Money360

  If “Content is King“, then links are what put that king on the throne. Build links and you’ll be able to display your content to the world. Don’t build links, and your King won’t have a kingdom.
Hopefully you already use most of these, but if only 5 of these tips get you a new link, that is 5 links you didn’t have yesterday!
Just FYI, the tip is bold, with examples linked underneath. Thanks to everyone who took time to build tools, write content, and generally be willing to help the SEO and SEM communities. A special thanks to Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall, who wrote the 2006 version.
All links open in current window, so bookmark this page.

On-Site Content Creation
Content creation is without a doubt my favorite way of creating great backlinks. The reason these links are great is that you don’t have to ask for them or buy them, they come naturally, are defensible, […]

Following is my A to Z of Professional blogging including blogging tools, blogging platforms, blogging services and ways of making money from blogging (in fact whether you blog for money or not much of what follows should help you improve your blogging).
I hope you enjoy it and feel free to share your own tools and services in comments (I’m sure I’ll have missed some). update - I’ve been adding your suggestions and we’re now up to over 130 blog tools and platforms.
If this is your first time to ProBlogger you might like to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter (see the top of the left hand sidebar) or RSS News Feed.
A
AdSense - contextual ad program by Google
Adbrite - sell text ads
Amazon Associates - popular affiliate program
aStore - add an Amazon Store to your Blog
AdGenta - text ads by Qumana (see ‘Q’)
AdRotator - WP ad rotating plugin
Akismet - Comment Spam Fighting Tool
Adhearus - pay per click […]

Over the weekend I ran an ‘open mike’ discussion which asked the question of How do you find Readers for Your Blog?
There were quite a few responses to the question - some of which went a little unnoticed as they were moderated until I got home. So I thought I’d summarize some of the main themes that arose in the discussion with a few quotes from those who left comments.
For the full series of comments see the post - but here are the main themes listed in no particular order except that they are vaguely the order that people submitted them in (keep in mind that these ideas come from readers - not all of them will be for everyone):
1. Comment on Related Blogs - raising4boys writes - “Commenting on related blogs is probably the most effective strategy early on in the process. And responding to comments when people leave them on your blog (this […]

One of the most frightening things that can happen to a blogger making their living from blogging is when the traffic to their blogs dries up for one reason or another.
There are numerous reasons why this might happen ranging from being hacked, to having a server outage, to not backing up a blog and losing data etc
Another common reason for loosing traffic is when Google (or some other Search Engine) tweaks the way that they rank sites and your blog’s position for some (or all) keywords falls (or even disappears).
I’ve had a number of readers write to me in the last few weeks telling me that this has happened to them and in panic asking for advice.
Here is how I usually respond:
Firstly - I feel your pain
Suffering a major fall in traffic as a result of Google changing their ranking algorithm is not a pleasant thing and when you dig around a little you’ll find […]

Search Engine Optimization is something that makes many blogger’s heads spin - I know this because every time I write an SEO article I get comments from bloggers telling me that its too big a topic and that they’d rather just write ‘quality content’.
Whilst I’ll never argue that quality content should be anything but a first priority in blogging, the fact is that there are many millions of pages of great writing languishing around at the bottom of search engines results pages that deserve to be read by many but which rarely see the light of day because their authors have failed to understand that just a few simple tweaks in the writing process could see them ranking considerably higher.
So it’s time for another series - this time on Search Engine Optimization for Blogs!
People often ask me ‘how do I get ranked number one in (((insert favourite search engine here)))?
My answer usually starts with - […]

Digital Inspiration has a post on Getting Noticed by A-list bloggers vs Getting on Digg Front Page which makes a few worthwhile observations.
It fits pretty closely to a comment I made last week in an interview with Jeremy when I was asked which social networking site I’d prefer to get traffic from. My response was (and I’m paraphrasing here) that while I don’t mind the rush of traffic of traffic that a site like Digg can bring in that I’d prefer a link from another blogger because it brings a different type of traffic.
Digg Traffic - While Digg brings a rush of traffic - it does so from a site with a very broad focus in terms of topics. It also sends the traffic largely from a link with little context around it and in most cases a link that comes from a largely anonymous person.
Blog Traffic - Traffic from another blogger is different on […]

We have unpacked our Adsense Equation in detail and have given numerous tips for maximising Adsense Revenue. Whilst there are occasions that Adsense doesn’t perform as well on some websites for no particular reason as others we can safely predict that if you work on each of the four areas you should see an increase in the amount of the cheque that Adsense sends you at the end of each month. Remember though that your revenue will only be as high as your weakest link - work on all elements of the equation - not just one or two.
As well as the proceeding tips there are a number of other things that might be helpful to know in using Adsense that we couldn’t find a place for in previous posts.
Outgoing Links - One theory going around is that pages with fewer outgoing links result in higher click-throughs. Give your readers fewer options of links to […]

Revenue = high readership + high paying ads + relevant ads + well placed and designed ads
The forth element of our Adsense Equation is that of having well designed and optimally placed Adsense Ads. I’ve found that ad positioning is incredibly important. I remember shifting the ads on one of my blogs a while back and being over the moon to discover the next morning that the move had doubled the click through rates that I’d had over night! Its worth doing some tweaking.
Adsense Ad placement and design is an issue that is often hotly debated in Adsense discussion forums. It seems that each Adsense user has their own strategy - some like ads that blend in, others like ads that stand out from the rest of the page. Some like ads in banner positions, others in skyscrapers, others like to put them right in the middle of content. In my experience, different strategies work […]

Revenue = high readership + high paying ads + relevant ads + well placed and designed ads
The third element of our Adsense equation is that of relevant Adsense ads. It is all very well to rank high in search engines to generate high levels of traffic, but without relevant ads that relate to the content of your blog you are not likely to generate much in the way of click throughs.
Let me give you an example. Recently I was asked to help a fellow blogger who has struggling with his Adsense ads because whilst his content largely focused upon the topic of ‘health care’ - most of the ads being served to his blog were focused upon ‘blogging’. He was getting quite reasonable traffic levels and had a reasonably high paying topic (there are some good health care ads out there) but as you’d expect, people coming to a blog about health care did not […]

Adsense Revenue = Traffic Levels + High Paying Ads + Relevant Ads + Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads
The next element of this Adsense equation to be examined is how to get high paying Adsense Ads running on your site. Obviously in any business one way to get higher profits is to charge more for your product - whilst you have no direct say in how much is charged for ads run on your site - there are ways of targeting types of ads that might bring in a higher return than others.
As we mentioned in our initial explanation of the equation, the PVR Blog is one example of a blog that targets a well paying ad type - ads for PVR technology. Whilst I do not know specifics of earnings I would suspect blogs like Gizmodo who run Adsense ads would also be generating a higher paying ad, due to their focus on technology.
The lesson […]