Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category
Benefits of linking a forum to your blog
There are a number of reasons that make forums a great addition to your blog. If you have ever posted on a forum, you already understand their value. Forums are simply a great place for people with a similar interest to gather and discuss a variety of different topics.
There are plenty of free forums available that just about anybody can get up and running in a matter of hours or days. Popular forums even offer skins that allow you to customize the way they look in order to integrate it seamlessly with your blog.
One of the major benefits of adding a forum to your blog is attention. If you can start a successful forum with a number of active posters, you will greatly boost traffic to your blog. More readers can lead to more people clicking on your ads or buying things from your blog. If you aren’t trying to earn money by blogging, more readers also mean that your posts are seen by a wider number of people.
Adding a forum to your blog also has another great benefit. If you are placing advertisements on your blog, a forum will give you more landscape to tinker with. How many forums have you visited with at least one advertisement at the very top of it?
![[del.icio.us]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Feed Me Links]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/feedmelinks.png)
![[Google]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[Kaboodle]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/kaboodle.png)
![[LinkedIn]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/linkedin.png)
![[Reddit]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/reddit.png)
![[Squidoo]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/squidoo.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Technorati]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Twitter]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://thebloggingcenter.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
Filed under Blogging, Traffic and Blogs
Easy ways to backup your WordPress blog
Blogging is a surprisingly time consuming task. You have to update your blog on a regular basis for an extended period of time before you are likely to develop any real traffic to your site. After spending hours and hours getting your blog up and running, the last thing you want to deal with is a crash that destroys all of your hard work.
It is so important to backup your blog. With regular backups, you can avoid the painful process of trying to rebuild your blog from scratch. There are multiple ways that you can backup your blog and they require very little effort on your behalf.
Before we get into specifics, it is important to understand the two major things you will want to backup: the actual database and all of the files (pictures, etc.) you have uploaded for your blog. Both the database and the files can be backed up separately using different methods.
For the files, it is easy to back them up in a method similar to the way you probably uploaded them. Open up your FTP client and connect to the blogs files. Simply copy them over to a folder on your computer. This folder can then be backed up on a DVD or external hard drive for an additional layer of safe keeping.
For the database, there is an easy to use plugin called WP-DPManager. In addition to backing up your database, this plugin will also help you optimize it in order to achieve the best possible performance.
Filed under Blogging, Blogging Tips
Contextual versus placement targeting for Adsense
If you are an advertiser and you want your ads to appear on the Adsense network, there are two basic terms that you need to understand: contextual targeting and placement targeting. You will need to determine which of these methods you want to use to display your ads.
Let’s start with contextual targeting. This basically means that you are targeting the context of a particular site. You can do this by creating an ad group in Google Adsense that contains keywords you have predefined. When a site in the Adsense network displays an article with the keywords in your list, your advertisement could appear on that site.
Now in order to take advantage of contextual targeting, you have to first enable it. Open up your Campaign Settings page in Google Adsense and simply turn on this form of advertising and you are ready to get started!
Placement targeting is more complicated than contextual targeting. With placement targeting, you are specifying that you want your ads to appear in a particular spot regardless of the keywords being used. You can target a specific website (as long as it is within the Adsense Network) to display your advertisement.
There is a trick with placement targeting. If you want your advertisement to appear on a really popular website or blog, and there is already a high demand from other advertisers, you can expect to pay a lot more to see your ad displayed there.
Filed under Blogging
How can I add Google Adsense videos to my blog
The other day I happened to notice that a video I wanted to watch was preceded by a Google Adsense video. Now advertisements before videos are certainly nothing new. In fact, it seems like just about every video you click on anymore is preceded by an advertisement. But this was the first time I noticed that it was an Adsense video.
So it got me thinking. How can I put Adsense videos on my blog? It seems like a brilliant concept and I’m always looking for new ways to increase my blogging revenues. Having used Google Adsense quite a bit already, I knew there wasn’t an option to create a video in my ad setup area.
Basically what you need to do to get these video ads to appear on your blog requires you to opt into image ads. Many of us have probably already done this. Next you need to make sure that you are creating image ads in the required sizes: 300×250, 336×280, or 250×250 Square.
Now here is the downside of video advertisements. Just because you have image ads enabled and you create advertisements of the correct size, there is no guarantee that the video ads will be displayed. If you have a suitable video on your blog, Adsense will play a complimentary video ad for it. Otherwise, you just get video!
Add Google Adsense videos to your blog and increase your revenues. Learn about the advantages of ad videos and how to implement today!
Encrypted blog footers
One of the most annoying things I have encountered in the blog world is encrypted footers in free blog themes. Anyone who has used free blog themes has likely encountered this very problem. There are a lot of talented designers out there who place their blog themes out on the web free of charge. The downside – many of these free blog themes have links and other random information in the footer.
Now it takes a lot of time to create a functional blog theme that is widget friendly, Adsense friendly, free of errors, and a million other things. I have no issue with the designer requesting that the links they leave in the footer remain as they are if you want to take advantage of their free blog theme.
What I do have a problem with is the encryption. If you are going to offer a blog theme to users, they should have reasonable access to all parts of it so they can customize it as they need to. No blog theme is going to be a one size fits all solution for every blogger. There are things that are going to have to be tweaked.
I like to put a link to my blog’s privacy policy in the footer of the theme. If the blog’s footer is encrypted, I can’t do this. As I do use Google Adsense, having a privacy policy on my blog is mandatory. This means that in certain situations I have to place the privacy policy in a less than ideal position.
Yes I do realize that encrypted footers can be hacked, but this is not my desire. I simply want access to them so I can tweak the things I need to. A bit of a rant – but encrypted footers are annoying and unacceptable!
Filed under Blogging, Blogging Tips
How important is my blog theme?
How much time do you spend surfing the internet every week? How many blogs do you think you visit on any given day? What is it that attracts you to explore a new blog after you have found it?
For me, I need to find the blog visually appealing. I don’t want to see the original wordpress theme on a blog. I want to know that someone has spent time to make their blog more interesting for their readers. I like images, but you’ll notice I don’t really use a lot of images on my own blog. Why? For the most part, I believe images would clutter my blog while adding little value.
Now if I had a food blog, I would certainly use images to demonstrate the items that I was talking about. A food blog without images would be like looking through a cookbook without pictures. Blah. I’ll pass. I think images are better suited for certain types of blogs and not others.
Instead of using images to attract readers, a blog theme can accomplish this same objective. If you have a large budget for your blog, you can afford to have a talented designer create a fully functional custom blog theme. For those of us with smaller budgets, there are PLENTY of free blog themes that are perfectly adequate to achieve success.
The trick with finding a great blog theme for free is to be willing to invest time in the hunt. There are millions of themes available and it will be up to you to spend the time sorting through numerous websites and thousands of themes until you find one that is suitable for your blog. Even after you find one you like, make sure you test it out fully to ensure there aren’t errors or other issues that will take away from the quality of your blog!
Filed under Blogging, Blogging Tips
