain with your name in it and a webhost where you can host your website. As it is highly possible that your name has been already registered, so try some different combinations of your name like these:
yourname.com or your-name.com (around $10 per year)
yourname.me or your-name.me (around $10 per year)
yourname.im or your-name.im (around $11 per year)
yourname.name or your-name.name (around $9 per year)

You can register these domain names from www.Name.com

You may add some other words too, like DrJade.com, PainterJohn.com, WriterAlen.com etc.

Once you register the domain, you need to host a website at that domain. For that, either you can buy web space from any web-host or simlpy redirect your domain to Blogger. Read these articles on how to use custom-domains with blogger:

1. Blogger Custom Domain, Unlimited Hosting And Bandwidth For Free
2. Blogger Custom Domain - Subdomain vs. Naked Domain (Use Both)

So, once you are ready with the domain and a blog, your next job is to give a it a professional business card look. For that, download and use any of these templates:

The Antagonist

DEMO | Instructions | Download

Visiting Card

DEMO | Instructions | Download

MiniCard

DEMO | Instructions | Download

Read the correct way to change your Blogger Template.

Image Credits: WD-Depot

Compare And Find The Best Affordable Web Host

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:15:00 +0000

Blogger.com, no doubt provides all the features and benefits to bloggers for completely free, and thus till date, it stands as the most famous Blogging platform on the Internet.
But nowadays, most of the bloggers don't want to limit their blogs to just some posts and widgets. To add additional blogs/websites (based on other blogging platforms like, WordPress and Joomla) and CMS (content management systems) to your current blogs, it is necessay to have your own domain and hosting on the Internet.
Although you don't have to search a lot to find a good domain-seller, but it does take a lot of time and intense search to find a host that offers great features at an affordable price.
While searching a web-host, you must focus on 5 main criteria, viz.:

1. Web space - More means better. Presently most of the web hosts are providing unlimited web space, so it's better to avoid those with any kind of limitation in providing space.
2. Bandwidth - Bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is allowed to visit your blog each month. So, again with increasing popularity of a website any limit on bandwidth can potentially harm the website. Therefore just like web space, you should prefer a service that offers unlimited bandwidth.
3. Uptime - All the good web-hosting sites claim to have 99% uptime. But you must refer to their reviews at various forums and blogs. Or at least refer to some good web-hosts review site.
4. Scripts and Special Features - The host must support and offer all the various latest scripts. Look out for other special features like free domain names, Photo-Gallery platforms, Shopping carts, secure servers etc. And of course the interface must be user-friendly too.
5. Price - This is where most of us change our decisions and sometimes even settle for a sub-standard deal just because of the lower costs. But with some basic search on Google and other web-host guides, you can easily get a list of best website hosting sites.

WebHostingRating as the name says, reviews and rates other webhosts. The results are available on their website which can be accessed by anyone and so you can find the best web host for your needs:

WebHostingRating Awards and Certifications are given to the best web hosts in the industry, who have proven themselves by delivering exceptional service to their customers. All of our certified web hosting providers are carefully examined by experienced webmasters to provide the service you require!

At WebHostingRating, you will find sites ranked and categorized based on different parameters like Best Budget, Windows, Linux and Reseller hosting, (Best of 2009) location of servers (country), price range and based on different hosting platforms. Along with their own reviews and ratings you will also find reviews by other users too on their website. Moreover every hosting service has been reviewed by them separately to focus, comment and rate every feature offered by that service.
So do pay a visit to WebHostingRating before you finalise a web host for our next website.

Image Credits: Divyun.com

10 YouTube Videos About Writing That Are Worth a Look

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:50:00 +0000

A guest post by James Adams, editor and contributor to the CreativeCloud blog.

There are two primary aspects of good writing: technical and content. Technical factors include the proper use of punctuation, spelling, grammar and form. Content speaks to the purpose, reader interest and composition of a written piece. Here are ten YouTube videos which address the different factors of good writing.

1. Writing Lessons: How to Write a Feature Story

John Graden discusses how to write a feature story for a magazine or newspaper. He relates the importance of having a good headline and talks about the 'So What?' factor. This three minute video is packed with useful information.

2. How to Write a 5 Paragraph Essay

This short series of five videos discusses the steps to writing a five paragraph essay. The author talks about pre-writing, preparing your word document, writing your essay, proofreading and formatting. This video stands out because of the cogent examples that it provides.

3. 7 steps to Better Blog Entries

This video takes four minutes to discuss the seven essential steps to receiving a better response to your blogs. The instructor's style is entertaining. He shows quite a lot of interest in the subject that he's talking about.

4. How to Use Commas in English Writing

Many writers miss the function of commas. The instructor clarifies the proper use of commas in writing and explains when they should be utilized. The video itself is nearly seven minutes long and thorough in its approach.

5. Writing Tips: How Can I Become a Better Writer?

Read as often as you can and study the techniques that superior writers use in their works. Though this video focuses on how to become a better creative writer, the tips contained within can be extrapolated for non-fiction.

6. 7 Tips to Get Into the Article Writing Zone

One complaint that writers have is that they are not completing the articles that they start. The author of this video attributes that to not being in the proper mindset. He then outlines many ways to get writers into the 'article writing zone.'

7. Top 10 Reasons for Article Rejection

Why do articles get rejected on EZinearticles? Meet Gary, a stick figure guy who has decided to write the top ten reasons for article rejection. Some issues include stolen or ripped content, blatant sales pieces and localized niche articles. This offers valuable information to would-be article marketers.

8. Power Writing (1 of 2) Brian Tracy

This YouTube posting is strictly audio and makes it on this list because the content stands out. The ways to create content are covered within the span of two ten minute offerings. The ideas presented center around the fact that the writing phase and editing phase should be separate within any piece of writing.

9. How to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan

This informative video takes the best practices for creating a marketing plan and distills them into a precise and easy to watch format. Creation of a great business plan is vital for both online and brick and mortar businesses.

10. Ray Bradbury speaks about writing

Ray Bradbury encourages writers to read often and have passion about their writing. He states that if you don't enjoy the writing, do something else. Bradbury is a living legend. His stories have won nearly every writing award in existence. Sometimes, the best advice is given to you by the masters.

Hopefully, these insights and tips will help you become the best writer that you can be.

James Adams is a full time writer who reviews products such as the HP 901 for Cartridge Save. He also writes posts on their blog about advertising, art and design.

How To Track Visitors And Optimize Your Website

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Post Updated (9th July, 2010): Now "Stats" is an integral part of Blogger.
If you haven't used Blogger in Draft (Beta-Blogger) till now, then do it right away. It is where, Blogger releases all its new features before officially adding the services to Blogger blogs. To access Blogger in Draft, instead of logging in to www.Blogger.com log in at draft.Blogger.com

The latest Beta add-on from Blogger is a "Stats" section in the Dashboard - to monitor and analyze your visitor traffic in near-real-time.

Tracking your visitors' activity on your blog is an important part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). So, if you haven't yet accessed the "Stats" section of your Blogger-account - then do it right now. And as of now "Blogger Stats" is relatively new and limited in terms of the information these tools provide, so even now I advise everyone to sign up at the below mentioned websites/services, start tracking to give your visitors what they want (that's what SEO is all about)...

You would have seen many fancy and flashy visitor counters in hundreds or rather thousands of blogs, but simply counting the number of visitors or page views is totally of no use to any blogger or webmaster. Visitor-Tracking is a much more advanced and useful method as compared to those simple counters.

So here's a list of important tracking websites, providing free and fabulous features to all the bloggers...

The tracking reports and statistics from these websites mainly contain:

1. Of course, unique visits & page views, averaged and archived to weekly, monthly and yearly graphs. (And all the reports are in real time)

2. You can also view the details like, visitors IP addresses, time spent by them browsing your website, pages visited, and their returning visits. Moreover, you can even check the operating system your visitor is using, their screen resolution, their browser with version and whether Java or Flash is enabled on their system or not.

3. And the most important statistical-reports for you are of course related to Search Engine Optimization (SEO); these include the keywords through which they entered your site, list of search engines which referred visitors to your website.

You can easily track the activities of your visitors for completely FREE, by placing simple JavaScripts on your blog provided by websites like StatCounter and Google. Statcounter gives a simple script, which when placed in to your template starts collecting all the above mentioned information, which is then displayed to you. The stats are simple to browse-through and understand. Using these stats you can improve your blogs structure & content. You should also focus and improve the important posts of your blog which bring maximum traffic to you.

The most important tracking site of course belongs to Google. Being a blogger you cannot afford to miss this one: Google Analytics. Although it may take a little more time to understand all the statistical data displayed at G-Analytics completely and even more time to analyse the data and use it to effectively plan your SEO strategies, but being a Google product it will not only provide complete tracking details as provided by other similar services, but it does help a lot in Search engine optimization (SEO) too.

In Statcounter, to get some of the advanced features, including an increase in log size, a paid account or an upgrade is needed, but at Google-Analytics everything is free, rather they even have an advanced beta section for interested members.

And finally a must for everybody is an account in Google Webmaster Tools, where you have to simply submit your websites sitemap to access the most important SEO details.
The stats shown by GWT are not directly about your visitors, but are
You can see the number of pages indexed by Google, pages/articles deleted by you, pages restricted for Google. And you can even see how many website/webpages around the Internet have linked to your website (and to which specific page). How well are your internal pages are connected. And again, one of the most important, you will be shown how many pages of your website has high, medium, low or no PageRank.

So finally I will suggest you to get an account in:

(1) Google Analytics, (2) Google Webmaster Tools and (3) Statcounter

And just for fun, if you want to know how many people are online on your website at a time (real time), then put a widget from Amung.us, that doesn't even need you to register :)

Blogger Custom Domain - Subdomain vs. Naked Domain (Use Both)

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 06:21:00 +0000

NOTE: This post will be easier to understand for those who have registered their domains at 1and1.com and for the rest, this post will surely give you a hint to redirect your custom-domain to Blogger blogs in the best possible way.

After publishing the recent post on BloggerStop about a free domain offer from 1and1, I received a number of mails and queries from fellow bloggers with similar doubts on how to redirect their newly registered domains to their already existing Blogger blogs.

Although I have already posted a tutorial explaining the procedure to redirect a custom domain to a Blogger blog, but due to recent changes at Blogger some new issues have cropped up in this process.

An important and major issue of concern to many bloggers is the restriction imposed by Blogger on using naked-domain-names (domain names without WWW or any other sub-domain) with their blogs as a custom-domain.

As for many newbie bloggers, even this problem is difficult to understand, so let me first explain it in simple terms, what exactly the problem is:

The Basics...
A domain name, just like an email address, is simply a name registered online where a website can be hosted:
example.com is a domain name (example.net, example.org and example.info - all these are also domains with different TLDs).

Now anything to the left of these domain names (including WWW) is a sub-domain of that domain:
WWW.example.COM is a sub-domain of example.com
BLOG.example.COM is again another sub-domain of example.COM

WWW.example.INFO is a sub-domain of example.INFO

Now the Problem...

In Blogger you can use any custom (SUB)-domain (XYZ.example.com) instead of the blogger address (SOMETHING.blogspot.com) presently in use. That means, once you do this redirection, whenever somebody enters the address example.com s/he will see your blog's (SOMETHING.blogspot.com) content but the address shown in the address bar will be example.com

Earlier Blogger allowed naked as well as sub-domains to be used as custom domains. But recently it has changed its system and now it ONLY allows sub-domains.
Therefore, if presently your blog address is "SOMETHING.blogspot.com"
then you can only use sub-domains like "www.EXAMPLE.com" or "blog.EXAMPLE.com" as your new custom-domain and NOT "EXAMPLE.com"

And due to this restriction you MAY lose some of your visitors who may enter your blog address as "EXAMPLE.com" instead of "www.EXAMPLE.com". Moreover it may create some SEO issues too.

And The Solution...

To avoid these problems, you should redirect your naked-domain (EXAMPLE.com) to your sub-domain (WWW/BLOG.EXAMPLE.com) where your blog is located. Now, this can be done in three different ways:

1. A simple url-redirection (strictly NOT advisable)

2. Through DNS management (by changing CNAME records) - the general method advised by Blogger, but NOT by me (but REMEMBER that cname method is the only method you should use while redirecting your sub-domain to your Blogger blog).
This is because, once you redirect your domain to Blogger using CNAME, then you will lose your email address located at your domain (admin@example.com or info@example.com etc.)

3. Through DNS management (by changing "A Name Records") - Advised by both Blogger and Me.
To do this, once you have redirected your sub-domain to your Blogger based blog, go to the DNS management section of your naked-domain (example.com) and edit its "A Name Records" paste exactly this value in to it:

216.239.32.21

Once this is done, go to Blogger.com -> Settings -> publishing
and mark the tick-box "Redirect EXAMPLE.com to www.EXAMPLE.com "

Advantages of following this method:
1. Your blog will be hosted at the sub-domain your choice...(WWW.example123.com or BLOG.example123.com)

2. Your domain will also be redirected to your sub-domain, so if someone enters this address:
example.com/2010/07/test-post.html (a test post on your DOMAIN)
s/he will be redirected to this address:
www.example.com/2010/07/test-post.html (the test post on your SUB-DOMAIN)

3. You can access your emails on the same domain name, for example admin@example.com or ANYTHING@example.com

NOTE: To create emails on your domain name, along with editing the "A Name Records", you have to change the "MX Records" too. And edit these MX records to point them to "Google Apps" where you can create up to 50 free emails and use the free space and features provided by gmail to store your emails.

In case, you have more doubts please use the comments form below which may solve others queries as well.

*UPDATE: How to Use Naked Domains As Custom Domains.
Thanks to Rae, now you CAN use naked-domains too, with Blogger based blogs.
To do this, keep all the settings at 1and1 as it is, viz.
(i) your naked domain (example.com) - redirected to Blogger by changing "A Name Records" (Also, edit the MX Records to access your emails via Google-Apps).
(ii) Your sub-domain (www.example.com) - redirected to Blogger by changing the CNAME value.

STEP #2
At Blogger -> Settings -> Publishing
If the tick-box "Redirect EXAMPLE.com to www.EXAMPLE.com has already been marked, then remove the mark and save the settings.

STEP #3
Then change your blog's address to Example.com (the naked domain).
NOTE (Important): As naked domains are not allowed by Blogger, so you have to enter the address with a "SPACE" before the domain name.
So enter it as " example.com" (without the quotes, but with the space present between the opening quote and the domain name).
Save Settings.
Fainally mark the tick-box "Redirect www.EXAMPLE.com to EXAMPLE.com" and save the settings.

Now your blog will be hosted at your naked domain (example.com), your sub-domain (www.example.com) wii be redirected yo your naked domain. And you will also be able to access all your emails hosted on your naked domain.

References:
1. A naked Domain
2. Using Custom domains on Blogger - Part 1 and Part 2
3. Image credits: Gp2b

Grab a Domain for FREE - Offer Ends on 30 June 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Divya Sai) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 18:29:00 +0000

1and1 is offering a .COM domain for completely FREE.

Domain name registered by me: DivyaSai.com

You won't be paying a single penny for the first year and after that, you will be billed at the regular price of $ 8.99/year. Even existing customers are allowed to register a free domain. You can register only one domain and for each additional domain that you order, you will be billed at the regular price. The offer is valid till 30 June, 2010. So without any further delay grab your free domain today. First check for domain availability here:

When you register at 1and1, you not only get a domain or hosting from them, but you also get a chance to earn more income (upto $300) by referring your friends/readers to them. Many bloggers are making a lot of extra income by joining affiliate programs. 1and1 has a link on the bottom of their site that says “AFFILIATE.” They also provide you with a lot of great tools to make it easier to earn money with them and they offer more commission than most web hosting affiliate programs.

PS: An (internationally accepted) credit card or a verified paypal account is needed to verify your identity. You won't be charged anything for the first year, but next year onwards the normal charges of $8.99 will be charged from your credit card or paypal account. If you do not wish to continue with your registered domain, then you can cancel your registration and your domain-name will expire.