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Win More Than $900 Worth Of Prizes From NinetyNineWays Blog Contest

2009-10-07T14:46:47+08:00

Recently, I wrote an article about how Blog Contest can benefit bloggers and net surfers. Now, I would like to share to you this great blog contest hosted by Gerri of NinetyNineways dot com where you can have the chance to win more $900 worth of prizes. Huge right? Well that's true. Gerri just had a blog makeover using various resources from the internet that causes a lot of money. However, Gerri thought of sharing all these resources so that others might have the chance as well to do a blog make over without having to spend any dime. You just have to complete simple blog contest requirements such as (blogging about the contest, subscribing to NinetyNineWays blog updates, tweeting about the contest, and following the host on twitter) to qualify an entry.

Why You Should Join NinetyNineWays blog contest?

There are so many reasons why you should join the contest. Not only that you have chance to get a handful of the great prizes at stake. But also, you get the chance to engage with others and the host. Prizes are categorized into three packages: The 1st prize, second prize and the bonus prize.

1st Prize ($401 value)

■ 1 x WooThemes Standard Theme Package
■ 1 x SEOintelligence Free 12 Month Account
■ 1 x LogoNerds Logo Design Package
■ 1 x OIOpublisher license
■ 1 x phpBay Pro or phpZon Pro (api or Wordpress version) license

2nd Prize ($285.94 value)

■ 1 x WooThemes Standard Theme Package
■ 1 x phpBay Pro or phpZon Pro (api or Wordpress version) license
■ 1 x MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate License
■ 1 x Twitter e-book by Murray Newlands
■ 1 x copy of 31 days to build a better blog from Darren Rowse (ProBlogger)

Bonus Prizes

■ 1 x Gift Voucher for Free Links from Text Link Ads ($150 value)
■ 1 x Advertising Voucher from BidVertiser ($100 value)
■ 1 x Amazon Gift Voucher from Casa Nova Designs ($25 value)

That's it! Now you have enough reasons to join NinetyNineWays blog contest. To know more about this contest and to join, visit NinetyNineWays dot net now.

Prizes Associated With Legitimacy Can Make Your Blog Contest A Success

2009-10-02T11:42:00+08:00

Blog contest is everywhere. Its very popular amongst bloggers and net surfers because it gives a lot of benefits both on the host and the contestants. Hosting a blog contest is a good way to promote your blog because people like joining contest, specially if there are good prizes at stake. For this reason, you are inviting more traffic to your blog. Other than that, there are lots of other benefits you can acquire from hosting a blog contest just like:

■ Increasing your blog readership - The most common requirement for participants to be able to qualify for an entry in a blog contest is to subscribe on the host's RSS feed via reader or email or to the host's newsletters. This is very easy to do and for this reason. Its a no brainer that it will dramatically increase your blog readership. This is a win win situation on both sides specially if you have an informative blog. Not only that your participants qualify an entry but also, they get a handful on your latest updates.

■ More promotion - Another common requirement being asked from blog contest participants for them to qualify an entry in a blog contest is to write a blog post about a particular blog contest. This is highly recommended specially if you're hosting a blog contest exclusively for bloggers with a great prize at stake. This way, you will acquire more promotion which can generate more traffic and thus gives your contest a greater chance of success.

■ Engagement - Okay, you might wonder what kind of engagement is this but surely this is not a wedding engagement or something. This is an engagement between you and your audience. Hosting a blog contest creates more engagement between you and your audience and this is good because you can create a deeper relationship to them. It will help you build trust and create compatibility which is very important as an internet marketer, blogger, entrepreneur.

Also, hosting a blog contest is a good way to reward your loyal readers and visitors. Its one thing that we bloggers should consider because it will help us establish a greater connection to them. It will also make your readers feel valuable. I think its great if you share your blessings or success to others, because in return, it will only bring you greater good.

So now you know the great benefits you can acquire from blog contest and you might already be thinking right now of hosting your own. However, there are few more thing you need to know to make your contest even more successful. Before you think of hosting a blog contest. You need to consider first the prizes that will be at stake and also, you need to know what really makes people have the interest on joining a blog contest.

What exactly will trigger people to join your blog contest

Prizes at stake - If you want to host a blog contest for some reasons (like the good benefits I've mentioned) and wants it to become effective or successful, then choosing the right prizes to be given away is one thing that you must think of. Give prizes that others will find valuable because it will trigger them to join your blog contest. Think of prizes as your bait. Something that people will bite into, something that can be useful, something that people wanted. That way, you will attract more people to join your contest.

So what are these prizes?
■ money - If you can afford to give money as a prize then much better because no doubt, people want money. And thus, more people will join your contest hoping to win the prize money that is at stake.

■ Services - If you're offering a service, any kind of service that can be useful to the general crowd. Then you can definitely use it as a prize. If you're offering an in demand service or something that is very useful then the greater. Also, its one way of promoting the service so its a win win situation.

■ EC Credits - If you're an Entrecard member, then you can use your EC credits as a prize. You just then have to promote your EC Blog contest on Entrecard forums.

■ Ad Space - If you have a quality blog with huge traffic and so happen that you're selling an ad space on it. You can use that Ad space as a blog contest prize. Eventually, everyone that has an online business would want a free advertising specially on a highly traffic blog so having ad space as a prize is good because people like it most specially bloggers and like what i said, those that has an online business.

There are still so many valuable things that you can use as a prize but these 4 that I've mentioned are the most in demand and wanted. So having any of these 4 as a prize is a great thing you could offer. Now lets go to the crucial part and this is something that you don't want to disregard.

Okay, so lets assume you already have an idea about the right prizes to be given. But there's one last thing you need to know and do about to make everything perfect. And it is

Legitimacy - This is basically the most important thing that anyone who's planning to host a blog contest should know about. Given that you know already the best prizes to be given away, the truth is its not enough alone. You must also be able to put some legitimacy on it. Showing people, assuring them that the contest is 100% real and that everything is done legitimately. People don't buy into something right away no matter how great it is unless they know its real. If you want to make your blog contest successful, you have to take away every single doubt or implication of scam from people's mind. So how do you do that?

By creating a video - This is pretty much in handy when it comes to showing people legitimacy. Creating a video is a must because it serves as the eyes of your audience or participants on how everything is done or will be done from the start of the contest to the drawing of winners. Creating a video is very important specially on the last part which is the drawing of winners because people wants to see how it is done fair and square. This is really so important because our main goal here is to take away every single doubt of scam, or that there might be some sort of favoritism which is the reason why that particular person wins. It would be great if in the end, whether a particular person win or not your contest, he still finds himself/herself happy and contented.

A great example of this one is the subscriber contest of MakingMoneyOnline dot com that i joined where in Doug Dillard and Mark Smith, the owners of MakingMoneyOnline dot com are giving away 2 professional designed business logo (a $47 value) and 1 character mascot design ($97 value) sponsored by LogoNerds (a true global company, that specializes on creating great logos for businesses big or small at an extremely affordable price).

If you still don't know, these are reputable gurus already but still, they prefer to show more legitimacy by drawing their contest winners via video to let everyone see how its done. And it makes everyone happy whether they win or not. Given the facts that the prizes are extremely good and that everything is done with great legitimacy. There's no question that the subscriber contest of MakingMoneyOnline dot com has become a great success. Before i forget, I've won the contest, a $47 dollar value professional designed business logo. The one I'll be using for my blog very soon.

Now you know everything that is important on hosting a blog contest. If you want to see everything that i said put into reality. Visit MakingMoneyOnline dot com now. Thank you and have a nice day.

The Basic Concepts Of Blog Flipping - Another Way To Make Money Online

2009-09-26T23:14:21+08:00

This is a Guest Post by Ditesco of IBlogZone.com.

Just a brief introduction. Ditesco is a professional blogger from Portugal, which is a very good friend of mine and I'm sure not only to me but to everyone else because this guy is very kind and friendly. He owns IBlogZone which is a very great site that cover topics about Internet marketing, blogging, SEO, making money online and many more, which sole purpose is to help people on their online journey. Ditesco is the one you don't want to miss knowing. He's a very great guy and a very good friend. Now, I'm proud to share to you an article from Ditesco about "The Basic Concepts Of Blog Flipping - Another way to make money online".

What is Blog Flipping?

Let us first understand the concept of flipping. In Real Estate jargon, house flipping means buying a home that needs work, making some improvements, and selling it later for a profit. This concept has been around for a while and has grown in popularity lately, due to the fact that it can generate a decent profit without having to risk too much of your capital resources. Time and effort is what this form of making money online requires most.

What are the forms of Blog Flipping?

Mainly, there are two ways in which you can start your blog flipping from.

The first, is by building a blog from scratch.
This method reduces further your risk of loosing money, but has the added effort of having to add content, promoting it, finding some ways to generate revenue, etc. In addition, you will have to set up your blog with features to Make Your Blog Fully Functional, which in return will make your website more compelling and generate traffic. All of these are required in order to create value for the blog you are setting up to flip (sell). The more established it is, the higher the value you can get in return. Just remember that you are not setting up a blog for yourself but rather, something that you will sell in the future. One major disadvantage of this method is that it takes more time (unless you have an excellent domain name attached to it) to set it up, before you can sell it for a decent amount of money.

The second, is by buying an established blog.
Considering the option of setting up a blog from scratch, as described above, and given the time and effort it takes to get it to a point where it is "flippable", the idea of buying an established blog becomes more interesting. An established blog will give you a short cut of getting it indexed by search engines, establishing an audience and most likely will already be generating some revenue, even if it is just a little (e.g. AdSense). Basically, what you are looking for is a blog, which is poorly managed by its webmaster, and has tremendous potential for profit, right after you do some improvements and further tweaking.

This is where the opportunity of making money on blog flipping comes in. If you have a sound understanding of SEO and basic blogging techniques, you should have no problem making improvements and optimizing it. Some of these improvements can be solved simply by adding more content, fixing title tags, adding more keywords, building links, promoting it, sticking some advertisements up, and other internet marketing practices that have been neglected by the previous owner. There are a lot of people who want to have their own blogs and don't know where to start or are not active enough to build from scratch (lazy people). This is where you should capitalize your efforts on.

What are the basic steps towards blog flipping?

1. Educate yourself on how to buy blogs or websites. There are many sources out there which will provide many important information and tell you the ropes about this topic. Once you know the basics on how to buy, you are in effect also learning how to sell. Pay particular attention on how to, evaluate a blog, negotiate and ultimately, completing the acquisition. If you are building from scratch, then you should not worry too much about the acquisition phase.

2. The search - There are many market places where you can find blogs that are for sale. Research well, ensure that you know the topic you are looking for and most importantly, formulate a plan to see whether the blog can be improved. Remember that the idea is for you to be able to increase the blogs value and selling it for a profit. Flippa, SitePoint are some suggestions, just to name a few.

3. If you decide to buy and once your acquisition has been completed, it is now time to increase the blog's value by feeding it with the necessary improvements as mentioned earlier. Do this wisely and in accordance with your initial plan.

4. Once you are satisfied that the blog you built or acquired is complete, putting it up for sale, will be your next obvious step. As I said, if you educated yourself on how to buy, the opposite, will be on how to sell.

Blog flipping can be an extremely rewarding form of making money online. Having the possibility of reaping high rewards, comes also the higher risk of succeeding. I will not recommend this method unless you understand the basic concepts of blogging, optimizing for search engines, creating unique and compelling content, etc. Before jumping in this method, familiarize yourself first with the basic concepts and once you feel comfortable about it, then go for it and see how it works for you. Good luck!

Now you know what blog flipping is and the things that you need to consider before trying this method of making money online. It can be a good source of income online if done right. Goodluck and thanks for sharing your time reading this article.

Many thanks to Ditesco :) from Home affiliate

8 Must Have Features To Make Your Blog Fully Functional

2009-09-22T21:51:15+08:00

Hello guys! Its almost 2 weeks since my last post and I'm happy that at last, I came up again with a new article to share with you. I know i should have done this earlier but due to some circumstances which i can't tell you because its more personal. I wasn't able to do so. In fact, I'm still facing it right now but i have to be professional and do this beyond circumstances. Anyway, in this article. I will discuss the features that one (a blogger) must have or include in his/her blog to make a fully functional blog that would benefit one's self and its readers. But before that, let me tell you something.

Do you know that your blog design can affect much on driving traffic to your blog and even boosting up your blog readership? Well certainly it does. As we all know, actors, models and actresses are selling out because of their looks right? because of their figure. Its just the same with your blog. Making your blog presentable is a big promotional factor. You need to make a first impression to your audience. There's a popular saying "don't judge a book by its cover" but come on, we all know that cover plays an important role for a book to get noticed. Its marketing and if you're a blogger. You need to consider that one. Grabbing the attention of your audience is a top priority before anything else as basically when you have done that, everything else follows. When someone browse the internet and happen to land on your page or blog. The first thing that they will notice is your blogs design. If you have good looking blog, the more likely that your audience are going to stay a bit longer as they like what they're seeing. Nobody wants to stay in an ugly blog. Its not being mean but its being realistic or practical. People wants something that is beautiful in the eye. That's human nature. Also, having a good looking blog can build credibility as basically, having a good looking blog means effort and dedication. Which tells your audience that you are serious on what you're doing which is blogging. On the other hand. A good blog design can be simple yet rich in features. Its not just about being intricate nor fancy. But also, it must be feature Enrich.

What is a good blog design? and what does it compose?

In my own opinion which I hope you guys would agree. A good blog design isn't just about the layout or theme but its also about the features it contain. These features are "must have" as it will make your blog design complete and fully functional. This features makes your blog useful and gives convenience to your audience as each feature plays an important role and have a unique purpose. Without further ado. Here are the must have features that makes up a good blog design that you should include on your blog to make it as one.

1. RSS Subscription option (in a reader)

Having an RSS subscription option in your blog is a must because it enables you to syndicate your blog content, making it more convenient for you and for your readers. When you have an RSS subscription option (in a reader), you are able to send a fully summarized text, or content in a form of RSS feed to your readers or to those who subscribed on your blog. This feature gives total convenience to your readers specially those who are so into the internet as they can easily stay informed on the latest contents on your site and even on other sites to which they subscribed without having to visit each site individually because information are sync into one place which is the "RSS Reader or feed aggregator". So this saves a lot of time and effort and for that, many people love to use it. Another good reason why people love this feature is that it ensures privacy because you don't have to give your email address upon subscription.

The other benefits you can get from adding an RSS subscription option to your blog is that. You are able to get in touch with others or to be specific, with your readers as they get informed whenever you create or update an article right? For this, a high chance that you will get a returning visit from your readers as they might want to comment and express their thoughts, opinions, reactions on a particular article you create. Note that every visit is a counted traffic so having an RSS subscription option in your blog is really good because it does a lot of good things both for you and for your readers. Also, If you are promoting a product through your article. These returning visitors/readers can become a potential sale. Whether you're promoting a product or just simply writing an article. You always make your readers informed about it. Having a subscription option on your blog will also help build your credibility or popularity because every subscription will be added on your readers count. The more subscribers/readers you have. The more that your credibility will become stronger and the more that your popularity will grow as basically, it determines how many people likes your blog and writing.

Tip: Having a subscription option on your blog needs a proper placement. You should place it on the most visible part of your blog where people can see it right away. This will help increase your blogs subscription.

2. RSS Subscription via Email (powered by Feedburner)

This feature is similar to the first one. Only though, this feature allows you to send your syndicated contents or updates straight to the email inbox of your subscribers who subscribe via email. For others, they find this subscription option more convenient because they are able to read the latest information on your blog right from their emails which is the first thing they open upon setting on their computer. Do you agree? Well, its hard to generalize but in my case, its the first thing that i do when i open my computer. Also, this feature allows you to build your list as basically you get the emails of your subscribers by managing your feedburner email list.

Because of this, you are able to get in touch with your subscribers even more. But , also remember to manage your list properly if you don't want to get unsubscribe or get banned from using this feature. You should consider and respect the privacy of your subscribers. Having this feature on your blog is a must not only because of its benefits, but also because it gives your audience the total freedom to get updated with the latest information using the subscription option that they find most convenient for them.

3. Navigation Bar

Having a navigation bar on your blog is a must because this feature will guide your audience to the most important pages of your blog very easily. This gives your audience a convenience on finding information on your blog, specially those information that are not shown on your home page or landing page. With the use of navigation bar, these information can still be access by your audience without having a hard time. Also, navigation bars are placed on the top part of your blog and therefore its very noticeable by the audience.

4. Featured Post

Featuring something on your blog is one of the things that you should consider. Its like telling your audience to check or read something that you want them to, in a nice manner or without being demanding. Featured posts can be in a form of recommended reading, popular articles, affiliate products review. Having this on your blog is a must because it implies confidence. This feature will also benefit you a lot specially if there's something that you really want to be noticed by your audience.

5. Recent Posts

Adding a recent posts feature on your blog is a must because this feature shows or gives your audience the most recent or freshest articles on your blog. Yeah, the can dig the archives for current articles but allowing your audience to get a handful of the most recent and freshest articles on your blog without having to dig is being formal and that's what they basically like. Giving your audience the ease and convenience should be included on your top priorities as a blogger. This "recent post" feature is much the same with "featured post" but the only difference is that, this feature shows the most recent and freshest thing on your blog only.

6. Top Commenters

Top commenters feature (plugin), which is available for wordpress bloggers and in some point, to other bloggers that uses a platform that allows plugin, is a feature that will show you and your audience the persons who comments most on your blog. Typically, on your sidebar. Adding this feature on your blog if possible is a must because this will help you track very easily the persons who are so active commenting on your blog by showing you their names and even the numbers of comments they have. Knowing those who are interested in you and likes your ideas is a must, and its made easy by Top commenters feature.

Another good reason why you should have this feature on your blog is that, it will attract more commenters. Specially bloggers and other webmasters because they get free exposure on your blog whenever they make a comment as their names are going to be shown on your "Top Commenters list" which is located on your sidebar. They don't just get plain backlinks but also they get a sort of text link ad for free.

7. Ad space

Having an ad space on your blog is a must because it gives the you chance to generate more income from your blog and from your affiliate promotions. If you have a quality blog with a good amount of traffic, then you can monetize it by selling an ad space. Typically, a 125 x 125 banner ad on your sidebar or even a text link ad. Many small businesses out there are looking for this kind of advertising because they find it so convenient and they can save lots of money. Which is why having this feature on your blog is one that you should consider specially if you have a quality blog with huge traffic.

Also, you can place your affiliate promotional banner materials on your ad space and therefore, it becomes more transparent on generating a potential income.

8. Favorite Related Blogs

Having this feature on your blog is one of the things that you should consider specially if you're just starting out because this feature will help you build relationship with other bloggers. If you add a particular blog related that you like on your list of "favorite related blogs" the owner of that blog gets a one way link from you and he/she will definitely become happy with it. If that person finds out about what you have done, the more likely that he/she will contact you to say thank you or more, that person might return the favor as well by adding your blog on his/her list of favorites and for that, you get a free backlink which is good for search engine rankings.

Now you know the 8 features that you should include on your blog to make it fully functional. Again, a good blog design is not just about the theme or template but its also about the features it contain. I hope this helps. By the way, anyone who wants to guest post on my blog? Feel free to contact me:) Thank you and more power.

Good Content and Traffic Makes A Blog Make Money

2009-09-10T01:07:18+08:00

This is a big question most new bloggers who wants to make money from blogging might have in mind. What really makes a blog make money? The answer is: Good content and traffic. If you will ask any professional blogger related to "make money online blogging niche", they couldn't more agree. Why is that? Well, lets assume you have all blog monetization methods in place. Like: Google adsense, affiliate promotions, ad space, text link ads, etc. But, you won't make money by simply putting those in your blog. Those monetization methods needs some exposure in order to be functional, for that to happen, you need to drive traffic to your blog. You need people to have access to all those monetization methods. So how do you do that? Well, there are so many ways to drive traffic which i will discuss later on in this article but before you think of driving traffic to your blog, you must think of this first.

What really makes people visit your blog?

Basically, people visit your blog because of the content published in it. If people visit your blog and find nothing good in it. They will run away. So your blogs becomes "Hit and Run". And for that, your monetization methods have less exposure so your chances of getting revenue from it is low. That is why it is very important to write good contents. Good contents will basically hold your visitors to stay on your blog and thus gives your monetization methods a longer exposure.

So what is a good content and why should i have it on my blog?

Good content as interpreted by Yaro Starak of Entrepreneurs-Journey.com is something that "Enhances other people lives". Meaning, it is something that people would benefit from or learn something from. In my own interpretation of what a good content is, it is something that will caught attention or interest others. Writing good content will allow you to gain more visitors and readers. Basically, if you have good contents on your blog. More people would like to read it. Plus, if they like what they've read, they might recommend it to their friends, family and relative and for that, you are driving more traffic. It is really important to have good contents on your blog. Nobody wants to read a blog full of nothing but monetization methods. Of course, you must provide something in return for your audience. You must give them benefits, and not just you having benefits from them. Its a give and take situation.

What does it take to come up with good content?

To come up with good content. You need to be knowledgeable enough on your chosen niche or topic. You don't have to be a genius or a guru for you to come up with a good content. All you just need is to have enough knowledge on your topic, by which you are able to give a solid information and supporting facts about a particular subject matter. It is also important to choose the right niche. If you cover a niche or topic that interest you. Then chances is that you are not going to run out of ideas. Because you love the topic and you have enough knowledge about it.

Doing some research would also help you come up with good content. Now you know what a good content is, what it takes to create one and why is it important. So lets assume you already have good content in place. What are you going to do next? The next thing you need to do is to....

Market your good content to drive traffic.

Having good content in your blog isn't just enough. You need to do some marketing. You have to market your blog to let others know about it. You might think, why do i have to market my blog? when there are search engines to do the job for me. Yeah indeed search engines would help market your blog or good contents since google and other search engines are looking for those good contents to have it index on search results whenever someone search for a particular keyword/key phrases. That is what we call "Search Engine Marketing". However, getting indexed by google or being marketed by google and other search engines is not as easy and quick as you think. Its a long process and need lots of efforts. Which is why it is wise to not just rely on search engines but to also do some marketing your self. That way, there's more outcome. It is always wise to do any available options. There are so many ways to market your blog or blog articles. Like:

■ Submitting blog and articles on High Pagerank blog directories/article directories.
- recommendations: Blog Catalog, technorati, blogged, DMOZ, boing boing, yahoo blog directory
Note that: Submitting your blog on blog directories will help you increase your link popularity which is SEO Basic. Thus, it will increase your chance of getting index by google and other search engines.

■ Participate on Social bookmarking sites like Delicious, Stumble upon, Reddit, Clipmarks,
Newsvine, Mixx, Diigo, Propeller

■ Submit articles on Digg.
- If you have a good content, submitting it on Digg is a MUST. Digg is a big communication channel that allows users like me and you to submit quality videos, articles and images. It is a place where people can determine the value of content. Every article, video and image submitted is given a fare chance to be the next big thing. If your submission rocks and receive enough diggs. It will bepromoted on the front page of digg and will be exposed to millions of people. Plus, you can engage with the rest by having conversation on comments which is part of marketing. For these said reasons. Submitting articles on digg is a must.

■ Participate on Big Social Networking sites like FaceBook, Twitter, and Friendfeed.
- It is no longer a secret that participating on social networking sites can be a great source of traffic. Infact, Social networking sites play an important role on the success of most internet marketers and businesses.

These are just some of the methods you can use to market your blog and generate traffic. Now you know that creating good content and doing some marketing will enable you to come up with good results. Or to be straight, will help you boost your chances of making money from those monetization methods you have on your blog, so goodluck and thank you.