The Resources Mashup

Here are some of the best articles I have stumbledupon this week.

Blogging

• 6 ways to create link magnets with every blog post
• How bloggers can prepare for the future of journalism
• Blogging / sales experiment followup
• 3 fail proof rules for creating a viral post
• 13 steps to successful blogging
• 101 ways to promote a new blog
• Lazy blogger’s guide to the ultimate WordPress plugins
• 5 WordPress pluginsyou never heard of

Business / Finance

• Starting your own business does not have to be risky
• The human brain in the workplace
• 5 mobile marketing ideas for your small business
• 15 podcasts that will make you richer

Graphic / Web Design

• Mistakes to avoid while designing your landing page
• 30 high quality photo effects every designer will love
• Devlisting - Web developer resources
• 40 incredibly useful web design tools you should use daily
• Best of free HTML email / newsletter templates

Making Money Online

• 800 top paying Adsense keywords for November
• Three ways to increase your ad space earnings
• Using affiliate tools to your advantage

Personal Development / Self Improvement / Health

• How to kill interruptions and prevent new ones
• Are you journaling for success or failure
• How to bring your shooting star down to earth
• Should you trust your intuition?
• Lazy man’s guide to beating procrastination
• What does midlife mean to you?
• Lifestyle design
• Make peace with time
• How your beliefs create your reality, part I
• 3 things necessary for success that the school system neglected to teach

Photography / Digital Art

• Beautiful pictures from the Ezzal collection
• 70 strange photos that are not photoshopped
• 30 stunning inspriational digital artworks
• 70 beautiful macro photos of insects

SEO

• Where did Google’s organic search results go?
• 30 SEO problems and the tools to solve them

Social Media

• The boom of social sites
• Networked blogs now supports Facebook fan pages
• Twitter lists - I’m not down
• 5 reasons Twitter is not worth your dime
• Why joining 38,943 people is bad
• Six social media trends for 2010
• Seesmic desktop the first to integrate Twitter lists
• Calling all freelancers on Twitter
• How to be a star employee on social media
• Tips to building a Facebook branding strategy
• Facebook is no longer sacred

Tech

• 45 timesaving keyboard shortcuts for Gmail
• 12 free tools that alert you to useful information
• How to remove fake antivirus software
• Have you gotten your Google Wave invitation?
• 5 Google Wave gadgets you will most likely use
• Install free programs at once on Windows 7

Writing

• Guidelines to self-publishing
• 7 reasons your press release sucks
• Quentin Tarantino guide to creating killer content

Week in Review

This week on Kikolani, a reivew of the new Twitter Lists feature, including some pros, cons and lots of great responses by the commenters.

Getting Off the Computer and Exercising

“Sometimes your greatest joy comes from getting off the computer and exercising outside every once in awhile.”

Want to be featured in Fetching Friday posts?

Looking for some link love? Articles featured in the resources come primarily from people I interact with in the comments, and on the social networks. So comment away (DoFollow, CommentLuv, and KeywordLuv enabled), and join me on the networks below, and if your article/photo/video catches my eye, it may appear in following Fetching Friday posts.

Look What You’ve Missed:
The Fetching Friday archives - tons of useful resources on blogging, social networking, and more

How to Create a New Twitter List

During the beta period, you should see an announcement for Twitter lists at the top of your homepage. Click the “Create a New List” button.

Alternatively, you can click on the “New List” link in your sidebar, right above the Trending Topics section.

Choose a name for your Twitter list, and whether you would like it to be public (so that others can follow your list) or private (a list for only you to see). Choosing a public list will also let the Twitter members you add to that list know that they are being listed, whereas they will never know if they are in a private list.

Once you have set your list name and privacy, you can begin adding members to your list. You have the option to search for members based on their real name, username or brand on the following screen. You can add any Twitter user’s to your list, regardless of whether or not you are following them, with exception to user’s you are not following whose Tweets are private.

You can also add users by going to their profile and clicking on the Lists dropdown, then select the list you would like to add them to or create a new one.

Finding and Following Public Twitter Lists

On each Twitter user’s profile sidebar, you will see a “Listed” number next to their followers and following. Below those numbers on the sidebar, if the user has created any public lists, these will show up under the Lists heading.

Click on the Listed number to see the public lists that the user has been added to, and also the public lists that the user is following. If you click on a particular list, you will see the recent Tweets made by anyone the list is following. You can follow the list by clicking on the “Follow This List” button.

Pros and Cons of Twitter Lists

PRO: Twitter lists allow you to follow a personalized selection of Twitter members on particular topics. You could follow public lists about any topic without the use of other Twitter tools and software. And if a list on the topic you are interested in doesn’t exist, you can easily create your own customized list.

CON: Twitter members may notice a drop in following because they could being followed in lists, but not directly. For example, you could easily follow the tweets of the 20 top Twitter authorities on SEO in a list without actually following those 20 users. Some will consider this a major plus as it would help in the ratio of following to followers.

PRO: With Twitter lists, you get to learn why people are following you for by seeing where you have been listed. For example, people are adding @kikolani to lists on SEO, social media, blogging, WordPress, web development, dofollow and more.

CON: Some members with a high follower count who haven’t been listed could get discouraged by the fact that they have not been listed very often, or they have been listed in topics they are not focusing on.

PRO: Not being listed could prove to be a learning experience that you need to change the way you use Twitter to become more of an authority on your topic.

PRO: You can use Twitter lists to find the top authorities on a subject by looking at lists created or followed by power Twitter users.

PRO / CON: People could start going directly to their lists and not their main Twitter feed, thus missing any tweets from people they are following who haven’t been listed. While it is a great way to avoid spammers in your Twitter feed, it is also a way to miss some great tweets by people who aren’t in one of your lists.

Your Thoughts on Twitter Lists

Have you tried the Twitter List feature? What are your thoughts on the benefits vs. the downsides?

The Resources Mashup

Here are some of the best articles I have stumbledupon this week.

Blogging

• The latest WordPress plugins
• 16 reasons why commenting on your blog sucks
• 6 WordPress plugins for diet and exercisse
• Are you in?
• 7 bad writing habits you learned in school
• High traffic does NOT mean good marketing
• How to remove hidden spam links from WordPress
• 169 ways to build traffic like a ninja
• 18 alternative ways to use WordPress
• 53 best practices on how to attract RSS subscribers
• Integrate WordPress into an existing website tutorial

Business / Finance

• Three limiting beliefs you must destroy if you want success
• 15 signs your workplace is dysfunctional
• The key to quitting your job for good
• 10 small business social media marketing tips
• Freelance multiple personality disorder
• Rising above the context when it comes to financial struggles
• Win 250 free business cards
• 10 best social media tools for entrepreneurs
• 7 questions to ask before hiring a social media expert

Graphic / Web Design

• 30 creative ebook covers that stand out
• 100 minimalistic website designs
• Whether or not to go to design school
• Modern CSS layouts
• 70 stunning examples of clean web designs - examples and resources

Personal Development / Self Improvement / Health

• Do you make these 5 mistakes when switching to a more positive attitude?
• 6 productivity principles to live by
• 10 natural tips to prevent swine flu and everything else
• 7 prinicples for living the good life
• 33 ways to start your day
• The key to making wise decisions

Photography / Digital Art

• 26 eye catching long exposure photographs
• 29 amazing insect photos
• 120 striking surreal art
• 80 photo manipulations to ignite your creativity
• What if cartoons were real?
• 10 worth watching celebrity pencil sketches

SEO

• Google social search launches

Social Media

• What is the cost of online friends?
• Technorati’s new rating system - how do you fare?
• Twitter: the art of influence
• How to measure social media ROI
• What happens to your Facebook profile when you die?
• Facebook etiquette rules people still break
• Social network humor

Tech

• 25 Halloween iPhone apps to put you in the spooky mood
• 11 Facebook apps to scare your friends away

Week in Review

This week’s featured post was on making money through blogging, where I discussed some of the ways I am generate income through my websites, future plans, and how readers make money online.

Kitty vs. Halloween Bowl

Happy Halloween everyone!

Want to be featured in Fetching Friday posts?

Looking for some link love? Articles featured in the resources come primarily from people I interact with in the comments, and on the social networks. So comment away (DoFollow, CommentLuv, and KeywordLuv enabled), and join me on the networks below, and if your article/photo/video catches my eye, it may appear in following Fetching Friday posts.

Look What You’ve Missed:
The Fetching Friday archives - tons of useful resources on blogging, social networking, and more

Direct Blogging Income

I can tell you right now, if I were blogging solely for direct income from my blog, then I would have stopped a long time ago. So far, Adsense and a few affiliate programs (top earners being Elegant Themes and the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Workbook, have supplied my only direct earnings. And the Adsense earnings come from a combination of this blog, and my other sites - DoFollow Resources, Oes Tsetnoc and Mal-Shi.

But to be honest, I haven’t really dedicated myself to monetizing my blogs or other websites. I just recently signed up for Buy Sell Ads. The main reason I was attracted to their service was the way they pull up the stats from Alexa, Compete, Delicious, Yahoo, and others for your site. I know that if I wanted to focus more on that aspect, I could probably do better with my earnings. At the same time, I would like my blog and websites not to be overrun with advertising and focused more on just the content.

Indirect Blogging Income

The indirect income I have made from blogging is what I find the most valuable. The experience I have gained from using WordPress, along with the use of social media and search optimization to promote Kikolani, has led to my ability to offer freelance web design and optimization services to local businesses. I can also add my personal and freelance experience to my resume, so if need be, I can find a good job opportunity in the future.

Future Plans for Revenue Generation

I have a ton of ideas in my head of ways I could be earning more online, and I hope to one day implement them. The one that is forefront in my mind is a social media ebook. I have been thinking about it for a while, and I have become more motivated towards it after reading positive comments from my article on the new version of StumbleUpon. I had been wary to write about the StumbleUpon changes, as there were so many other articles on it, but knowing that it helped clarify things for my readers who still had questions after reading other articles made me feel confident in my ability to explain things in an easier to digest way. Other ideas for online income include creating some niche websites and writing for content publishers like Hubpages, Bukisa, Squidoo and eHow.

How Do You Make Money Blogging?

So now it is your turn. How has blogging helped you make money, both directly and indirectly? Have you had better luck earning income with particular networks or affiliates? Have you had any success with other content publishers like the ones mentioned above, Associated Content, etc.? Any tips you would like to leave for those looking to make money blogging?

The Resources Mashup

Here are some of the best articles I have stumbledupon this week.

Blogging

• Social networking advantages and why blog?
• Stop scrapers and spammers fast
• Why Comment Reply plugin for WordPress is a must have
• 15 important WordPress plugins to fight spam
• Katie Clemons of Making This Home - 12 on blogging
• Blogging lessons learned in the first year
• 10 useful WordPress hacks for advanced themes

Business / Finance

• Domain flipping - an exclusive money making opportunity for webmasters
• Learning to say no - confessions of a small business yes man
• 3 simple step method to dominate online
• Your unique selling proposition - easiest, fastest or cheapest
• 100 incredibly helpful lifehacks for the unemployed

Graphic / Web Design

• Real change - should it feel this uncomfortable
• Showcase of professional looking website designs
• 30 examples of infographic maps

Personal Development / Self Improvement / Health

• One more step to achieve your goals
• Pain is unavoidable, suffering is optional
• How to find the right hobby
• How to say no with the empathy sandwich
• 7 ways to break a habit
• Maintaining youthful enthusiasm at any age
• 22 ways to feel alive again
• Dance like no one is watching

Photography / Digital Art

• 50 brilliant birds eye photos
• 20 amazing butterfly pictures
• 51 majestic landscape photographs
• Breathtaking digital art

SEO

• Sitemaps and SEO
• Use multiple keyword research services with KeywordSmash
• 20 hard core SEO tips
• Google provides more ways to search

Social Media

• 36 quality Tweeps to follow
• 17 celebrity Twitter users to follow post Oprah
• 84 websites to watch videos online
• 35 creative Twitter profile designs
• How do you define social media?
• 10 things not to do on Twitter

Tech

• Best free CD, DVD and blu ray burning software
• 20 professional Firefox themes

The Last, but not Least

• Travel with a purpose
• Tom from Myspace joins Facebook

Week in Review

This week, I wrote about the changes and new features in the upcoming version of StumbleUpon, which was reviewed by a member of Community Development and Support for StumbleUpon.

Steve Nash & Vitamin Water

Want to be featured in Fetching Friday posts?

Looking for some link love? Articles featured in the resources come primarily from people I interact with in the comments, and on the social networks. So comment away (DoFollow, CommentLuv, and KeywordLuv enabled), and join me on the networks below, and if your article/photo/video catches my eye, it may appear in following Fetching Friday posts.

Look What You’ve Missed:
The Fetching Friday archives - tons of useful resources on blogging, social networking, and more

Now granted, the beta / trial site may not have all of the features fully functional yet, but as far as what I have seen so far, here are some of my major likes and dislikes, plus a few debunked rumors.

URL Review Page

The review page for URL’s has changed. You can now see a view count (or the number of times people have clicked on the link from StumbleUpon) and all of the people who have thumbed up the page, as opposed to the old interface that just showed a selection of the recent Stumblers who favorited it.

The old review page vs. the new one

Subscribers, Subscriptions and Friends

I have read a variety of different comments where people have assumed their friends will automatically be converted to mutual subscribers. This is not true (or if it is, it hasn’t happened yet). Whenever you switch over to the new StumbleUpon, you will notice that you only have a certain number of subscribers and subscriptions, and unless all of your previous friends have subscribed to you, then you will see a discrepancy between the numbers. In the old interface, I have 489 friends, whereas in the new interface, I have 336 subscriptions and 324 subscribers. You will find your subscriptions and subscribers under the new Stumblers tab. Mutual connections are marked with a double arrow (), similar to the one Twitter Karma uses to show mutual Twitter followers.

Stumbler subscriptions

Also missing from the new StumbleUpon test site are pending friend requests. The New StumbleUpon FAQ says you can handle them in the same way as before, but I have yet to find them in the new site. So I guess if you have some, add them and then send them the now famous “Subscribe to mine and I’ll subscribe to yours” message.

Meeting New Stumblers

In the new StumbleUpon, under your Stumblers tab, you will find Visitors, Suggestions and Recent. Visitors shows Stumblers who have visited your profile, along with the arrows to show if they are mutual connections. Suggestions show similar Stumblers, with a simple Subscribe button under each user description. If you subscribe to them from this screen, it will automatically select the accept shares to your toolbar option for those Stumblers. Recent shows Stumblers recently active on StumbleUpon, also with the arrows to show if they are mutual connections or not.

Suggested Stumblers

Also, when you click on a tag in the Discover tab of the new interface, you will see a list of people who like that tag. So, say, you’re a WordPress theme developer. Check out all of the people who like items tagged with WordPress themes for a group of Stumblers interested in what you have to offer.

Stumblers who like particular tags

Finally, when you are on a profile of a Stumbler, instead of the common interests bubble, there is a We Both Like link that will show you pages that you have both favorited. Also, underneath the Subscribe button on the Stumbler’s profile, there is a link in the new interface to Meet Another Stumbler, which takes you to a random Stumbler’s profile, which is usually someone you have at least one We Both Like item in common.

The StumbleUpon Inbox

In the old interface, you can find your inbox messages, recent shares and pending friend requests. In the new site, the inbox is just the inbox with new messages and nothing more. I will miss the recent shares options, as sometimes I accidentally double-click on my new shares number in the toolbar and skip over a page, or the page wouldn’t load and I would move onto the next one, then check my recent shares later on to get that missed page.

The old StumbleUpon inbox vs. the new one

Update: Recent Shares in the new interface is under the Discover tab as shares. Thanks Alistair!

Sharing

Sharing in the new StumbleUpon will not be as effortless as in the old interface. In the old version, you can share anything with anyone who accepts your friend request, whereas in the new version, you can only share things with subscribers. Whenever someone subscribes to you, they have to check the option to accept shares to their toolbar. Subscriptions made before the changeover in the old interface will automatically have this option checked, but after that point, you could have subscribers that are opting not to receive your shares.

Subscribers have the option to accept shares

Also, unlike the friend request, I am not sure that anything will notify someone that you have subscribed to them, so if you hope to make a mutual connection, you will have to send them a separate message to let them know you would like them to subscribe to you too.

Finally, the ability to check all of your subscribers to receive a share is no longer available. Instead, you have to click on each subscriber individually to select them to receive your share. This should hopefully cut down on the StumbleUpon spamming that has been rampant recently, as people will have to click through their subscribers one by one for each share, making it much more time consuming. At the same time, it will make it painful for those who are just sharing one thing to hundreds of subscribers.

The old way of sharing vs. the new one

Tags and Searching

This is a feature I have been waiting for, but doesn’t quite work as well as I was hoping. In the new StumbleUpon, you can search through only your favorites, as well as your friends’ favorites. While I had hoped it would search through the page / article titles of favorites, it only seems to search through the tags. For example, if I have favorited 10 articles on Facebook, but only tagged 3 of them as Facebook, only those 3 will show up in my search.

The tag cloud is now gone, replaced by a dropdown list of your tags. This would be a little nicer if it was organized alphabetically as opposed to by the number of items you have for a particular tag.

The old tag cloud vs. the new dropdown

Your StumbleUpon Profile URL

StumbleUpon user profile URL’s are changing from yourusername.stumbleupon.com to www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/yourusername/. They are automatically forwarding to the new profile URL in the new interface.

More on Upcoming StumbleUpon Changes

For more on the upcoming StumbleUpon changes, check out the following articles:

• StumbleUpon Site Changes
• Upcoming StumbleUpon Changes
• StumbleUpon Had a Makeover

Subscribe to Kikolani on StumbleUpon

If you want to share Stumbles with me, be sure to subscribe to Kikolani on StumbleUpon and send me a message so I can subscribe back and get your shares too. The Fetching Friday resources are pulled from my StumbleUpon favorites weekly!

Your Thoughts on the New StumbleUpon

Have you tried the new StumbleUpon? What are your likes and dislikes?

The Resources Mashup

Here are some of the best articles I have stumbledupon this week.

Blogging

• Theme Switch - another WordPress plugin for theme development
• About ProBlogger
• 5 smart legal steps for your blog
• 35 awesome WordPress plugins for Twitter
• How we earned over 200 subscribers with 2 simple posts
• Twittley - WordPress plugin for Twitter review

Business / Finance

• 20 surefire ways to use Twitter for business
• Are you addicted to cruise control with your small business?

Graphic / Web Design

• Photoshop web design layout tutorial

Personal Development / Self Improvement / Health

• 7 ways to say no
• 37 ways to improve your life right now
• Circumvating obstacles
• Booster technique - inauthentic and authentic emotions
• What it really takes to achieve the impossible
• How to find your inner passion

Photography / Digital Art

• 25 cute dog photos
• Creative portrait photography
• Beautiful black and white portrait photography

SEO

• Google whacking on Bing
• Have you been penalized by Google?
• Should I do SEO for Bing?

Tech

• 12 tools to compare data on your hard drive
• Free iPhone apps to keep you fit and healthy
• 10 awesome website that help you discover the best web apps
• Solution to fix a slow running Firefox

Social Media

• Upcoming StumbleUpon changes
• StumbleUpon makeover
• Best practices for sharing Facebook events
• 13 essential word of mouth marketing tools
• How to build a Facebook community

The Last, but not Least

• Healing a Country
• Strange mashups of the periodic table

It’s Not Swine Flu

This has been yet another quiet week on the blogging front due to my husband and I both coming down with a seriously nasty respiratory infection. No, it wasn’t the swine flu (although that is what everyone keeps asking us). Just something seriously harsh that put us both down and out for the week. Thank goodness we had the week off for tennis… it couldn’t have been more perfectly timed.

Just Another Day at the Office

Want to be featured in Fetching Friday posts?

Looking for some link love? Articles featured in the resources come primarily from people I interact with in the comments, and on the social networks. So comment away (DoFollow, CommentLuv, and KeywordLuv enabled), and join me on the networks below, and if your article/photo/video catches my eye, it may appear in following Fetching Friday posts.

Look What You’ve Missed:
The Fetching Friday archives - tons of useful resources on blogging, social networking, and more

The Resources Mashup

Here are some of the best articles I have stumbledupon this week.

Blogging

• Blog post optimization, longtail keywords and increasing search traffic
• Free HTML resources for bloggers
• Come to the blog carnival
• 30 WordPress plugins to improve your sidebar
• Migrating from Wordpress.com to your own server
• Managing online information overload for bloggers
• Proof that creating a unique blog isn’t as hard as you think
• Theme Test Drive WordPress plugin

Business / Finance

• One secret about risk
• A less scary way to look at self employment

Graphic / Web Design

• 77 inspirational examples of pricing page designs
• Jommla vs. WordPress as content management systems
• 60 best places to get quality content

Personal Development / Self Improvement / Health

• Improvement is a continuous process
• Are you pursuing your passion or just being practical
• How your confidence is affected by your posture
• 13 fantastic female personal development bloggers
• Launch of the School of Personal Excellence

Photography / Digital Art

• 100 examples of urban decay photography
• 70 photo manipulations that will blow you away

SEO / Tech

• 10 mobile apps that promote safety
• How to remove security tool virus
• 24 Firefox addons that make your browsing life easier

Social Media

• 7 ways to have a successful social media profile
• History and evolution of social media
• Twitterers I won’t follow
• 10 Firefox addons and plugins for Twitter
• 10 tips to boost your Flickr profile
• 101 tweets on how to use Twitter

The Last, but not Least

• 10 best free tools to learn a foreign language
• 20 great Halloween costumes for your pet
• A poem for Halloween, night of frights

Related News

Not much in the week in review, as I have been working on hard on revising my portfolio. When I originally created it, I was really into the single page designs, but now I want to expand it to inlude more information and a blog on freelancing and the services I provide. Hopefully, the new design and content will be complete next week.

Ally McBeal

For any Ally McBeal fans who haven’t heard, the long awaited complete series DVD collection has just been released. I absolutely loved this show, especially the romance between Ally and Larry in the 4th season. So if you loved it, get the Ally McBeal: The Complete Series for yourself, or for me.

This show also introduced me to Josh Groban. I had never been a fan of vocal / classical music until I heard this guy’s voice on Ally McBeal.

Want to be featured in Fetching Friday posts?

Looking for some link love? Articles featured in the resources come primarily from people I interact with in the comments, and on the social networks. So comment away (DoFollow, CommentLuv, and KeywordLuv enabled), and join me on the networks below, and if your article/photo/video catches my eye, it may appear in following Fetching Friday posts.

Look What You’ve Missed:
The Fetching Friday archives - tons of useful resources on blogging, social networking, and more

The Resources Mashup

Here are some of the best articles I have stumbledupon this week.

Blogging

• Is your blogging identity at risk of being stolen
• 11 great posts from readers blogs
• Does your blog post title ask why
• 8 online resources for WordPress bloggers
• First year of blogging: Writing, Promotion, and Money
• 12 useful Facebook WordPress plugins for bloggers
• 33 WordPress plugins to power up your comment section
• Facebook share count button for blogs
• 8 tips to optimize your time for blog writing
• Five steps to an easier blog makeover
• Blog design showcase

Business / Finance

• 7 essential online tools for your virtual office
• Customer stories: Can I get your expert opinion?
• Every product needs an affiliate army
• Start your freelancing career with oDesk

Personal Development / Self Improvement / Health

• What in your life can you improve on
• Make it happen now - 2009 countdown challenge

Photography / Digital Art

• Tiny human figures at food transformed into landscapes

SEO / Tech

• Why a five year old computer is slower than a new one
• Getting started with Google Wave
• SEO tools for webmasters
• 100 iPhone apps to seriously boost your brainpower
• Outgoing links - why you have to love them

Social Media

• 3 ways Digg can stop the bury brigade dead in its tracks
• Getting targeted Twitter followers
• Social media mistakes

The Last, but not Least

• Astrology and raincoats

Week in Review

This week, I introduced our new kitten Natasha. Also, I asked what is most important for bloggers - visitors, commenters, or subscribers - and added some tips on how to get each of them.

100 Greatest Youtube Hits in 4 Minutes

Want to be featured in Fetching Friday posts?

Looking for some link love? Articles featured in the resources come primarily from people I interact with in the comments, and on the social networks. So comment away (DoFollow, CommentLuv, and KeywordLuv enabled), and join me on the networks below, and if your article/photo/video catches my eye, it may appear in following Fetching Friday posts.

Look What You’ve Missed:
The Fetching Friday archives - tons of useful resources on blogging, social networking, and more

Visitors vs. Readers

First off, how do you know if you are getting more readers vs. just hit and run visitors? If you have an analytic program such as Google Analytics installed on your blog, you will have an insight into this trend. Instead of just being fascinated by the number of visits, take a look at the New Visits percentage. Clicking on this statistic will show you the amount of new visitors vs. returning visitors during a specific time frame.

Next, how do you know if people are staying on your site and actually reading? Check out the Bounce Rate percentage, Pages Per Visit and Time on Site. The Bounce Rate tells you how many people are entering your blog on one page, and exiting without going anywhere else. Pages Per Visit, going along with Bounce Rate, gives you the average amount of pages that people visit while on your site. Time on Site tells you how long people are staying on your website.

Top Content

If you want to know what content is important on your site, simply use the look at the Content menu > Top Content. Select an article, and then analyze the amount of time people spent on that article and the percent of people that continued on to other pages on your blog or ultimately exited after reading that page. This tells you if the content was enriching enough to keep visitors on your site longer, and if you found was to entice them to check out more of your site.

Extending Visitors Stay

Once you know what type of content keeps people on your site, you will want to ensure that visitors continue to more of your site. This can be done by including links in your article’s content and at the end to related posts. Just be sure that the posts are as related as possible - someone reading an article about Twitter will be more likely to click on other Twitter articles than a random article about photography.

Commenters

So now that you have found readers, how do you get them to comment? There are several ways to turn your readers into active commentators, including:

• Leaving an article somewhat “incomplete” so readers will want to add their input to complete the information.
• Asking your readers questions, so they know that their opinion is valuable to you as well.
• Offering incentives, such as creating a Top Commenter list on your homepage, offering dofollow links, holding contests where commenters get a prize for leaving their opinion on a particular article, etc.

Subscribers

This is by far the most difficult conversion, from visitor to subscriber. While you can do things such as offer a free item in exchange for someone subscribing to your blog by email, sometimes you will find that people will subscribe, get their free item, and then unsubscribe. If you want subscribers that are going to stick with you, you have to get them to subscribe based on your content. Make sure that you make it easy for people to subscribe by explaining the basics of RSS, the benefits of RSS subscriptions and having the option to subscribe via RSS reader and email in various parts of your blog. You don’t want someone to reach the decision that they want to subscribe, and then have to hunt down the link to your feed. Then, your goal after that point is to make sure that every article sent to their RSS feed or email box is informative, entertaining and useful.

Also, don’t get frustrated just because you don’t have a high subscriber count. Remember that some people prefer other methods of being notified of your new posts over RSS subscriptions. For example, I find that I don’t subscribe to some blogs because those bloggers have found other ways to direct me to their new posts, such as sharing (but not over-sharing) them with me on StumbleUpon. Your readers may have many different favorite social networks of choice, so be sure to promote your articles on multiple social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. Although it sounds like a time consuming task, it doesn’t have to be if you develop a plan and have the right tools to simplify the social submission process.

Your Thoughts

As a blogger, what do you find most important? Getting hits, readers, commenters or subscribers? What methods do you use and find successful in converting hits to repeat visitors and active participants on your site?