How To Use Google + Ripples To Find Influential Bloggers In Your Niche

Guest Post - Our host is David Ingram, here David gives you some ideas on how you can use the Ripples featureon Google plus to your advantage.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Well, the first thing we should probably do is explain what Google+ Ripples are. For those of you who have not come across this useful tool before, it’s essentially an interactive graph of those who have publically shared one of your Google+ posts.

This visual representation of your publically shared posts by others provides fantastic insights into the natural flow of viral content within your niche, and can help you to identify and connect with industry influencers.

Of course, other social media sites provide this sort of data, but it’s usually only available via third party plug-ins. Ripples is Google’s own effort at conveying this sort of info, and it does so in visually friendly and intuitive way.

Using Ripples

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Christmas Decoration Social Bookmarking Gadget For Blogger Blogs

In the past I have written a few tutorials on different styles of the share this social bookmark egg.Today just in time for Christmas I have a Christmas version.A cool Christmas ornament sits on the corner of your blog with social bookmarking options for readers.On hover the ornament slides open with share buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Email and the ShareThis button that offers even more options.Check out the demo below :



OK if that's something you want to greet your visitors this Christmas heres the tutorial.
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7 Best Tools For Your Next Blog Giveaway

Guest Post - Our host is Charles Dearing, Giveaways and competitions are now very popular for bloggers, in this post Charles guides you to some free tools to help you with your giveaways.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Promotions and giveaways are effective means to attract more visitors to your site, and a way to give thanks to your loyal readers. Here are seven of the best tools that you can use for your next blog giveaway:
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A Matter Of Style: Why Design Matters More Than Content

Guest Post - Our host is Mara Fuchs, here Mara makes a case on just how important your blog design can be.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Picture the following: you have two plates of food in front of you, both containing cheeseburgers. One plate contains a large but rather greasy fast-food chain burger and a side of stale fries. The second contains a micro-burger: a small, pesto and truffle oil infused patty in a small brioche bun with a side of four thick cut appetizing Belgian fries and a small decorative carrot carving. Which one would you choose?

Odds are you said the latter (unless you were really, really hungry…). That’s because while content is one of the most important things to take into account when trying to attract traffic to your site and rank better it is not the most important thing. The design, layout and ease of use are far more important.

Think of it this way: you might have Pulitzer-worthy content on your page but if the layout is awkward or simply unappealing, very few people will actually make it to your content. Good can help you get potential customers or readers to your page but their efforts will be squandered if the customers just click back after taking a look at your site design.
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The Art (And Science) Of Building A Link Profile

Guest Post - Our host is Matt Foden, Matt explains new link building as an art and science.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

With the myriad of recent changes to Google's algorithm it can seem very difficult to navigate yourself through the stormy waters of Search Marketing nowadays. Recent Penguin and Panda updates have turned previously accepted SEO practices on their head.

For example, the once widely accepted technique of using exact match domains to target specific keywords has now been targeted and devalued by the search engine. It has to be said, though, that this particular change has been on the cards for some time, and actually does make a lot of sense. It's another fairly recent update that I want to focus on in this post, however, an update that penalised sites that were too reliant on keyword anchor text links. I’ll explore our real life experiences in this area and offer some practical advice that you can apply to your own sites.
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DIY or Die: Good Blogging Based on Punk Rock Ethics

Guest Post - Our host is Dustin Verburg, in this post Dustin make some very interesting comparisons between Punk and Blogging...Really...See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Before the late 1970s, it was nearly impossible for independent musicians to tour and release albums without major label backing. Punk came along and changed all of that in a few different ways. Kids saw that they could, in fact, play music without looking like rock stars or playing like virtuosos. Punk bands also set up concrete DIY models for releasing their own records and setting up their own tours that anyone could follow. The major labels were cut out entirely, and it actually became a case of “you can do this if they put the work in.”

The Internet, in that way, is in those exciting golden years. The infrastructure has been set up and there are several credible models available for reference. There are a staggering amount of resources available to independent bloggers so they can, in fact, do it themselves. That might seem obvious, but it also becomes a valuable thinking point when you start to incorporate the ethics of DIY, independent music into blogging.
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Cool New Christmas Snow Storm Effect For Blogger Blogs

Over the last few years I have tried to help you get your blogs into the Christmas spirit with some neat Christmas themed gadgets.The most popular and simple of these have been the Snow Fall effects we have published.Some code added to your blog can transform the look of your site as over the Christmas period visitors are greeted with snow falling gently down the page.

This year is no different as I have a new Christmas snow effect but this time it's a snow storm with the direction of the snow fall dictated by your cursor movements.Check out the demo below then you can add it to your blog using our one click Blogger button.


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3 Ways To NOT Build Links For Your Blog In The Penguin Era – And 3 Ways To Do It Better

Guest Post - Our host is Harvey Pearce, In this post Harvey looks at the new age of link building.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

By now if you have a blog you’ve no doubt heard all about Google’s Penguin update. If you haven’t, here’s a quick recap from an earlier post on Spice Up Your Blog, How Google Penguin Update Will Affect Your Blog ? .It’s been many months now since the hammer fell on some webmasters and it always takes a while to adjust and learn how to go forward. Of course every major update has its casualties and you rarely hear about people having Panda issues any more. Strategies change and every new update strikes even worse fear in the hearts of some webmasters. If it wasn’t clear before it’s pretty obvious now that if you want to succeed on the web, then you need to be ‘doing it right’. So without further ado I’m going to explain what strategies you shouldn’t be doing and explaining how to ‘do it right’.
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10 Writing Tips of Famous Authors You Can Use Now for Blogging

Guest Post - Our host is Steve Aedy, here Steve takes a look at some advice from famous authors us Bloggers can use.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

With nearly a hundred literary masterpieces between them, Kurt Vonnegut, John Steinbeck, and C.S. Lewis could be considered experts on the writing process. Fortunately for those who chose to take up the career in their wake, these famous authors left behind valuable tips and tricks to make the process easier.

While the blog’s conception was decades after their time, their knowledge is still applicable to the trade. Check out these 10 writing tips of the famous authors. See how relevant they are to your blog today.
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10 Writing Tips All Bloggers Must Adhere To

Guest Post - Our host is Ken Myers, In this post Ken lists 10 writing tips or rules that have come to be expected to be followed by Bloggers.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Look, there are a lot of people out there that are going to tell you how to write. Some will give your ideas on topics, some will give your ideas on how to create title, and some will just tell you to use proper grammar. While all those things are important, I grant you, what are most important in blog writing are two things: passion and consistency. Unlike any other type of writing, with blog writing you get an audience based not only on WHAT you write but on HOW OFTEN you write it. No one will follow a blog that is only updated every few months. With that in mind, here are some writing tips for you:
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The Key Factors To Guest Posting For Authors And Publishers

For the last year or so Guest Posts have made up the majority of content on Spice Up Your Blog.A guest post is a post submitted by a blogger, webmaster or content writer representing one of the aforementioned.We have covered the subject of guest posts previously, we even have guest posts about guest posting ehh...But a short description is the guest author gets valuable links to their sites in the author section and the publisher gets quality content from a new voice.

But while the majority of content on Spice Up Your Blog is now written by guest authors I don't just accept and publish every post submitted.Even though I have published 103 guest posts so far in 2012 you will be surprised to learn I actually reject about 85% of posts submitted.

So what are the key factors that make the difference between posts been accepted and rejected.

What Publishers Want

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The Blogging Game: When Blogging Resembles Hunting

Guest Post - Our host is Sarah Villaflor, in this post Sarah makes the strange yet interesting connection between blogging and hunting.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

The Hunt

Getting Internet users to visit your blog is like sitting at the edge of a clearing in the woods, waiting for the arrival of your target.He comes eventually, stepping on the twigs, shifting, bowing his head for a drink on a little pool of water.

When you finally have a clear view on the target, you quietly and patiently aim your gun, lowering it in an angle, not breathing, careful not to produce even the littlest sound that might startle the creature.

And bam! You missed the deer just near the ear.

Off he runs out of the clearing and beyond the thick woods. He leaves behind not even a cloud of dust, gone as if he had never been in the clearing at the first place.You just stand there, your chest hurting from the recoil.

You are the huntsman, the web developer. The clearing is your site. The gun, your web host provider. The bullet your SEO schemes.The deer, the Internet user.

What happened? How did the deer escape ?
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10 Steps To Targeting Your Blog Readership

Guest Post - Our host is Kimberly Harrison, One wa to build a following for your blog is to research your target audience and write with them in mind, here Kimberly has some tips to do just that.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

You want your readership to grow, and seeing numbers increase is a great sign. That doesn't mean your readership is "everyone." Your content writing needs to be targeted to a specific niche, and these 10 steps will help you find the right readers for your great content.

1. Who would want to read your content?

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Dollar’s in the Details : Creating Quality Content

Guest Post - Our host is Jeriann Watkins, in this post Jeriann takes a deep look at the connection between quality content and SEO.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

The infrastructure of the search engine optimization (SEO) industry is one that is natural predisposed to constant change. This stems from the fact that people are always finding new ways to exploit technology, which is always being updated to battle these exploitations, which continues in an eternal cycle of innovation and technological advances.

This is by no means a negative thing; it just means that working in SEO is not an easy job. There is a continuous string of changes happening and challenges to face. This means that SEO personnel need to stay on their feet and be prepared to meet any unexpected changes that arise.

The all-powerful answer to every question in the SEO field is “create quality content.” Whether it comes to on-site SEO or off-site methods such as link building, we are constantly being assured that if we provide relevant, quality content, we will be safe from being penalized in the search engine results.

The Challenge

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How To Use Facebook To Boost Blog Traffic And Sales

Guest Post - Our host is Alicia, here she looks into using Facebook to help your blogs traffic and sales.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Is investing time and money on Facebook really going to help increase your traffic and sales?

Or is Facebook as a social media marketing leader overrated?

I’m sure these were some of the questions that had come across your mind before, regardless of whether you have used Facebook as a social media marketing platform or not.

Is the ROI really worth the effort we put into Facebook?
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An Easy Way To Find Blog Post Ideas In Your Niche

Guest Post - Our host is Nathalie Sanderson, in this post Nathalie has some ideas on how to get ideas for blog posts in your niche.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Many bloggers stick with a single method of coming up with blog post ideas – simply writing about whatever is on their mind that day. Although some bloggers may find it easy to come up with an endless stream of interesting, relevant topics this way, almost every bloggers has faced the experience of sitting down at their keyboard and simply drawing a blank.

Rather than simply sitting at your computer trying to conjure up new blog post ideas, an easy way to find relevant topics in your niche is to actively seek out questions, issues, and news that are already being discussed. By finding topics that are already in the discourse, you can not only identify new blog post ideas, but you’ll identify blog post ideas that are relevant and interesting to your readers.

There are many ways you can go about actively seeking blog post ideas, but here are some simple ideas to get you started:Click Here To View Full Post >>

Things That Go Bump On Your Blog - What Bloggers Can Learn From Horror Films

Guest Post - Our host is Rachel O’Riordan, just in time for Halloween Rachel looks at the how you can use horror films as inspiration for your blog.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

It’s the season of ghosts and general spookfulness. The time of year for us all to check for monsters under the bed and wonder what’s out there in the woodshed. But whilst we’re wondering whether or not to go and check what that noise is down in the dark cellar (it’s just a mouse - don’t go down there) is there anything bloggers can learn from the season of the witch?

I’m going to look at some horror films to see what inspiration we can take from their perennial popularity.
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Create A Killer Content Calendar For Your Blog

Guest Post - Our host is Melissa Woodson, here Mellisa has some good pointers on using a content calendar to determine how your posts are published.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Writing is tiring. Pulitzer Prize winner and 2012 MacArthur Grant recipient Junot Diaz recently shared his struggles with writing short stories in The New York Times, saying that he never wants to write a book of short stories again. While many people will be quick to point out that the writing struggles a food blogger faces pale in comparison to the one a celebrated author faces writing a series of vignettes about love, the point remains that writing can often be an uphill battle. For bloggers, the need to generate interesting, informative, engaging, well-written content on a regular basis can be very stressful and stifling, and failing to do so can have negative ramifications for your blog, particularly for traffic. If the struggle to create content that establishes your blog as a captivating go-to resource is overwhelming you, creating a content calendar can give you the peace of mind you so desperately crave.
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17 Very Interesting Blog Post Ideas For Bloggers

Guest Post - Our host is Jack Meyer, in this post Jack has listed 17 inspirational ideas for blog post topics.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

After you have written a few hundred blog posts, you start to come up empty on ideas. In fact, your ideas seem to be the same ones over and over again. Why not spice things up? Here are some new, fresh ideas for your next blog post:

1) At Home – Did you know that rubber bands last longer when you refrigerate them? Things for around the house get a lot of traffic. That is because everyone needs help keeping their home clean and in order. Use that to bring new readers to your blog.
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5 Content Curation Tools To Help You Build Content

Guest Post - Our host is Marcela De Vivo, here Marcela looks at content curation and some useful tools you can use for it.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

In a world where content is King, it might be said that content curation is God. This is the hottest trend to come out in the years in the marketing and search engine optimization field. At its most simple, content curation simply means collecting the best content on a particular topic and publishing it with edits, additions, and specific advice.

It is an amazing tactic for gaining traffic, backlinks, and a targeted audience. The best part? You don’t have to do a lot of the writing! Now, that is not to say that it is an easy task that can be done by anyone. You need the right tools and the right attitude in order to make a piece of curated content that delivers massive value to your intended audience.
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3 reasons why many bloggers get frustrated and what to do against it

Guest Post - Our host is Saskia Bader.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

One reason why I have started to research and write about blogging tips is that I really don't like it when good blogs are taken offline just because the blogger became frustrated. So what are the
causes for blogger frustration and what can you do against it?
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6 Blog Design Tips That Will Get You Better Results

Guest Post - Our host is Abel Velazquez, here Abel has some blog design tips for your blogs.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

With most blogging platforms being geared for beginners, blog design can be as simple as choosing from a selection of pre-made templates and uploading a logo for some users. This might work for you, but if you want to take your efforts to the next level, then be prepared to take it up a notch.

Following are six high-level blog design tips that will help you see noticeably better results.
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28 Tips To Write Reader-Friendly Blog Posts

Guest Post - Our host is Stephen, in this post he has a great list of blog tips for writing blog posts.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

When you write a blog post, who do you write it for? Is it for the search engines, potential advertisers or other bloggers in your network? No, it’s the reader for whom you write. So no matter how SEO-friendly or Ad-friendly your content may appear, if it doesn’t have reader appeal then you don’t get anywhere.
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How To Successfully Use Giveaways To Build Social Proof

Guest Post - Our host is Tony Lee, here Tony looks at some of the advantages in running giveaways on your blog.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

I'm a huge believer in doing blog giveaways (hence I've done at least 5, giving away a total of $1200). Not only is it nice to give something back to the readers, doing a blog giveaway can really benefit your blog! Here's how:

Giveaways aren't for building long-term blog readership or traffic.

Before I get on with the rest of my post about how giveaways are great for building social proof, I'd like to say something first. Many bloggers host giveaways, hoping that by doing so, they can increase their blog readership. In reality, that doesn't happen: people aren't going to keep coming back to your blog just because you hosted a giveaway. True, out of 100 giveaway participants you might get 2 or 3 people who find your blog interesting and keep coming back everyday, but the majority of giveaway participants are what I call "the professionals" - people who scour sweepstakes forums for giveaways to take part in and won't come back a second time.

So what are giveaways great for?

For Building Social Proof

Social proof is exactly what it sounds like - proof from social sites that your blog has followers. In other words, social proof is what I like to call, your "numbers". These include the number of Facebook fans you have, the number of Twitter followers, the number of RSS subscribers, etc. So what's so value about having the right "numbers" (a lot of fans, followers, subscribers)?

Social proof is valuable in 2 ways:

1) Social proof encourages visitors on your website to "Like" or "Follow" you, creating a positive snowball effect. Let's look at 2 examples. Tom went to Site A, and saw that the site had a grand total of 17 RSS subscribers. What does this tell Tom? That the site isn't very popular! Thus, Tom might not want to come back to the site, thinking that something must be wrong with it (since it only has 17 RSS subscribers). Now Tom went to Site B, and saw that the site had 319 RSS subscribers. What does this tell Tom? That the site is pretty popular, and probably for a good reason! Thus, Tom is more likely to come back to Site B every day and "Like" or "Follow" it. Now if there are 100 guys like Tom coming to Site B, that really creates a positive snowball effect that drastically boosts up Site B's social numbers and traffic.

2) Now this is the big one. Having the right "numbers" gets you PRIVATE ADVERTISERS (drum roll please). Many sites who have good traffic just can't get PRIVATE ADVERTISERS because their Facebook Fans, RSS subscribers, or Twitter followers are too few. To an advertiser, having, for example, 300 Facebook fans shows that your site is popular and deserves their attention. For example, I hosted a $500 Giveaway on my blog, which resulted in me gaining an additional (approximately) 100 RSS subscribers, 150 Facebook fans, and 130 Twitter followers. A few days after the giveaway was over, I started getting emails from private advertisers left and right.

Now that you see how powerful giveaways can be and how the social proof gained from giveaways can help your blog, here's how to successfully host a giveaway.

What kind of prizes to give out:

Last year, I was in Beijing, and at the subway station I noticed 2 very different advertisement styles. One company bought every third ad space at the metro station (the long corridors where subway riders walk by every day). Another company bought 3 ad spaces (one next to the other), skipped 9 ad spaces, and bought another 3 ad spaces one next to the other. I remember thinking that day I'd rather be the second company than the first. Why? Because by heavily bombarding viewers at one moment by putting 3 ads next to each other, the second company is creating a lasting impression on viewers that the first company's way of advertising can't.

So what does this have to do with hosting giveaways?

It's better to host 1 giveaway for $300 than it is to host 10 giveaways giving away $30 each. Through extensive testing via giveaways on A Young Investor and my other sites, I've noticed that the total number of giveaway participants in a big giveaway exceeds that of all the small giveaways combined.

I've found that cash giveaways tend to be the most popular among all giveaways (for obvious reasons, because if you're giving away a specific product, people who don't like that product most likely won't participate in that giveaway). Would you have $500 or an iPad? Obviously $500, because with that money, you can either buy an iPad or something else.

So when hosting a giveaway, make sure you're giving away cash and make sure it's for a large sum of money (remember, it's better to host 1 giveaway of $300 than 10 giveaways of $30 each).

How to get sponsors:

Now I understand not every has enough money to host a large giveaway (neither do I). Thanks in large part to the sale of my previous sites, I was able to give away a few hundred dollars out of my own pocket. But eventually, I had to get sponsors to help pay for my giveaways. For my $300 Cash Giveaway - Elections Style, I was able to get 1 sole sponsor who provided most of the funds for the giveaway. So how did I do it?

Contact websites related to your blog's niche. Since my blog is about investing, I Google searched "investment brokers" and contacted all the investment brokers to see if they'd like to sponsor my giveaway. In return, YOU MUST make sure that the sponsor gets something valuable. Since my site has never had any advertisers before and has quite a lot of investors who read it, a few potential sponsors emailed me back. Eventually, I let them bid up the price, and the winner got a link (nofollow) back to their site and a banner ad on the giveaway page. Try this method, and I'm sure it will work for you. Even if you don't have a lot of traffic, potential-sponsors will likely want to sponsor you because they know that giveaways get a LOT OF TRAFFIC.

How to promote giveaway:

In general, I tweet about my giveaways and post them on my Facebook fanpage. I also make a giveaway entry option as "Tweet About This Giveaway". Thus, a snowball effect is created, where giveaway participants tweet about my giveaways, drawing in even more giveaway participants.

But by far, the best way to promote a giveaway is to submit it to sweepstakes directories. By far. Without submissions to giveaway directories, my giveaways would only have had 20% of the participants that they did have.

How long should the giveaway last ?

Through extensive testing, I've found that 2 weeks for a giveaway is the best lenght. Any longer, and participants won't want to participate because they don't like waiting that long. Any shorter, and you're not maximizing the full potential of the giveaway. I like to start giveaways on a Saturday and end them on a Sunday. The reason for this is that the first and last 2 days of a giveaway are usually the days that get the most participants. By starting on Saturday, the first 2 days are Saturday and Sunday, days when most people are off work and have time to participate in my giveaway. By ending on a Sunday, the last 2 days are Saturday and Sunday, days when most people are off work and have time to participate in my giveaway. For example, an ideal giveaway would start on Saturday, September 15 and end on Sunday, September 30.

By Guest Author - Tony Lee blogs about finance at A Young Investor, sharing his thoughts on the markets, the economy, and politics. Check out his post on Why The Stock Market Gets No Love.

The Social Media Election What You Can Learn From Candidates

Guest Post - Our host is Andrew Bart, in this post Andrew looks at how you can use the USA election candidates as inspiration for how you use social media to promote your blog.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Social media strategists and political advocates for the Obama and Romney campaigns have exceeded their A-game to influence Democratic, Republican and Independent voters, including even the most politically apathetic citizen.

Often, trending topics and conversations are beyond the control of both political parties. Bloggers are even poking fun at Vice President Joe Biden's acceptance speech, mocking the number of times he said "literally." Any press is good press, right?
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10 Excellent Productivity Tools for Bloggers

Guest Post - Our host is Jacob E. Dawson, in this post Jacob lists some great Productivity tools for you.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Multiple browsers with twenty tabs or more open on each one. A word-processing app, numerous folders, image editing software and desktop notifications crowd your monitor(s). A mug of bitter coffee, Post-it notes and illegible scribbles layer the desk. Sound familiar? This is the life of a blogger – connected 24/7, streams of bits and bytes dancing at your fingertips, and an overwhelming feeling that there just isn't enough time in the day to get everything done. We're quickly approaching information overload, but for those of us that earn a living online we can't afford to tear ourselves away from the light fantastic for too long. We need to minimize the noise and increase the quality of our output. That's why I've put together this list of productivity tools that will help you to focus, plan and succeed. Enjoy!

1. e.ggtimer - http://e.ggtimer.com/ - Eggtimer is a super-simple yet really helpful online tool for blocking out time to work on tasks. All it does is display a countdown timer in a browser window, but by pledging to work for a specific amount of time you can really make progress on any tasks you have to do, and when the time is up a nice, loud alert sounds so you don't have to constantly monitor it. Try the Pomodoro-Technique timer to work for extended periods of time with incremental breaks.

2. 42 Goals - http://42goals.com – 42 Goals is an online goal-setting app that can be as simple or as deep as you want it to be. You can use it as a simple daily planner, or use it to track your productivity over a longer period of time, giving you stats that allow you to find regular patterns and improve your work flow – a necessity for busy bloggers trying to break into the big time!

3. Rescue Time - http://www.rescuetime.com/ - Rescue Time is a productivity tool that monitors your day-to-day activity on your computer, providing you with detailed stats as to how you're using your time and also giving you the ability to 'lock' certain software and services for specific periods, allowing you to forcibly block out distractions at times when you absolutely need to finish a project (yet are tempted to check out Facebook for the twentieth time...).

4. Work Plus - http://www.workpl.us/ - Work Plus is a really interesting tool that can particularly benefit bloggers and freelancers. No matter how enjoyable it is to wear pyjamas all day long, we all know that working from the comfort of our own home is not always the most conducive environment for completing tasks. Enter Work Plus, an iOS app that helps you to discover new work-spaces in your area, like cafes with free wi-fi or shared work-spaces that allow you to bring the dog in! Add in time-tracking and workspace ratings and you've got a real winner.

5. Boomerang - http://www.boomeranggmail.com/ - We all work in a global marketplace, especially those of us who make a living online, and time-zones have become something that we deal with on an everyday basis. Sometimes you need to send an email halfway 'round the world, but you want it to arrive in their inbox at 11am, tomorrow. You've got 2 choices – set the alarm, get up and manually send it (ouch!), or check out Boomerang for Gmail, a really efficient tool that allows you to schedule email and set-up reminders for yourself.

6. TheInterviewr - http://theinterviewr.com/ - The Interviewr is a really interesting tool for those of us who rely heavily on conducting interviews to keep our blog humming along. The Interviewr is essentially an interview relationship management tool that enables you to track contacts, schedule interviews, add notes and set reminders. Never forget another interview appointment and stay productive!

7. ZenWriter – http://www.beenokle.com/zenwriter.html – Zen Writer is a simple tool that can be surprisingly effective. It is a stripped down text-editor that provides serene backgrounds that place the focus firmly on the text, allowing you to block out distractions and just let the words flow. Cutting out all of the noise we find cluttering our screens can really make a difference in your day-to-day productivity, and this tool is well-recommended for serious writers.

8. IFTTT - https://ifttt.com – IFTTT stands for 'If This Then That', a reference to a kind of computer programming logic that they've put into action in a really interesting way. IFTTT integrates with web platforms (for example, Twitter and Wordpress), and allows you to automate actions between them. You could set it up to alert you via Gmail every time someone on Twitter mentions a specific word, or automatically post Instagram photos with a specific tag to your Wordpress blog – it really is an amazing tool. They also provide a series of pre-cooked 'Recipes' – tasks set-up by other people that you can start using straight-away.

9. Coursera - https://www.coursera.org/ - If at first you're wondering why an online education platform like Coursera is on a list like this, let me explain. As a blogger, your job is to be informed and share quality information with your readers, and there's no better way to provide that than to have a solid and continuing education. However, these days we don't all have the time (or money!) to go back to school – which makes online education platforms like Coursera a godsend – you can educate yourself on cutting edge topics, on your own time, for free! Now that's being productive!

10. Typing Test - http://www.typingtest.com - As writers, we spend most of our time at the keyboard bashing out awesome as quickly as we can – but how fast can you actually type? Of course we know that learning to touch-type is the bare-minimum needed to be a productive writer, but knowing how quickly you can type, then taking lessons to increase that speed can literally double or triple your daily productivity. Take the first step now and find out how fast you really are...
This post originally started out as a list of 20 tools and tips, but with so many great apps and platforms out there I could have filled a book with them! If you've enjoyed the tools listed above, or have some more indispensable tools that you feel belong on the list, please share it with us in the comments section, and maybe – just maybe – Paul will invite me back for round 2:)

By Guest Author - Jacob E. Dawson works withDelivery Hero, and is an entrepreneur and inbound-marketing consultant with a passion for creating value! Follow Jacob on twitter @jacobedawson and on Google+.

Changing Up Your Content When You’re Stuck With The Same Subject

Guest Post - Our host is Rachel O’Riordan, here Rachel has some really interesting ideas to spice up your blog content.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Content is king in the online world. It’s got to be fresh, got to be unique, got to be new. Some days knowing you need to provide a new blog or article on the same niche product AGAIN is enough to make even the most creative of us wake up with a headache. But there are some easy techniques to use to freshen up those samey subjects.

I’m going to look at five ways to get a new angle on the same subject, and give you some examples. These five methods will work on a massive range of topics, so apply them as you need. I’m going to imagine we’re working on content strategy for an estate agent to illustrate ways to use each method, but they could be used for any business or client.
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Five Tips To Keep Your Blog Ideas Fresh And Flowing

Guest Post - Our host is Christopher Wallace, In this post Christopher has some tips to keep your blog fresh.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

There's no quicker way to kill your blog than to let it go stale. If you devotedly post every day for months, building a follower base, and then completely drop out for weeks at a time, people will be slow to return.

The most successful blogs add fresh content daily. Even if you're a one-man-or-woman operation, that should be your goal.
Of course, uninspiring (dare I say, boring) posts can be just as detrimental. If you have nothing to say, it can be better to say nothing at all.

So how do you ensure that you have fresh content to write about every day that never feels dull or tiring? We're talking about exciting posts that POP off the page. Is that possible, day in and day out?
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8 Expert-Level Blog Design Tips for Beginners

Guest Post - Our host is Sara Carter, In this post Sara has some great blog design tips.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

When it comes to building a dynamic blog online, it is essential to keep several key factors in mind. Many beginners feel overwhelmed by the assortment of information available, finding it difficult to understand what makes a blog stand out as professional and effective. Fortunately, understanding the essentials of dynamic blog design doesn’t have to feel like an impossible mission. The following 8 tips will start any beginning blogger off on the right foot, equipping a newbie webmaster to build an online destination that will rival the competition.
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Securing WordPress: 5 Adjustments for a Safer Blog

Guest Post - Our host is Daniel Page, here Daniel has some tips to keep your Wordprss blog secure.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

All-in-all WordPress is a fairly secure platform, especially if it’s hosted with a reliable hosting provider like AHosting, but it’s also hugely popular, and that means it’s in the interest of hackers and data thieves to focus a lot of their energies on finding ways to hack it. There are a number of things a WordPress user can do to secure their installation which will significantly hamper anyone who attempts to break in.
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5 Tips To Avoid SEO Penalties

Guest Post - Our host is Travis Banks, In this post Travis is looking at some tips to avoid SEO penalties.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

SEO penalties can cause a lot of trouble for website owners, and can prove to be a big hindrance to marketing a website effectively.

Google has a very stringent method of checking websites, and if you wish to avoid penalties – the biggest penalty would be being blocked from Google’s search rankings entirely – there are a number of steps that you need to take. Getting a higher ranking on Google is not easy, and the rules change frequently, but there are a number of tips and tricks that will certainly be to your benefit.

Please note: If you are trying to take a shortcut or the ‘easy way out,’ your website is bound to suffer, which can have a direct and powerful negative impact on your business. Google will easily detect your actions. In the following paragraphs, you will learn about a few tips to help you avoid penalties. Read on to find out how to avoid SEO penalties today!
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Three Common Attributes Of Successful Blogs

Guest Post - Our host is Doug Glaston, In this post Doug looks at some successful blogs and how they got there.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

If you're on Spice Up Your Blog, then your interested enough to learn more about what you can do to make your blog better. The Internet is loaded with perhaps tens of thousands of blogs that deliver articles and content for a specific audience. Many are great, some of them are not really that intriguing. Maybe yours has gotten a lot of talk and shares within a small community, which is great.

But then you have to look at the blogs that really get a lot of attention; the blogs that speak to a large audience and are able to sustain themselves on the basis of its popularity. What kind of blogs am I talking about? I'm aiming pretty high, but think about the work of Mashable, Engadget, Perez Hilton; the big guns of the blogosphere.

The wrong thing to think is: “I'll never get to where they are. They've been in the game for a much longer time and their resources are way beyond mine.” Sure, they have a lot to back them up, but it wasn't always like that. The reason why these blogs are as widespread as they are is because they speak in a way the few can.

Whether you're starting up or are still trying to break into the scene, there are plenty of considerations to be made that might turn some more heads. Every popular blog does things differently, but there are some universal characteristics as well.
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The 7 Deadly Sins Of Guest Posting

Guest Post - Our host is Simon Rattray, In this post Simon has some great blog tips for guest posting.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

If you are looking to promote your blog one of the most prominent methods currently being employed by many blog owners is to write guest articles on other sites. There are several benefits of guest writing including…

- Reaching out to the blog owner’s audience

- Driving relevant traffic to your site

- Increasing awareness of your brand

- Building links from related sites

However to be successful at this you need to deploy the correct methods both in terms of how and who you approach, as well as deciding which type of content you want to produce. Do this process incorrectly and you will fail to enjoy the maximum benefit from your guest posting activities. Below we have compiled the top 7 things you need to avoid when guest posting…
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Add Social Icons To Your Email Signature: Video Tutorial

I'm sure you have received many Emails that have included a signature from the sender.More importantly I'm sure you have seen these signatures also included social icons connected to the senders social network profiles.This is something I have on my outgoing Email, I have icons connected to my Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest.Well a few people have asked me how I added them so in this post I will show you.

To make it as easy as possible I have created a Video tutorial that walks you through the process.In the video I am using the Gmail platform and the icons I use are our 3D social icons with names.

Add Social Icons To Your Gmail Signature

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How To Get Traffic To Your Blog From StumbleUpon

Guest Post - Our host is John Geroutis, in this post John has some StumbleUpon tips for bloggers.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog. How does Stumble Upon really works?

Stumble Upon is one of the most famous social bookmarking websites on the web, along with Digg, Delicious, Reddit and Buzzfeed. It's very easy and fun to use. You just select the categories you usually enjoy viewing ( marketing, photography, humor, psychology,sports, games, etc.) and then automatically StumbleUpon generates a page you might like each time you click Stumble. Whenever you click the like button on a page you stumble, then that page will gain more chances to be viewed by other StumbleUpon users. Consequently, getting your page stumbled and liked by several users will dramatically increase your pageviews. That's how StumbleUpon works, in general.
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15 Top Tips Bloggers Can Use For A More Engaging Blog

Guest Post - Our host is Danielle Rodabaugh, In this post Danielle has listed fifteen blog tips to make your blog more engaging.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

If you've been managing your blog for some time, chances are you're looking for some ways to improve it. Whether it comes to content development, credibility or reader engagement, the opportunities for improvement are endless. To help you along your way, here are 15 great ways any blog owner can improve his or her publication.
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The Problem With Following Bloggers, Gurus And Magic Fairies

Guest Post - Our host is Matt Geer, In this post Matt looks at the dangers of information overload from the 'online pros'.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

There is no blueprint to making money online. If you've spent any time researching how to build an online business than you already know this.

However, what you do have access to are all the make money online blogs, ran by guys who've already made their thousands or millions of dollars online. They figured it all out, and now share it so that you can repeat their success. So while it may not be a step-for-step blueprint, it's really the next best thing.

That said, there are so many bloggers, gurus and magic money fairies posting their tips online that reading and following all of these blogs and their advice can actually be counterproductive, even prevent you from succeeding. If you're not careful, that is. Here are 5 examples to show you what I mean.
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How to Leverage on LinkedIn to Socialize Your Blog

Guest Post - Our host is Richard Franklin, in this post Richard looks at the advantages of LinkedIn for Bloggers.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

There’s no need to sugar coat. When someone mentions LinkedIn, it does not elicit the same giddiness or excitement versus the more famous social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+. In fact, for a novice social media company, LinkedIn may not hold any marketing value and may be perceived nothing less than a digital resume.

This is the uninformed way of looking at it. However, an experienced social media company may see LinkedIn from a different point of view. In fact, LinkedIn may serve a special role in a well-rounded online marketing strategy.

First, let’s look into some of the LinkedIn numbers:
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Why Your Company Needs To Blog !

Guest Post - Our host is Greg Brey, In this post Greg looks at the advantages of having a blog connected to your company.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

The digital age has presented additional business opportunities to increase awareness of your products/service in a cost-effective way. Blogging is a tool that some companies don’t utilize, often due to the lack of knowledge behind the impact a blog can make for their company. Here are five reasons for your company to blog.
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SEO Content Writing: The Google Formula For Success

Guest Post - Our host is Michael 'Ace' Darko, In this post Michael has blog SEO tips for Google success.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Google threw the SEO efforts of the content writing world a huge curve ball with the implementation of the Penguin update. Many were still thanking their lucky stars after the Panda update of April 2011 only to be wiped out from utilizing too much search engine optimization within their content.

What did this mean for everyone else?

It meant taking the art of content writing back to its very roots: writing for people, not spiders. It meant that many people who had spent thousands of dollars for SEO link building services were suddenly in the dark.

Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team said it best in his latest interview,

"..People understand good content, research, unique content with value is essential to SEO... sites that have social sharing, natural sharing – instead of buying links – are generally not going to be hit. By next year, we hope marketers/ webmasters get that and natural linkbuilding [sic] becomes the norm.."

So does this mean search engine optimization is out of the question for content writers? Absolutely not! Google actually encourages good SEO to help enhance both the user experience and the quality of writing presented within the content they see. It’s the Google formula for success, and it’s the reason their users have come to trust them since their inception.

Keyword Optimization + Original Content = Relevant Traffic

Successful content writing lives and dies on proper keyword optimization. I mean think about it, how many of you can write an article on the newest pair of Nike’s and beat out Nike on the SERP’s? This means you have to choose your SEO competitors wisely, and that starts in Google’s keyword tool. For those who do not already have a high page rank on the search engines you will want to concentrate on medium competition keywords for your content, not the high or low.

I already know what you’re thinking so I’ll tell you why you don’t go for the low competition traffic with 2,000,000 monthly searches. You’ll either be up against too broad of a term to ever beat out the sites on the front of the SERP’s (I mean seriously, you’d have to have the writing skills of Steven King and the SEO skills of Aaron Wall to create that level of content), or you’ll be dealing with long tail keyword phrases like “me like a me them new Nike Zooms”. Try integrating that into your content enough times for Google to recognize that as your main keyword phrase.

Creating your Content Outline

So you’ve selected the keyword you feel confident will be the goose that lays the golden egg for you. Now what? Good SEO is synonymous with good structure. Any copy writer worth their salt will tell you just as much. Start with your main keyword for the niche you are writing the content for. Make a list of all the industry terms you can think of, both antonyms and synonyms. These will be your main keywords support. Remember what I said earlier? Good SEO relies in providing rich original content for your reader.

So by compiling these words you will have an arsenal of industry slang that users will be searching Google for. Too many people believe using the main keyword a hundred times is optimizing it for the search engines when in reality the moment Googlebot crawls their site they’re sitting 100,000 pages back in the SERP’s. Use your main keyword sparingly and your supporting keywords to help maintain your contents relevance.

Headings Can Kill Your SEO Efforts

Your content writing can easily live or die through grammatical errors such as improper heading structure. Now Google isn’t anal when it comes to grammar/ spelling errors, but skipping from a heading 1 to a heading 3 or a heading 2 to a heading 4 will set off red flags that will surely hurt your SEO efforts. Going in reverse is fine as it’s grammatically correct.

Google Loves Ordered/ Unordered List

Providing relevant original content is only half of Google’s formula for success. The other half, as previously stated, lay in providing their search base the best user experience possible for the results they provide. Here are a few reasons why you should be including bullet points in your writing:

• Both lists demonstrate structure
• Both list help pinpoint relevant content vital to their users needs
• Bullet points are now shown in search results proving the added strength ordered and unordered list lend to your SEO efforts in the eyes of Google

Gain SEO Points For Acronym Meta Tags

Copy writers who market offline don’t have the added luxury online content writers are afforded when it comes to sharing the meaning of a particular acronym to their marketing base. The acronym meta tag not only provides the better user experience Google aims to deliver its search base, but simultaneously enhances your search engine optimization efforts by delivering the acronyms proper terminology when the user hovers their mouse’s cursor over it. Here’s an example:

<acronym title=”Search Engine Optimization”>SEO</acronym> = SEO
Hint - Place your cursor over SEO to see the acronym.

Final Thoughts For Content Writing Success

Too many people have erroneously confused search engine optimization with manipulation. The sole purpose behind Google’s algorithm is to provide good solid writing that provides the user with both unique and original content. Think really hard for one second. When was the last time you searched a specific keyword or phrase and Google took you to a front page where the top websites were spam? Make no mistake, Google is one of the most artificially intelligent designs in existence. Even more so since implementing the Panda and Penguin updates. It would be better for you to write one solid and well thought out piece of literature that is rich in content, both for SEO and user success, than to write 10 weak articles that no one will want to read. At this point the user will immediately click back on their browser and go somewhere they feel actually deserves their time.

Google keeps detailed records of where searchers go even after they have entered a website. If they click your search result and are gone in 2 seconds flat your site is clearly demonstrating to Google that your content isn’t worth doo doo and perhaps you’re not actually as relevant to that search after all. It’s called your bounce rate and I’d advise everyone to read it and figure out a way to keep users moving through to at least one other page on your website to maintain its balance. If you hold true to the Google formula for success your writing assignments will become an arsenal of marketing firepower.

Bonus Tip Too Maximize Article Success Rate

Anyone who has heard of ad blindness knows it as the effect of automatically tuning out the ads after years of online exposure. Well we’ve now stepped into the age of “Social Media Blindness.” We easily tune out the social media buttons when we read an article without even thinking about it. So here’s an easy solution to remedy that problem and provide you with not only well honed SEO power for the search engines, but the greatest opportunity to gain maximum exposure for your blog post and articles. Are you ready for this?

Ask. It’s that simple. Many people will have no problems helping you out if you Simply ask your readers to click them. It’s called permission marketing. Your basically stating that you need their help and that you are dependent on them for your success. Not only that, but make sure you ask at the end of the post or they may forget. To take it one step further put it under its own heading (with a heading that is integrate to your article’s focus), figure out a way to use your keyword and a few synonyms and antonyms that are actually relevant to the content you have written and slide it right in there. “Please take a moment to share my post on your social media. It’s only takes you two seconds but would mean the world to me. Thank you so much.” Voila, instant win.

By Guest Author - My name is Michael but everyone calls me Ace. As you might be able to tell I’m definitely a Google fanatic but only because they taught me everything I know about internet marketing, SEO, graphic design, and web development over the course of many years. Come visit me over at my brand new site Ace Wordpress Themes and grab our free Wordpress website templates. I’ll be adding many more lessons on how to promote your blog (just be aware I’m only about a month old on blog post).Good luck marketing warriors and remember, happiness is in the journey, not the destination ;)

Remove The Template View Menu Options When Using Dynamic Views On Blogger

Dynamic Views (DV) templates have become a popular choice with some Blogger users.When you choose dynamic views you select a default template which readers will see when they land on your blog.But in a menu under the header readers have the option to view your blog using any of the other six DV templates.So basically you are giving the readers the choice on how they want to view your blog.But this does not suit everybody, I have recently received a few emails asking is there a way to remove the choose template options on Dynamic Views.Chuck at The Real Blogger Status has also seen some enquiry's about this in the Blogger Help Forum.So, can you remove the options for readers to choose the template ? Yes, and with credit to Southern Speakers and here is how.

Remove The Template View Options On Dynamic Views

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