Month: June 2008

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How to Use TNX.net For Fun, Profit and Backlinks

Some sites offer services that only appeal to one type of visitor. Others manage to serve several purposes at once. TNX.net is among the latter. Their concept is simple but highly effective. I’m going to tell you how you can put it to good use and then you’ll see for yourselves.

tnx.net screenshot

How you can use TNX.net…
1) …if you want to monetise your websites and blogs: For those of you with tons of pages that have never been monetised, TNX.net is most definitely the way to go. By using their system you’ll be paid to display links on your sites and blogs. With an important advantage: you can choose the links to be displayed according to their relevance to your content. And, TNX.net also offers an affiliate program.

2) …if you want to put your link building campaign on steroids: TNX.net gives you the chance to have your links displayed on hundreds of webpages for very affordable prices. Besides, they offer you a free tool that generates different anchor texts, so that you can peacefully build your backlinks without worrying about search engine penalties.

3) …if you’re an SEO: Just let your clients choose the keywords they want to rank for, as usual, and then use TNX’s system to cleverly get the needed backlinks. You may even control the speed of your SEO campaign to ensure that your clients won’t be caught under the search engines’ radar.

4) …if you’re a writer looking for good topics to write about: As you must know, there’s a large audience for articles about topics like “SEO,” “Internet marketing” and “make money online.” By joining TNX.net you’ll be able to play several experiments both as an advertiser and as an ad publisher. Then you’ll certainly have a lot to write about.

Now it’s your turn to speak (I mean, write). Have you tried TNX.net yet? What do you think of their service? Can you think of other ways to use it? Leave your comments on this post.

And don’t forget to subscribe to The WebMaster Blog today so you don’t miss our next tips and recommendations.

P.S.: Just one more “if” for you: click here if you want to learn how TNX.net can give you free links.

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Getting Ideas for Blog Posts

One of the hardest things when running a blog, for me at least, is coming up with not only titles for blog posts, but more importantly, ideas for blog posts. We may have all of the information in our minds for our blog, but sometimes, it can be very difficult to think about what to write.

Ever tried to remember a memory that you had? You try so hard to remember it, you never do remember it. The same analogy can be applied to blogging. You try so hard sometimes to come up with an idea for a blog post that you can never think of one. It’s happened to me numerous times and I can say the harder I think, the harder it is to come up with one.

Here is a list of ideas that work amazingly to get ideas for your blog. They are ones that I employ on my blog and ones that I find to be the most effective.

  • Go to the store and buy a few magazines. Not only are you going to get ideas for things to write about, but you’ll also see how to title them. Magazines sell because the titles lure people in. You want to have titles that lure the reader in.
  • Simply cruise some different blogs and see if you can’t find anything that sticks out. I suggest subscribing to some of the biggest blogs in your niche so that you can get ideas that way. It can be effective to write a response to a blogger’s article and then e-mail them letting them know you responded. Maybe it can start a debate via blogs. Link bait anyone?
  • It’s always helped me to – at the end of a post – ask if people have any questions. Something as simple as: “If you have any questions, just ask.” Then, when they ask, you can write a reply as a new blog post rather than answer it in the e-mail or comments.
  • Make a post in your blog saying: “Do you want to see something explained more? Just post!” People actually do post. It’s a bit aggressive, but if people know you are open to being asked questions, they’ll ask them.

Coming up with posts can sometimes be difficult, but the truth is, it’s not rocket science. If you’re writing about a topic that you’re passionate about, thinking of things to write about should be a synch. If you can’t think of topics to write about after a few weeks, something is wrong. But, if you just can’t think of something to write about, employ one of the techniques mentioned above. It’s helped me in the past and I am sure it could help you as well.

If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to the RSS feed so you can keep up to date on future posts.

Jacob is an avid guitar player as well as a biology major in college with hopes of becoming a professor. When not blogging on The Webmaster Blog, he is over at his political opinion blog.

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Easily Promote Your Website with Shareaholic

I’ve just found a great Firefox extension called Shareaholic, and I thought it would be great for webmasters like myself, so I thought I would share it with everyone. Shareaholic was a grand prize winner in the Extend Firefox 2 contest, which means the the Mozilla team has already certified its excellence. This extension is great because it allows you to share, bookmark, and e-mail web pages quickly. It also integrates into basically every web 2.0 sharing service out there. It plugs into digg, del.icio.us, facebook, google bookmarks, magnolia, reddit, stumbleupon, streakr, tumblr, and twitter just to name a few.

Now, as you know, as a webmaster, you are always struggling to get more traffic to your website, and this could be just the extension to help you on that path. Since you can submit sites to all those bookmarking websites quickly and easily with this, there’s no reason to keep you from submitting to sites like Digg, and StumbleUpon now. You only have to type the information once, and BAM! your site is now being submitted to almost every possible social bookmarking website. This beats the heck out of manually submitting your website to each and every social bookmarking site. So what are you waiting for? Install this Add-On, and start getting some more traffic!

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How Not to Lose (Too Many) Visitors When You Move Your Site – Part 2

In the first part of this new series I wrote about three ways to redirect visitors to a new site. Today I’ll show you that there are also off-site ways to guide your audience towards another destination.

Using various tools to keep in touch with your visitors

1. Update newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with your visitors. If you usually send email alerts to let them know about fresh site content, it’s obvious that you may as well send out a special alert informing everyone about your site’s new address. In case you still haven’t set up an update newsletter, I strongly recommend that you start working on it right now.

2. Forums are great for community-building purposes and also to make a site stickier. Depending on how successful a forum is, it may become more popular than the site it originated from. If you currently use a free webhost for your site or blog, make sure to host your forum on a third party (even if it’s a free one too). Never have both your site and forum hosted by the same free webhosting company. This way, if you need to move your site for reasons that are beyond your control (e. g., your site’s webhost suddenly goes out of business), you’ll still be able to use your forum to communicate with your visitors and let them know about the changes.

3. The same principle can be applied if you keep a site and a blog simultaneously. Do not host both of them on the same free webhosting provider, even if this recommendation appears to be less practical. Use your blog to inform your visitors about your site’s new address and vice-versa.

4. Don’t forget about the sites, forums and blogs that you know your visitors usually read. Update your signatures, leave comments linking to your new URL, sign guestbooks when available… But please, don’t go overboard with those. You don’t want to become a spammer, do you? If you do, all you will manage is to lose your visitors for good.

Can you think of other ways to leverage online tools and communities to direct a site’s visitors to its new address? Feel free to share your tips by leaving your comments on this post.

Did you think I was done with this series? Think again! I want to help you retain and/or recover as many visitors as possible. So I’m going to offer some additional suggestions in my next article. Get it as soon as it’s published by subscribing to our blog.

Karen Zara has been involved in Internet-based projects since 2002. One of them is Abaminds, a blog for content producers that you can visit by clicking here.

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Write About Your Passion to Offset the Lack of Profit

With the appearance of bloggers like Darren Rowse and John Chow, we bloggers all feel that we can be as fortunate as them to make a ton of money every single month from our blog(s). Unfortunately, that is not exactly the case. With thousands of blogs being started every day, the question you need to ask is: can mine be one of the few that really makes a ton of money? If you answer yes to that question, then continue reading because what I am going to tell you is incredibly important.

The real truth about blogging is that it will take a considerable amount of time to make money on your blog. As much as you’d like to be able to retire from your job after the first few blog posts, the truth of the matter is that it will take a very long time. The common mistake people make is they jump into a blog thinking that it is going to make them a boatload of cash and they are going to live the life.

Now I am not saying that you can’t make a ton of money off of your blog. There are always people out there that will read your content if you can find them and they are going to help you make money. That is very true. The only problem is that it is not going to make money for a while. Before it is making money, unless the topic you write about is one that you truly love, you’re going to find yourself beginning to deteriorate and be unable to continue updating it.

I am a Biology major and when I am not studying and learning about different microbes, I come online to make money. So, science is an interest of mine. If I were to make a biology website, it would take a long time for it to rank in the search engines and then bring in sufficient traffic to make money. The good news is that I have a passion about the topic so I would be able to continue writing about it because I like the topic. If I hated the topic, how would I find the dedication to writing on the blog? It would become harder and harder.

If I were to write about a topic that I don’t really find interesting, such as dogs or something like that, I would be able to…For a few blog posts. And as time went on, the interest would begin to die and as that interest died, I would turn to something else for inspiration: profit. But, like most blogs, it wouldn’t be making much money at the start. Sure, it might be bringing in a little money, but would it be enough to keep me going? Probably not.

My point in this very long article is that you need to write on a topic that you have interest in. If you’re going to get your blog to a profitable level, you’re going to need to be patience. A lot of people lack the patience to continue writing about a topic that they are not overly interested in unless it is making money.

Find that niche that really interests you. Find one that excites you and one that you can write on for weeks and months without worrying about money. For me, that topic is Biology and Politics. For others, the topic might be cute little dogs. Find the one you like. With that passion, profit will come. That much is for sure.

Jacob is an avid guitar player as well as a biology major in college with hopes of becoming a professor. When not blogging on The Webmaster Blog, he is over at his political opinion blog.