Choosing the right blog software for your new blog requires that you ask yourself some questions and make a list of all of the features and tools you need as well as your budget. Once you have this information written down you will be prepared to start shopping for blog software. However, keep in mind the following seven tips for choosing the best software for you.

Tip #1 Ping Updates
These allow you to update your blog and are very important in blog software. Make sure the blog software you are interested in provides automatic ping updates.

Tip #2 Comments
Whatever blog software you choose, you’ll want to make sure that it has an area for comments from visitors. This will help you understand what is successful in your blog and what is not, as well as guide you in future blogs. This is a really great tool and should be part of your blog software.

Tip #3 Trackback
If you are discussing your blog on another blog, or simply adding information to another blog, trackback will allow you to update this information. This is a little confusing, but trackback allows you to talk on your blog about information on another blog and ping the writer of the other blog to let them know what is going on. Trackback is certainly a feature you want in your blog software.

Tip #4 Pingback
Pingback is similar to trackback, but it just sends a URL to the other blog to let them know you are talking about their blog on your blog. This is not used as much as trackback, but you will want a blog software that has at least one of these two functions.

Tip #5 Web-based
The point of a blog is you can post information instantly online, so you want your blog software to be similar to a word processor and web based without a shadow of a doubt.

Tip #6 Archiving
You want a blog software that supports archiving, and most of them do. The reason for this is you will want to save all of your past blogs by the date they were published and archiving allows you to do that.

Tip #7 Categorize
Another great tool you will want in your blog software is the ability to categorize. You want to keep your blogs organized and in categories, if you have them, so this option is really a great one for most bloggers.

There are lots of types of blog software available. You just need to do the research and compare what you find with what you need and then… start blogging!

Michael Turner reveals step-by-step how you can increase search engine traffic in his free 7 part mini-series. Grab it now at http://www.powertraffictactics.com/

Is It Possible To Make Money From Blogging?
Copyright © 2005 Jugglingmum

Do you have a Blog or Personal Online Journal? If the answer is yes, did you know that it’s possible to earn money from your Blog? I earn plenty from my own Blogspots – maybe not enough to think of retiring in the near future, but enough to allow me some extra luxuries in life and who knows how much I’ll be earning in a few years or even just a few months!

I love writing Blogs because I love passing on information that I’ve researched myself. Best of all, I only spend a couple of hours each week writing on my blogspots – I spend several more hours researching information because I also love to learn and believe that no matter how much I think I know about a subject, there’s always new stuff to learn – I’m a bit of an information junkie!!

If you already know plenty about a particular subject then it won’t take long at all to write a few paragraphs about it and have your blog up and running. Obviously, writing about what you love helps because, in the beginning, the money you earn is a bonus rather than an income that will allow you to give up your day job. Mind you, I’ve read about many people that earn fantastic incomes from their blogs so maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones that can give up the day job in the very near future.

Search engines visit blogs so your site will probably get listed quickly – Google actually own www.blogger.com so if you want traffic this is a good site to start your blog on. It’s a good idea to also insert GoogleAdSense and even a Google Search box because you’ll also earn money when any of your visitors decide to click an ad or do a search – more bonus cash for little effort. Blogger also has a tool that you can use to notify all the search engines when you update your site. Make no mistake, this is a very powerful tool because the search engines take a look at your blog and follows the links to other websites. This makes getting listed on the top search engines like Google a breeze.

Another way to make cash from your blog is to add a few affiliate links – find products that fit in with the theme of your blog, sign up as an affiliate, put a link on your blog and hopefully watch some more bonus cash roll in – again, it’s simple but effective! If you’re not familiar with affiliate marketing then let me tell you right now that this is an extremely good earner. I usually get my affiliate links at www.cj.com, www.clickbank.com and www.affiliatefuture.com so pay them a visit and get some links to get started.

I recently set up 2 new blogspots and you are welcome to take a look by visiting www.mindpowersuccess.blogspot.com and www.jibechick.blogspot.com. These are 2 completely different subjects but I’m really interested in both so enjoyed creating them.
I also post my monthly JC Newsletter at www.jugglingmumsclub.blogspot.com and always invite people to take a look at the current JCN before signing up.

I’m not worried about getting competition from anyone looking at my blogs – there’s more than enough blogs, niche markets, etc. to go round and if it helps you get ideas then that’s great. Remember I’ve already stated that “I love writing Blogs because I love passing on information that I’ve researched myself.�

Another way to get traffic to your blog is to ask visitors to sign up to your own newsletter and then send them a link each time you make a new post. – once a week is plenty otherwise they may get fed up with you bombarding their inbox.

That’s about all there is to it – it’s quick, it’s easy and it has the potential to earn you a fairly decent income. If you have the time to spare then don’t stop at one blog because the more sites you have the more visitors you’ll get and the more money you’ll earn.

There are many people earning a very good living writing their blogs. The biggest tips are to find niche areas that not many others are promoting, get some affiliate links and some good quality content information. Remember to add GoogleAdSense and possibly a Google search box to your site and then just check your visitors and earnings each day.

Jugglingmum earns a living online from affiliate marketing, blogspots and Google. She runs a popular monthly Newsletter that you can sign up for by sending a blank email to jugglingmumsclub@getresponse.com. See the latest JC Newsletter at http://www.jugglingmumsclub.blogspot.com

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Blogging allows bloggers to share their expertise and knowledge with a very large audience. Building a loyal audience is something that every small business owner would love to accomplish.

1: Building Trust Relationships

Blogging allows bloggers to share their expertise and knowledge with a very large audience. Building a loyal audience is something that every small business owner would love to accomplish and bloggers are able to do this by simply sharing their thoughts using their business blogs. Building a community that trusts you and follows your blog updates on a daily basis is one of the key ingredients that hundreds of bloggers are using in their business.

2: Easy To Publish

Blog software is simple to use. With the push of a few buttons you can post your thoughts, link to resources and publish your blog. Blog software companies provide bloggers with all the tools necessary to get started. Bloggers can update their blogs much quicker than a website which usually requires contacting a web designer or uploading yourself.

3: Search Engine Traffic

One of the greatest benefits that bloggers receive is search engine traffic. Search engines love to spider pages that contain quality content and are updated with fresh content on a regular basis. Smart bloggers optimize their blogs by keeping their content focused on a specific niche.

4: Cost Effective

Blogging is a low cost alternative to having a web presence. Blogging has given small business owners the opportunity to create a web presence without the time to learn html or the income to hire a web designer. Blogging is quickly growing with popularity as an inexpensive method to get the name of your business out on the internet. Gone are the days of having to come up with a large investment to create a web presence.

5 Spam Free

With Spam problems and email filters creating a huge challenge for email marketers to publish their newsletters, bloggers are now using blogs as an additional option to communicate with their subscribers. The advantage of using blogs is that you don’t have to worry about spam and email filters because your message will be delivered by using RSS (Really Simple Syndication). You can use these syndicated RSS “feeds” to display the latest news from major newspapers, for example, on your own web site or read them on other sites collecting these feeds. There are special programs and web-based services called “RSS feed readers” or “RSS aggregators” that, given the URL of an RSS feed will fetch the latest headlines periodically and let you read them comfortably and efficiently.

In Closing…

If you are looking for another source of traffic that is cost effective, spam free, search engine friendly, and perfect for building relationships, start publishing your own blog today. Once you get started, you too will experience the secret benefits that bloggers love and enjoy.

Benjamin Scott operates a successful internet business working from his home personal computer. Take his FREE e-marketing course at: http://www.eazyhomebusiness.com/

Want to advertise online without spending a fortune? Get a blog.

If you’re an Internet marketer, you need a blog, because:

* a blog helps your site to rank higher in the search engines; and

* a blog expands your customer base.

Blogs are often called social marketing tools, because they let
you interact with your readers via comments and permalinks (see
the glossary below.)

What’s a blog? Get up to speed here:

* http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogs

Let’s look at five ways a blog helps you to market your business.

One: A blog helps your site to rank higher in the search engines

In 2003, when Google bought Pyra Labs, the company which
developed Blogger, the reaction was Huh? At the time, blogs were
seen by most as online journals, primarily maintained by the
demented and teenage girls.

How times change. In 2005, companies small and large are using
blogs to promote their businesses. This is because Google and the
other search engines love blogs because of their constantly
updated content.

Blog often, and you’ll get more visitors and a good search engine
ranking.

Two: A blog expands your customer base – you’ll reach people you
could reach in no other way

A blog helps you to reach people you can reach in no other way
because your frequent updates mean that you’ll automatically get
niche visitors – those people who have no clue about you or the
product that you’re selling, but who happened to type in a search
engine query that mentioned words you used in a single post.

Those niche visitors can become buyers, and this means that you
don’t need to struggle to get top listings in any search engine.
Write (or link to) quality content, and your visitors will find
you.

Three: A blog helps your site to differentiate itself

A blog is a form of stealth marketing. Therefore a blog doesn’t
need to be about the products you’re selling. A blog can be about
any topic that you’re passionate about. Blog about your passion,
and mention – in passing – the products you’re selling. You can
also link to them, but don’t bother selling heavily – that’s not
what a blog is about.

Four: Like a diamond, a blog is forever

Although the most-visited blogs update often, some of them
several times a day, that doesn’t mean that you have post more
often than you can fit into your schedule. Your permalinks (see
below) mean that since your blog items are standalone pages,
they’re indexed by search engines in the same way that any HTML
or other page is indexed – your blog items/ pages will continue
to bring traffic even if you don’t update very often.

Five: A blog attracts new opportunities

A blog makes your business visible. Your stealth marketing
efforts will attract the attention of people who may become joint
venture partners, or who will have other opportunities for you.

The time and energy that you invest in your blog can bring
results beyond your wildest expectations. Create a blog –
it’s your hardest-working, and most cost-effective online
marketing option.

GLOSSARY:
Blog = Web log.
Permalink = permanent link, an URL for a single blog post.
Comment = blogs have a comments section, where readers can
interact with the blogger and others.

Michael Murray is a 22-year old full-time Internet marketer with
Cerebral Palsy who lives in sunny Orlando Florida. Need MORE
TRAFFIC to your website or affiliate links? “Turn Words Into
Traffic” reveals the secrets for driving thousands of NEW
visitors to your website or affiliate links… without spending
a dime on advertising!:
http://www.marketlikeapro.com/words.html

Recently, I hosted a “blogathon� on my weblog to celebrate its second anniversary and to raise funds for a local environmental organization. I agreed to spend 24 hours online blogging, and readers could make a “per-post� pledge to the organization, which they multiplied by the number of posts I made to determine their donation. While my readers and I raised a sizeable sum, I quickly realized that combining an online event with a charitable fundraiser created a powerful means of promoting my blog and increasing its readership. Hosting the event created a “win-win� situation that allowed me to both contribute to a cause I believe in and gain wide exposure in 24 hours that I couldn’t have obtained otherwise without spending large sums of money.

In this age of ridiculous get-rich-quick schemes and too-good-to-be-true promotional opportunities, the internet marketer can make his/her site stand out from the crowd and attract new customers/readers/clients by doing something many consider unthinkable: raising money for someone else. I’ve seen the rewards of such an effort, and will share them with you. First, though, I’ll show you how I created, managed and promoted my event, and how I received help from much more established blogs and websites in making it happen.

Creating and Organizing the Event

I choose to celebrate my blog’s second anniversary because I saw it as a milestone: blogs and web sites come and go quickly, so having succeeded for two years deserved a celebration. Keep in mind that many occasions might hold potential for an event: an anniversary or another milestone (say, a blog’s thousandth post), a holiday, a release of a product, a famous person’s birthday… the possibilities are endless.

I choose a local environmental organization because my blog focuses on issues of environmental sustainability. A quick scan of a local non-profit directory should provide plenty of ideas if you don’t already have one in mind. I suggest staying local because you’ll likely have more luck making and keeping contact with individuals at the organization. I also suggest picking an organization with a mission similar to your own – you’ll enjoy the process more, and the organization will be happier to help you promote the event if you’re already involved in their cause. No matter what your subject matter, you should have no trouble finding numerous organizations worthy of your efforts.

Contact the organization ahead of time. This will head off any embarrassment in case they’re contacted about your event, and they will have resources such as press contacts that will be very helpful once you begin promoting.

Contact other bloggers and/or webmasters and ask them to pitch in. I got in touch with many people with similar sites and asked them to contribute a post to my effort. Most were happy to help, as they receive greater exposure and also get to contribute to a cause they also believe in. Nearly all of them announced the event on their blog as the time drew near.

Ask your readers and others for donations. I took pledges prior to the event, and kept a record of the pledgers’ names, email addresses and amounts pledged. I was fortunate that the organization already had a web-based donation system in place, so I only had to send my readers to that page to make their donation. I think that not having to handle the money added to the credibility of my effort, as it was clear I wasn’t running a scam

Start promoting. I began promoting my effort about a month before the event itself. I devoted posts to explaining the event, and describing different efforts that the organization was taking to promote environmental awareness and action. I sent out press releases to local and online media, and appeared on a local community radio station’s environmental program.

The Event

When the day came, I had prepared ahead of time by locating information on which I could post, and collecting guest posts from other bloggers. I set myself a schedule of 2-3 posts per hour, and spread the guest posts throughout the event. I must admit that I didn’t quite make the 24 hours (after about 22 ½, I was beat), but did reach my goal (which I’d publicized) of fifty posts (including guest posts) during the event.

The Results

Both regular and new readers “showed up� during the event with comments, emails, and updates to their own blogs and sites, and several tried to stay up the whole twenty-four hours with me.

My visitor numbers quadrupled during the event, and have remained much higher than they were prior to it.

My TTLB Ecosystem ranking jumped about a thousand places, and I went from “Adorable Little Rodent� to “Marauding Marsupial.�

I’ve attracted about 25 new subscribers on Bloglines alone.

My Feedburner feed circulation increased by 50%.

Almost a week later, I’m still trying to respond to commenters. I don’t have exact numbers, but I’ve never had the amount of conversation on the blog that I had during the event.

I’m still watching the long-term results, but, without a doubt, holding this event allowed me to take my blog to at least the next level in terms of readership and exposure. While an event itself would have gotten some notice, choosing to celebrate while also raising funds for a non-profit gave the community around my blog several reasons to spread the word, join in the effort and even discuss it afterwards. It was a rewarding experience in a number of ways, and I can’t wait until this time next year to build on these initial successes.

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, Ph.D., is an English professor and freelance writer. He publishes sustainablog, which focuses on environmental and economic sustainability, green and sustainable business, and environmental politics.

Maybe you always wanted a feature that hasn’t been available in the latest release of WordPress. What you can do is either install a 3rd party plugin or write your own custom code to extend the features of WordPress.

WordPress plugins are programming code that enhance the features of a standard installation of WordPress. A well written plugin will be basically “drag and drop” without modifying the core code of WordPress. As WordPress has been designed in a modular way, plugins allow you to customize your site to your specific needs without modifying the core of WordPress.Ever since Wordress version 1.2 plugins have been available. WordPress plugins can be categorized according to the feature it provides. Here a list of various features that you can implement for your web site through WordPress plugins.

* Administration: Install WordPress plugins to customize features like Admin Tools, Anti-spam, Comments, Meta, Restriction, Statistics, Syntax Highlighting, Syndication, Tweaking, etc.
* Design, Layout and Styles: Change the look and feel of your blog by implementing plugins that modify Archive, Calendar – Event, Navigation, Randomness, Styles.
* Graphics, Video, and Sound: Add plugins that create Audio – Mood and Images for your blog.
* Posts: Implement plugins for Editing Posts, Formatting Posts, and other Miscellaneous Post related issues.
* Links: Setup WordPress plugins that change the default behavior of linking.
* Miscellaneous: You can install miscellaneous plugins that shows weather information or other outside information from external websites.

Installing a plugin for WordPress is not difficult. Here are the list of steps that you need to take to install most plugins. Some plugins may require additional steps.

1. Upload your plugin to the wp-content/plugins folder
2. Go to your WordPress site using a browser and login
3. Click on the Plugins link from the main menu at top
4. Scroll down the list of available plugins to find the plugin you just uploaded
5. Click “Activate” to make your plugin active WordPress Plugin Sites

We found the following sites with a comprehensive list of WordPress Plugins:

* WordPress Wiki – Plugins: http://wiki.wordpress.org/?pagename=Plugin
* WordPress Plugin Repository: http://dev.wp-plugins.org/
* WP-Plugins Download Interface: http://redalt.com/external/plugins.php
* WordPress Plugin Database: http://www.wp-plugins.net/

Sanjib Ahmad, Freelance Writer and Product Consultant for Business.Marc8.com – Business Best Sellers. You are free to use this article in its entirety as long as you leave all links in place, do not modify the content, and include the resource box listed above.