A couple of weeks ago I wrote a review post about Comment Luv premium and I received a question in the comments that I thought would make an excellent topic for this week’s blogging debate.

Here is the question that was posed by Rebecca Watkins

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When I first started blogging in 2007, comment luv was one of the first plugins that I installed and I truly believe that it helped establish this blog and gain an audience sooner rather than later.  I was able to interact with like minded bloggers and because of the comments and the fact I felt like I wasn’t blogging in a vacuum this helped me to push ahead and keep blogging.

I have written many posts over the years about increasing comments on your blog.  Here are a couple:

How to get more blog comments

7 ways to Reward your blog readers 

I truly believe that the comment luv plugin is the single one thing that will have the most impact on increasing comments and engagement which will lead to traffic and conversions.

Since September I have been reading the buzz around the blogosphere from some of my blogging buddies like Hisham and Ditesco and deciced that Comment Luv Premium is just way to cool and useful to ignore.

For me, installing CommentLuv + is the first step for me to get more serious about blogging.  Over the past year I have not focused as much on my blogging projects because I have been busy with several other online ventures.  Those ventures are cruising on auto pilot now and I want to get back into blogging big time and I want to bring this blog to the top in the “helping small business and entrepreneurs through blogging and social media niche.”

I will be getting back on the commenting circuit and reacquainting myself with old friends and meeting new folks who have jumped into this space over the past year.

The best part of Comment Luv premium from my perspective is the built in incentives for readers to leave a comment.  I have tweaked my settings so if the reader wants a do follow link they must either Tweet, Like or Plus my post.  This also plays into anoher blogging goal I had for this year which was to get more focused on social media, specifically maximizing Google Plus.

Another awesome feature is the antispam technology that is built into the plugin.  This works to eliminate bot spam by adding a box that must be checked to confirm you are not a spammer.  This box uses javascript and bots suck at reading javascrit so this will work to eliminate almost all the bots out there.  Just yesterday, Andy added some features that combat human spam.  You can now set how many words a post must be, eliminating the “nice post bro” type of comment.  You can also set a certain amount of time that they must spend on the site before they can comment. .  This will eliminate those punks who just come in go right for the comments and preload one in and press send.  This will not work on my blog as I set the time for 30 seconds about how long it would take to read my posts.

I can go on and on about all the features but it would be best for you to get it straight from the horses mouth.

Here is a link (aff) to the Comment Luv Premium page.  Watch the video and see if it is right for your blog.

Oh, and don’t forget to leave me a comment.

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There are literally hundreds of ad networks available to webmasters around the world.  Which one do you pick?  How do you know which one to pick?  You could try them all out of course, but that could take some time.  Why not cut that time and start making money immediately?

Here are the 6 Most Popular Ad Networks for Bloggers

Google Adsense

This is the behemoth of the ad world.  You can find Google Adsense on just about every blog, forum, or static website.  Not only do they serve most countries, but they have the best payouts too.  The Adsense network is the network to be in, period.  As your blog grows your Adsense revenue will grow as well.  Over the past 3 years I have made tens of thousands off dollars just with Google ads.

Chitika

If you don’t have traffic from the USA or Canada then don’t bother using Chitika.  It isn’t for you.  They don’t want traffic from foreign countries due to the low payouts and high-fraud clicks.  I do however recommend them as a substitute for Adsense.  That is, if you can’t get on Google Adsense for some reason or another.

Adbrite

Probably one of the bigger networks.  Most people would actually recommend using Adbrite over using Chitika.  They usually have a solid amount of advertisers, but you may not always have ads running.  For that reason it’s up to you if you use them or not.  When you do have ads they usually do pay pretty well.  Adbrite isn’t as good as Google Adsense but it does work and it does pay.

Bidvertiser

This company is pretty horrible.  I only recommend using them if your site is low in traffic and you don’t mind the random ads you get.  They aren’t great at targeting and they don’t have great advertisers.  In my opinion, this is a last resort but I guess it works for some folks because they are a major player in the ad world.

Tribal Fusion

You can’t get into this network until you have a specific amount of visitors and page views.  This network comes recommended by a few top bloggers.  All up to you.  Once you meet their requirements you can try them out.  Check out their requirements page as they tend to change every so often.

Kontera

Kontera has a ton of options for ad displays.  This makes it highly recommend for medium sized websites.  When I say medium I mean decent amount of traffic and page views.  I always recommend split testing ad networks to see which one performs better for you.  Kontera is the choice of many bloggers, maybe you too?

Finding an ad network that is good for your blog takes time.  If you can get into Google Adsense, then do so.  Adsense is the best for most blogs, but you could of course go into private selling.  All niches are different and they all have different types of advertisers.  It’s all about finding what works for you.

What ad networks work best for you?

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Every blogger gets tempted to copy another blogs post format.  It’s natural and happens often.  No one blog or blogger has a particular way of formatting their content.  In fact, there isn’t much uniqueness to anyone’s content other than the actual information.  The rest is fair game.  So if you’re new to blogging or you just want some new ways to present your content, continue reading.

The List of Best Things

This type of blog post is a lot like reviewing something.  A lot of people don’t have the time to try and research every possible option.  The next best thing is to have a pre-ready list of services or products that will help out your reader.  This can also bring you some nice contacts from owners and companies that serve these products.  Expect emails thanking you or blog post comments from business operators if you have a solid foot hold in the industry of your blog.

The Resource List

Everyone needs resources and tools.  So why not make a list that offers it to them?  The best resources you can offer are free ones.  You can also list paid ones if you feel that they are worth your readers money.  However, I wouldn’t list paid products or services that you personally haven’t tried -especially if you have a good reputation for being reliable.

Showcases

The internet is large and vast giving your average reader too much for too little of time.  Showcasing other’s work and skills is a good way to get your readers inspired.  There is nothing like seeing other people’s success to fuel your ambition.

Short Tutorials

Quick and simple tutorials for any type of product, service, or niche related to your blog is applauded.  I haven’t seen many blogs not offer tutorials on one or two things related to their subject.  Why not be the first to offer it in yours?  You can even take it a step further and create a video tutorial for the topic rather than a written one.

Answering

Start answering people’s questions and show off.  If you feel like you know enough about your subject to help others, then do so!  I would hope that you do if you own a blog about it. . . Nothing helps you more than being able to help others.  It creates a trusting relationship.  You know the answers and they come to you for help.  That’s the best type of blog you can have.

Feel free to expand on the types of blog post formats in the comments.  I would love to hear from you.

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Most bloggers know that writing viral posts is one of the most powerful ways to promote your blog. If you can get everyone linking and talking about your posts, you can generate a swarm of traffic. Quality and “uniqueness” is the key to that game. But another viral game that bloggers can play has to do with viral ebooks. Very few bloggers use this marketing technique because most bloggers surprisingly don’t know how to write an ebook. Well guess what? If you can write a blog post you can write a viral ebook. And no, you don’t need to write an ebook that’s as long or as good as a New York Times Best Seller. Some viral ebooks are less than 10 pages long and fare quite well.

So what should your viral ebook be about? Well, if you want to bring “targeted” traffic to your blog, your viral ebook needs to be related to the subject of your blog. And if you actually want the ebook to go viral, it needs to be BOTH bizarre and extremely useful. In order for the ebook to be bizarre, it needs to somehow tie in with a subject that some people believe to be taboo while still staying on-topic. In order for it to be extremely useful, it needs to be somewhat of a black book with information that most people don’t know about. Combine the two together and you could have a winner. Some people might say that extremely useful would be good enough. In some cases it would be. But it’s really hard to get people to talk about your viral ebook if it doesn’t fall into those two categories.

Once you have your concept down, you’re half finished so pat yourself on the back. All that’s left is the actual writing of the ebook. Don’t worry. You don’t need expensive software to create your viral ebook. In fact, most viral ebooks are nothing more than a simple PDF file. The best software to create a PDF-style ebook can be downloaded at www.OpenOffice.org. After you install this application on your computer, you’re going to need to open the Open Office Writer. This program works in the exact same way as any other word processor. Write your ebook and once you’re finished, click on the PDF icon which is on the top of the page. Wallah! You’re finished and your ebook is ready to be distributed.

But what if you want a much nicer ebook? Simple. All you have to do is find somebody who can create an ebook cover for you. Prices vary but most designers will create a professionally-designed cover for $50 or less. Not all designers are created equal so take your time. When the cover is finished, add an image of the cover within your ebook on the first page and save it as a PDF file. Now your ebook has a face that more people will notice.

Now it’s time to distribute your viral ebook. While there are many ways to do this, the first way I would suggest you promote it is by contacting other blog owners with related blogs. If they like it, they’ll blog about. And if other people follow their blogs, they’ll blog about it too. Let’s not forget all the social bookmarks you’ll get from the people who visit those blogs. If you’re lucky, you’ll get lots of people talking about your ebook and your ebook might even be mentioned in some book one day on how viral marketing should be done. Wouldn’t that be something!

This was Guest Post submitted by Greg Davidson.  Check out his site at Script Package.

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Don’t worry this is not a post debating the merits of do follow blogs versus blogs that are no follow.  That topic has been debated into the ground by us bloggers over the year.  This is a quick post to introduce you to my new do follow blog directory.  Actually, it is an old site of mine that i have neglected for years and now that i have has some time off during the holidays I decided to give it face lift and relaunch it.

The site is called Do Follow Movement and it is a PR 3 – hand edited blog directory that features only blogs that are do follow.

Take a look and let me know what you think about design.  It is pretty simple but that is what I was after.  Luckily, Nick at Elegant Themes recently designed a theme called Elist that helps transform WordPress into a directory.

This is your invitation to add your do follow blog to the directory.  To help eliminate spam I have set the price to $1 for submission.  For my readers I will wave that fee and you can simply leave your information in the comments and I will submit the link for you.  Please use this format:

Name of Blog – (your real blog name -  no keyword stuffing)

Description -

Link -

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How to Write Blog Posts that Make Money

The odds are high that you started blogging because you had a particular passion, area of expertise or something else that you wanted very much to share with others around the globe. The odds are probably equally high that you also wanted to make a little bit of money while doing this.

There are a lot of ways to make money with your blog. You could make money through ads, affiliate programs, selling eBooks, offering your services and more. You can make even more money with certain types of blog posts. The following tips should help you to be able to craft blog posts that will make you and your blog even more money.

Write a Post About How to Make Money Online

You are already making money off of the web, so it probably won’t be any surprise to you that there are a lot of folks who desperately wish they were making money online too. This is one of the things that are searched for the most on the World Wide Web. If you write posts telling others how they can start making their own money through blogs or websites, you will start to notice that you are getting more traffic, and this traffic will start to translate to more income via the various revenue streams you already have in place.

Write About Saving Money

People love reading about money and how they can make or have more of it. Money saving tips is another top that will get greater views and more income through your various streams as a result. Essentially, anything you can write that may offer even rudimentary advice about how to make money or save money will result in greater income for you and your blog.

Write about deals

Like saving money, people love to read about spending money, especially when reading about how to get more for less. You can get more visitors if you write about daily deal sites, current discounts from major retailers or even if you post a list of some of your favorite coupon sites from the web.

Write reviews

You can review a product that you are an affiliate for. Just be sure to write an honest review, and sell the heck out of whatever benefits or great features that product has. Folks who are looking for information about whatever you review will likely find your site (especially if your post is rich with related low competition keywords), and there is a good chance that when they are done with your review they could click through and buy the product meaning more money for you.

Use the right keywords

Search engine optimization is important, as it can help your site and your posts be easily discovered by new visitors. If you want to do SEO right, one of the things you need to do is incorporate keywords, but not any keywords will do the trick. You will want to use the Google Keyword Tool and select what are known as low competition keywords that are often searched for. This way you are giving your posts the best chance to be discovered. Utilize these in your titles and headings and be sure to include some in your text.

Just Write

Posting anything is better than not posting at all. Search engines discover new content, and those sites that are perpetually adding more content are moved to the top of the queue when a user searches. Even if you don’t have an idea for a great money making post, or don’t have the time to incorporate the things so far discussed, just post something. This will help to get your blog noticed and will help to get you to the top of the search results. Additionally, your subscribers will receive notifications with all new posts, and this means the more notifications they get, the more likely they are to visit your blog more often.

Conclusion

The best way to write blog posts that make money is to monetize your blog and post to it. If you post to your blog daily, you should see some income start to come in from the various streams of revenue you set up. If you follow the above tips and others like it, you will start to make even more.

This article is written by Kevin Moor, who also writes for speedmycomputer.net, a site emphasizing on how to speed up computer.

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If you’re trying to come up with an idea for a blog, think of anything you can and there’s a market for it. The Internet has allowed our society to become so connected and compartmentalized that there are subgroups within subgroups, but, as always, there are specific things that people are always interested in hearing about. If you’re wanting to start a blog, and wanting to make sure that you have the best chance of its success, here’s a list of some of the most traditionally popular topics that people seem most concerned with:

Tech Talk

It’s not surprising that if people are reading and running blogs that they’d be interested in what’s going on with the world of technology. The computer’s evolution happened quite slowly, but as soon as the technology become more accessible to consumers, everything exploded. We do everything online, whether it’s to find a phone number or to balance our bank accounts.

Now advancements in mobile and computers are happening quicker than people know. This is why they rely on news organizations and bloggers to keep them apprised of all the latest news, updates, and gossip going on in the tech world. There are tons of these blogs, and even though there’s a high volume of them, they’re always able to generate substantial traffic. You can run a blog and capitalize on this niche topic and make it a little different at the same time. It all depends on your familiarity and ability to talk about tech to a wide range of readers.

Health and Wellness

Whether it’s due to the increased availability of information or our expanding waist lines, people are becoming far more interested in learning about health. We’re learning more every day about how the way we live and the food we eat affects our bodies and quality of life. Of course, within this niche there’s another avenue through weight loss topics. You can find anything you want on any topic in health. There’s always another big craze for the newest fad diet right around the corner and these kinds of sites always do well. Or you can take the higher road and offer actual advice and discuss topics on general health and well being.

Wealth Tips

People always want to know about the newest way to make a buck. Some advice that you can get online is often dealing with finance, saving money, and ways to cut costs out of your budget. There is also a group of blogs under the finance category that that discuss all of the different investment opportunities that are available or up and coming. This is one topic that you can get a lot of traction with if you have any familiarity with finance. Sometimes, if you don’t have much knowledge about the subject, you can take that approach. Make a blog about expanding your understanding with making and saving cash.

You’re sure to be successful with the right marketing approach if you use these kinds of topics. These three are just options, and there are many other successful blog niches out there to choose from. It’s best to do a lot of research and reading to get familiar with the kinds of topics that are most popular, as well as something you’d feel comfortable discussing every day.

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Perhaps the biggest time commitment bloggers face comes from the actual act of writing a blog post. All of the other activities surrounding blogging, such as responding to comments or working on advertising schemes, don’t take nearly as much effort as the act of producing solid content for your blog.

Because of this, it’s important to refine your blogging process; this means that you should have a routine that you follow when you sit down to write a post. Below, I’ve listed [number] tips that should help you get on your way to writing a great post. Of course, every writer is different, so I don’t mean for these steps to be unchangeable. Simply take what you need from them and tweak to suit yourself. Feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments.

Follow a Writing Routine

The key publishing consistently great content is to write your blog posts consistently! That’s right, writing, like any other skill, is developed through routine and practice. If you can follow a daily writing routine, then you’ll be able to hone your writing skills while also keeping your imagination roaming free over a number of different content-related ideas. I try to do my writing in the morning, but of course that’s personal preference. Find a time every day and sit down and write; this will help you work through later stages of writer’s block.

Consider Pre-Writing to Find Your Content

Another thing to consider is that it’s really hard to simply sit down and produce perfect content in one try. We writers have to work hard to refine our content so that our readers see it at its best, and one of the ways we do this is by pre-writing. Pre-writing, in any form, is a kind of initial idea dump that allows us to get our thoughts down and begin organizing them without worrying about a judgmental reader. Then, after you pre-write, you can really get down to the act of putting it all together.

Plan Your Posts Ahead of Time

Planning is an important part of blogging: you want to control how your content is published, obviously, and you want to make sure it follows a plan that will help you reach various goals. Some bloggers prefer to have a weekly calendar: on Mondays, for example, they’ll post interviews, and their readers know exactly what to expect. You can also plan blog posts throughout the year. Some bloggers have weeks devoted to a single topic, and these weeks serve as big traffic draws. The point here is that planning out your blogging is worth the extra time, as it keeps your blog focused and updated regularly, which means consistent traffic numbers.

If you follow these three tips, then you should have a pretty good and basic success plan for your blogging business. Of course, there are plenty of other things you can do, but I’ve found that these three tips serve as a wonderful foundation to making sure my other blogging activities stay on point.

Author Bio:

This guest post is contributed by Patricia Garza, who writes about gadget, technology, design, social media, e-learning related articles at online university rankings.

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Welcome to week three of the pillar content challenge.

If you’re only just joining us, here’s what you missed so far:

Week 1: How to nail your blog’s pillar content in 4 weeks.
Week 2: Why headlines and outlines are key to your pillar content crown.

And you’re back (or carrying on because you read those posts already!) Fabulous!

As before, let’s assume that you did the steps suggested in the previous two posts and you come equipped with topics, headlines and outlines for the core of your pillar content. If you’re like most people and you skipped over the ‘do this and then do that’ part of the last two weeks, I seriously encourage you to go back and do them now.

The rest of this post will be painful without them.

So here’s where the fun really starts. Today is where you take your ideas, your cleverly crafted headlines and that all important outline, and start weaving your magic. It’s the fun part because you’ll end the process with lots of gorgeous words to show for all your effort, and that’s worth a smile right?

Getting it done

The good news is that with your headline and outline in place, writing the post is easy. You’ve done all the hard thinking work. You just need to sit down and get it done.

The bad news? You need to sit down and get it done!

Time for the much-cited but oft ignored advice …

1. Turn off all distractions

Email, Twitter, Facebook, Skype … whatever your time drain of choice, if you want to get these pillar content posts done with the least time investment, it’s vital that you remove all distractions. This series was prepared and written using the advice given throughout with the exception of this one point.

While writing this I’m also in the process of cooking dinner, chatting via GTalk and checking the latest happenings on Twitter. The result? This paragraph took me three hours to write!

1. Get your bum in the seat!

Sit there and write it already! Legendary copywriter Eugene Schwartz had a killer technique for getting it done. He sat in his seat and was not allowed to get out of it until his timer went off, signalling the end of the allotted 33.33 minutes. Now that might not be the way for everyone but you can not argue with the rationale behind sticking around and just doing it.

And the most annoying thing of all? It works! That this post is finished owes much to Schwartz’s method.

1. Stop editing, keep writing

When you’re writing the first draft of anything, it’s just that, a first draft. The most effective way to nail any content creation is to get the words out as quickly as possible. Forget about correcting spelling, don’t worry that your finger slipped on an extra key, grammar can go out the window. This is your first draft baby and as such, none of these things is in the slightest bit important.

You have your headline in place so you know where your headed. With your outline by your side you also have a map of the journey. First drafts are about filling in the details and if you stop to change sentence construction along the way, not only are you in serious danger of cramping your own style, the whole process will take twice as long (and result in a less stupendous piece of writing!)

Now before anyone has a fit, I’m not suggesting that you then hit publish. No way! This is a first draft. You get your words out there and then you go and do something else. Have a cup of tea, read a book, go for a walk, call your favourite aunt and have a natter.

And then later (and yes, I know, ‘later’ is a very stretchy word!) you return to your first draft and you read it through, twice. The first time you read it through, do so from your blog’s dashboard. At this stage you’re really just looking for the glaringly obvious mistakes, typos, spelling mistakes, things that don’t seem to make sense.

It is in the second reading where the magic really happens.

The magic of you.

Save your blog post and then click ‘preview’ to read your post within the context of your site as a whole. But here’s the really magic bit … this time you’re going to read your post out loud. There is no single better way I know of spotting poorly constructed phrasing and fidgety grammar than this so I’m going to say it again …

Read your post out loud.

It is a beautiful way to make sure you sound like you (and if you’re not already using your own distinctive voice in your writing, this is something we can discuss another time) and it is the most simple way to check that your post reads like the wonderful work of art it deserves to be.

Rinse and Repeat

Follow the stops above and you’ll have finished one of your core blog posts. But it’s not time for snoozing yet. You’re creating a series remember? Go and have a break, stretch your legs, get some fresh air … then come back and do it all again.

And again. And again.

My God given talent is my ability to stick with training longer than anybody else.” – Herschel Walker

You may not be training for a football game but the ability to keep at it, to consistently come back and write some more, to stick with it until you’re done, this alone will make the difference between you and the guy pulling at your shirt to overtake you.

Next week … the final straight and putting it all together.

But first, what techniques do you already use for sticking with a task and getting it done?

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