Syndicating Your Content

This is a tutorial on adding a custom header image to your Blogger blog. You’ll want to make your blog look as much like your branded business as possible.

Let me know, by posting a comment, if this has been helpful.

We all want to make a little money, or maybe a lot of money, on our blogging efforts. In a continuing desire to assist you in developing monetization strategies for your blog.

I’ve also talked about using Google News Alerts to help you discover content for your blog posts. I’ve really been put to the test by participating in the 24 Days ‘Til Christmas Blogging.

I found a great post on developing an advertising strategy for your blog and wanted to share it with you.

I’ll be sharing more opportunities for you to create a passive income from your blogs and blogging efforts. If you have any to share, please feel free to leave a comment.

Like a lot of small business owners, I started with one of the free blogging platforms. The two free blogging platforms most chose between is Blogger and WordPress. Each platform has it’s advantages and disadvantages.

I have blogs at both Blogger and WordPress, but I now program WordPress blogs (wordpress.com is the free hosting platform, wordpress.org is the blogging software) that are hosted directly and not part of the free platforms.

Some of the solopreneurs in North County have asked me how they can enhance their Blogger blogs. This gave me the idea of creating a video on Blogger’s Page Elements, which is commonly referred to as the "new Blogger." This video is an overview of the page elements and how, or why, you might want to use them.

I’ll follow with specific videos on using each element in upcoming posts. Let me know if this helps by commenting, or if I can create a video tutorial for a particular task.

When I speak with clients about their websites, I talk to them about using their keywords as the link text. Again, I found a great video tutorial on You Tube that shares how to find out how many sites use a specific keyword in their links. Let me know if this helps by commenting!

Links back to our websites are integral to raising our search engine rankings. Here’s a video I found on You Tube that offers an easy way to find out who is linking back to your site. Let me know if this helps by commenting!

Many bloggers start out on the free blogging platform. I recommend WordPress.com because, if you decide to host your blog, it’s easily transferable to your own domain, is highly extendable and robust, especially for the non-programmer.

I find sometimes it’s hard to remember how to execute various tasks, and I’m helping my Leads Club Chapter Members learn how to blog.

This video tutorial is on creating a post at WordPress.com. Let me know if it helps by commenting below!

I found a great blog post on Copyright Laws for Bloggers that I wanted to share.

I also thought I’d share some of the sites I find the images I use, so I don’t violate any copyright laws (no, you can’t just google images and use them)! Two of the sites I use are:

iClipArt is holding a sale right now, $29.95 for a year. You can search for clipart, photos, sounds, video and web graphics. It’s easy to search across the categories and has a great variety of images.

Check this out if you want to add some "eye candy" to your posts.

iStockPhoto offers low cost photos for your commercial use. You need to purchase credits and a normal image costs 2 – 3 credits.

iStockPhoto also has videos and illustrations, which are really nice. If you are a photographer or graphic artist you can earn credits by offering up your work. It’s a great site, check it out.

What resources do you use for images and photos?

I posted about becoming an Amazon Associate over at Magic In Word’s Blog.

One of the WordPress plugins I really like is Now Reading, which makes use of your Amazon Associate ID, allowing you to display books on your blog. All you need is either the ISBN number, the title and/or author’s name.

Once you bring the book up through your search, you can manage it letting your visitors know you are about to read the book, are currently reading the book, or have finished the book. The images displayed through the Now Reading Widget are of the books you are currently reading. The others are shown as text links.

You can display the images in three different sizes and you’ll also have a "library" on your site. Just tap the book, or text link and you’ll be taken to the library page which will show all the books you have read. It’s a great way to monetize your site.

You can take it one step further and review the books as a blog post, giving your visitor a reason to tap the link to purchase the book.

So, are you an Amazon Associate? And, if you are, how are you using it to monetize your site? Feel free to leave a comment below.

When you visit any of my sites, you’ll notice that I have a feature that, when you roll over the icon, a preview of the linked page will appear. It’s Snap Shots, and now you can use it on your site too!

Snap Shots is the world’s most popular way to give your users a more fun and interactive experience on your site or blog. Now with Snap Shares, you can monetize inventory you didn’t know you had. It’s a complete system designed to help you get more from your site.

• Snap Shots uses your links to bring the most appropriate information about the sites you’re pointing to. Your audience doesn’t even have to leave your site to get the best of other sites.
• Snap Shares gives you a portion of the ads that appear in Snap Shots and lets you do what you wish — serve ads through your regular provider, market yourself or share them with charity.
• Snap Shots Engage looks for certain key phrases within your site and connects them with the best content in the world. And you don’t even have to write a link.

There is also a WordPress Plugin for Snaps which makes it easy to add to your WordPress blog. Here’s the Snap Shot Guide for your use.

Here is a video tutorial on WordPress’ Blogroll, how to add a link and how to manage a link.

Blogrolls typically link to the blogs you, as the blogger, read. However, depending upon what your goal is for your blog, you may want to rename it from blogroll to something else. This tutorial will show you how to rename your bogroll too.

If this was helpful, please feel free to leave a comment below. If you need a specific WordPress task documented, please let me know.