Twitter needs no introduction.

• “a phenomenon” as Liz call it
• “a post-it note“
• and a “valuable marketing tool“

If you want to get more twitter followers and double your blog traffic then, here’s a cool video post you should check it out

3 Simple Twitter ‘Tricks’ I Use to Get 250% More Web Site Traffic

Share your comments on the blog and tell the world what you think about the 3 simple twitter tricks

When trying to comment on my own blog @ Codrut Turcanu dot com I stumbled upon a crazy blog commenting problem…

It was an error in fact, saying something like this:

“your computer is part of a spam network”. So my comment was vanished in the cyberspace.

I couldn’t believe it. I checked the problem and it seems the anti-spam plugin I’ve been using was blocking my IP.

So I removed WP-SPAM FREE plugin and now I can comment on my blogs fine.

Did this happen to you too?

Also, another blog commenting problem: when trying to comment on other people’s blogs [small or big, individual, or company], I couldn’t post my comment [it didn't appear at all] if I included a link with anything after the slash

For e.g. I could comment on blogs with codrutturcanu.com link in the “web site” field, but not if I added something afterwards, like for e.g. http://www.codrutturcanu.com/mbninja

It looks like the majority of blogs [regardless the link] has a plugin or WP default option not accepting urls with anything after the slash

That’s crazy. Just imagine if you have a blog and some commentators include a link like that in the comment field, their comment will go nowhere, so you upset those people.

That means less readers/comments on your blog. It’s really bad. We should check and solve this problem once and for all.

Make sure you let other bloggers about this problem and let’s spread the word!

If you are currently trying to make money by selling ad space or writing paid review posts then you are leaving a huge chunk of money on the table.

You can actually double your blog revenue by promoting affiliate programs.

And the best part is this…

• You don’t need a site
• You don’t need a list
• You don’t need “techie” skills
• And you don’t even need any marketing experience

This blog income report will actually reveal to you a simple method to double your blog revenue

How?

You can do so by linking specific keywords in your blog posts into affiliate programs.

Take the following example:

Your blog is about Health and Fitness and you’ve talked about “healthy diet”.

What you can do is you can link that very keyword to an affiliate program. Now your readers can follow that link to buy the related product and you’ll be the one earning commission out of it.

Let’s say you have another post and you have the phrase “aerobic excercise”. You can link this keyword to a good aerobic exercise tutorial video and if your readers buy the video from that very link you’ll be the one getting paid again.

Getting paid commissions out of the keywords that lead to affiliate links is not a small deal. Can you imagine how much impact will that be making to your overall blog income?

Here’s how:

You have those keywords already linked with the affiliate link and it is going to stay right there. This means you…. yes, YOU will be the one AGAIN to earn commissions even if someone reads that post after say, 5 months or 8 months. Now, think about all the hundreds of blog posts lying idle on your blog. Don’t you want to earn from them lifelong??

The problem is that’s not possible to edit all of them, that might take a really loooong time or even forever.

But there’s a cool solution which I’m using in this post you’re reading now. It’s called Ninja Affiliate [a powerful wordpress plugin] and it turns your keywords into affiliate links. All your blog posts that laid idle and all those keyowrds that you wanted to link can be made affiliate links instantly, that can earn you passive commissions.

What about all those thousands of RSS subscribers you have? I can bet most of your loyal readers read your blog using RSS feed. That means they see no ads, and they don’t increase any page views. Unfortunately they just don’t do anything to increase your blog revenue.

BUT linking your keywords to affiliate links will earn you money even from your RSS readers as well.

Just imagine the possibilities; foresee how far you can go with your blog income. The choice is yours, whether to stick with your penny-wise income or try this effective blog for profit method

Look out for my next blog income report where I reveal to you more ways to earn blog income from your posts.

It is estimated that each blog post I publish using Ninja Affiliate it makes me twice as much money VS not using it.

This is an excerpt from my blogging guide, “Niche Blogging Profits” that you can download @ LazyBlogging.com

It will shortcut your learning curve tremendously and help you avoid the costly blogging mistakes all beginners and even some veterans are doing, that’s for sure!

#1 Secret
Picking “Your” Niche
Is NOT Important, Is Crucial

While most “Gurus” claim that selecting your niche is important, I want to confess out loud — picking your niche is crucial! So you have to pick the right one — but how do you know which one is the best?

Whether you believe it or not, picking the wrong niche is suicide for your business and blog success; the sad part is that most newbie bloggers don’t know how to avoid this (big) mistake.

Here’s why:

98% of all the folks out there are listening to bad advice. If this seems familiar to you, stay cool, it’s not your fault, ok?

The so-called experts give wrong information on how to select a niche, and on how to monetize your blog. WHY? Because they’re “speaking” from theory, they’re not doing what they’re saying…

What do they suggest us to do first?

Keyword research… False! If you pick your niche based on key terms alone, you’re doomed to fail from the start. Read that again!

Then they tell you to get a free Blogger account, add the AdSense code and wait for the money to flood your bank accounts!

Ha, ha – this works only in their dreams!

I learned through trial and error that keyword research is just a small part of niche selection. And it’s not as important as these gurus claim it to be.

There’s a better way to do it. Here’s how to pick your niche the SMART way, and how to avoid the mistakes that most beginners commit.

Download your copy of “Niche Blogging Profits” @ LazyBlogging.com and find the 7 shocking secrets I discovered after starting 5 blogs and raking-in $35,000

If there was an easier way to blog on the web, would you want to hear more?

What if the first time you got up out of bed you knew exactly how to promote your blog, and what to do in the next few hours to make money with it?

• Are you using daily to-do tasks in your online activities?

If not, you have to because this is how smart people organize their blogging activities and finish their most important tasks.

The problem with the regular way of writing to-do lists is that it’s limited and pretty boring.

What if there was an easier, fun way to write your to-do lists and get things done fast?

The solution is right here and it’s called todoodlist…

This 98-page book is the best product I’ve ever bought and read about getting things done faster… on paper!

Read it, it has my highest recommendation!

I’m already seeing improvements in my daily to-do tasks and blogging business profits because I got the book and tested the todoodlist

If you have any suggestions, questions or comments let me know.

You can now read a fresh interview I did with Ray Johnson, a cool blogger who claims he faced no difficulty starting blogging.

Do you really believe him? Me neither… so let’s see what he has to share with us.

Click here to download the PDF version of this interview, or read the text version below:

1. Would you mind sharing a few things about

yourself and your background for our readers?

Sure Codrut, well my name is Ray Johnson, I was a failed offline direct marketing businessman, and literally came from the brinks of being homeless to generating my firsy $17k month online. I know run a successful online marketingcompany with 5 staff, called The Ray Johnson Group.

2. When did you get started blogging, and why?

I started last year as I knew the power of Blog when done properly, they are literally a sponge for traffic from the search engines, can help brand your name and get you recognition as well as building a subscriber base.

3. What’s the biggest mistake you

made getting started with this?

To be honest I had my blog outsourced to my coder – so I didn’t really face any difficulty!

4. How did you come up with the

idea of launching your blog?

I just knew that Blogs are an essential tool to build your business from the point of building a readership base and community of followers (to which you can assist, become the expert authority turn into affiliates for you!)  AND I also knew blogs get sucked up FAST by the search engines because of the frequent page updates and content changes. I also knew that I had a lot to say on a PERSONAL NON business level to my audience, and a Blog being an online diary – was a perfect way to do just that.

5. How often do you publish and

how do you get content ideas?

I try to publish daily or as often as possible and I get ideas from what’s happening in my business, the news and world events.

6. How do you mainly receive (or generate)

traffic to your blog?

Again I am fortunate now to be in a position where blog traffic generation is outsourced to my staff. They write articles linking back with anchor text, they leave deep blog comments on other marketers blogs, blog seo, twitter and facebook – and viral eBooks sold on eBay or passed around the net. I have an entire dedicated Outsource Team following my recent highly successful launch of http://www.outsource2success.com – which sold over $7000 in 6 days and generated over 3000 subscibers in the same period. EVERYONE should be outsourcing from day one, and my site shares my story and how ANYONE can achieve the same. You can see my team of staff here: http://www.therayjohnsongroup.com/staff.html

7. What is your most closely-guarded

secret about blogging for money?

I do not think there is truly a secret – just give before you receive. Make sure you research your blog posts to make sure the content you give is relevant and in demand and can really help people move forward in their businesses – the cash will always find it’s way back to you. You can find relevant content for blogs by searching in online forums – find out what people need help with, if there is a common need or want – look on the news (because after all a blog should mix business with real life, it helps with rapport from readers)

8. What differentiates your blog among

all the others in your niche field?

Basically, I vary my content from basic posts, to audio and video through to blog competitions and contest that really get my readers engaged. You can check out a popular competition or 2 I have done by visiting this link: http://ray-johnson.co.uk/category/contests

9. If you had to get a boost in comments

from your blog readers, how would you do it?

I would not want a boost in comments, you are only as good as your last post! Meaning that if you as the blogger thinks you can improve on comments received, provide better material for the audience.

10. Which are the blogs you visit frequently and why?

I read very few but John Thorhill’s is quite good! http://www.planetsmsblog.com

Lee McIntyre is also a great upcoming new marketer too @ http://www.lee-mcintyre.com

And of all the guru-made people I think Alex Jeffreys blog is pretty good too.. just shows you what can happen if you align yourself with successful people: http://www.postlaunchprofits.com/blog

11. Which are your favorite bloggers and why?

I am my favourite blogger!

12. Which plugins you can’t live without and why?

I am not tecchy so as my blog coding etc was done for me I couldn’t really say, although I know of Askimet and UBC ADBlock, and the Twitter plugins, they prevent spam, help others generate traffic to their sites and allow people to see my Twitter tweets and help become a follower of what I do.

13. What is the most important thing you learned about blogging that you could share with your best friend?

Be yourself, don’t be false or uppity. Just like in real life if people like what you deliver and like you- you win the battle.

14. What plans do you have for

the future with your blog?

I currently have a new IM chatroom, created for the blog to bring marketers together in my community, helping them build relationships together – get Adswaps and JV’s – a blog is really the central point to building your community of followers – whether they subscribe or not, at least they are listening and engaging what you are doing. This way there is a chance that even if word of mouth or viral marketing only plays a part – YOUR business is ALWAYS growing. Further more to Adswaps and JV’s I welcome ANYONE reading to contact me on my blog with their own products to help promote, and get their name out the on the big wide WWW.

You can contact me @ jv@ray-johnson.co.uk anytime.

We wish Ray success in the future and thank you very much for sharing your BLOGGING tips, tricks & secrets with us all! J

This is a guest post by Riyanne @ Blogging From Scratch

When you create a blog, you surely desire for it to succeed. You may want it to succeed financially, convey a message to as many people as possible or whatever your hopes may be.

If you are blogging for quite some time now and have no audience at all, then something must be awfully wrong. You got the right material, invested on a personalized design, bought banner advertisements and you even have a mascot. And yet, your blog is dead or the statistics does not meet your expectations. Your efforts are not good enough.

What if I could tell you on how to spice things up? To liven up your blog through contests! I was joining blog contests before even having my own blog. I even won my blog’s hosting and domain name from one of the contests that I joined. In those times, I observed that when there’s an ongoing contest, people starts noticing and patronizing the blog. People are suddenly buzzing about those blog. They increase their feed subscriptions, newsletter, free reviews and many more endless opportunities.

Having a blog contest is one way of promoting your blog. You can boost your traffic, increase RSS subscribers and more. Yeah, blog contests are cool but don’t just jump into organizing one. Be smart!

They can be quite expensive especially when you are sponsoring by yourself and there’s a contest in your blog every month! Because no matter how big your prizes are, it might suck.

So I made an ebook entitled Blog to success with Blog contests that will guide you to create contests that rock and can deliver the following in your blog.

• Boost your traffic
• Build links
• Network with other bloggers
• Increase your feed subscriber and
• Be a successful blogger

You could get the ebook for free if you subscribe by email and the download link can be found at the footer of the feed. After reading, you can now start organizing contest that will be a sensation! It will teach you on how to properly set your goals, the contest mechanics, set your budget and more. In the end, there are scenarios on when to organize a contest and aftermath reports of my two blog contests. Better subscribe now to learn all of these for free.

This 22 year old student from Singapore blogs like nobody else. His style is similar to mine and from what I’ve noticed he “sees” a blog like a TV series… or a step-by-step course…

Now that’s the power of blogging in action.

Watch how Wei Liang blogs and learn from his blogging secrets.

Click here to download the PDF version of this interview, or read the text version below:

1. Would you mind sharing a few things about

yourself and your background for our readers?

I am a 22 year old student living in Singapore. Currently pursing my degree in the finance. I am the author now for www.abloggerblog.com which is designed to make blogging simply for beginners.

2. When did you get started blogging, and why?

I started blogging in 2007 after getting into contact on the topic of Internet Marketing. Since then, I attended a few local seminars to learn more about this industry.

Looking at how the internet marketers built up an online business and leveraging it to make income, I was keen to make this my full time income source as well. I wanted to free myself from the usual 8-5 work and thus started to engage in blogging.

Now that I have learnt through my experiences in making money online, I would like to share it with my readers who are taking the same train as me.

3. What’s the biggest mistake you

made getting started with this?

I failed to realize the importance of having a domain name and was building my blog on a blogger platform. Looking back at those days, how I wish there is someone to point out to the new bloggers about the importance of owning a domain name.

4. How did you come up with the

idea of launching your blog?

I have landed in a handful of blogs on the niche of blogging but have yet discovered one that is focused on having a structured course outline to guide, lead and coach new bloggers.

I know you will be thinking of the paid coaching courses but I believed the same quality of information can be found in my blog content as well. I know this because I have paid for the coaching myself.

5. How often do you publish and

how do you get content ideas?

I post 1-3 articles per week depending on how much time I want to give my students in between to complete my mention tasks for each lesson. Theory is not enough if I don’t give them a chance to try it out. These would also give them enough time to ask me questions should they be in doubt.

Content ideas are gotten from my 1 year plus of blogging experience. The good and bad experience are all shared with my students so that they will avoid the bad and picked up the good.

6. How do you mainly receive (or generate)

traffic to your blog?

Forums and social bookmarking sites are my top traffic driving sites. These are also the 2 areas in which I participate actively in as well. I am focusing more on forums now as the traffic seems to be more targeted towards my niche compared to social bookmarking sites.

You can find me building my profile in DigitalPoint forum nowadays. One of my thread gone hot and have gotten over 3,500 views over a period of 2 weeks. As of now, I am only using DP forum as my only channel of forum marketing and it has one of the most active forum members in there.

7. What is your most closely-guarded

secret about blogging for money?

I don’t really believe in any secret for blogging to make money. What matters is really the amount of consistent effort you are willing to devote to your blog. As long as you focus on providing valuable content to your readers, you will be able to build up your authority over the niche.

When talking about valuable content, I mean content that provide educational value to your readers. It can be in terms of text, audio or even videos. Let your readers feel that their time spend on reading your articles are make worthwhile and have learn something from it.

Readers trust blogs more than websites. Trust makes it easier for readers to use their hard earn money to exchange for the products you recommend – also known as affiliate marketing. Isn’t this the biggest secret to blogging for money?

8. What differentiates your blog among

all the others in your niche field?

As I mention earlier, that is no other blogs that I come across with a structured layout to guide bloggers on the topic of blogging and eventually monetizing off the blog. ABloggerBlog will be a one stop station for all bloggers looking for information, SEO tools, videos etc. to improve on their knowledge on blogging.

9. If you had to get a boost in comments

from your blog readers, how would you do it?

As simple as asking for it. I would ask for feedbacks on my blog, starting a topic to discuss on or even getting responses from them on what topic they would like to know more about. There are always topics in which are not covered and readers are the best source to get this information from.

My latest topic on Comment Marketing is getting a very good response in terms of comments. From this, I know that writing good contents will eventually bring in lot of discussion and comments in blog.

10. Which are the blogs you visit frequently and why?

www.problogger.net

www.thoushallblog.com

www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

www.netprofitstoday.com/blog/

www.gathersuccess.com

www.chrisbrogan.com

These are the blogs that will not disappoint me in terms of content every time I visit.

11. Which are your favorite bloggers and why?

Chris Brogan, Yan Susanto, Rosalind Gardner and definitely Darren Rowse. They never fail to produce quality content and I love their writing style. I always sink unknowingly into the article everytime I read the content publish by them.

12. Which plugins you can’t live without and why?

Askimet is the one I must have. It would take so much time to select the non spam comments to publish if not for Askimet. WP database backup has save my work once and I know this will be another indispensable plugin in my blog because it wouldn’t feel good to have your entire work lost.

13. What is the most important thing you learned about blogging that you could share with your best friend?

Blogging is not another get rich scheme. It takes consistent effort before you see income starts rolling in. It is not easy but achievable if you devote 2-3 hours of your daily life to your blog. You will soon see success when you least expect it.

14. What plans do you have for

the future with your blog?

This blog is still young ( 2 months ) and have a lot more potential to grow. I am still putting in my bits of experiences and knowledge into this blog. Urge you to take a look if you are keen on blogging.

Cheers and I will catch up with you again in ABloggerBlog.

We wish Wei Liang success in the future and thank you very much for sharing your BLOGGING tips, tricks & secrets with us all! J

If you want to get further into blogging, check out these resources:

• WordPress Profit Maximizer – The BEST WordPress Plugins sent to you weekly via e-mail!

• Blogging for Money - everything I learned about blogging!

Thank you,

Codrut Turcanu.

http://www.CodrutTurcanu.com

If you read this article you’ll quickly learn how to get an instant boost in the comments on your blog which will bring you even more traffic than you’re actually getting.

While I do not promise you’ll get 614 comments “overnight” like the guy I’m going to talk about in a minute did, at least you’ll get some inspiration and have fun along the way.

Here is what I’m talking about:

Just recently I’ve found about CopyBlogger’s writing contest . This blog is my all-time-favorite when it comes to copy writing and there’s no wonder it attracted 43,000+ RSS subscribers as we speak.

Some bloggers would need 100 years to attract that many readers, how is Brian different and what it does that separates him from the rest of the wannabe pro bloggers out there?

1. It’s the content he (along with his team) delivers

2. It’s the fact that he knows how to write compelling, motivational and emotional copy that moves hordes.

3. And the most important fact is that he knows how to run contests and blog competitions.

If you visit Brian CopyBlogger site you’ll notice there are up to 1,054 comments on that “writing contest” posting alone!

You might tell that a thousand comments is something normal since he has 40+ thousand readers, right?

Nope. Think again. Most bloggers get less than 1 comment for each 100 RSS readers they “own”. Brian should expect to get less than 400 comments if we consider a 1% response rate (which I found to be the standard in the blogosphere).

If you take a look on his recent 10 posts you’d notice he gets less than 100 comments, which is about 0.3% response rate.

Lesson learned here: if you want an instant boost in comments, subscribers and traffic, you need to run a contest on your blog.

If you want to get 100x times more comments than regularly, running a contest is not an option! But not any type of contest.

You’d have to run a desirable contest, where you give away top-notch prizes (products, services, cash, etc.).

Learn from Brian as he’s a master at blog competitions…

The key to running a blog contest is to have a prize that your target audience desperately wants, otherwise it won’t click with them.

Another important part of this is to make sure the contest is easy to get in and state the rules. Keep it simple.

I once tried a contest on Codrut Turcanu dot Com blog and it was a dude.

My plan is to study the topic more in depth and come up with some great contests (and prizes) for 2009 and beyond. I’m currently analyzing the contest machine solution. You might want to check it out too. It’s free at the time of writing this!

Another “blogging contest” I like because it exposes how to create your own (if you study it carefully) is the letssermo post with $300 prizes galore (it got 75 comments already!)

You now have the solution to boosting your blog comments and traffic. The question is:

What are you going to do now?

What about you create your own contest or link to your last one (if it’s not expired already!) and mention it on this post (in the comments section)?

Stay tuned for the next post as I have a hot interview with a top blogger — it arrives tomorrow, and I bet you’ll learn something new about blogging for money…

I have new content planned already for what is next on this blog, but I would like to do something new today — interested to see what is in it for you?

I’ve just created a cool survey I want you to participate in right away. It takes less than 2 minutes, I promise!

You decide what you want to read next on my blog. Your feedback is important to me…

Yeah! You have the power to vote for the upcoming post, right now…

What would you like to see next at my blog?