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Technorati Authority and Technorati Blog Ranking is a popular measure of a blog’s performance. Blogs with high Technorati Authority and Ranking are often considered the top blogs of the blogosphere and, as a result, have a better chance of being featured at Technorati. Being recognized on Technorati will certainly increase your traffic and recognition. Here are a few tips on how to increase your Technorati Authority and Technorati Blog Rank quickly.

Inbound Links

To increase your blog’s Technorati Authority and improve your blog’s Technorati blog rank, all you need to do is to increase the number of inbound links (links from other blogs pointing to your blog) to your blog. Here are several ways to increase your blog’s inbound links.

Claim Your Blog

The first and obvious step is to register an account with Technorati and Claim Your Blog. The Technorati Authority of a blog won’t increase until your blog has been claimed in Technorati.

Now Start Building Links

Your Technorati Authority and Rank will begin to improve as the links back to your blog increase. One common way that bloggers increase the number of links to their blog is to leave comments on ‘DOFOLLOW’ blogs. To help prevent comment spam, many bloggers implement a ‘NoFollow’ on the links in their comments, so if increasing your Technorati Authority is your goal, leaving comments on ‘NoFollow’ blogs will not help to accomplish that. It’s also important to choose blogs that have PageRank. The following is a list of blogs with Pagerank from 3-5 that implement ‘DOFOLLOW’ on their comments. Read the rest of this entry »

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Only 1 out of every 100 readers of this post are likely to interact with it by leaving a comment…

The most common way for interaction on blogs is through comments. Most people have an opinion on any given topic, but fail to express their opinions through comments on blog posts they read. On most blogs, the ratio of readers to commenters is huge, so I got to thinking: what kind of person comments on a blog, and why?

The Upside to Comments

I personally think commenting is the best part of blogging. Comments add value to your blog. I like to hear others’ opinions on what I have written and learn a lot about my readers from comments left on this blog and occasionally, even meet some new friends through them.

Getting people to comment on your posts helps to create a community at your blog. They also help you to be more accountable as a blogger (if you’re not getting a lot of comments, just post inaccurate information or something very controversial and you’ll probably notice a significant rise in comments).

Comments add to the content on your blog. The more comments you get the more content you end up with.

The Downside of Comments

The downside of comments is dealing with comment spam. Most bloggers moderate their comments to combat comment spam and this takes time, particularly if you get a lot of it. There’s also resources and plugins that help to combat comment spam. Nobody, including your readers wants to read a bunch of comment spam. It decreases the value of your blog not only to readers but in the Search Engines.

You’ll also get a lot of comments from people promoting their own blog and hoping to get hits from comments they leave on yours. This doesn’t bother me as much as the real comments spam and I normally don’t delete them unless they are serial trollers. Flaming in comments can be an issue also and you can develop a comment policy to deal with these issues.

Finally, people are motivated more to comment on things they disagree with rather than things they agree with. This doesn’t have to be a negative as long as the disagreements don’t become flaming and name calling.

7 Ways to Get More Comments

Approximately 90% of people who use online communities are lurkers (read without contributing). Only 1% of the remainder are active contributers, with the other 9% contributing a little. So 1% of your blog’s users are actively engaging with your blog and the rest are at best occasional contributers. To some extent you’ll just have to accept the fact that most of your readers will be lurkers, but there are some things you can do to encourage more interaction on your blog. Read the rest of this entry »

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The coupon code for $17 off OioPublisher is about to expire. You have just a few days left to take advantage of this offer. OioPublisher is the Wordpress Plugin that allows you to, and automates selling reviews, links and ads on your site completely commission free. I use it here and it’s already paid for itself, and I paid full price for it. I wrote about it earlier. Here’s an excerpt from my previous post.

If you are selling text ads, ad space or reviews on your blog, this great little plugin (for wordpress) cuts the middle man right out. I recently spoke of my disappointment in the services offered to bloggers to monetize their blogs through paid reviews and ad space. You have to bend over backwards to get accepted to a marketplace that is either very sparse with offers or full of real crapola. The prices that advertisers in their marketplace are willing to pay are insulting and when you take out the commission that the “service” charges … well, you are providing a paid review on your site to these cheapos for practically nothing. When word really spreads about this plugin, you can kiss those services good-bye. Instead of taking commissions from your earnings, OIOpublisher charges a one-time fee of $37 for the plugin.

Once the plugin is activated, all you need to do is approve an ad or a text link and it goes live and expires when it is supposed to. Not only that, but you keep the money you make instead of paying commission to money-sucking middlemen. To get this plugin for $17 Off, Click Here and use this coupon code

$17 off code: QWERTY-17 (expires May 5th)

$5 off code: QWERTY-5 (expires May 20th)

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The great Google God just bestowed a Pagerank 3 upon my humble blog, from 0 some time tonight.  Guess I’ll have to tone down the derogatory Google remarks I make on occasion (I was just kidding Google ….) Not sure why they have bestowed this honor upon my humble little blog, but what the heh … I’ll take it.

I had really given up on trying to get pagerank and using alternative methods for getting traffic. Hell, I haven’t even Googled myself for quite awhile … kicked the habit some time ago… when all the big blogs dropped rank. It’s no big deal … just a measly 3, but I was so shocked to see it that I tapped the pagerank bar on my computer screen to make sure it wasn’t stuck. lol.

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A relatively new concept is gaining momentum on the internet… Peer-to-peer banking. I’m sure you’ve heard of peer-to-peer file and music sharing. Now Internet users are coming together to lend money to one another, without using the traditional banking system. Instead of using the Internet to exchange entertainment, some enterprising computer users are exchanging money.

A company called Prosper.com may very well become the same type of threat to traditional banks that Napster was to the music industry, before it was re-launched in association with the recording artists. On Prosper, lenders and borrowers come together in an atmosphere free of the pressure and regulations that make obtaining a traditional loan so intimidating. Simply put, Prosper.com helps people looking to lend money (invest) connect with people looking to borrow money.

I’ve got a friend who has a Prosper loan listing (listing ID is 310933). All bloggers who post about his Prosper loan listing will get a mention in a post, a dedicated post about your blog or even a site wide link in his blogroll. All are well worth a couple minutes posting something on your blog. If you are already a member of Prosper, you can use your referral link!

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The Hochstadt.com Party Contest!

Hochstadt.com invited a select few Top Entrecarders and Internet Entrepreneurs to join a one-of-a-kind Hochstadt.com Party Contest and celebrate together that it is indeed possible to catapult from no man’s land to popularity in 107 days!

Here’s what YOU can WIN at this Hochstadt.com Party Contest!

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My last couple of posts have been on branding and creative thinking. If you’ve read my About page, you’ll notice that I’m a freelance graphic designer as well as a blogger, so creativity and design have always been important … and fun to me. I found these on Flicker and thought I’d post them for everyones enjoyment.

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You are judged by your appearance … and that includes your blog, websites, business communications and even the words that you publish. Establishing an identity or brand when doing business is vital and it’s important to think about what kind of image you want to convey before deciding on your brand identity. Branding for a blog can be as simple as the domain name and title of your blog and the topic of your blog. Your blog should have a certain focus and voice … a consistent message.

In addition to the message you want to get out, your visual brand should also convey the same message that your words do. People are often stereotyped by how they look. For instance, a couple of stereotypes that come to mind are:

• Hippies do drugs and don’t shower
• People who wear glasses are smart or geeks
• Women are bad drivers
• White men can’t dance
• Black men are good at basketball
• Blondes are dumb

The same is true for your visual branding on all of your communications, including your blogs or websites. Choosing the right template, colors, header and even advertising is important if you want to keep your message consistent.

Your brand should follow you throughout all of your communication channels, including your profiles on social networks. Eventually, people only need to see your brand to instantly recognize you and recognition is a good thing. Are you a recognized entity? Do people see your name and know who you are and what you do? They can!

Building Brand Recognition

You know the sites that people instantly recognize and talk about … ProBlogger, TechCrunch, Dosh Dosh, Facebook to name a few. These sites have what is called brand recognition. Brand recognition is more than just looking good (although that’s a big part of it). You build this kind of presence, or brand recognition on the Internet by using the same principles as in the traditional business world: marketing and advertising.

So how do you build your brand? Here are a few things that most major Internet sites have in common:

• Great design: Professional looking design, great layout, well-designed graphics, and a consistent look across the site.
• Memorable logos: Developing a great logo that conveys your brand throughout all of your communications is important. You don’t need to spend a fortune on visual branding. There are a lot of freelance sites where you can get inexpensive bids on logos from professional graphic designers.
• Navigation: Visitors should have easy access to the various portions of the site and should be able to get to what they want in four clicks or less. Use menus, site maps, and shortcuts to help achieve this goal.
• Recognition: The site is advertised on other sites in the form of banner ads that reflect the brand. Even when surfing elsewhere, Web users recognize the logo, tag line, and familiar colors that represent your site and your business.
• Incentives for visitors to stick around: The main page of the site showcases special promotions of featured products and services and changes those promotions frequently. For B2B (business-to-business sites, highlight your newest products and services.
• Current information: Publish news that means something to your visitors, such as how your products and services make their lives easier. Case studies and examples of how to use products give existing customers cause to return and potential customers reasons to be interested in your site.
• Up-to-date appearance: The site often has special graphics for holiday seasons, keeping the site’s appearance fresh and up-to-date.

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The Right Brain vs Left Brain test

Is the dancer turning clockwise or counter-clockwise?

If you see the dancer turning clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

(Guys: If you only see a silhouette of a naked woman … FOCUS. Is she turning clockwise or counter-clockwise?)

Most see the dancer turning counter-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

The Blueprint for Success

If you read the online marketing forums, you’ll find a lot of newbies getting started in affiliate marketing, most who seem at a loss as to where to begin. They want to know what you are selling, where you are selling it and how you are selling it as well as a template sales/landing page. Basically, what they want is an exact blueprint for success.

There are literally hundreds of self-proclaimed “gurus” who claim to provide you with the exact blueprint that you need for success … at a price, of course. You can literally spend thousands of dollars in pursuit of this elusive blueprint and never achieve the success that each of their sales pages proclaims. In fact, most people who try their hand at an online business will fail. Many will get discouraged because they haven’t made a dime from all the “blueprints” they have purchased and find themselves losing money instead of making money.

A Guide for Creative Thinking

Here’s a secret that most affiliate marketers won’t tell you.

There are no blueprints

Much of the rehashed garbage information that is found in the “guru” ebooks can be easily found on the Internet for free. I have read many of these ebooks and have never found one that actually contained a “blueprint” for a successful online business. The blueprint is inside your own mind and any information you need to accomplish your goals can be found for free.

In order to be successful in life and business you need to get your own creative juices flowing and come up with ideas. The more ideas you can generate, the more successful you will be. They don’t all have to be earth-shaking, ground-breaking ideas … generate enough ideas, and one of them is bound to be a prizewinner.

Creativity is a latent skill … a skill that everyone is born with and that grows with use. You can increase your creative powers by using them, over and over, in every situation, deliberately and specifically, until creativity and a creative response to life is as natural to you as breathing in and out is. There are very few things that you can do that can have a more powerful positive impact on your entire life than becoming excellent in creative thinking. And you can if you think you can.

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