Increase Your Credibility On Wikipedia

What is the #8 the sight on Alexandria? Wikipedia. This is not only the world's largest encyclopedia, but it is a user managed forum. Most of the editors are corporations. This is a great tool for anyone who wants to educate the world on a topic.

Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers. Since 2001, Wikipedia has grown into the largest reference Website with 75,000 active contributors maintaining9,000,000 articles in 250 languages. Visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge. The objective is to create a human conscious, a collection of the worlds knowledge - to move it from books to the web in 'bite sized' easy to read segments.

This is arguably the only downfall of wikipedia. There is not enough room to study a topic in full depth - say 10 000 words.

But there are other resources: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page Wiki Books gives away free textbooks .... sort of.

Wikiversity http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page offers free education .... sort of. I found a lot of course outlines and syllabus, but almost all the ones I looked into lacked a few fundamental elements - like lessons.

That could be seen in two ways. One, there is a lot of room to grow on wikipedia and there is room for people to build their credentials by editing the encyclopedia. Or, the project is a big bust. Only time will tell.

Editing Wikipedia

Step 1: Register

1. Go to Wikipedia.org,
2. choose a language,
3. create account,
4. follow the instructions.

Step 2: Read the Guides

This will avoid frustration. There are articles on editing, formatting, community rules, About Wikipedia, Editing Wikipedia Pages How to edit a page. If you don't plan to spend a few days reading, yes days, then don't read any farther. This is not a venue for the weak of heart or those who lose interest quickly.

Wikipedia in Brief, spells isn’t acceptable. I would start here.

Step 3: Start Editing.

Okay people, for Pete's Sake, don't write in the text editor. Go to word and do your work. Editing is fairly simple, click the edit link and start making corrections, additions, and rewrites, then click submit.

Like all content management systems, this is NOT WYSIWYG. You'll have to learn a hyroglypic but it won't be any harder than learning HTML. Wikipedia Style Manual. The code is tedious, but it is a very common form of coding - just not a public one.

I doubt you can jump on wiki and start promoting your business. However, you'll be able to have your say, and even though wiki is public, being an editor is something worth putting on your resume, well not being on par with being a DMOZ editor. but you can feel good that you are working for the collective good of all mankind.

----Advice- Tips- Resources ----

If you want to learn the 'ins and outs' of investing in Forex, property, or stocks without feeling pressured to buy, then visit www.getrich.net. Ray has a great website with more than 100 articles to help you learn 'how to invest smart.'

A Warning: Work at Home Opportunities

I normally warn people away form the free or buy-in opportunities on the net. Most of them are built for one purpose, to rip of the desperate. There is an old business saying 'if you want to become wealthy than cater to the lowest denominator.' This is true with the opportunities. They all cater to desperate people who need money - now. Unfortunately, these people are so desperate that they will put their grocery money down for the promise that someone will help them succeed.

Of all the WHAM (work at home mom) programs - the only one I ever have - ever will support is WHAM.com. That doesn't mean that I believe their site is 100% danger proof. But, if you need to have your hand held, and to have someone show you how to manage your time, money, and business, then this is the place to find help.




Work at Home Moms Opportunity- are These Hard to Find?


Many mom dream of staying at home and being a full time mom. Money is usually the biggest thing preventing that from happening which is really sad when you think about it.

So in order to be a stay at home Mom you have to find a work at home Moms opportunity that you can start making money with. it does always seem to come back to making money doesn't it!

You can choose to start your home business with many different work at home Moms opportunities. You just have to take the time to do some research to find the opportunities that will be the best for you.

Don't give in and pick the first work at home opportunity you come across. Before you decide you have to thoroughly check out each one.

Most Moms get online to start a business but they want to do something that has to do with kids or with other things that Moms know a lot about. So decide what type of products you would like to sell and then look for a work at home opportunity that has them.

You can also find the opportunity and then look at the products if you don't have any clue about what you want to do. One idea would be to help other moms start their own online business by teaching tips you have learned.

You can find a lot of opportunities that are put together with Moms in mind. In other words, you can find a work at home Moms opportunity that only Moms would be interested in doing.

One website that really caters to work at home moms is WAHM.com. This is a website for moms and helping them make money working at home.

One way many moms choose to do is know as affiliate marketing. This is where you get paid to sell other people's products. There are several good places to elarn more about affiliate marketing.

One website that offers affiliate programs in many different areas is CJ.com. AssociatePrograms.com is another site that has a directory of affiliate programs, affiliate marketing training, and a discussion forum.

This is just a few ideas to start with. Just remember that it is not hard to find a work at home moms opportunity if you are willing to take the time to look for it. The Internet is the perfect place to do just that.

Guy Mendelson invites you to visit his work at home business idea website for hundreds of internet marketing tips. work at home moms opportunity


Tips-Advice-Resources

Marc S. is a creative director in a NY advertising agency. He has three websites. If you want a NY ad agency to make your logo, website or help with a marketing campaign then visit www.virtualadagency.com, if you have a new business and want to networkwww.scrappyupstarts.com , and if you want the inside scoop on advertising then visit www.madisontomain.com.

Is Free Software a Good Thing?

(NSDQ: MSFT)
It's bad enough that Microsoft is threatening to sue the independents who are creating open source software. But what's hard to take is their belief that you cannot create your own scripts without stealing Microsoft code for your project. At the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, one show organizer took revenge. Remember, Linux was well established while MS was still working out of a garage.

Jonathan Corbet, the man in question, said in a panel at the Conference in San Francisco last May:

"I feel I've been called a thief," he said levelly during a panel at the event, and pointed out that Microsoft was one of the companies that had patented "thousands of trivial functions ... There's no way to write a nontrivial program that can't be claimed to infringe on someone's patents."

What MS doesn't want you to know is that there is a lot of open source code floating around their programs.

This is an old - old - argument. Open source and corporations have been arguing over ownership of code for generations. There are millions of dollars of stolen code floating through corporate America.

Programmers can identify their work because they may put their babies birth date, or the first date they kissed their husband, into the code. They are always finding code being sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars that contains their code - but gives them no credit.

This could be one reason why Vista won't let so many software programs work on their system. This limits the number of open source software you can use if you have Vista.

What does this mean for us? Open Source doesn't mean second hand, not good enough, or second rate quality. It does mean 'free for public use.'

I use some open source and free software. Most of Google's toolbar tools are open source and donated.

If you want to try out some open source software programs then visit:

http://www.opensourcewindows.org/
http://www.tucows.com/

Do Not Pay to Work at TeamDoubleClick

I am not going to turn this into a 'learn how to work at home' blog. If you want to learn how to work at home then visit one of my home based business blogs. www.wealthy-writer.com is a new blog that I am setting up to help writers turn their hobby into a paid career. http://work-at-home-guru.blogspot.com/ is written to help writers overcome some of the basic problems associated with working at home, and help them make money faster. http://divanetworking.blogspot.com/ is designed to help bloggers learn how to increase traffic

I teach work at home skills and offer advice at these blogs. Not everyone is able to work independently, so I have always suggested this site: http://www.teamdoubleclick.com/freelance.html for people who want to be trained to do full time work from home. Team Double Click has been around for years, has received major awards and accolades in the business world and are 'reputable.' They do not want you to 'buy into' a program. Instead, they want you to complete work in a timely manner.

Free Computer Virus and Spyware Software

Most people do not realize that working on the Internet can slow their computers down. The internet fills your computer with cookies and tracking software scrips. Every time you open a page you add to your cache. Not looking after a computer can lead to all sorts of problems.

I recommend AVG I used the Free AVG for the longest time, about 5 years. It protected me better than Norton did. In fact, I bought a new computer with Norton installed. It was working slow within 3 weeks so I ran AVG and found 250 extra viruses and tracking cookies that were slowing the computer down.

I also use Lavasoft spyware. I do have a fire wall with AVG, and spyware, in my paid version, but nothing beats lavasoft for finding a few 'loose cannons' in the files.

I do not trust Windows Defender - end of story.

I use AVG firewall, but if you can't pay for the full version of AVG then get ZONE ALARM.



--------------------------

Looking After Your Computer


If you are going to work and do a lot of browsing on the Internet, the first thing you need to learn is how to take care of your computer.

It is far better that you take the trouble to look after your computer regularly, rather than have it freeze or crash when you lose everything on it, at which time you’ll have to pay out a lot to have it fixed.

Here are some tips to prevent disasters:

1) Set your virus checker to update itself automatically. This way, it is always updated with the latest protection.

2) Scan your computer daily when you finish working on it.

3) If on a certain day you happen to download many pages, software, programs, zipped files, exe files, etc., immediately after downloading everything, scan your computer. This way, just in case a virus existed in anything you downloaded, you will catch it in time before it infects your entire Hard Drive.

4) Use your online scanner to scan your computer once a week.

5) Use your adware/spyware checker once a week.

6) Do not open any attachments in emails from people you do not know.

7) Do not open any attachments even from people you do know, if you are not expecting anything from them.

8) A virus could replicate itself to everyone on the address book and send itself out by email, without the owner even knowing this has been done.

9) Do not download free music on the Internet – these free sites are always infected.

10) Do not download any free games from the Internet.

11) Adult sites are particularly prone to viruses.

12) Back up all your data on a daily basis. Use floppy disks, flash drives, memory sticks, zip disks, CD-ROMs, etc.

13) Print out contracts, payment forms, agreements and all legal documents and file them away in a ring-binder.

14) Try not to keep anything to do with your finances, payment details, payment processor passwords, credit card details, etc. on your computer.

15) A hacker could easily access all these details, if they are anywhere on your computer.

Sadly, despite all these precautions your computer might still get infected, as the people who invent these malicious programs are getting even sneakier.

When this happens, the easiest way to rid your computer of a virus is by rebooting your computer. This is not as difficult as it may sound, and if you learn how to do this yourself you could save yourself hundreds of dollars in repair bills.

Author: Pooja Rani

Building Inbound Links - FREE

It amazes me that all bloggers know about Del.ici.ous, technorati, and stumbleupon, but don't know about blogsvine, blogowogo, blogsworld, blogged, blogscope, blogcatalog, Digg or other blog catalogues. If you know of more, then please suggest them in contents

Why do I promote these three? Because if you post your articles on them, the article will appear on Google searches. The pages will be indexed, and you'll build Page Rank.

I've been posting to technorati and digg for years, but never find my submissions on search engine searches. This means that my efforts only reach the 'Social Networking System's Readers.' This is no big hardship, as I get a lot of traffic from stumbleupon and technorati.

My time is valuable. I need indexed pages and incoming links. That is why I like these sites. I need 100 links to give me PR increases. That is not 'any' 100 links but ones that Google consider relevant. This is true for IZEARank. I need inbound links from them.

This networking group (divanetworking) is helping me get inbound links, but we don't need to limit our link building campaigns.

I use to buy inbound links. Then Google gave my only blog with 'purchased' links a PR0, down from PR4. I am not sure whether this is because I copied and pasted a disclosure (picking up a bit of HTML code hidden in the words) that alerted Google to the fact that I sold links.

I now put my efforts into organic link building. My Time is valuable. I spent most of today and only earned about 80 inbound links across 12 of my blogs. This is not wasted time. It will pay off by increasing my website's PR and indexed value. It will also increase traffic

Blogsvine

Blogsvine lets bloggers post their blogs, one post at a time. Members vote for the articles. Because the site hasn't been hijacked by 4 networking groups, the voting is fair - or more fair than digg. Everyone has a chance to get on page one.

Voting is easy as a single click. You can submit posts written by friends. There is a blog watch list where you can promote friend's blogs. The only drawback is their widget for listing the member's blogs. It is far to small to hold all my blogs.

Blogged

I love this site. People can write reviews for blogs. I had someone else list http://www.healthafter40.blogspot.com on there and reviewed by someone else.

This is just a list of blogs, like a website search engine, but it does provide one link.

Blogcatalog

This is one of the most powerful social networking tools I've ever found. The trick to success and higher page views is to put the 'recently viewed' widget on your page. Many people will become your fans just for the view on your page.

Some of my blogs give me 2 links from here, my profile and my blog's page, but not always. A lot of times I just get a single link toward Page Rank.

Blogowogo

I haven't figured out everything on this site yet. You submit a blog, it brings the feed up on their site, and people vote for the article. I think that the 'no votes' and the low votes will disappear, while the high votes remain on the site.

I think this is one of my favorite sites. I get the concept, but don't ever overload these systems.

I usually post a couple articles a month, and vote on a few things every week. No matter how many weblinks that you have on these sites, Google only lists 1 or 2, not matter whether you enter the tag name - divanetworking.blogspot - divanetworking or use the Links: http://divanetworking.blogspot.com or any variation. You will only find that Google counts one or two.

Blogscope

BlogScope is an analysis and visualization tool for blogosphere which is being developed as part of a research prject at the the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto.

We currently have over 23.48 million blogs with 275.01 million posts in our database. After removing non-english content and spam posts, we index 152.57 million documents.

I think this would be an amazing analytical tool that can be very profitable for pro bloggers and webmasters if they take time to learn how to use it. But, for the rest of us, it will generate at least one link.

Blogsworld

This appears to be a blog search engine. The only thing I give it points for is the index and link you get from it.

Digg

The difference from Digg, is that articles which do have votes, appear to show up on searches - more than the standard 2. This is good news for people who are trying to increase their page link. The average blogger posts 20 times to his blog a month. That means that in 5 months a blog can increase (in theory) one PR from digg alone.

I still don't know if it matters whether people vote and that somehow puts the article into a separate category - maybe one of the readers has an answer.

I have a lot of articles on Digg. I just put up 5, for diva, and asked friends to vote. Yet, Google still only gives me credit for 2 links.

MyBlogLog Yahoo

I haven't been to this one, but it appears to be Yahoo's version of blogcatalogue. I'll take a look into it. Some of these services I found accidentally because someone else tagged one of my blogs. In fact, almost all my blogs are on blogger - but I didn't even have an account.

Helium

Putting articles on your helium account with your url in it won't create a link. However, that page will appear high on the searches when someone searches the keyword phrase in your domain name, or your domain itself.

I don't receive any link value from Helium, but I do receive traffic and it always appears somewhere on the list of top 100 referes when I study my web-analytics software.

Free Articles

Still, one of the best ways to generate inbound links. The trick is to spread your articles across the net. Of course, if you want publication in newsletters then you want to submit good information and submit as much as possible.

If you want inbound links, then only submit 2 articles to each free content site. Repeat this every month or so.

I've done searches for clients whom I have written more than 400 articles for. I can find those articles across the net at different free content sites - but google on This client has about 2500 links from those articles as well as clients that publish.


Conclusion

Before you get upset, I know that google includes the cached pages. This blog, divanetworking has only 32 links, but if you go to the last page and click:



In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 32 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

Then you get almost 400. Now, this blog has PR3, which is in line with the '100 links needed to increase PR by +1. I also find the rest of my article links - but most of them do not take me to my article, but to a 'page.' The value of these is suspect.

However, www.inspiredauthor.com has 211 links without counting the 'relevant results' that are hidden. Because many of these are PR4, it would explain why IA has a PR4. I lean toward the belief that google doesn't count the relative links because IA has 19 999 'legit' ones that Google counts (about 45 000 in total). If google counted all of them, I should have at least PR8 on this site.




IF you think the information in this article was good, please DIGG it. Just click here and vote.

Navigating Computer Tech Support Systems

My Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 keyboard just failed. I am not going to get into the importance of an ergonomic keyboard for work anyone who types more than 5 hours a day. If you don't have one - you'll learn how important it is soon enough.

After my keyboard broke I did the natural thing - called warranty and asked them for a replacement. The replacement worked fine - for 1 week - then it broke. This time I decided to call support.

Most people do not call support because they are afraid of being charged. If you have a broken computer, or tech problem, do not go to the computer or Microsoft website to find service. That is where you will pay.

Instead, find the documentation that came with the computer and look for the service number on it. Or, if you have software loaded onto your computer that makes the keyboard work, then go into there and look for support options.

If you use the phone numbers found in here, you will (probably) not be charged for support.

Do I Let a Tech Onto My Computer?

This can be a hard call. I've let techs on my computer several times - and watched them closely. Most of the time there is no problem. But, it only takes once.

Last fall I let a Dell tech from overseas onto my computer (If you call dell service at 3am you'll get American geeks who can fix everything. I think they could even fix your microwave via the PC access tool.)I watched the screen closely as the tech went through several steps and then started doing things that gave me a coronary.

This tech - without consulting me - started to reformat my C:// drive. I immediately stopped her and asked what the ... 'what are you doing?" She informed me that the 'book' said that if a) b) and c) doesn't work then she needed to reformat my hard drive.

I asked her if she knew that reformatting the hard drive would wipe all the data from my files. She agreed. I asked if she considered letting me back up my data? (I type about 10000 words a day, and make an average of 20 - 30 additions/changes to my project manager, as well as accounting, communications, meeting archives).

Her response was 'no, why? Is there anything important on your computer?" It took me about 3 days to get over the shock.

This time I tried a few alternative methods of repairing my computer and came to the conclusion that I needed to back up my C:// and then reformat my computer, which I did, without the tech's help.

I wonder if the tech knew that we would automatically disconnect from PC2PC when she started to format the drive? I doubt it.

Again - this is why I trust the tech support listed on the manufacturer's fliers and brochures that come with the equipment.

PS. After a 10 minute service call to the manufacturer's support desk my keyboard


Advice-Tip-Resources

Have you ever gone down a list of resources for 'make money', 'investing' and 'business start up' only to find that the good ones are gone? Here are a few friends I've made over the summer. Each one has taught me something.Learn how to start an email marketing campaign that works - for less than $100. www.waystogetnoticed.com is full of articles to help you build an email list, and market emails. This isn't another email list generating company or an affiliate website. The owner of this site actually owns an email marketing host site. He teaches the 'inside' info on email marketing.

Debate: The Ethics of Pro Blogging

I know there are a lot of amateurs and writers who abuse the system, but it is nice to see that the pro blogging community mature. I recently saw a client come up at PayPerPost who wanted bloggers to ‘say’ they saved a lot of money last Christmas by shopping at their website. That client’s post hung on the opportunity board for three days.

If you are unfamiliar with pro blogging, hanging on the board for 15 minutes without being snatched up would have been impressive. Most posts are taken before the average blogger can click the assignment and type in the verification code – which I can usually so in less than 4 seconds.

The ethical problem is one that is interesting. No one cares if a newspaper lies to increase readership. Everyone turns a blind eye when a magazine chooses their lead story ‘after’ they find out who their big advertiser is this month. And, no one complains when their television show is intruded on to post several minutes of ads in a row.

The information in this article has been compiled from information shared by the pro bloggers at http://www.divanetworking.blogspot.com

Disclosure Policy

I have full disclosure at the bottom of every page on my blogs:

This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation. The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by a third party ad network. The owner of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question. This blog does contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content may not always be identified.

This disclosure statement tells people the full scope of what my readers can expect.

The Content

The ethics of whether a company wants to sponsor a blog in exchange for a link is not the issue. The issue is bloggers who lie, write adcopy, and blatant advertising that misleads the readers. Whether there are no-follow codes in the blog – or not – doesn’t change the fact that the blogger is being paid to write that blog post.

There is nothing difference between a link in a blog post, and a link in a Google ad bar in the side column of a blog, except that Google ads hi-jack the reader and takes them away from the blogger’s site.

The content should be honest, relevant to the blog, give ‘real’ information to the reader, and not be misrepresented.

The Advertiser

The advertiser has certain expectations. Removing a blog post is not ethical. Some agencies permit their bloggers to remove posts after one year. Some even allow the use of no-follow links. Trying to trick the advertisers and their clients is unethical.

One way to overcome the advertiser problem is to sign with an agency which forces bloggers to accept posts. There are agents that let bloggers pick and choose which opportunities they feel comfortable blogging about.

Subscribers

The bloggers and agencies sometimes forget the subscribers when they are negotiating the aspects of ethical and moral blogging. It is unethical to write a splog. A splog is created to sell and promote a product. A legit blog promises readers that they will read about a certain topic or niche, and keeps that promise. They do not try to trick them, or use deceptive tactics to make sales.

One overlooked aspects of subscribers is the percentage of paid posts vs. organic posts. The minimum should be 30% paid posts. However, readers prefer a 50/50 balance. This means that to selection of 10 paid posts a week, then the subscribers will receive up to 50 posts a week through their RSS subscriptions. It can be considered unethical to spam the subscribers. Again, it all depends on how the information is sent to members.

A blogger who posts 50 or more articles a week should use a feed instead of sending emails to the subscribers inbox. Spamming anyone, even if they opt in, is unethical, and possibly illegal.


Conclusion

Honoring the moral and legal ethics of pro blogging does not decrease the chances of making a good living as a pro blogger. Just think of yourself as a digital newspaper. Keep the information insightful, honest, and cutting edge. Respect other bloggers, the clients and the readers.

Earn a good reputation – and you’ll easily make $1000 - $2000 a month. To learn more, and meet other bloggers who earn this much money each month – ethically – then visit www.divanetworking.com

How to: Write a Sponsored Blog Post

I’ve been in the professional blogging niche since the beginning. That first year was frustrating for both bloggers and clients. In many cases the clients expected us to write posts praising the company, even lie if needed. They thought they were paying for testimonials. However, professional bloggers are not freelance writers. A ghostwriter might write fake testimonials, but they are not expected to put their in their publications and trick their readers into believing that the blogger loves the company.

Understand The Purpose of the Sponsored Blog Post

At the same time, the bloggers tried a few dozen ways to include the client ethically. They added an add at the bottom of the page. A few bloggers tried making an abridged squeeze page which lead the reader through an article and then hit them with the ad. This was ‘hated’ by blog readers and lost countless subscribers.

The industry flagged twice. The blog ad agency, blogitive.com, was the first. They started to teach their bloggers how to improve their image. Bloggers started to demand an ethical form of writing posts that respected their clients as well as promoted the clients.

To understand this fully, you need to recognize the three players.

The Client: Wants links, advertising, or testimonials
The Agency: They bring together the bloggers and clients
The Blogger: Also known as the publisher

Each of these players has their own concerns, their own demands, and their own responsibilities to their clients.

What Is The Purpose of the Post?

The first step to writing a good sponsored post is to understand what the client wants. If they only want the link, then the blog post can be written with no regard to the client at all. The blogger just needs to include a few keywords that pertain to the page being linked to.

The blatant advertising post must review the client’s website and post neutral or positive elements of the website, product, or service. Many bloggers create a ‘tag system’ with their clients. They might write REVIEW in their subject line, or put a symbol such as * in the subject line, so their readers know this is a sponsored review. The blogger is upfront about the fact that they are advertising a product or website.

There are ways around adding ‘intrusive’ blog posts to a blog. The easiest is to only submit blogs that are so ‘targeted’ to a certain niche that other clients are not interested in posting links there. This works moderately well. The next way is to list with agents who let you pick and choose which posts you wish to accept. This is by far the best method.

How to Write a Sponsored Post

Writing a sponsored post is fairly easy.

The Intro needs to let the reader know that the post has a client and will be reviewed.

The Content needs to include two or three points of information that are important to your blog’s readers. This can usually be found in news sites etc.

The Ending is where I normally put the link, in the conclusion.

Do not: Write in a different style and vocabulary than the rest of the blog.
Do not: Try to sell or trick your readers by using ‘car salesman’ language
Do not: Write an article and then start selling at the bottom of the post, unless the intro suggested that the blog post is a review or advertising in the introduction.
Do not: Write lies in your post.
Do not: Copy and paste from free content articles, the company’s website.
Do not: Add tags to sponsored posts, or include them in your index/site map

How to Write a Good Post

One thing I do is to add a couple of posts before the sponsored posts on the same topic, even if I write these afterwards and change the time stamps.

Another thing I do is write the post as news, and to include news from non sponsored sources so that my readers do not see the difference.

Do: Find 2 keywords or keyword phrases on the client’s website that can be used in the post (this can be done by hitting the site in your browser and then clicking VIEW so you can see the meta tags. Use these keywords in your article.

Do: Try to make the sponsored review newsworthy
Do: Avoid any posts you cannot blog on with a clear conscious
Do: Add pictures to make the post look more like a real post and non intrusive
Do: Meet the client’s expectations in word count, number of links, focus and importance

These tips will help you meet all the ad agencies requirements for sponsored blogs. This 'check list' will almost eliminate the number of rejected posts, posts that you are not paid for, or banned/benched votes.

Definition of a Pro Blogger

This article is not designed to tell you how to make money online but what elements ‘define’ the pro blogger and to outline the basic steps to help people start their own professional blogging business.

I had a writer ask today what the difference between a freelance writer and a pro blogger was. There are many ways to make money as a blogger, and even earn a few hundred dollars a month as a blogger. This doesn’t make you a pro blogger.

The Blogs

The blog topics of a pro blogger are vital. Not all topics will earn money. News, technology, health, parenting, pets, and other ‘hot topics’ need to be researched well. The write must be able to write good content, on an ongoing basis.

To do this, pro bloggers must belong to the right newsletters, associations, and forum groups. This helps them gain cutting edge information that their readers need. They also need to learn the difference between a blog and a splog. Spam blogs, splogs, are artificially created weblogs which promote affiliated websites or increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, or artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors, and/or a link outlet to get new sites indexed.

Spam blogs content is often either inauthentic text or merely stolen from other websites. These blogs contain a high number of links to sites associated with the splog creator.

A blog owner can link to their other blogs, but they usually change the links, keep the numbers down, and include elements that make the blog ‘legit.’

• A legit blog has no more than 30% paid blog posts.
• Any duplicate or free content articles start with about 100% original content.
• The blog has feed and RSS tools for subscribers.
• The blog discusses a topic – does not promote a product, affiliate, or service.
• They have their own domain
  

Many people post an RSS feed in a blogger blog, and call it their own blog. They then post ads around it, and use it to promote their own products.

The Promotion

The pro blogger will invest money and time into promoting their blogs. They will work to get their Page Rank up including:

• Buying targeted traffic
• Building RSS and Feeds
• Submit to Search Engines
• Comment on PR6 and above blogs
• They ping to all the search engines by posting daily
• They social networks
• Work at Digg, Tehcnorati, blogcatalogue
• And promote the blog – not a third party product
• May ‘not’ buy directory links as this will lower their Google Page Rank
  

Most legit blogs have a Page Rank higher than PR3 or PR4. They need Pr4 minimum to make money. They will use promotion tools to get PR5 or higher. No blogger with less than PR5 can hope to earn a good income.

Generating Revenue

There are three ways to generate income: Paid Posts, Pay Per Click Ads, Affiliate campaigns. Successful income generation in all three of these depends on PageRank5 or higher and high traffic numbers.

The average PPC payment for a blog with a Page Rank of PR3 is 2%, while the PPC payment for a PR6 is 10 – 30%. This is quite a difference.

The average Paid Per Post earning for a PR3 blog is $5 a post. The average PPP earning for a PR6 blog is $45.

This is why bloggers work hard to get PR5 and higher on their blogs. It is a full time job. They work a minimum of 40 hours a week at their job. There is nothing ‘part time’ or ‘passive income’ in this business.

Importance of Blogs

Many people might think someone who manages 30 – 50 blogs is clogging the Internet. This is not true. I have dozens of subscribers to my RSS feeds and subscriptions who comment regularly on my blogs. I design my pro blogs as news feeds, or as free online courses. This gives my readers more information.

I also include a full disclosure that tells people that I do earn money through the blog. This disclosure statement is at the bottom of each page ( check out http://www.healthafter40.blogspot.com ) I also do not try to ‘hide’ my paid posts. I also sign with advertising agencies that let me pick and choose the ads I want to post on my blogs.

I never try to hide the fact that a paid post is sponsored. I make sure the title ‘alerts’ my readers that the following post is sponsored. They can then choose to read it or not. My subscribers respect this, and most of them do not object to the fact that I am paid for giving them free content.

Definition of a Pro Blogger

This tutorial is based on the efforts and practices of the pro bloggers at http://www.divanetworking.blogspot.com who support each other and work as pro bloggers. It is designed to help amateur bloggers see what they are doing wrong, and how they can improve their income generations, Page Rank, and find friends and allies among other pro bloggers.

Add This - Let Your Visitors Promote You

The add this tool is one of the best social networking tools on the internet. It hooks visitors up with all the major social networking tools. There are two ways to use this tool. The first method is to use a widget in the side bar. This is the easiest way for wordpress and blogger blogs. Both of these will plug the widget right into the sidebar.














The second method is to imbed the tool into the bottom of the post. This is relatively easy if you follow the rules in the Add This website's page. However, do not post the code the website gives you. Instead, post the following code - it will work for all blogs. (you can test out that it will tag your blog by trying it out yourself

Blog Post Button If you want to include the button below each post, select 'Template' --> 'Edit HTML', then copy-and-paste the code below into the template, right after the

tag. Note: be sure to check the 'Expand Widget Templates' checkbox first. When you are done, click 'Save Template'.

If you can't find the tag, copy the template code into a text editor (e.g. Notepad, etc), and search for the 'post-footer' string. You might also want to save a copy of the original template before changing it.

It also tracks who is bookmarking your posts, which ones, and how often. You can use this information to see what types of articles your visitors find most interesting.


There is a drop down version of the Add This button available, but this might not work on all browsers.