by Robert Long | Sep 26, 2014 | Archive
It’s Friday night, you just got done running your daughter to the movie theatre, you go to grab your laptop, but your son is playing Minecraft, and your wife is using her computer – and oh yeah, you need to publish a blog post ASAP. Finding time to blog is hard enough, but trying to find time to blog from home when you’ve got to juggle a family and household chores makes it even tougher. By following a few simple rules, however, you can blog from home successfully. (more…)
by Robert Long | Feb 18, 2013 | Advice, Archive
If you live in the average American household, you most likely have a wireless router hooked up to a cable modem to share an Internet connection across the house. Routers emit a signal called WiFi that can be used by laptops, desktop computers, smartphones, gaming consoles, and other WiFi-enabled devices. Using a wireless router for three or four devices is great, but when you connect five computers, two gaming consoles, and multiple smartphones on the same network, you may need to either buy a better router or rethink your setup. (more…)
by Robert Long | Jan 14, 2013 | Archive
Can anyone remember what we did before WYSIWYG software came along? One thing’s for sure, your average, unskilled blogger wouldn’t be able to create fantastic looking web templates in minutes, even if he was an expert programmer and designer. (more…)
by Robert Long | Dec 21, 2012 | Archive
One of the best strategies for gaining social media followers, mailing list subscribers, blog comments, Google Plus +1, and repeat blog visitors to your blog is to run giveaways. The main problem with running giveaways (especially for new bloggers) is getting the products to give away. For example, giving away the Genesis WordPress framework would cost at least $60 per license and if you want a successful giveaway, you will want to give away at least three licenses and include some child themes. When it’s all said and done, you would be in for a couple of hundred dollars just to gain some subscribers…
Today I am going to show you some good techniques for getting products to give away on your blog without the large expense.
Team Up With Other Bloggers
The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about saving money with blog giveaways is to spread out the expense between multiple bloggers. For example, you can team up with two other bloggers to give away the Genesis framework like before, but this time, each blogger will only buy one license for a combined total of three licenses. Then you can all host the giveaway with the same Rafflecopter code on all three blogs to have maximum exposure.
This giveaway method still requires you to spend a bit of money, but you will only be spending $60 instead of $180, so it’s still a great deal.
Politely Ask The Product Developer For Free Copies
The way that I have been conducting most of my giveaways here on Omega Web is to contact the developer or company of a service / product and ask them if they would be willing to give away a few copies of their product on my blog. Before doing this, however, make sure you are a paying customer of the service. No developer is going to allow you to give away their products on your blog unless you own them yourself and you are a paying customer.
This method works quite well and is 100% free. Don’t get discouraged if large companies like HostGator or GoDaddy refuse your requests or even ignore your emails… This only really works with small companies with small support teams that are willing to give some of their products away.
Give Away Your Own Products / Services
If you run a web design company, have written an eBook, or have written a WordPress plugin, you can give those things away as much as you want!
Get Someone To Sponsor Your Giveaways
This will really only work with large blogs, but you could always get some company or investor to sponsor your giveaways. For example, if you want to give away something big like an iPad, find a company willing to supply the iPad in return for a private advertisement on your site. In addition, you can make it a requirement on Rafflecopter or Punchtab for the people entering the contest to like the sponsor’s Facebook or Twitter page.
What Are Your Thoughts?
Do you run giveaways on your blog? How do you get the products to give away? Share your views in the comments below!
by Robert Long | Dec 18, 2012 | Archive
It has recently been called to my attention that there is an increasing number of phony bloggers typing away on their keyboards in an effort to make some money online. By “phony blogger,” I mean that these people claim to have a lot of revenue but lack the proof, they don’t offer any “real” tips in the blogging world, they are only interested in self gain, and so on. These phonies are essentially liars that truly believe people are listening to them. However, there are people like me who can see between the lies and even prove the fact that they’re lying with every keystroke… And so I’m here to show you how to recognise these bloggers. (more…)
by Robert Long | Dec 8, 2012 | Archive
I saw this quote in my College Success textbook yesterday and it made me think of blogging. Then, I saw Ehsan’s post called Is Your Blog On The Right Track on Guide and News and I knew I had to write something…
“If you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” – Will Rogers
In the world of blogging, moving forward is very important. For one, Internet technologies and techniques advance very quickly. If your blog’s design or code is aged in any way, it could prevent you from getting to the top. In this particular niche of blogging, however, there are so many new blogs coming out every day, so it’s important that you stay on top of the latest plugins, latest protocols, and the latest SEO techniques. To help you with this, I have compiled a list of a few things you can do to make sure your blog is always moving forward.
1. Read Authority Blogs That Keep People Informed
One of the best things you can do is read other blogs that share valuable information. The first two that come to my mind are Basic Blog Tips and SEOmoz. Note that this isn’t an exhaustive list, but both Basic Blog Tips and SEOmoz have kept me up to speed on the latest social media changes, SEO techniques, powerful blogging plugins, etc. If you expect to get your blog moving at all, you have to look at the blogs that are already in the fast lane.
2. Keep Your Blog’s Design Up To Date
One of my favorite blogs, Daily Blog Tips, has a very outdated design. It looks like it was designed in 2005 and intended to be viewed on CRT monitor. The theme is very plain without any pictures on the homepage except for the advertisements on the side. When you click on a post, though, there aren’t any pictures there either. It just feels very bland and outdated to use the website.
The best way you can keep your blog’s design up to date is to do a redesign once a year or so. I recently did a redesign here on Omega Web that switched my blog from a premium WordPress theme to the Genesis framework. I also included a mobile-responsive version of my site so that people using smartphones and smaller tablets will be able to read the content, comment, and share my posts without any troubles. When you’re doing a redesign, make sure you are moving forward and using the newest techniques in web design, such as a mobile-responsive version.
3. Use The Latest and Greatest Plugins
One thing I cannot stress enough is to use the latest plugins. CommentLuv is the first one that comes to my mind when I think about plugins. In a nutshell, CommentLuv will provide your readers with an incentive to comment. It allows them to place a link to their latest blog post underneath the comment to share it with your community as well as gaining a backlink to their blog. CommentLuv is one of the most game-changing plugins out there because I tend to only comment on blogs that use it… So if you don’t use CommentLuv, you’re already falling behind!
Some other great plugins to check out include Better WP Security, nRelate Related Content, W3 Total Cache, and Ad Injection.
4. Look At Your Statistics
Every morning, I wake up and look at my Google Analytics, Google AdSense, affiliate earnings, Alexa rank, and other blog stats to see what has changed in the last 24 hours. This is very important because I use this data to improve my blog. If I find that the post on Google Author Rank was very popular, I might write a post called “How to Improve Google Author Rank” because I know that is what my readers want to see. Also, I always check things like Alexa to make sure my blog is improving and not going backwards.
5. Strive Every Day To Move Forward
The biggest thing I can stress is to try and move forward every day. Even if you are just building a single backlink by leaving a comment at a blog, that’s still improving your blog better than it was the day before. Do something every day with the intent to strengthen your blog and you won’t get run over.
