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Here are a few tips to help you turn those social bookmarking visitors into loyal readers:

• Make your RSS subscription icon highly visible - Don’t put your RSS button at the bottom of your blog. Put it at the top where people will look first and make it big enough to see.
• Allow subscriptions by e-mail - If you use Feedburner, you can add a subscribe by e-mail button in addition to your RSS by feed reader button. This will allow new Internet users who are not familiar with RSS to subscribe to your news feed and read your blog in their e-mail.
• Add a bookmark button to every post - Whether you use ShareThis, AddThis, or one of the other umpteen bookmarking buttons available, use one. This will encourage people to bookmark your posts and share with their friends. As an added bonus, allow your readers to send your posts to their friends via e-mail.
• Reply to comments - Quickly.
• Encourage comments - Allow readers to comment on your blog and make it easy for them to do so.
• Don’t talk down to your readers - Make your blog posts interesting and easy to read. People will stick around longer.

Need someone to manage your blog?

One overlooked aspect of blogging by many new bloggers is promoting previous posts. You can actually drive traffic to your previous posts by linking to them from current posts. It’s called cross linking.

Don’t go crazy with it though. One or two cross links per post is enough and you don’t want to do it in every post. Just every once in awhile. When you find yourself blogging on a topic you’ve covered before you might allude to that previous post with a link back to it for reference. Your new blog readers will go back to look at that other post and older blog readers who have forgotten the older post will check it out again.

Just a useful tip if you’re writing your own blog.

A lot of people have high hopes for their AdSense blogs. Too high, actually. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make money on AdSense with your blog. I have one blog that only gets about 1/10th the clicks as other properties I own, but the income is double. How is that, you say?

No. 1, you have to choose a keyword niche that is profitable. Do your research. Find out what topics are clicked on the most and what keywords offer the highest payouts on AdSense.

But there is one other thing that you can do to increase your AdSense blog’s ROI and click through rate, no matter what the payout is on the clicks. This one thing can increase your CTR by 100%. It’s just a simple tweak and all you have to do is make this one change to your template’s CSS or php file and you’re in business.

What’s the tweak? The color of your in-text links. I’m not talking about your AdSense links. I’m assuming you know how to optimize your AdSense ads. I’m talking about your blog post links. If you don’t use links in your blog posts, that’s even better. Why tempt your readers to click a link that won’t make you money? But what if you do use links in your blog? Make sure those links don’t show up in blue like normal links. That will tempt people to click those links and they won’t click your ads. Instead, change your CSS file to make links appear the same color as your other text. That will make internal post links indistinguishable from surrounding text and you’ll get more clicks on your AdSense ads.

Need a blog ghostwriter?

Earlier today I posted an article on where to get article ideas from on the Article Content Provider Article Marketing Blog. You can actually use the same list to generate ideas for blog posts. Here are my top 5 recommendations for places to get blog post ideas:

1. Blogs - You should read and subscribe to as many blogs as you can within your niche. Read the top ones every day and scan the headlines of the rest. You can usually come up with good topics to blog on.
2. Search Engines - The search engines have great resources: Yahoo! Answers, Google Trends, Dogpile, and MSN Live all have resources that will help you get a good idea of what you can blog about.
3. Technorati - This isn’t on the list at the Article Marketing Blog, but it should be. Technorati has a top 10 list of most searched and blogged about topics. Good way to get ideas.
4. Old Articles - Pull up some old articles you’ve written and recycle them. Don’t print them verbatim, but with articles you can actually cut them in half and have two blog posts. Rewrite them so you don’t get dinged with duplicate content.
5. Blog Directories - This isn’t on the ACP list either, but I recommend joining Blog Catalog and MyBlogLog. Join neighborhoods and make friends. By networking with others in your niche you can get good ideas with hardly any effort at all.

If you just check these five resources once or twice a week you will never run out of blog post ideas. Of course, you can always hire a ghostwriter too. Let them come up with the ideas.

I love blog comments. Legitimate ones. Ones that make me think or provide useful information for my other readers. Disagreement even can spark great debate. I love it. But sometimes I just have to say no. When I do, I kill the comment on the spot.

I did that just a few minutes ago. The commenter had a great opportunity to be brilliant. Instead, he just wrote, “Hey, those are great facts.” And he had a legitimate website, albeit one that has nothing to do with my niche. Still, he’s a reader and probably reads this blog on a regular basis. But I dumped his comment in the trash can. Why?

Because it contributed nothing. It didn’t enlighten, it offered no new information, it didn’t ask any pertinent questions, and there was no insight that could have been helpful to anyone at all. He simply threw some words into a comment box so he could get a free link back to his blog. It was rather obvious that’s what he was doing because he put no thought into his comment. And that’s the cardinal sin of blog commenting.

If you want to leave a blog comment, that’s good. I encourage it. But follow these guidelines when you leave comments on any blog in any niche online:

• Say something intelligent about the blog post on which you are commenting
• Be sure to provide the URL to your own website or blog
• Make sure that the URL is an actual URL (avoid typos and don’t use a fake URL)
• Don’t use affiliate codes in your URLs
• If you aren’t making a comment on the content of the blog post then ask a question about the topic (bottom line: make it relevant)
• Don’t include links inside your comment unless you are linking to a relevant article or blog post that will contribute to the ongoing discussion
• If you do include a link in your comment, don’t include more than two (three at the very most)
• Don’t engage in blatant self promotion
• Provide valuable insight that will help others

Blog commenting is a great way to build links back to your own website. But do it tastefully. Don’t just try to skate by on thin ice.

Some new bloggers are confused about the difference between tags and categories so I’m going to try to clarify that for you now.

Categories are broad groups for blog posts within a niche. For instance, if you are writing a blog about real estate then you might have the following categories:

• Buyer Tips
• Seller Tips
• Mortgage Tips
• Open House

Generally speaking, you don’t want too many categories - 10 to 15 ought to do it. I don’t think I’d want more than 20, tops. But the purpose of the categories is to group all of your related blog posts so that readers can find them easily.

Now, what are tags?

Tags are a bit more specific than categories. While we recommend that you use categories as keywords, they don’t necessarily need to be keywords. But tags should be keywords that you mention in your blog posts. And keep this in mind: You can have individual blog posts in different categories use the same tags.

When you create tags, you want to use important words that are used in your blog posts. For instance, you might have two posts categorized in your Buyer Tips and Seller Tips categories that each mention negotiating and contracts. You could tag both blog posts with ‘negotiation’ and ‘contract’ tags and any other tags that are appropriate for the post. I wouldn’t use more than 5 or 6 tags per post, but they are meant to be specific keyword counters for specific individual blog posts without consideration for the category those posts are in. There is no limit to the number of tags you might have for your blog, but you should try to be consistent in your use of them.

Learn more about Blog Content Provider.

Do you have a method for writing your next blog post? I’ve hit upon a six-step process that is guaranteed to get your next blog a real boost in authority and sex appeal. Here’s the process:

1. Choose a category - Before you do anything else, pick your category. You should have a list of 10-15 categories in your blog repertoire. Start your blogging by choose the category. The category name, or a variation of it should be your keyword phrase.
2. Define your blog post’s keyword focus - If your category name is the keyword you’ll focus on for that blog then you’re OK. Feel free to modify the category name slightly so that every blog post in that category doesn’t use the exact same keyword phrase.
3. Write a highly optimized blog post - Write your blog post around your chosen keyword phrase, including necessary anchor text that points to the page on your website you want to promote.
4. Compose your blog post’s title - Make sure you use a keyword and that you write a blog post that tells readers precisely what to expect from your blog post.
5. Add your tags - If you are using the latest version of WordPress, pick 3-5 tags for your blog post.
6. Review and publish - Hit “Save” then preview your blog post. Fix any errors. After you’ve got a blog post that you can be proud of, hit “Publish.” Lovely, eh?

Enjoy your next blog post. This six-step process allows me to write a blog post in less than 10 minutes. If you know your topic well then you can write off the cuff and be done in no time. Your readers will think you spent hours on that blog post.

When it comes to blog posts, how short is too short?

Well, the real answer is, there is no too short. You can post a one sentence blog post and that’s better than nothing. But if you want a highly optimized blog post then the longer the better. But the real way to optimize blog posts is to make them not too short and not too long.

If it’s too long then no one will read it. If it’s too short then you might not get a good ranking in the search engines. There is an optimal length, but it isn’t counted in words or paragraphs. The optimal length is how much space you need to cover your topic adequately. But if all you can do on a given day is post, “Hey, just dropping in to say Hi,” it’s not optimal, but it’s better than nothing. Just don’t do that too often or your friends will think you don’t like them any more.

By Jeff Schuman

I think everyone understands the importance of keeping fresh content coming into your blog on a consistent basis. At times this can be difficult to do and brings up the question, should you use other peoples articles in your blog?

My opinion is that you are better on a consistent basis to post short articles of 200 or 250 words of your own, as opposed to using other peoples articles.

Maybe once in awhile if you come across a really good article you would want to post it in your blog and give credit to the author.

Because blogging can be excellent search engine bait it is important that you target a specific keyword phrases with fresh content of your own. This will help your blog posts to create traffic from the search engines as well as social directories if you bookmark to them.

Joining a private label rights program can be a way to come up with a fairly unique content. Infogoround.com is one example where you could take articles from them and post them on your blog if you did not feel like writing that day.

This would be better than going to an article directory and taking an article that is being used by other bloggers, webmasters, or e-zine publishers.

The other thing on this is 200 to 250 word articles are not hard to write. If you approach your blog articles and try to write them this way you will not feel as overwhelmed when you sit down to write.

You can get good article ideas at article directories, or discussion forums, and then quickly write a short blog post that will do the trick.

If you’re looking to make money from home, visit JV With Jeff for free training and inside tips anyone living anywhere in the world can use to make money!

Author: Jeff Schuman is a six figure income earner and full time internet marketer. His Team-Schuman.com is on page one of Google for over 1500 unique keyword phrases and has over 20,000 backlinks to it. He is offering to teach you how make money on the internet with paid surveys, starting a internet business, and using article marketing when you subscribe to his free ecourse JV With Jeff.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Schuman

Jeff Schuman and I disagree a great deal on what is possible on your blog. Yes, you can use other people’s articles. In fact, getting articles from article directories is better than going the PLR route. If Mr. Schuman didn’t think so then why does he offer his offers through article directories? This particular article was picked up at one.

PLR articles make you have to rewrite in order to obtain original content benefits. If you’re going to rewrite an article then why not just write it from scratch? It takes about the same amount of time, or in some cases even less to write an original article. He does have a point, though, when he says that a 200-250 word blog post is easy to write. You can read articles in the article directories and write a fresh, original article on the same topic very easily. As long as you are not copying verbiage verbatim then you aren’t guilty of stealing content. It’s just like rewriting a PLR article, only easier. You are actually writing from scratch your very own original article.

Once you’ve blogged for awhile you’ll start to cover the same material. No matter how broad your niche, and we recommend narrowing your niche as far as you can without getting too narrow, eventually you’ll start writing about the same topics again. You might even inadvertently come up with duplicate blog post titles for some of those blog posts that cover the same topics. But how will the search engines deal with that?

Well, if the blog post titles are exactly the same then that could pose a problem for the search engines, depending on the structure of your permalink.

WordPress’s default permalink is a funky structure that uses a question mark followed by a string of syllables ending in the culmination of the number of your blog post. It looks like this:

http://www.blogcontentprovider.com/?p=123

That’s no good because you have no keywords in that permalink and keyword-based URLs are better for you in the search engines than a number. The ?p=123 follows your website’s main URL preceded by a forward slash (a / symbol).

WordPress does allow you to change the permalink structure, but it involves several steps and to do it correctly you’ll need access to your server through FTP so that you can alter your .htaccess file. Among the options that you have for changing the permalink in WordPress are:

• Day and Name structure (ex: http://www.blogcontentprovider.com/2008/06/18/sample-post/)
• Month and Name structure (ex: http://www.blogcontentprovider.com/2008/06/sample-post/)
• Numeric structure (ex: http://www.blogcontentprovider.com/archives/123)
• Custom structure

To change the permalink structure for your WordPress blog you’ll need to select the structure that you wish to use and save your changes, but the permalinks of your blog posts won’t be changed right away. In fact, if you click on a blog post then you won’t even be able to see it. You’ll get an error message. That’s because your .htaccess file has to be updated.

Save your changes and copy the code in the box at the bottom of the permalinks page inside of the WordPress admin area. Paste that code into your .htaccess file. If you don’t have one you’ll have to create one. But once you do that then you should be able to see your blog posts. Note that if you have been writing to your blog for any length of time before changing your permalink structure then you will have to 301 redirect all of your previously written blog posts to their new URLs. That will take some time and work so it’s best to change your permalink structure before you start blogging.

To make sure that your blog post titles do not create duplicate content issues for the search engines, choose a permalink structure that allows you to include the date of your newly created posts. That way, if you do have two blog posts with the same exact title, the date of the post will distinguish from each other and you won’t experience any duplicate content issues with the search engines.