My Blogging Routine for the holidays

A couple of days back I wrote a post about my blogging routine and today I was thinking about what my blog routine will be over the next couple of weeks.  Like many people, I have Thursday and Friday off this week and next week so I will theoretically have more time blog.  On the other hand I will be busy with family and it would be nice to take some time off from everything, including my blogs.  As I continued to think about this during the day, I came to a decision.  What I will be doing is creating a series of “best of” posts and I will be using my newly installed weekly round up plugin to help.  I see this as the best of both worlds.  I will still be producing regular content and get the seo value of internal linking in addition to highlighting some of the best posts that I have written this year. At the same time I get to slack off a little and take a blogging break.

What are you guys planning to do with your blog during the holidays?

Powerful Seo tool all bloggers should know about

I am going to share a secret that will have a profound impact on the future success of your blog.  All bloggers know that SEO is vital and everyone wants to dominate Google for their selected keywords, right?  Wouldn’t be awesome if Google would just tell us the formula for success.  I am looking to dominate for several keywords, some of which are pretty competitive like, promote your blog and make money blogging .  How much would you pay for someone to tell you exactly what to write about and what titles you should focus on to achieve success in your focused area?

Did you know that Google will give you this information for free?  Ok, enough with the questions and let me explain what I am talking about here.

SEO Tip for Bloggers

It is called Wonder wheel.

Here is how you get there:

• Go to Google and search for your keyword phrase.  In my example, I will be using “promote your blog”
• When the results pull up, look right under the search box and you will see a little blue hyperlinked text that says show  options.  Click on that.

• On the right hand side, you will see the Wonder Wheel, click on it.

• What you will see is what Google would like to see as content for a site with that keyword phrase.  There are 8 articles to write about.

• You can click on one of the topic links and it will dig deeper and provide more content suggestions.

Pretty awesome, huh.  Did you know about this tool before?

If you liked this tip please consider retweeting to your buddies and don’t forget to vote me up on Blog Engage!

Me and my son’s blogging routine, what’s yours?

As some of you know, I am teaching my 10 year old son about blogging and he has been doing very well lately.  In fact he just mentioned that his blog is tighter than mine.  What he means by this is that he is very consistent about updating his blog and he has gotten into a regular routine.  He wakes up 20 minutes earlier and writes a new blog post every day.  He then goes to bit.ly and shortens his link and then tweets it to his 33 followers.  I am very impressed with his dedication and consistency and think that if he continues and adds other promotional activities he will do well as a tween blogger.

Here is my blogging routine

• I blog on Tycoon Blogger 4-5 times a week.
• At night, I start around 8:00 and it usually takes me 30-45 minutes to publish a new post.
• After my post is complete, I head over to Blog Engage and submit my link.  While there, I check out the newly published posts and upcoming posts and of course, vote up my friends.
• My next step is to submit to Twittley, this takes care of tweeting to my followers.  While on Twittley, I also take time to look for my friends’ posts and send out some RT’s
• I then head out to visit and comment on other blogs, most of which have comment luv, which helps promote my new post.

This is a pretty simple routine that takes 2-3 hours per night.  Sometimes shorter, sometimes longer.

I am very interested to read your comments, what is your blog routine?

Do you need Izea to sell Sponsored Tweets?

I have written a couple of articles about Sponsored Tweets, the Izea service that helps you monetize your Twitter account, over the past few weeks.  I am  definitely a fan of the service (as you can see by the banner ad above) and I have made some money so far and have brought in a dozen affiliates under me.  Although I like the service, I have been thinking that it might make sense to cut out the middle man and offer this service directly on my blog.  This is kind of like how I do it with sponsored posts.  I work with several services like Review Me, Social Spark and Sponsor Reviews but I also offer the option for folks to purchase a sponsored post directly through me via my contact form and paypal.  I know a lot of other bloggers do this as well but I have not seen anyone offer sponsored tweets directly yet.

So here is the deal:

Based on the 3,500 followers I have on my personal account @followdankeller , Izea suggests I charge $4.00.  The way they work is they charge the advertiser a 100% mark up, so it would cost $8.00 for one tweet through their service.

Here is what I am proposing:

For $8.00 you will get 3 tweets spread out over 3 days at @followdankeller (3,500 followers)

AND

3 tweets on @tycoonblogger (750 followers) spread out over 3 days.

Click the following link for more information – Advertise with Tycoon Blogger

So what do you think?  Good deal?  Good idea?  Do you know any other bloggers that are doing this?

Good gift idea for iPhone lovers

We are now down to ten days left before Christmas.  What do get for the gadget lovers on your list?  Consider picking up the Yamaha PDX-60 speaker system.  If you are unfamiliar with the Yamaha PDX -60, it is an iphone/ipod dock that was introduced into the market this year.  Iphone docks are a hot item this Christmas season and it is no surprise as it seems that everyone has an iPhone these days.  I bought an iPhone about 6 months ago and my wife has had one for several years now.  The thing is permanently attached to her.  She is typically on Facebook, but when she is not, she is listening to music and watching videos. For me, my iPhone wakes me up in the morning and doesn’t leave my side all day long.  I listen to music all day in my office, and listen to my iPhone in my car.  I never turn my radio on anymore. I am seriously considering buying her a docking station for her iPhone and have spent some this before writing this post looking into the available products on the market.  There are quite a few choices and it seems like the Yamaha PDX- 60 has some pretty cool features.The coolest  feature is something called yAired technology, you can hold your iPhone or iPod and take advantage of the speaker system.  This works for me because I always have my phone in my hand and do not want to dock it to get speaker sound.  Another thing that I like is that this system comes in a variety of colors, of course I will be choosing pink for my wife.

So what do you think?  Sound like a good gift?