Saturday, 14 July 2012

Add A Fixed Jump To Comments Button In Blogger

Colorful Comments ImageGuest Post - Our host is Deepak Kamat, In this post he walks you through how to add a fixed jump to comments button on Blogger blogs.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Comments are the major way of getting feedback about our blog posts from readers, therefore comments are really an essential part of any Blog. If you are a blogger too then your always delighted to see new comments on your posts.But there are times when you don't get any comments at all, often in long posts. The problem is that readers don't scroll through the whole page thus they miss the comment area.Even though people are reading your posts you are not getting any comments at all and it's frustrating.

So, how can you improve your site in a way that your blog post gets more comments and the comment form is easily accessible to readers?

This post covers this topic and tells you an easy and effective way of encouraging your readers to comment.The button will be fixed in the bottom right of the page, check out the demo.
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Friday, 13 July 2012

How To Create A Sustainable Social Media Strategy

Social Media TreeGuest Post - Our host is Marcela De Vivo, In this post Marcela has some fresh social media tips and ideas for you.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

After Google's Penguin update, establishing and maintaining an active social media strategy is more important than ever. Since Google uses social media markers as part of their ranking algorithm, being active in social media will not only gain you new followers and visitors, it will also increase your search engine rankings.

The question, however, is how do you create a sustainable social media strategy where by you are adding content to all of your social media channels, while also running a blog, business, taking care of your customers, etc?

Why Use Social Media?


When you use social media to promote your brand and website, you can do so for free or for very little cost in comparison to paying for an advertisement or listing in a newspaper, magazine, or even on a billboard. When you use social media, you are also able to update and share new releases at any time with you fans and the followers of your brand or website.

Understanding Your Brand and Audience


Before you begin implementing a social media strategy for your website and company, you should first take time to understand your target audience and its age range and demographic to help you with reaching them as efficiently as possible. This will also help you to stay relevant.

Updating Consistently While Staying Relevant


Updating all of the social media sites and pages you have created to represent your website and brand is recommended daily to keep the consistent updates happening, allowing you to easily reach an audience regardless of the time of day. Also, staying relevant is important so researching your industry frequently for new discoveries, advances, and even trends can help you to draw in more page views from links clicked on and shared using social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

How to Draw in New Visitors to Your Website and Brand


You can draw in and attract new visitors to your site and brand's pages online by featuring eye-catching titles and information along with sales, and even giveaways or contests, depending on the type of budget you have and the services or products you have to offer. Ask your followers and fans to help by sharing the links you post with their own family and friends to get more genuinely interested click-through links when the links have been shared with someone personally, helping to grow your site.

A Sustainable Example Schedule


Most small business owners only have 1-2 hours a day to dedicate to social media marketing. Below are a few ideas for how to organize your schedule:

Day 1: Spend time on Google News and other News sites researching what's happening in the world related to your industry. As you are reading and researching, write down notes and ideas, and bookmark relevant articles. By the end of this time period you should have a nice database of topics.

Day 2: Write as many tweets, FB wall posts, and Google + posts as you can, with links to their relevant sources. Then use a tool such as TweetDeck to schedule them so they will be "dripped" into your social channels slowly over the coming days.

Day 3: Write 4-5 articles for your blog. Post and schedule them on your blog so they will be posted one at a time over the following few days.

Day 4: Write 4-5 articles for other industry sites or blogs. Send them out to sites that accept guest blogs so you can increase your links to your site.

Day 5: Write 4-5 articles and distribute to web 2.0 sites such as Wikia and Ehow. Make sure you link your articles with other articles on other profiles written by you.

The following week, you can follow the same strategy, but sending/distributing the content to other sources so you are not sending content to the same sites over and over again.

By the end of the month you would've successfully created new content for your own blog, social media channels, as well as increased your authority and popularity by getting published on other blogs and web 2.0 sites.

guest blog postBy Guest Author -Marcela De Vivo has been in the Internet marketing industry for 12 years. Currently she works with Process Moisture Sensors Inc. and blogs about life and SEO at MarcelaDeVivo.com

Thursday, 12 July 2012

3 Things You Must Consider Before You Start Guest Blogging

Guest Blog LogoGuest Post - Our host is Slavko Desik, Slavko has some great advice for Guest Bloggers.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Probably all of you by now know that if you truly want to succeed in blogging, you must understand, or start to understand promotion as an inevitable part of every blogging success. That being said, you should embrace the idea of guest blogging as one of the leading ways of promoting your new brand.

Why is guest blogging so important?
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Tuesday, 10 July 2012

30 Best Free WordPress Themes Of 2012

We are over half way through 2012 so it's about time we looked at what WordPress Theme designers have been up to.At the start of the year we published the very popular 25 Best Free WordPress Themes Of 2011 this time I have listed 30 free themes for WordPress from the first half of 2012.

Blue 3D WordPress Icon

Note - Some of these themes have free and paid versions so look for the free download link.

Unlike some comments seem to suggest none of the links to themes are affiliate links, indeed within the text of no post on this site will you find affiliate links !

Click the title of each theme to see the demo and download details.

New: Also see The Best Free Wordpress Themes For 2013 !

30 Best WordPress Themes From The First Half Of 2012

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Monday, 9 July 2012

Jump On This Bandwagon And Rock The Blogosphere !

Blog Letters With Guy On TopGuest Post - Our host is Jane Smith, here Jane shows us the advantages of having a focus on local in your blog.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Act locally. Think globally.

The mantra made popular by the recently deceased 'Occupy Wall Street movement' is a super-hot consumer trend right now. And though some of us like to blog for fun, most of us would like to see some Benjamins thrown our way for our hard work. (Can I get an ‘Amen’!?)

Granted, there is a problem with working an exclusively local angle, and I’m sure you’ve already guessed it. Local and independent businesses generally don’t have the dough to advertise on multiple platforms, which means you can’t rely on local businesses to fund your blog.

Siiigh. Looks like you’ll be relying on Google AdSense and the other standard ways of revenue generation.

Ok, now that you’ve heard the downside, cheer up! By making your blog a local hub, you can expand your network, generate popularity and gain a real cultural presence.

Newbies can form blogs based on a single local angle and blogging vets can reshape a blog to include one.
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Sunday, 8 July 2012

Add Pinterest And Other Bookmarking Buttons To Images In Your Blogger Posts

On Spice Up Your Blog I have tutorials for lots of Social Bookmarking gadgets.We have posts showing how to add Social Bookmarking gadgets at the top of your posts, below your posts, scrolling beside your posts and in fixed positions.These are of course for readers to bookmark the content in your posts.But with so many Blogs having a focus on Images how about having the bookmarking icons appear on the actual images you have on your blog ?

People love to share images and the success of Pinterest has served to confirm this point.So in this post I have a tutorial to add social bookmarking icons from AddThis to your images, the icons will only appear when readers hover over the image and they appear with an overlay.

The buttons we are adding to the images are for Twitter, Facebook, Print, Pinterest, Google + and the Add This button which will cover all other services.


Check out the demo below then follow the tutorial.
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Saturday, 7 July 2012

Benefits Of Joining A Blog Network

Blog Network LogoGuest Post - Our host is Charles Mburugu, Charles looks at how blog networks can help Bloggers.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

A blog network is simply a group of blogs which share a common theme. Some of the networks are primarily focused on promoting blogs, while others have a commercial aspect. Blog networks come in a variety of sizes and shapes, ranging from the small networks which focus on specific topics, to the large ones which cover a wide range of subjects.

Some of the most popular blog networks include b5media, Hubpages, Simply Good Media, Content Quake and 451 Press.

You can find many other networks by doing a simple Google search or finding out which networks other blogs in your niche have joined. Once you identify a network that suits you, get in touch with the network manager and explain clearly how your blog would add value to the blog network. Make sure your blog meets the requirements for being part of the network.

As a blogger, the following are some of the benefits you will enjoy by joining a blog network.
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