It’s not uncommon to have a variety of blogs going at the same time, or write for several sites as you explore all the sites out there. As such, it would not hurt to write about some of the hottest topics that the blogosphere has going for it. The list that will be shared here is based on some statistics in terms of the number of sites that exist within the niche. Rather then bog you, the reader, down with a bunch of number, we’ll focus on the topics in general.

SEX

Okay, let’s get this one out of the way. If you’re giving advice on sex, writing about the sexiest men/women, or sharing otherwise questionable material, you’re getting a lot of traffic. It’s a known fact that sex related sites on the net make up a vast majority of online content, but also draw a lot of attention and also make up a large portion of profit made through online purchases. People are drawn to it, are curious about it, and feel embarrassed about having other people know, but this content would not be so popular if people were not going to it.

TECHNOLOGY

Hundreds of technology sites are generating hundreds of thousands of viewers a month. With heavy hitters like Engadget, Mashable, and Crenk, sites like these tend to rank high on the list of what people are looking for. Readers are looking to catch up on the latest in technology, find reviews on purchases, and learn about products can make their life easier, or at the very least make them hip as an early adopter. No matter where ou stand in the mix, technology sites will not be going away any time soon as advances are giving us products and software that is constantly drawing a lot of attention.

MAKING MONEY

Who doesn’t want to make money? Everyone wants to make some extra money, especially if you’re online and involved in a lot of communities. The question becomes how can you leverage your interaction with the community either online or real life, and still make money off your ideas. There are a lot of sites out there offering advice, techniques, tips, and offering all kinds of guidance that draws readers in droves. Some content is worth its weight in gold, but some of it is not so well written. The readers will filter that out for themselves, but while they do the market for making money increases especially with the economic downturn here in the United States.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTIVITY

If you’re not working on yourself right now, you’re missing a large part of what is overtaking the web at a rapid pace. There are a lot of sites that are offer advice on specific areas of improvement; dating life, professional life, marriage/parenthood life, student life, just to name a few. There are sites that offer you “hacks” to your interaction with computers, people, habits, cars, and food, that will not only improve your overall experience, but make you better and possibly smarter for having gained that knowledge.

HEALTH/FITNESS

Everyone wants to be fit and muscular, but so few are taking the steps to make those changes. This dichotomy has created an increased boom for the health/fitness industry. Sites offering communities of those exercising, sites where readers can share recipes, and learn from professional dieticians have expanded in interest. Online workout groups, map tracking for bikers and runners, life stories, sites that track progress all encompass this arena. The only warning I provide is that individuals make sure they visit their doctor to ensure what types of physical activities are you eligible and make it fun as you take a journey of transformation, no matter what stage of your life you might find yourself in.

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Not to say that the breakdown is not appreciated, but listing sub-categories to some larger overall topics seems little daunting. What I have done here is filter down the list to the Top 5 topics that you absolutely cannot live without.

If your blog is looking for a new lease on life, or perhaps you’re just starting out, take a look at these topics and make sure that your blog has a little bit of eveything peppered throughout!

Post Type #1: Motivational Posts

Do not underestimate the need for positive reinforcement. It may seem odd to you, but readers look for guidance on the blogosphere, especially within similar niches. Finding that post that get you over the hump, or breaks that writer’s block you’ve been going through really does amazing things. Whether it’s blog writing specific or life generalized advice, motivational posts can be a key factor in having readers spread the word about the positivity your blog exudes.

Post Type #2: The List Post

Lists posts are extremely popular with online readers. Why? Consider them short and to the point. When readers want quick information it’s easier to skim the list and find what they need, and it’s also a great way to share a lot of information in a short time. Lists can be Top 10, Top 20, or even Top 5, but they can swing the other way too with topics such as 5 Worst…, 10 Ways To…, etc. Give it a try and watch how many people will skim across the post.

Post Type #3: Trending Topics

Having your finger on the pulse of online media can really be the best thing for your blog. By staying on top of trending topics, readers will find your site with little effort. Not to say you can’t still write about what you’re interested, but in every topic there are trends that are really hot, and will drive a lot of traffic to your site.

Post Type #4: Controversial Post

Everyone has an opinion right? Are you sharing yours? A lot of people are afraid to share their ideas because they are afraid to drive away readers and possibly immerse themselves in controversy. Little do they know that creating buzz is not necessarily a bad thing. By creating healthy debates on your site, readers will flock to your site to chime in. In some cases larger issues can gain mainstream media attention further increasing the awareness of your blog.

Post Type #5: How-To Post

If you’ve got readers looking up how to do something specific, then readers will come to your site if you’ve got that specific they are looking for. Take the topic you’re writing about and craft a post that outline how-to steps from beginning to end. By holding the reader’s hand, and displaying your expertise, you’ve built an online relationship with your reader that will keep them coming back. They’ll also have no problem sharing your site with others to pass the knowledge around.

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So with no excuse not to be online and interacting with your customers and supporters, what do you do?

Blogging is a key starting stage where you, the company, and begin to share ideas that involve the community, at the very least keep them informed with what’s going on.

1. Best Practices
Sound boring? It can be. I think this all depends on what you’re sharing. All successful companies have a key practice that they adhere to in order to keep customer satisfaction at an all time high. It could be how you deal with customers, or perhaps an internal process that keeps the company happy and motivated to work with and for you. This provides great insight into the company culture for people that are big supporters of what you do, and they in turn can spread the word, most likely causing other companies to replicate your model.

2. Productivity Tips
A great idea if you’re in the consulting or customer service industry. Sharing ways to streamline processes, tips to use software or processes to make work easier and more efficient are all good ideas to share with your readers. Not only to you show competency in your field, you also educate others that might be struggling with an issue.

3. White Paper
If you or your company is doing analytical research, or writing reports that can benefit the industry as a whole, this “white paper” can be seen as another feather in the company’s hat of expertise. Sharing this information on the net for others to read establishes your professionalism, as well as the business as an industry leader of forward thinkers and idea developers.

4. Answer Customer Questions
What better way to take customer questions and gripes than on the net. Many feel this transparency can be scary from a business perspective, but the community sees it as a ” ‘fessing up” of sorts. You don’t necessarily have to take only the complaints to the net, but establishing a process by which you communicate with readers in an open forum provides you a reputation of being fair and open.

5. Start A Series
Take the customer feedback you get, and turn it into a categorized series of posts. Perhaps you’ll do 1 whole week on a certain topic, and the following week it will change to another highly sought after topic. This is a great way to “dangle the carrot” to your readers to keep them coming back for the next installment of shared information.

6. Share Your PowerPoint
If you’ve done a lot of speaking engagements, you’ve probably had to use PowerPoint a lot as a tool to help convey your message. A lot of people may not have been able to make your presentation, so the next best thing is to share the high points of your topic by sharing your PowerPoint. Perhaps a brief description would be nice, but this keeps the community involved on what you are sharing when you do public speaking engagements.

7. Conduct Interviews
Interviews are great, and can benefit both sides of the conversation. On one side you could interviews of higher ups within the company to keep their faces recognizable and make it appear to your readers that upper management is reachable and open for discussion. On the other hand, you can interview supporters on the streets, or via online video outlets like Seesmic or Qik. This is a great way to add a differently dynamic to your blog.

8. Look for Trends
Keeping on top of the hottest topics in your industry is a must. Using Twitter, competitor’s blogs, and tools like Google Alerts, you can stay on top of what the readers want to know most about. Integrate these topics into your site as they relate to your business and readers will find you timely, effective, and on the mark.

9. Test A Pitch
Who better then to provide feedback on a new marketing campaign, or direction for the company then your readers, your loyal followers. By sharing your intent, you’ve opened yourself up to the truest of community action forms that exist in social media. Warning: not all interaction will be positive, but learn to work with the negativity and be suave with your responses.

10. Pictures/Updates of Honors & Special Events
Who said the blog had to be all business. If you’ve done something outstanding, share it with the community. We’re all human, we’re not a corporate suit, that’s not why you came onto the social communities, you came to connect with people. As long as everything is in good taste, there is no problem with sharing the good times with your readers and showing the fun times that can be involved with being a part of your company.

As a business, it’s important to diversify, but also keep your readership entertained, informed, and engaged. Try a few of these topics out on your site, and as you see your community grow have fun, otherwise why are you online to begin with?

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The first part of this series was pretty extensive and informative for those exploring blogging for the first time.

Today Part II, will delve further into the specifics of a post, and possibly toss some technical terms at you. It’s a good thing you stopped by here; you’ll have completed this series feeling more confident about the specifics of a blog, and the importance and diversity of creating one.

What is a permalink?

Permalink is a mash up of the words “permanent link,” which every blog post will have. You will also have your standard site link, that is the parent link where all of your posts are held, but the specific link for a particular post will be the permalink. It makes it easy for a reader to find a post directly, as opposed to exploring your entire site just to find what they want.

What is trackback?

Trackback is a useful way to inform other authors, readers, and sites of your post. By mentioning specific topics in your post, a trackback will highlight keywords and alert the original blogger of your site. It’s basically adding the functionality of telling the blogger that you’ve linked to their post.

Where can I find inspiration to write?

There are blogs all over the internet. Pick a topic and explore. There are plenty of people out there, and chances are some of them write about what you are interested in. Do not take that as a sign to walk away, everyone is welcome to the blogosphere because there is room for everyone. No one will have your insight, your ideas, or your words, so once you’ve red enough blogs from other authors, use that as an idea generator to get your blog off the ground.

How do I know who’s coming to my blog?

There are plenty of ways to track the number of times your site is visited. Utilizing tools that integrate with your blog such as counters are excellent ways to keep a running tally of how many people are coming to your site.

I’m looking for more in-depth information on visitors, what do I use?

Google Analytics would be a must have for your site. Simply include the site’s address and Google Analytics will handle the rest. This very detailed tool will give you more information then you know what to do with, but it’s a great start to planning where you think your blog can best be marketed. Feedburner is another similar tool that offers in-depth information. It does not hurt to have both.

How often should I post?

Posting frequency is entirely up to you. If you can only do once a week, then once a week it is. If you can do more, then do so. Quantity is good, it does help your ranking when the site is tracked, but for increased readership, it’s the quality of the post that really matters. Make sure that when you start, you do your best to stay with that model because your readers will come to expect it.

What if no one reads my blog?

Don’t worry, in the beginning it might be a little slow, perhaps very slow, but think, are you marketing yourself? If you’re not, it does not hurt to make sure you inform people you exist. Using social media tools, common email and messaging tools, and even real world networking are great ways to expose your site to a new audience.

What makes someone want to read my blog?

Interesting titles and interesting imagery. These two factors are key to having readers remain on your site and keep coming back. Title that engage the reader to pique their interest and the images you choose must also tell a story that coincides with your blog.

I work for a company, can I write about my job?

That depends. If you’re writing a business blog, there are sure to be limitations to what you can write about. Most companies don’t want trade secrets or company internal procedures being shared with the world. If you’re just an employee, be careful if you’re disgruntled, blogging can still get you in trouble. If you’re going to praise your place of employment, that’s fine, just don’t expect a raise.

I have a great idea, but how do I start?

Start by just being yourself. A blog should never be impersonal; the idea is for you to share and bond with the community of readers that will come to your site. Take your idea and be as much of yourself as you can and consider your post a conversation with another person. Your readers will appreciate it, and you’ll benefit by building a strong and active network.

What do I do with my blog if I’m away from a computer for a long period of time?

No worries, which is why I’ve always been a big supporter of diversifying. If you’ve attached audio or video to your site, chances are your mobile phone is all you need to keep content fresh on your site. If you are unable to do that, plan for a guest writer to take over the site for a little bit while you’re away, the site still gets content, and you’re giving another blogger an opportunity to write.

Can I get paid for this?

Money is good, right? You can definitely make money blogging, and there are multiple ways to do that. You can ask for payment for your contributions to a site. Don’t undersell yourself, make sure you’re respected for what you do and as you gain popularity, readers will become fans. Another way to generate revenue is to write for blog networks that pay a certain amount per click per post on their site. A more business method of getting paid is turning to advertising revenue to generate income for your site as users click on the ads placed on your site.

How do I collect payment for my efforts?

PayPal! This useful online payment method makes it easy for anyone to transfer funds from one account to another. Simply set up your account and profile and connect an email to the account. With a few clicks and some information money is instantly transferred to your account via the online site.

Why should I add keywords to my posts? Does it matter?

Keywords are vital if you plan for your site to be picked up and viewed by others looking for what you are writing about. Keywords are typically added at the end of your post and notify the crawlers on the internet of what your post is about. It is also important in providing users a way to find your post quickly and efficiently.

What happens if I use photos or video from another site, can I place that into my site?

Adding media to your site is definitely encouraged. Not only does it make your post more interesting, it offers something more in terms of SEO. The key thing to remember is to always provide attribution and credit to where you are pulling your material. Even if you are using images and video under Creative Commons, it’s always nice to at least provide a link back to the person’s site where you took the image or video. Not doing so is frowned upon, and can land you in a lot of trouble depending on who you upset.

I’m done with my blog, how do I “close” it down?

WAIT! So you’re done with your blog and have done all you can for it? Well for starters, if you’ve got decent traffic and highly valued information on there, consider selling your site. It may sound crazy, but bloggers have made substantial amounts of money selling their blog to those interested. If you don’t want to sell, or don’t feel like your site has any monetary value, you can always choose to delete your account through the blogging application you are using, most have the option and afterwards you just walk away.

Photo Credit Stephen Poff, Knilram, JJay, visual think map

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Today’s topic will highlight some of the most asked questions about blogging.

What is a blog?

A blog is a webpage that is updated frequently by a user who looks to share a story or insight on a particular topic that interests them or have experience in. The stories can be short, or if long have a URL that links to the longer story.

Is blogging free?

Blogging is absolutely free. Whether you blog for yourself or you blog for a company, the tools you can use are easily accessible and offer a wide variety of resources. Tools such as WordPress, TypePad, and Blogger are web based tools that simply require a login and password, a quick profile setup, and a template setup and you’re ready to go.

What’s a template?

A template is the look and feel for your blog. The template is what people will see when they come to your site, and where you writing will rest. Standard templates are offered through the variety of free blog sites mentioned above, but you can also purchase exclusive designs for your blog to give it a unique look.

How are blogs used?

Blogs are like online diaries, an introspective look into a person’s life or knowledge base. The sites are setup to interact with readers, and provide readers a chance to comment on a writer’s musings.

Examples of how blogs can be used:

Personal diaries

News feeds

Hourly, daily, weekly updates of Web sites

New information on a topic

Product updates: reviews, new versions, new products

This day in history

Birthdays and other special events

Almost anything you can think of

Do I have to use the free tools to create a blog?

The free tools are just options for you if you are looking at getting started quickly. If you’d rather build your own site, then you’d have to purchase a domain name and have a hosting company host your site.

What tools do I use to post to my blog?

If you’ve gone the free tool route, you can post through their web based application. If you’ve gone your own route for example with WordPress, WordPress offers ways to type your blog and post directly using their interface. But there are a variety of tools you can use to get your blog posted from your desktop and browser windows such as ScribeFire, Microsoft LiveBlogger, and Ecto for the Mac. All of them are applications that require installation, but once they are tied to your blog url and servers, they can post directly without any problems, bypassing the use of the program interface offered by the tool of your choice.

Why would I want to use a client tool rather than the blog application?

Client tools offer a wide variety of features that the blog applications do not. The interface of the blog applications are very limited and do not offer the full list of features and ease of use that a client application can offer. Client tools also allow you to work offline rather then being tethered to an internet connection with a blog application.

Can a blog be private?

Absolutely! If you’d rather your blog not be shared with anyone, and utilize it as a personal diary, you can do that as well. Most blog applications offer the user the choice of whether to publish publicly or keep private. If you’re not comfortable sharing your thoughts with the world just yet, this option is definitely for you.

Are comments necessary and why would someone leave one?

Comments are not necessary, you can actually turn the feature off if you do not want people to leave their messages. The idea of comments is for readers to leave constructive, community building commentary, even if it disagrees with what you write to continue the conversation. Debate can be healthy, but it depends on who is leaving the comment and how the bloggers chooses to interact with the community. Most popular websites have healthy conversations in the comments section that take the blog post deeper for a richer understanding.

What is a blog network?

Blog networks are simply a way to submit your blog to be a part of an online community. The way an individual might join a forum to be a part of a community of like minded individuals with a common interest, a blog can be submitted to join a community. Other readers can view your blog and allow the bloggers to link up and possibly drive traffic to one another’s site. It’s meant to be community oriented for the sake of directing traffic to sites where they might have otherwise overlooked.

What is the blogosphere?

The blogosphere is simply the online world of blogs. Every new blog that is created is termed as having been added to the blogosphere. Since its inception the world of blogs has grown dramatically, with over 2,000 blogs being added daily.

I know what a blog is, what’s a vlog and moblog?

As stated in another post here on Bloggin-ads, blogs come in many forms. Aside from the standard writing format, blogs can be video recordings called vlogs. Applications that allow you to create vlogs are Seesmic and 12Seconds. These tools typically require a camera of some sort and the ability to upload that same video online. On the other hand a moblog is a mobile blog done entirely with your mobile device. Robert Scoble was popular with using moblogs for interviews and other short musings for a period of time. If you’re mobile device can handle picture taking, audio recording, video recording, and texting, you’re set up to be a moblogger.

How do I become a better blogger?

There is no easy answer to this. My recommendation is write, write, write. Write about what you are passionate about, what drives you to live everyday. Those tend to be the most successful people. My second recommendation is to support sites like Bloggin-ads which not only can share with you how to be a better blogger, but also how to monetize your efforts.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it’s a proven method to inform people of your most recent posts. When you set up your blog account, you’re site will have a specific coding that designates an RSS signal which is picked up by RSS aggregators world wide, alerting people of when there is activity on your site.

What is an aggregator?

Aggregators do exactly what they say, they gather, typically information shared via an RSS feed. A very popular reader tool is Google Reader. Google Readers allows you to setup feeds to come directly to Google Reader to save you time from having to visit each and every site you follow by putting all the updates in one location. If you’re wondering if there is a feed for a specific topic, most readers have a search tool that allows you to find your topic by doing a quick search and adding the feeds you find.

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Today I will share with you the 10 best ways I have come across to expose your blog to a wide variety of readers, and possibly even share your thoughts beyond those in your network.

Commenting

This is an easy one, and perhaps something you already do being that you are probably online reading more than anything else. People who write want to interact more than anything else. Having someone leave commentary on their work provides them another level of interaction with their readers.

Leaving comments allow you to express yourself at one level, but also allows you to leave your name, your website address, and perhaps the title of your last blog post. Now this will vary from blog to blog depending on their commenting system, but it’s worth the effort. Don’t be surprised to see the writer the blog you visited on your site at some point, and if your commentary was worthwhile, perhaps some of the readers will make their over as well.

Link Love

Don’t be afraid to give credit where credit is due. If you’re expanding on an idea that you came across, share where you got the original idea. Providing links to businesses, other bloggers, person’s of interest are all useful and will provide you some benefits in return. It shows that you are aware of others in the blogosphere and that you’re willing to share within the community. By making your readers aware of another site or blogger, they in turn might do the same for you for their readership. It’s not necessarily a guaranteed solution, but it’s good practice as a blogger.

Guest Post

I spoke about guest posting in another post about expertise, but it also allows you to extend the influence of your brand. You may be writing for another person’s blog, but do not doubt that the owner of that blog will promote you with either an announcement at the beginning of the post or at the end. This gives reader the opportunity to see what you’ve done on your own site and perhaps give you some permanent readers.

Social Networks

I have found this to be the most useful of all the tools. Now it’s not appropriate or an accepted practice to simply bombard your blog postings, or advertise your site on a network continuously. You will become an annoyance and probably get blocked by other users. You’ve done two negative things to yourself, you’re not getting exposure on the network and you’re creating a bad name for yourself.

A common ratio to follow is 70% interaction 30% pimp. Thirty percent of the time that you interact online can be the time that you pimp your site, your postings, or your business. On sites like Twitter and FriendFeed you can reach hundreds if not thousands, especially depending on the size of your network. On Facebook you can set up entire Facebook Pages to promote what you do and build a community (fanbase) around what you do.

Ning is also another site that allows you to create a community, and if you look at truly spending the time to interact with the community off your site, then perhaps Ning is a good way for you to cross promote what you do.

Blog Networks

I have not had much success with blog networks, but that’s not to say that you won’t. I belong to a few such as Blog Catalog, but I find too much “spamming” promotion going on and not enough community building. Bloggers simply blast what they do and what they want you to read and quite frankly it turns me off. Rather then build a community of liked minded bloggers, blogging networks can by tricky, and perhaps even selfish, but dig enough and you might find gold.

Blog Networks also allow you to create badges that you can place on your site that will help to share traffic within the network. This can be useful in building a community tied to a specific niche, or looking for your site specifically. If you can find the right group of solid people, they can help you grow, and you help them grow in return.

Well that sums up the first part of a two part series on the 10 best ways to promote your blog. Give these a try and let us know how it has impacted your site. By working together as a blogging community I am sure we can help each other with advice and guidance on some of these issues.

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Why Expertise is Important

As the owner of a topic specific blog, you will be looked at by the community as an knowledgeable person in your field. Why? Well why would you blog about astrophysics if you don’t know anything about it? Why blog about cooking if you’ve not stepped foot into a kitchen? We tend to reach success when we write what we know best; it makes us comfortable and makes us easily approachable because we know enough about the topic to carry an informative conversation.

Expertise drives traffic to your site. Being considered an expert on your topic provides you a level of authority for your readers that keeps them coming back to your site for new information and insight they won’t find anywhere else. Even if your expertise is similar to others out in the field, you will be referenced at the very least because you stand at a level where what you say carries weight. Having this kind of authority can create a more tightly integrated community, and with the bloggers interaction, can form a cohesive site where ideas are shared, explored, and developed.

This is the very reason why expertise is so important for the writer!

Are Others Experts on Your Blog?

Believe it or not, many readers will actually delve into your comments section if they find the topic to be interesting enough. Driven readers will find themselves agreeing, disagreeing, and commenting themselves in order to participate, that’s the purpose of you sharing your blog. What you don’t want to happen is allow a commenter to take over the conversation and establish themselves as the expert on your site.

Make sure as a writer you develop your stories professionally and take the opportunity to do the necessary research and fact checking prior to posting. Dotting all your “i’s” and crossing all your “t’s” will give you the credibility you need as a writer. There is nothing wrong with other intelligent, well versed readers interacting on your site, it will further provide usefulness for you site. Just don’t be caught defending yourself when you realize you did not do enough research or know enough about a topic prior to posting. This type of faux-paux can make readers lost interest in your site and seek guidance and information elsewhere.

Take charge of your site, know your material, and confidently take the conversation to your readers!

Establishing Expertise

So how does one establish the necessary expertise? Well I already shared one way, being knowledgeable about the topic you choose to write about. But expertise can take time to develop if you’ve not developed it already. Here are a few key ways to make yourself the go to person.

1. Comment on other sites – By commenting on other sites you create a trail of followers who will look forward to your shared insight on a given topic. You’re not taking over another site’s conversation, but adding valuable perspective and driving others deeper into the concept. By establishing a following, when you create a blog, you’re given the opportunity to link your name to a site and soon people will want to know more about YOU.

2. Answer questions – I think specifically of LinkedIn when I say this. On LinkedIn, which is a professional social network, users are able to answer questions asked by others on a variety of professional topics. As an expert in your field, if someone asks something that falls within your realm of expertise, then by answering you have provided guidance for someone who was in need.LinkedIn actually ranks and rates your usefulness and others looking for established professionals will find how they can be found online, and contacted as well. This would be a great way to establish yourself and your site.

3. Guest blog – Perhaps you have a blog and no one is coming. Guest blogging is a great way to not only help the site you’re writing for with content, but also introduce others to your site. Making the appropriate contacts in the blogging world can go a long way. Links on the front page, by lines for people to find you work, and possibly even some free advertising. It definitely does not hurt to network within the blogging community. By building relationships and sharing information you establish yourself and others as strong professionals with definite expertise.

4. Have others talk about you – All of the above not quite enough to get the attention of the readers you’d like. Well have someone mention you in their post, recommend your site, share a piece of a conversation you had with them; all of the above are great way to drive traffic your way. Any friend with a blog site can mention you and what you know and if the right people see it, they will naturally be curious as to who you are. BINGO! Instant web traffic!

Never stray too far from the basics. These are simple steps to establish credibility and expertise in the blogosphere, but they are often times forgotten. Share this with your online network and look to build some of these tips into your daily online habits. If you’ve got some other tips or suggestions, leave them the comments section and let the community grow together!

Photo Credit Mai Le

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You’ve been diligent in your postings, responding to readers’ questions earnestly and seems to be doing everything right but you don’t seems to be able to get past this moribund number of readers and participation level. You wondered what could be wrong. It’s your Content – Stupid!. I don’t mean to be blunt here but the truth of the matter is content that is routine and predictable does not work the magic of stimulating your readers to action – be it comments, backlinks, clickthroughs, or whatever that is you are looking for. And no amount of SEOs, layouts, blog redesigns or plugins are going to get you out of this slump. The good news is that you don’t have to do much to get yourself out of this bind, all it takes is a little bit of tweaking of your content here and there.

Here are some ideas that have been time tested :

	1. Killer Headline - Your blog topic’s headline is the first thing that your visitor sees – so it better be captivating enough to catch their attention. The objective here is to pique their curiosity enough to take a further look into it. Like everything else its easier said then done because the law of averages works against you here – less than 2 percent of the visitors that see your headline will actually read the rest of the blog topic. So quite simply put if you want to increase your odds of beating the averages, you need a better headline. One way to get great ideas for blog topics is to get yourself into the habit of checking out the popular pop culture magazines and also what’s making it into the front pages of Digg, Delicious and other popular social media networks.
	2. Captivating Opener. Ask any successfully sales person what’s the most important part of their sales materials, and they will invariably tell you that it’s their first opening paragraph – that’s the part they spent the most time refining until they get it right. A successful Real Estate Agent once told me that a house with tremendous curb appeal is only matched by an awe-aspiring foyer. It’s no different when you write the first paragraph of your blog topic – it has to at least maintain the level of interest and momentum when the visitor first read your killer headline and decided to read the rest of your blog topic. Here are some simple ways to open your blog topic with a bang.
	3. Closer that ties back. A good closing paragraph is one that ties back to the headline and in some ways re-affirming the blog reader’s comprehension of your blog topic. A strong closer, however, is one that would call the reader to action – be it subscribing to your blog, commenting, buying something, getting backlinks or whatever is your root goal of writing this blog topic in the first place. This brings us to the next point.
	4. Have a Root Goal for Blog Topic. What is it that your blog topic going to do for your readers ? Should they care enough to read your blog post ? An ultimate litmus test when comes to choosing your blog topic is to apply it to this question “who cares?”. After you’ve gotten them to read the rest of your blog, the next logical thing to do is to call them to action. If your root goal is to get more comments, then ask for a feedback; if it’s getting more subscribers to your newsletter then ask for it – this is usually done in conjunction with a free gift; if it’s an affiliate product that you are trying to sell, then get them to buy it; if it’s backlinks that you are after then ask for it; if it’s stumbles that you want then ask for it or whatever your root goal is for writing this blog topic.
	5. Write as if you are writing for yourself. Put yourself in the shoes of your readers and feel for what matters to them and what kind of thoughts that would provoke them.
	6. Be Creative - Try different forms of Blog Topic Posts from time to time to break the monotony. The only rule to this is to keep your post interesting and relevant to the blog topics that your readers care about.
	7. Know your niche’s blog topic post stats - what works and what doesn’t. Visit the blogs in your niche and look at their comment levels to gauge their popularity. You will soon become acquainted with what your community readers are interested in.
	8. Use pictures to spruce up your blog topic post. Everybody knows that a picture tells a thousand words but not many people knows that if you accurately tag your images (“alt” attribute) according to your target keywords, you will get some more traffic from Google Image search.
	9. Sharpen your writing skills - write daily and write as often as you can. Nothing is truer than this statement that “Practice Makes Perfect” – I’m a living testament to this. As a child, I used to be very bad at Math but my father forced me to do math exercises everyday until I scored perfectly in all my tests. I applied this technique to all my science subjects and were able to replicate the same success. It the same with writing, you need to write EVERYDAY to let it sink into you and become one with it. Don’t give yourself any excuses – you write when you don’t have time; you write when you’re tired; you write when you are on holiday; you write when you’re in a lousy mood; you write when you’re running empty with ideas. It’s all about commitment and showing up even though you are not up to it. I don’t mean to spend an inordinate amount of time doing it, but 20 minutes of writing a day should be sufficient to cultivate a good habit of writing.
	10. Make a commitment to capture blog topics daily - the more the merrier but commit to a manageable number. This is so that you won’t run out of blog topics to write and hastily make one up. When I’m surfing the web and come across something interesting that I want to use for my blog topic, I use Google Documents to bookmark it, so I can access it anywhere with a browser and collaborate with others online. When I’m about or not in front of my computer and come across a blog topic idea, I like to use Jott to quickly leave a message for myself before I forget.
	11. Publish only good original work. The worst thing you can do to your blog topic is to rehash somebody else’s content and call it your own. If credit is due, dispense with it liberally and quite often the favor is returned. Before publishing your post, make it a habit to polish the blog post until the message shines through. You would not want to hack at mercilessly until it’s too far from its original form to make any sense or too pristine to be of any use.
	12. Ensure that blog topic’s content is of high quality and useful for the audience. Don’t be too opinionated or pretend that you know it all. You want to across as somebody that have sufficient authority on the niche topic, and at the same time interested to learn of other peoples’ experiences and opinions.
	13. Keep a strong voice throughout. Use the right choice of words to convey the right emotion or to play up the mood. Use active languages as opposed to passive languages.
	14. Keep blog topic post optimal in length because audiences have short attention span. If there’s too much information to be covered in one blog posting, break it up into series of parts.
	15. Use Videos to illustrate a point that requires some imagination or instructions. If a picture tells a thousand words, how many words would a video convey ? Some blog post are covered in it’s entirety in video, hence it’s name vlog. Vlogging is very popular among bloggers because it has the advantage of being easy for the bloggers – just put a camera in front and talk. It’s also well received by blog audience because there’s nothing to read but just easy listening. As such, Darren Rowse weekly vlog is still very popular in the blogosphere to this day. Many others have tried as well, but the more exceptionally successful ones that have used vlogging to their advantage are iJustine, Grace Cheng. John Chow to name a few.
	16. Examine your blog topic from different angle - go with a perspective that jive with your audience.
	17. Ask your readers what blog topics they like covered. This is where you can use Social Media networks like Twitter to post a question to your followers and get almost instantaneous responses Try it and you will be amazed at the results
	18. Cover blog topics that other bloggers in your niche are NOT writing about. This is how you differentiate your blog from the “me too” crowd. It always work as long as you don’t stray too far off the main niche topics in your community.
	19. Invent fresh ideas by thinking out of the box. Combine seemingly different ideas into one refreshingly new idea.
	20. Know and anticipate your readers’ needs and deliver on it. This is also where Social Media Networks can help where you can hold on line discussion on any blog topic that you are contemplating on writing.
	21. Diversify your blog posts between the macro and micro aspect of your niche market. If your blog is about “Make Money Online” then that would be your macro niche blog topic, and using SEO to help achieve that goal would be your micro niche blog topic. The idea here is to spread your blog posts evenly to avoid stymieing interest and growth of your readers.
	22. Write during your golden hour. At the first glance, this seems contradictory to a previous point I made about writing even when you are not really up to it. What I was referring to previously was writing for the purpose of practicing, however when you are writing or rewriting for a live post, you would want to do it in your finest golden hour or most productive hour. Everybody’s golden hour is differently, mine is about midnight while others may be in the morning.

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Being an early adopter of new technology is almost a must for those bloggers that want to stay cutting edge. I read a comment to my earlier post on this site mentioning that they try not to let the specifics of blogging get in the way of having fun with the actual post. Let me start off by saying that I completely agree; if you’re not having fun why would you spend all the time you do blogging?

So to take some of the seriousness off some of my other posts on both this site and my own, I wanted to focus on a discussion on the tools YOU use for blogging. I am going to share my tools and perhaps some of you have pros and cons about what I use, and perhaps can share some recommendations of their own.

Remember, a tool is only as useful and effective as the person using it. That being said here are my top tools when I blog.

1. Jott

I love Jott because it provides for me a way to quickly get ideas before I lose them. I’m more likely to pick up the phone in the wee hours of the night and leave myself a message then I am to turn on the light, find paper and pen, and actually write down my ideas.

What Jott offers the user is a way to leave a message to themselves, another person, or a group via audio message, transcribed message in your email, or posting it to your favorite social media site (your blog, Twitter, various calendars). I have an account set up for blog ideas, so when an idea comes, I hit speed dial to Jott and leave a message for myself which is also transcribed for me to review later. This way I never lose track of my thoughts, and whether I have a pen or not, it now become irrelevant.

This is the first tool that I typically use because it’s non-stop, day or night.

2. Evernote

This 2nd tool has only recently become a vital part of my blogging process. Once I’ve acquired my thoughts from my email, I begin a web search which allows me to do research. I begin to find support for my idea, but I also find it interesting to find people that disagree with me and build my counter argument. All of this reading and searching can take a lot of space in your bookmark section, that is where Evernote steps in.

Evernote allows me to capture information no matter where I am to be used later. If I’m out in the city and find something that inspires me, I can take a picture of it and send to my Evernote account. If deep in web research I can copy and paste whole sites, or quotes directly to my Evernote account. This prevents me having to add and later remove bookmarks I am no longer using.

Evernote syncs to your phone, pda, laptop, and desktop, so no matter where you are at, you have access to your material. Evernote keeps all your “clippings” in “binders.” The clippings can be shared publicly, they can be edited, and grouped in any way you wish. The binders can be renamed, and shared with an entire community.

I specifically enjoy the use of my mobile phone to Evernote so when I take pictures for my articles I can send them to Evernote for editing later. Check out Evernote if you’re looking for something new. I got some invites left (12), look me up and drop me a line if you are interested.

3. Fireshot

I found this tool not too long ago and it has saved me a lot of time when working with screen shots. If you have ever used Skitch, then this program is very similar in that it does a great job screen capturing, but what I love about this plug-in for FireFox is that you can then add commentary bubbles to detail or explain something from the screen shot.

Previously I was doing the Print Screen command and then taking the capture into Photoshop for image editing, and it would take approximately 15 minutes for the entire process. Now I can quickly get what I need, focus on any segment of the website and then write up some explanation on the actual image to help the reader understand what I am talking about. I just added Fireshot to my newly downloaded FireFox 3, so I know it works for sure.

I honestly had a hard time find another alternative for screen capturing that was free, do any of you have other suggestions?

4. Zemanta

This tool is useful for both the newbie and the veteran blogger. I personally try not to lean too much on this tool, but I cannot deny its usefulness when finding material for the blog becomes difficult to the point of straining your brain.

Zemanta is a plug-in that works hand in hand with your blogging platform of choice. I currently use Blogger while I’m coding my WordPress theme, and Zemanta fits nicely onto the screen where you write your posts. The way it works is every 300 words it updates itself by offering you pictures to drop into the post, links for the page, key words for the article, and supplementary material for you to read by showing you other links to articles that might be related to your topic.

This little add on can be hit or miss, for me sometimes more miss, but it has gotten me out of a jam every now and then. For starters I find the pictures it locates for me to be useless. I definitely appreciate the articles it recommends since it adds some depth to the article. The keywords are okay, but I usually have keywords in mind already, if anything it only serves as a reminder of what I was going to put in. The links it offers are pretty useful, especially linking heavier concepts to Wiki’s and other resources for further explanation.

Naturally Zemanta will want to put advertising on the page, but interestingly they are easily deleted, and will not come back to show on your page. I suggest that if you do use them, use their advertising sparingly, to delete them totally would counter their efforts in helping our blogging community.

5. Google Documents

Any word processor will do, but I chose Google Docs because all my material is online, tied to the google network of products, and no matter where I am I have access to my documents. It sure beats carrying around a USB drive with documents on them. Important for me because I move from a MAC and a PC quite often throughout my day and constantly using the USB between two tends to corrupt some of the data.

I am sure there is a great many tools that our community uses when researching, building, and writing their blogs.

Sound off!

Let us know what you find most useful and perhaps your thoughts on products to stay away from.

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Motive Interactive an online advertising company established in 2003 in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, now based out of San Diego, California offers advertising solutions that are innovative and yet simple to use. The hallmark of Motive Interactive success in this highly competitive industry is their attention to detail and their relentless efforts to help publishers maximize their revenue while ensuring that advertisers and agencies reach their targeted audience. Coupled with their unique distribution opportunities and customer service second to none in the industry, Motive Interactive is poised to become a leading force in the Affiliate Marketing Network industry.

Motive Interactive first released their first version of Advent – a groundbreaking Affiliate Marketing Network Platform earlier this year amidst much fanfare. The first version of Advent was more of an Architecture release introducing their performance-based CPA network and performance lead generation platform that featured streamlined campaigns with ease-to-use state of art tools. Now, the Affiliate Marketing world is bracing for its second release – Advent 2.0 - packed with more publisher centric and advertiser features and an enhanced lead generation platform that is truly ahead of its time.

Background

Motive Interactive, like many industry leading companies are not without their secrets of success – it’s the superior intellectual power and experience of their staff that work tirelessly to come up with the next generation of Affiliate Marketing Networking and performance leads generation platform.

Brendan Smith – entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Motive Interactive was quite an accomplished internet marketer himself before joining NetCreations, a leading opt-in email marketing company with direct clients like MSNBC, CNET, ZDNet to name a few. Brendan also brought with him his association with trade and standards organization like Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Lead Generation Committee, and The Online Lead Generation Association (OLGA) where he is a founding member. Motive Interactive Online Advertising Marketing is also blessed with bright engineers and senior management who came from reputable networks like ValueClick Media, DoubleClick, and 24/7.

Features

Advent 2.0 is an advanced performance Ad Network that seamlessly integrates a publisher centric advertising network with a direct performance Leads generation network. Most Affiliate Marketing Network provides one or the other but not both.

It has the following main features that even other Affiliate Marketing Networks envy:

	1. Provides Ad serving, impression, search term tracking capabilities ;it also provides JavaScript and IFRAME conversion tracking.
	2. Highly scalable and adaptable to future enhancements which would enable Motive Interactive to stay ahead of its competition and easily integrate with changes in lead generation industry that is constantly in a fluff.
	3. Multiple Payout Support including commission based sales.
	4. Allocations among individual publisher and advertiser.
	5. Lead routing to multiple advertisers and agencies buyers.
	6. Real time and batched lead processing as well as very flexible and powerful data handling and validation capabilities
	7. Easy to use User Interface that is superior to most Affiliate Marketing Networks

Control Panel/User Interface

Advent 2.0 offers a clean and streamlined User Interface that enables publisher to manage their offers, campaigns and performance statistics quickly and efficiently by sorting them according to CPA, CPA (direct post), and CPS, and filtered by Co-Registration, Email, Incentivized, and Web Placement traffic types.

Advent 2.0 makes heavy use of AJAX – a leading edge technology that allows certain segment of the web page to load without ever the need to refresh – the effect is a rich desktop-like user interface experience for the user. For instance, if you click on one of your offers, the segment of the offer will open up with more information in its place without having to refresh the page or popping up a window like other non-AJAX enabled Affiliate Marketing Networks’ site. If you like what you see, you just click “Apply” to submit your application for the offer. The advantage of this is that you are off to applying for the next offer without ever waiting for a response – this saves you lots of time!!

Also, once you’ve been approved for an offer, selecting the banners and ad creative for it is a breeze with Advent 2.0 Control Panel powered by AJAX technology, by just positioning your mouse over it to see the banner and the Ad Creative. There is no annoying popup all over the place and wasting time waiting for the Banner to load and render itself.

Reports section or Campaign Statistics section in Advent 2.0 enables you to measure important campaign performance metrics across all time periods, campaigns and payouts in multiple perspectives including ‘effective’ perspectives like eCPM and eCPL. Reports can be filtered based on different performance criteria, and can be exported in various popular formats like PDF, EXCEL and CSV.

To enable finer grain of reporting capability based on publishing channels, Advent 2.0 like other Affiliate Marketing Networks also allow the usage of SubID’s to be added to campaign URLs.

Signing Up

The sign up process for a Publisher at Motive Interactive is quick and easy with the minimal of information required to get you started. The approval is sent to you via email within the next 24 hours and it’s usually quicker than that. As with any other Affiliate Marketing Networks, tax forms are required to be completed and faxed in before any payment can be made to you.

You would be assigned an Account Manager at Motive Interactive upon approval, and communicating with your Account Manager is never been easier by opening up a chat window.

Payment

This is an exciting part for all of us and Motive Interactive doesn’t disappoint here. Motive Interactive payout threshold is $50 and it’s paid on a Net-15 basis. Payment can be made to you through check, bank transfer or PayPal. My personal favorite is PayPal which I find is a rather rare payment method among other Affiliate Marketing Networks.

Referral Program

Motive Interactive referral earnings program is 5.5% lifetimes referral earnings.

The referral system is currently being tracked manually with reports each month via a unique referral link and a number of banners are available as well by request – signup to our referral program is usually approved within hours.

With the release of Advent 2.0, full daily, weekly, monthly reports will be available as well as a unique tracking link, and banners available from the referrals tab in off our dashboard. If you already have an account under the old system, don’t fret, it will be automatically moved over to the new referral earnings reporting system.

Rewards Program

In order to reward and encourage affiliates Motive Interactive offer a reward system as well. Same as referral program Motive Interactive will need an icon and link in the side navigation area that takes publisher to a page where they see the stats.

Rewards are paid each month based upon a publisher’s commissions for the previous month.

The reward payout starts at 1% then increases to 2% the higher the tier. The current payout tiers for the rewards program are as follows:

. $1,000 – $10

. $2,500 – $25

. $5,000 – $50

. $10,000 – $100

. $15,000 – $150

. $20,000 – $200

. $25,000 – $250

. $30,000 – $300

. $50,000 – $500

. $100,000 – $1,250

. $150,000 – $2,000

. $200,000 – $3,000

. $500,000 – $10,000

Summary

With it’s ease of use and loads of publisher centric features, doing business on Advent 2.0 is a breeze. There are many offers on Advent that are suitable for monetization on blogs, and I strongly encourage you to sign up for an account.

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