Advertising & Blogger: things to consider

This article discusses some things to keep in mind when you are putting advertising on your blog.

If you are considering putting advertising onto your blog, there are some basic things that you need to think about.  These include broader philosophical questions, right down to nuts-and-bolts technical concerns.

This article is not a definitive guide - see somewhere like ProBlogger for that.   Rather it's a collections of thoughts about the issues specifically related to Google's Blogger and its relationship with advertisers.   And it may include some thoughts about philosophical and policy issues, if I do any deep research or thinkng about these in the future.

Terms and Conditions

There are lots and lots of possible advertising and affiliate marketing programmes.

Staying within the programme of terms and conditions (often called T&C's) for every programme that you participate in is important.   Every advertising programme has terms and conditions.   You need to find the ones that apply to the programme(s) you are considering.  Read them.  Remember them.  Follow them.   Keep up-to-date.

Also, keep an eye on Blogger's T&C's and content policy too, in case they have any impact on what advertising you are allowed to carry.

Advert Co-location

Not every type of advertising can be shown on the same web-page as every other type of advertising.  See the point about about terms-and-conditions.   And besides - you need some space on your blog for content, which is what keeps advertisement-viewers coming to you in the first place!

Blogger doesn't have any automatic support for conditionally showing advertising.  If any programme you have has constraints like this, then you may need to do some programming in order to use that programme.

Placing ads

If you want to use advertising that isn't integrated with Blogger through the Monetize tab, then you're going to have to place blocks of HTML code into gadgets or into pages.

You don't have to write the code (the advertising network does that), or change it.  You just have to copy and paste it, and put the HTML into your blog, wherever you want the advertising to do.   (Note:  HTML and Javascript are the only types of code you can use.   No SQL.   No php.)

If you're not comfortable-enough doing this with the Blogger template that you have, then stick to the Blogger-endorsed programmes that can be added through the Monetize tab.

Experiment, and Track Progress

Marketing is an art and science.   So can use scientific techniques for data gathering.   Experiment with altrnative ad-placement.   Maybe even create a 2nd non-public blog where you can test how things look when you set up ads (and other gadgets, for that matter).  Only put them into your real blog when you're happy with how they work.   Once your ad is live, track your progress.

To effectively track progress, you need to keep a list of the date when you made changes to your site, and then do regular data-analysis to see what effect these changes have on your number of visitors, and their behaviour.    This is tedious - but if you really want to know what works and what doesn't, it needs to be done.

Watch your ad-contents

Make sure you know what types of things the programme you have chosen is advertising.  With Blogger, you (we!) are getting web-hosting for "free" (we have to watch their ads), and domain registration very cheaply.   Make sure that the advertising you use doesn't cause you to violate Blogger's terms and conditions.  I'm thinking especially about Adult/Pornographic content here, but I guess it could apply to other things too.

If you are using AdSense, it's pretty much essential to manage the categories of ads that AdSense displays.

How will you get paid

Some advertising programmes are very easy to be part of:  they give you ad, and pay you regularly.   Other's are more difficult.   Worst case, you may find that some options are totally unuseable for you, because they cannot make payments in your contry.   Or the cost of getting paid is extremely high - ProBlogger has written before about the transaction time and cost of every payment he receives from Amazon.com.

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Related Articles

Managing the categories of ads that AdSense displays.

Putting HTML from advertisers into your blog

A short list of advertising and affiliate marketing programmes

Why Online Marketplace Clone Script Are Popular?

In this Internet era, online shopping has got a wide demand across the world. If you might have thought of initiating your own eCommerce bhttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuB_y3dNS3yvOdOhA03MHB9uQqFkOmU0H1bti04wnHvNHVQtL94pldt4wZG06QmCxdNzYk_TvmC1sbqltOZKBJzAcgYKV4KwQ3e17BXb0EBub1jiY8jdH2QFy8ZFmMWx2laTdAtOZxulc/s1600/Why-Online-Marketplace-Clone-Scripts-Are-Popular.jpgusiness, then it’s a good move and you are going in a right direction. Before acting upon your idea, you might have been analyzed the cost, your requirement, time and so many other aspects.

Building an eCommerce business takes lots of money, time and making its efficient architecture is really a complex task. If we are talking about online marketplaces, you might be thinking of big websites like Amazon, Ebay, Airbnb, Etsy, Olx, Groupon etc.

Some of you also would have thought of building your website any of like these. You can build your website like your dream website and the solution is clone script.

Clone Script?

This is the copy of an existing web application, mobile application and any software. Clone script does not steal the source code of any website. The web development companies develop these scripts and designs with their own developers. They study the complete business process of the website and the company and then produce a clone script.

The market is completely filled with such clone scripts like amazon clone, Etsy clone, Airbnb clone and so more. People also search for these clones in a large number. Airbnb clone is the most searched clone script with 19.2k searches.

If you really want to give a thought for your online business, then the below infographic will be better for you to know more. 

Author Bio:
Gaurav Sharma is a founder of Antipull.com a Digital Marketing Manager at Nine Hertz and an Online Marketing-Tech Blogger. He has expertise in SEO, ASO, PPC and other parts of Online Marketing fields. He is an enthusiast and love to explore new stuffs. You can check him out on Facebook and Twitter or mail him personally.

Get better Website Advertising Earnings with Simple Tips

The best and popular monetization way for any website or blog is advertising. This is simple and easy method is very efficient. The process involves simple copy and paste activities of the code. Stick with the key advertising networks to get satisfied earnings. Behind these advantages, some web bloggers experienced the less money making with their advertisements on the website. If the site has fewer monthly visitors, then there is no chance to boost the earning of the website via advertisements. Here is a definite set of tips to maximize the website earnings.

1. In-text advertising

For advertising purpose, most of the Website owners and bloggers rely specially on Banners ads and Adsense. Experimenting with In-Text advertising is the best way that compliments in a good manner. They are placed directly in the website, in between the article or blog post. The main advantage of this In-text advertising is the fact that its integration with the website content in a contextual format. It assists in boosting the traffic of the website and thereby increasing the website earnings. This is because, people those who might not noticed the Adsense ads will definitely observe the In-text ads. This is a vice-versa thing that enhances the profit of the website.

Infolinks, the world leader offers the best recommendation In-text advertising network. For In-text advertising, they have bounty of advertisers to work with and to offer reliable payment after you started to earn money.

2. Inventory Usage

The best online number game is making money via advertising. More the number of impressions on the banners, more the money you can make online. To maximize the earnings of the website, make sure to display the ads on the every page of the website. There are some sites that display ads on single web page, leaving other category, archive and home page. It is just like leaving in the money in the table that is of nearer distance.

3. Sell own ads as well

It is a good idea to work with established advertising network, as the process is straightforward and pretty good as well. Apart from this, any website owner can also advertise spots to the companies directly. It shuns away the need to display, “Advertise with us” page on the website. This is effective as some companies willingly joins to work with site owners in a straight line. It also offers them more flexibility for displaying banner type ads and positioning.

4. Multiple Tests

While advertising there will be many chances to find the optimal combination for the website, if the testing is done properly. Determine the best tool to make optimize the website and to guide through the process and provide all the necessary reports.

• To make the ad attractive and to earn high.
• Display a banner above or below the content of the post.
• Align the banner to the left or right of the website.
• Use preferable White or dark background.

 


Author Bio:
Eva Jasmine is a freelance marketer and a content specialist. She’s also a trainer in SEO Job Training offering digital marketing training in Chennai who loves blogging.

7 Tips To Beat Procrastination For Bloggers

Doubt and Inconsistent thinking are the behavioral patterns responsible for Procrastination. Regret, Anxiety and constant brooding are the consequent behavioral outputs of Procrastination. What is commonly evident is a sort of confusion and apprehension that things will not work out, inspite of your best efforts. It is pre-decided that, no matter, ‘how well you do to put in your best effort’ – you will fail!

BUT (and this is a big but) LET US NOT FORGET THAT WE CAN WALK THE PATH FROM NOTHING TO SOMETHING, AND SOMETHING THAT MATTERS! ONE STEP AT A TIME! THAT IS HOW WE LEARNED TO WALK AND TALK AS KIDS, RIGHT?

In this article, we will study the 7 measures to counter procrastination by maintaining coordination between the mind and the body. The maintenance of mind to body coordination essentially means that: ‘the way you think in your mind’ and ‘the way you act with your body’ can be ‘balanced’.

1) Self-Reflection

What is Self-reflection?

Self-reflection is necessary to counter the tendency of doubting that good things will happen to us. Self-reflection essentially means: Talking to the ‘Self’ and telling your mind about the plan that you have for next year, next month, next week or even the next day. You can self-reflect to decide about your course of action for the next day. This habit of questioning your mind and getting the answers will lead you to the fine habit of ‘knowing where you stand and how you can progress’.

How to commit yourself to Self-reflection?

It is necessary to reflect upon your own thoughts and understand – ‘where are you going wrong’ and ‘where are you going right’. This method of observing your actions and learning from those actions is worthwhile, rather than regretting the past.

It is easy to tune into the self-reflective mode. All you have to do is contemplate and believe in the greatness of your mere existence and great things will begin to happen. If you begin to appreciate the smaller things in your life then you will value your own existence. And once you understand, the real meaning of value, you will certainly value your time, work and the satisfaction that you receive from the action of doing the work.

2) Difference between a ‘drop of water’ and the ‘ocean’

It is often difficult to view the big picture and recollect its beauty; but committing to the self-reflection activity mentioned above will certainly help in viewing the big picture. However, first do not try to look at the big picture, it is for later. First, it is necessary to experience small beginnings and learn from them. The difference between a ‘drop of water’ and the ‘ocean’ is that the ‘OCEAN IS GRATEFUL TO KNOW THAT IT IS SO BIG, AND YET IT WAS A SMALL DROP OF WATER ONCE; WHEREAS, THE DROP OF WATER IS ALSO GRATEFUL TO KNOW THAT WITH THE HELP OF OTHER WATER DROPLETS, IT WILL ALSO BECOME AN OCEAN SOMEDAY’!

3) Commitment

The act of committing yourself to action is the effort required from ‘thinking about doing an action’ to ‘initiating the action’, and ‘maintaining consistency in action’. It is necessary to acknowledge that – ‘we as humans can commit ourselves to doing anything we want. And hence, we can either remain idle or become the being of action’.

Did you ever wonder why you continue procrastinating? It is bad enough that we procrastinate but why do we continue doing so every day without fail. The reason is simple – we continue doing so because we are creatures of habit. Hence, if we can remain idle for days, then we can also remain active for days, weeks and months. A habit once formed is difficult to break and hence, if we commit ourselves to forming the habit of putting in little effort everyday then big results will certainly follow.

4) Reasoning

Simply asking ‘why’ to your mind will give you enough answers. And if questions bother you a lot, you should only acknowledge them. I am not saying ignore questions or forget about questions. The basic characteristic of mind is its consciousness and consciousness can be experienced in every moment of the life. Consciousness can be perceived in your ability to think. Your effort to commit yourself to reasoning, self-reflecting and believing will bring success when you begin to envision clarity. This clarity will further strengthen your ability to self-reflect reason and believe in the cause.

5) Write it down

Writing down random thoughts can also make you feel lighter. Your mind is free to flow in any direction with its thoughts and hence it is essential to control it. A mind cluttered with unnecessary thoughts can make you feel burdened with complexity. Writing down your apprehensions is another way of countering the negative beliefs and sowing the seeds for the fruit of wisdom. DON’T GIVE UP! BECAUSE IT ISN’T OVER UNTIL IT’S OVER, YOU ARE STILL BREATHING! AREN’T YOU!

6) Less Planning, More Action

Many of us have the habit of doing too much of thinking and planning to the minutest detail. However, ‘Thinking without doing is similar to nothingness’. Hence, it is said that action speaks louder than words. Even understanding this phenomenon is enough to bring ourselves into the action mode.

7) Your work is a set of first steps taken to reach your goal

The ideal end product of your work is success. And your work is nothing but a series of individual steps taken to reach a goal. These series of steps will make you strong enough to accept and appreciate the power of success.

Thus, we should get our beliefs right and take those small steps to gain bigger results. RESULTS ARE A PRODUCT OF OUR UNDYING SPIRIT OF APPRECIATION TOWARDS OUR EXISTENCE. WE BELIEVE WE EXIST AND SO WE DO!
Image credit: stuart miles




Author Bio:
Yohana Petrovic is a freelance writer and professional educator. She has 10 years experience of educating. She is a guest blogger, writing about blogging, writing skills and education. Yohana is also a regular contributor to http://globalessays.org/ website

How to turn on a mobile theme / template for blogs in Blogger

This article explains why mobile mattes for some blogs (but not all), what tools Blogger has provided to help with this, and how to set up a mobile theme (aka template) for your blog.  It also links to Google's mobile testing tool, which shows you how your blog looks on a mobile device.

By default, when someone uses a smartphone, tablet or other mobile device to look at your blog, they see the "full site" just like they would if they were using a PC.   The pages aren't set up to work well on their small screen, but they have access to all the features and gadgets you've installed.

In some cases, this is fine.  For example, when I first wrote this article, I looked at the statistics for this site and hardly any of the visitors were mobile.   However now, a couple of years later things have changed and I've implemented a mobile theme for this blog.

But for other blogs, especially ones that have maps and other location-information or which people read on the go, having a mobile-friendly theme is very important:   for example, on my public-transport blog, over 25% of visitors are using mobile, and that figure is growing.  Making my site work well for these visitors is definitely important for its long-term future (and my short term advertising revenue!)

What's available

Blogger have made a set of mobile themes, to match the standard Designer Themes, and so far only one to match the Dynamic theme(s).

We cannot control the layout of gadgets on these - when the screen is only 300-ish pixels wide, there's not much room to move.

But we can add and remove gadgets, and also by choosing a custom template get colour settings that match our main blog.

How to enable a mobile theme / template for your blog

Log in to Blogger using an account with administrator rights to the blog.

Go to the Themes tab.

If your blog has a Designer or Dynamic theme, then there will be a Mobile option to the right of the "Live on Blog" area.

If the blog is not set up to use a mobile theme ,then the word Disabled will be in the middle of the picture area - although it may be hard to read if your base template (chosen in the Live on Blog area) has a picture behind it.

Click on the gear-wheel underneath the picture to see the mobile options.

Select "Yes.  Show mobile template on mobile devices."

Either leave the mobile template on Default, or select one of the other options.

• If you choose Default, your mobile template will use the standard template matching your desktop template.
• If you choose Custom, your mobile template will use the colour-scheme and various features from your desktop template, and you will be able to makes changes to these settings.

Use the Preview button if you want to see what your blog will look like with the selected template on a mobile device.

When you are happy with your selection, press Save.

What your readers see

Visitors to your blog who are using a desktop PC (or laptop or netbook or any other machine with a full-size screen) won't see anything different.

Readers who are using an internet-enabled cellphone (ie smartphone), tablet, iPad, etc will see a different view:

• They won't have a sidebar
• The gadgets will be limited (unless you add some extra ones) and in the header and footer only
• On the home-page there will just be the title, thumbnail and snippet for each post, and a button for read-more (this is irrespective of where you've put the jump-break) - notice that the usual methods of giving your blog a home-page don't always work.
• Custom styles that you have added to the template may not be applied (this has happened on one blog where I use styles, I'm still investigating whether it's a feature of all mobile templates, or just due to the way I added these particular styles).
• There will be buttons at the bottom of the page for Home, <   and > .    I think that the latter two refer to older and newer posts (though possible they are the opposite way around from what I expect).
• There will be a link to "view web version", which lets your visitor switch to to see the blog using the desktop template.

I have a  feeling that there may be some other differences too - very keen to hear about any others you've spotted.

Seeing what your mobile readers see

The absolute best way that I've found to accurately experience my blogs as mobile visitors see them is to use a mobile device myself:

• Just like preview mode in the Post-editor, the mobile preview mode shows a "look and feel" view, which is not entirely accurate.   For example in the picture above, it shows part of the most-recent article insteaod of just the post title and mini-snippet that I see when I look at the site on my phone.
• The screen-size testers that I've tried out (ie software tools that mimic showing your website in various different screen sizes) don't actually use the mobile template - I suspect that this is due to the way that Blogger detects mobile devices.

However you can see any blog as it would be on a mobile device by appending /?m=1 to the end of the URL.    For example, to see this blog in mobile, I would look at http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/?m=1      If you're going to use this approach, it's best to re-size your browser window so that it's about 300px wide - from my netbook, that's about 1/3 of the screen size, but it would be less from machiens with bigger screens.


Another approach is to use Google's Mobile Friendly Testing tool, which will

... analyze a URL and report if the page has a mobile-friendly design.

As well as showing you how your blog looks, it also reports on any issues that have been found.

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Related Articles

Adding gadgets to your mobile template.

Removing the attribution from moblile blogs

Showing a Google custom map on your blog

Advertising programmes for websites

Types of Blogger template

Administrator rights to your blog

Seven Ways to Prevent Software Viruses from Infecting your Personal Data

Computer viruses are manifested through software programs that replicate and infect other computers. Normally these are spread through emails and data transfer devices such as flash disks. Other than infecting your computer or laptop, viruses can be transferred to your cell phone, e-reader or tablet. So long as these gadgets can get into contact with the internet, they are always at risk. A viral attack can lead to a malfunction or expose your personal data such as the passwords you use. If an intruder gets hold of your password he/she can hack into your phone or emails.

There are three basic ways to steer clear of viruses:

• Avoid opening email attachments from people you don’t know
• Always use sites that are trusted when downloading files
• Scan suspect documents or devices that you use

Below are some measures you can take to prevent viruses from getting into your personal data:

1. Exercise caution when opening email attachments either from your phone or tablet. The same way you treat suspect attachments with caution when working from your computer should be replicated in other gadgets. If you get an email from someone who is not in your mailing list, don’t open it. Do the same in case the message title or sender’s name looks suspicious.

2. Be on the lookout for links that look questionable. These are normally sent through text or email messages. The people who send them are spammers or hackers. Some do this on purpose with the intention of establishing whether that email address has a user. Once you open it, some trigger is raised on their end and they get an opportunity to either spam your mail box or send viruses. Others may not be aware that their phones are infected. You can try sending a text to the sender to inquire whether he/she sent the link. If the person is genuine and honest you will get a response and an apology. Otherwise, delete such messages instantly.

3. With respect to applications, download only those that are legitimate. You can tell whether a store is legit by reading online reviews about it. Since there are many people looking for mobile phone applications, some malicious people have taken advantage by spreading viruses in form of fake games, social networking applications and financial tracking apps.

4. While using Bluetooth, apply undiscoverable settings. There are viruses that pass through Bluetooth connections. This is a tricky attack. If you walk near a device and your connection is in discoverable mode, the virus in the infected device can easily be transferred to your tablet or smartphone. Currently, there are some malicious viruses that disable your phone and steal your contact details.

5. In order to protect your smartphones, iPhones, e-readers and tablets download anti-virus applications. These can be obtained from trusted providers. Make sure the company you source the app from is well known. Examples include Lookout Mobile Security app and SmrtGuard Solutions’ Snap Secure app. These help protect iPhones as well as provide data backup. The applications are available from Lookout Inc. There are a host of many others.

6. For Android phones, you should be able to get reliable anti-virus such as Kaspersky Mobile Security app. This incorporates spam and virus protection. Other examples are Norton Mobile Security and Bullguard Mobile Security. These protect data during an attack, theft or loss of your phone. You can download them online.

7. Look for anti-virus applications that help secure your personal information from falling into the wrong hands. Some can help keep track of your phone while others rid your phone’s memory from a remote location. This works well when someone steals your phone.
Image Credit: jesadaphorn



Author Bio:
Agency Fusion, located in Salt Lake City, Utah, is an ad agency focused on the intersection of design and technology. They specialize in web design, web development, branding and software development. Learn more about Fusion Agency here.

How to include the blog post description when you share on Facebook

This article shows how to make that the description is correctly shown when one of your blog-posts is shared on Facebook.

When you share one of your blog-posts using either the via the "what's on your mind" space on Facebook or the Facebook share button on your blog, you may find that the only information automatically shown is:

• A picture (hopefully, but not always from the post)
• The post title
• The blog URL or the post URL

But many people want the post-description to be included too.

There are two things which you need to do to make sure that this happens correctly.

Step 1: Add search descriptions to your blog-posts

If a post does not have a description, Facebook will sometimes try to estimate one based on the contents. But this is not reliable, and it depends on the blog template you have used, and possibly even on other factors, eg at one stage, Facebook just looked for the the first
(paragraph) tag with at least 120 characters in it - which gave very odd results for some Blogger users. Alternatively it may try to use your post.summary but this also depends on your template.

A more reliable approach is for you to provide the description-text for each post.

For Blogger, the way to do this is described here.

For Wordpress, you need to to use an SEO plugin like SEO Ultimate to do this.

Step 2: Add Open-Graph tags to your template

Some templates already contain code which causes Facebook to estimate the description correctly. But some don't - and some may use two-step methods, eg relying on schema.org tags to imply Open Graph tags.

So, as with descriptions, it's more reliable to ensure you are using the set of tags that Facebook officially supports. These are the Open Graph tags.

You can see how to apply them in Blogger  or there are various plug-ins you can use on Wordpress.

Job Done! Once you have made these two changes, when someone shares your blog on Facebook, your own post-description should be shown. Don't forget to test your changes - as described in the Adding Open Graph tags to Blogger article.

What your readers see

Nothing! People who get to your blog using a web-browser, or who subscribe to your RSS feed or who follow-by email don't see anything different after you have done the steps above.

The only different is when they share a post from your blog in Facebook:  the initial description will come from your Description tag for the the post, not from the overall blog.

What happens for posts that do not have search descriptions

This depends on your blog's template, and on how Facebook is interpreting the information that it provides. You can see what Facebook will do for specific posts using the tag-debugging tool which Facebook provide.

Adding descriptions to old posts is tedious. But if your posts are often shared on Facebook, it may be worthwhile for you to allocate some time each day to edit a few posts LINK and update them with a current description. Provided you don't spend too long working out what the description should say, it should be possible to update 200 posts in a three weeks if you spend ten minutes each day doing just this.

What's more, it is possible that adding descriptions to your posts will make them look more attractive in regular Google search results too, which is A Good Thing if search-traffic matters for your blog.

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Related Articles:

How to add a Description meta-tag to posts in Blogger

How to apply Facebook's OpenGraph labels in Blogger

Reasons why SEO and search-traffic don't matter for many blogs

Post.snippet and post.thumbnail - summaries for a post

Deciduous blog posts leave evergreens for dead

In a social-media world, deciduous blog posts have an enormous advantage of both ever-green and ephemeral content - find out what they are, and how to use them to best advantage.

Introducing deciduous blog posts

In botany and horticulture, deciduous plants

... are those that lose all of their leaves for part of the year. (Wikipedia)

In blogging, deciduous posts are ones that your readers lose all interest in at certain times - eg posts about Christmas carols during January, or winter gardening tips during spring.

Which sounds bad.

Until you realise that deciduous posts are also ones that your readers (both current and new ones) gain renewed interest in at certain times. That means it's quite reasonable for you - and everyone else  - to mention them on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ each time that the new "season" starts.   If your posts are good, you might even get more new visits from social media in the subsequent seasons than in the first time around.

When you think about it, it's easy to see that in a social-media world ...

Deciduous blog posts leave evergreens for dead.

What does this mean for bloggers

If getting more visitors through either search or referrals is important for your blog, then you should :

• Be systematic about  how you remember to promote seasonal posts you've already published.   

• Find ways to write posts that will be become popular on a cyclical basis.

• Make strategic decisions about whether to change an existing post vs when to make a new post about a seasonal topic.

• Set up Labels or custom-redirects to send people who end up on a previous-year post to the most recent one.

Remember to promote your seasonal posts

Make a calendar of significant factors that should cause extra traffic for your blog, and send yourself a reminder message in time to review and re-share the relevant posts, according to your blog's social media strategy.

Working out exactly when do these promotions can be tricky. Ideally this is based on studying your visitor statistics (Analytics or whatever tool you use) to see when the posts got popular last time around.

You might think that you know anyway, because the seasons are obvious, but it's easy to miss earlier-than-expected surges in interest. For example, posts about Christmas music might actually be popular with music directors who're choosing their Christmas programs in September. But you do need to be careful about and where how you promote posts like this - because no one else wants to be reminded about Christmas so soon!

Finding seasonal posting reasons in non-seasonal blogs

Some blogs clearly have cyclic patterns: gardens follow the natural world, folk songs follow holidays (eg workers-rights songs for labor day, patriotic songs for national days), gift suggestions follow established human seasons (Christmas, Valentines), homeschoolers generally follow the school year.

But if you look harder, you can find seasonal patterns that apply to lots of other blogs, too. For example, one well-known blogger-helper often does a post towards the end of the American college year reminding people to transfer ownership of their blogs to a non-college Google account.

Ways to do this include:

• Blogging about the similarities (or differences) between your niche and some unrelated by widely-known seasonal event  (eg "Writing poetry is not like Christmas because ...".
• Writing about famous people in your topic who have died - close to their anniversary or birthday.   
• Making up your own seasonal patter  eg   "In March, Crotchet-Blogger celebrates cable-stitch". 

Promotion existing posts vs publishing new ones

A big question for bloggers with deciduous blog topics is whether they should publish a new post each season, or just polish and promote the existing post(s).

The answer depends on the nature of the information each season:

Situation	What do do
Are there changes to the information each season?	Make a new post, link to it from the last season's posts, promote it like you do any other post.
Does exactly the same information apply each year	Review the existing post, and then promote it on social media - and perhaps in the blog itself or in other new posts.

For example, one of my blogs is about public transport news in my city.  This has clear seasonal patterns around public holidays, the tourist season, a major sporting event, and the academic year.   The sporting event causes the biggest peak, with web-traffic up by 600%, week-on-week.  Each year's  information for it is very similar: buses leave at (roughly the same time) from (exactly the same place) for (close to the same fare) as last year. But each year there are changes: slightly different times, different effects on other bus services, one year there was a park-and-ride. So for this blog, I do a new post each year.   And I go back into last year's post and add a line like

"This information is for 2013.   Click here for this year's bus services."

and I make the "here" link to a label search for the topic, so that the most recent post will always come up first in the list.

By comparison, in another blog, I've published a printable sheet of non-religious Christmas carol words for which copyright has expired.  Over time, it will be possible to add extra carols to this.  But this won't happen each year - and all the existing content will continue to be relevant forever. So I don't republish this in a new post each year.   Instead, I promote it with a gadget on the sidebar, and I share the post on my social media accounts for the blog.

Be aware that if you do decided to make a slight change to an existing seasonal post, rather than write a new one:

• RSS subscribers probably won't see the enhanced post in their feed.
• Follow-by-email subscribers will see it.

Other things to think about

When you thinking about how you can get the more traffic using the deciduous posts in your blog, there are a few other factors to keep in mind:

Look for multi-year cycles

Some events happen once every 2, 3 or more years. For example:

• Some sports events (the Olympics, the Volvo Ocean race, the Commonwealth games) happen every-so-many years. 
•  Leap years happen once every four years.
• In some countries, elections happen every five years.

These multi-year patterns can be even more powerful than the every-year ones, because less people are aware of them, and readers in general are not-so-likely to remember what you wrote four years ago.

Don't forget the Southern Hemisphere

Spring starts in September, not February, if you live in the bottom half of the world. And cars need to be prepared for winter in April, not November.

This may mean that you can re-promote posts based on natural seasons twice a year - or that you should target some seasonal posts by hemisphere.

Some readers have different holidays

It's easy to think that all your readers are just like you, and live with the same seasonal patterns that you do.   But that's not always true:

• People who don't live in America might not even know when Thanksgiving or Black Friday is, much less what it means.

• In many Western countries, Christmas is a holiday even for people who aren't religious. But there are countries where Christmas isn't a holiday at all and most people don't even know it exists.

How have you used seasonal / deciduous topics to get new interest in your blog?

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Using labels to categorise blog posts

Transferring a blog to a new owner

Follow-by-email, an easy way to offer email subscription to your blog

Letting other people send email from your Google account - and checking who can do this already

This article explains how you can control who can send mail on your behalf if you have a gmail account, why you might want to do that, and how to stop people from sending email messages on your behalf.

If you have given other people rights to publish to your blog , then you may also want to let them send emails on your blog's behalf - particularly if you are using an "organisational" email account.   I do this for several blogs - eg the one for the choir that I'm currently doing public relations for.

This is a way to let the the other people use their current email client, ie what looks to them like their "normal email", but still to send official-looking messages from your organisation or blog.

Note that this is not the same as spoofing, which is a way that people with malicious intentions create email messages which appear to come from your account, even though you didn't send them and did give anyone else permission to send them.

• Spoofing, ie sending "on behalf of" without permission is bad.
• Granting "Send as" rights is good - and is a very useful feature that Gmail offers.

How to allow another email account send emails on your behalf

Log into www.gmail.com, using the Google / Blogger account that you want to lets other people send from.

From the Options gear-wheel (top right corner), choose Settings.

Choose the Accounts and Imports tab.

Click the "Add another email address that you own" link in the "Send mail as" section.

Enter the email address you want to give rights to, and the name which you want to be displayed when people receive email sent by this address on your behalf.

Click Next

Enter the other account's password. (This is a first step to stop you from impersonating someone by sending emails on behalf of accounts which you don't own.)

Click Add Account

Wait for the verification email to arrive at the other email address (if you use a web-based system for it, you may need to open it in a different browser).

Open the message and either click the link provided or copy-and-paste the code into the gmail window.

Job done!   The email account that you named should now be able to send messages which look like they came from you.

How another email account can send emails on your behalf

Firstly, you must give the other account permission to send emails which look as though they come from you - as explained in the section above.

Once you have done that, anyone using the other account can enter you (ie your gmail account) as the message-sender, and they will be permitted to send the message like this.

How specifically they do it depends on the email system which they use: In Gmail there is simply a drop-down box beside the From address, while other tools have different approaches.

Controlling who can send emails on your behalf - how to stop people sending emails from you

If you manage an email account which regularly gives other people the right to send on your behalf, then it is a good idea to regularly review the list, and revoke the access of anyone who doesn't need to send any more. To do this:

Log into www.gmail.com

Choose Settings from the Options gear-wheel (top right corner).

Choose the Accounts and Imports tab.

The list of email addresses beside Send Mail As is all the people who have been authorized to write emails that are sent as though they come from the current account.

Beside every entry on this list, there are options to:

• Make it the sending default for your account
• Edit the sending information (mainly the display name)
• Delete its rights to send on your behalf.

If you see an email address which shoudn't be sending any more, then delete it, by clicking the Delete link.

It's a good idea to check this, also, if someone has just given you a Google account instead of using the full procedure to transfer ownership of a blog to you.

Questions / Troubleshooting

Does this only work for Gmail accounts?

No. These instructions show you how to set up your gmail account so that other email accounts can send email "from" your account. But the other acccount does not need to be a Gmail account or a Google account - provided it has a feature to let the user say what account to use as the sender.

Where is the Sent-Mail copy of the message kept?

When you send a message from Gmail with a different account selected as the sender, then the "send mail" copy of the message is put into the send-mail folder of the account that you are logged into.

If you would like the nominated account to also get a copy of the message, then the person who is writing it needs to put that nominated account is as a carbon copy (CC) or blind-carbon-copy (BCC) recipient, as well as selecting it as the From address.

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Nokia Lumia 830: Top 5 Pros and Cons

 

Yesteryear’s mobile king Nokia has again brought in another new member to its very popular Lumia family, the new Lumia 830. The Finnish mobile major is really indebted to this highly successful range for resurfacing in the intense international mobile war. Though Nokia has quite recently entered the Android smartphone market, it still depends on its prowess in offering superb Microsoft Windows based phones.

The new Nokia Lumia 830 aims at reducing the price gap between the mid-ranged and high-end phones. Though its price is more on the midrange, the Lumia 830 comes with a premium look and good quality camera. It is successor to the Lumia 820, but is a big upgrade when various features and form factors are concerned.

The Nokia Lumia 830 is also the first phone to come preloaded with the company’s latest Denim software update.

While the Lumia 830 is a great new phone from Nokia, it has both good and not so good factors. Check out the top 5 Pros and Cons of this new smartphone:

Pros of Nokia Lumia 830:

• Nokia Lumia 830 runs on the latest Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1 Operating System that comes with many advantages.
• Lumia 830 packs in a great attractive 5.0 inch IPS LCD high capacitive touchscreen display with multiple touch capability, Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection and a Clear Black display that is really remarkable.
• It offers fast and smooth performance with its good hardware specs comprising of a Quad-core Cortex-A7 processor clocked at 1.2 GHz of speed, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chipset. The smartphone comes with 16 GB internal storage and microSD card support for memory expansion of up to 128 GB.
• It comes with a great 10 MP primary camera at the back which is highly efficient and dependable.
• It offers premium looks with a highly stylish and sleek body, not to mention Nokia’s patent sturdy built quality. The handset is also available in the attractive color options such as orange, green, black and white.

Cons of Nokia Lumia 830:

• Though its screen looks great, the phone offers only average screen resolution and pixel density.
  While the smartphone’s primary camera is really great and efficient, the handset comes with real puny 0.9 MP front facing camera which would not convince or impress the modern age selfie lovers.
• The smartphone also comes with a rather inefficient 2200 mAh battery pack which is really not enough to support the large 5.0 inch display of the handset. Thus, do not expect the battery to offer great backup, though daily average usage should be handled effortlessly.
• The phone offers pretty good hardware specs, but its average 1GB RAM is really not impressive as most mid-ranged phones come with 2 GB RAM.
• Though the latest Windows 8.1 Operating System is great, the Windows OS based smartphones do have their own limitations and still has some way to go in order to be able to achieve the great capabilities of the quality Android phones.

Now, let us consider the new Nokia Lumia 830 and look into its various important aspects.

Build and Design

The Nokia Lumia 830 is a patent Nokia mobile phone which boasts of great design and sturdy quality. The handset’s design is very stylish and offer a premium feel. One of the primary highlights of the Nokia Lumia 830 is its quality metal frame and very sturdy, solid built. Though the Nokia Lumia 830 is not the first Lumia model sporting a metal frame, the model takes the charm to the next level. The phone looks and feels as tough as a tanker, but is trendy and sleek to look at.

The handset comes with a removable back panel made with polycarbonate with slight curved edges for great grip. Nokia Lumia 830 is not only a good looking smartphone that also rock solid and durable. Moreover, even with its big 5 inch screen it is quite pocket-able.

Display

Nokia Lumia 830 packs in a good 5 inch IPS LCD display with 720x1280p screen resolution. Nokia's Clear Black technology is really cool and the deep black display is very impressive making the Windows Phone's dark theme really stunning. The Lumia 830's display is very bright and vivid with crisp images and texts. Though offering low resolution compared to even mid-range phones, it offers very good quality display with unnoticeable pixilation. The display is quite nicely visible even under strong sunlight and offers great viewing angles.

Software

Lumia 830 runs on the Lumia Denim which is actually the latest version Windows Phone 8.1 along with Update 1, and it also includes some of the great Nokia exclusive features. Windows Phone 8.1 is simply a notch above the previous version. It has rectified all inconsistencies of the past and is now an able contender of the smartphone platform giants like Android and iOS. Though it still might not impress the heavy smartphone users, the casual users will be fully satisfied with its performance.

Camera

The Nokia Lumia 830’s primary camera at the rear is an impressive one featuring 10MP 1/ 3.4-inch sensor, f/2.2 aperture, Zeiss lens and PureView technology. Camera offers great optical image stabilization. The camera module also packs in 6-lens optics, a true 16:9 sensor and Backside-illuminated image sensor, all of which together make of superb pictures with high detailing and great clarity. Its meager 0.9 MP front facing secondary camera will not impress the selfie fanatics, but it does the job of basic selfies and video chats.

Performance

The Nokia Lumia 830 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz supported by 1GB RAM, which are more mid-ranged, but does pretty good job. The phone has a great 16GB memory, expandable to up to 128GB with the help of a microSD card.

Conclusion

The Nokia Lumia 830 with its great style, built quality, display, camera and many other plus points is definitely worth a buy, especially as it is more affordably priced at Rs. 28,799. If you are looking for a premium phone but don’t wish to burn a big hole in your pocket, then the Nokia Lumia 830 is surely a good choice.

Blogging Via Instagram

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and they are probably correct when you look at how the popular Instagram is. You can resist it all you want but visual blogging is the new blogging. Maybe you are a bit old school and like to express your opinions through words, as it is easier for you to get your point across. That however, doesn’t mean you should cut out Instagram completely from your blogging toolbox. It doesn’t mean you have to change your blogging style altogether. It simply is just another opportunity where you can build an online presence and lead new viewers to your blog. Below are some tips to help grow your blog through Instagram.

Make Sure You’re Easy To Find

People have a tendency to be lazy. So if you make it hard to navigate back to your blog they most likely won’t ever find you. Make sure all your information, including a direct link to your blog, is easy to find in your Instagram bio.

Keep It Professional

With social media being an extension of our every day life it is easy to blur the line between work and play. If you are using Instagram to push your work remember to keep it professional and not to have too many personal pictures. Unless that is what your blog is about otherwise you might consider having two accounts to keep things organized.

Don’t Overuse Hash Tags

Many people tend to overuse hash tags because they think it will make them more visible online. That may be true but it also makes you look unprofessional, a novice and desperate. Get creative with your hash tags and come up with relevant and unique ones to describe your images. This will help with encouraging like-minded people to view your blog.

Create A Hash Tag Challenge

We’ve all witnessed a host of Facebook challenges that have gone viral on our newsfeed. Instagram has been known to have more new users sign ups then Facebook and has the potential of reaching a larger amount of people. You can use this platform to generate engagement and get viewers to your blog. An example of a hash tag experiment that gained lots of attention is the #HungerChallenge which encouraged people to post photos of them living off less then five dollars a day to promote awareness for people who often go hungry. Collaborating with people helps build your presence online as well as connect you with similar minded people. This is a great way to get attention to your blog.

Don’t Buy Instagram Likes

It’s not a secret that you can now buy like and followers on all social media platforms. However I would advise against this as it is obvious, it turns real users off and it’s a waste of money. If you work hard at building your brand you will organically build loyal followers who care about what you have to offer. Buying likes for an Instagram photo from a dodgy site does nothing for you other then increase a number. In the long run it is not helpful with gaining you real viewers.

Above are just some suggestions on how to promote your blog through Instagram. It is important that you try and experiment to see what works for your viewers, as all industries are different and require different techniques. Happy snapping!

Creating Online Business Profiles

Business profiles are all about identity but in this case, it is the digital identity since it is online. Business profiles define what potential employers are going to have as their first impression of you. Getting this information right strongly impacts the likeliness of winning a job or completing a sale as compared to someone who appears as a ‘joker’ in the eyes of the employer. Depending on your achievements, the client should view all the aspects indicating you are the right organization for the job.

You may have two business profiles so that each has achievements that are related to its own specific job-line. The other profile could have the achievements for another job-line. This helps in separating your various capabilities and not to appear as a jack-of-all-trades in the eyes of the potential employer or client.

Factors to consider when creating a business profile:

Several factors have to be considered in creating that professional look online.

• First and foremost, your name describes you. This goes hand in hand with the job you are applying for. You should aim to provide a title that is hand in hand with the job or at a lower level.
• Only present truthful information on your business profile. Clients are known to often take random sections of information, or claims of your achievements and countercheck them. Having wrong information or unverifiable information on your business profile may not help you in such a case.
• You should also include a referee or two who are well aware of your achievements and your technical experience. It is good to have such referees coming from your field of operations or expertise. It defeats the purpose if you are in the construction business nad you have a referee in the medical field.
• A client has to have a means of direct contact. It is therefore wise to add your phone number in the profile. Clients may want to talk directly to those applying for a job so as to determine who is available. Social media can also be incorporated. Not all social media sites are advisable. Limit yourself to the professional oriented sites such as LinkedIn. This helps identify how well connected you are. It also helps the client to contact you in a more private manner unlike the ‘noisy’ social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
• Pages like Facebook and Twitter are not advisable to be included since they don’t reflect much on your professional life. However, customers may want to snoop around on your business life as it defines character. Facebook is one of the most common social site used and with its service of timeline, a potential employer can have a look at your postings and picture updates from as early as when you started using the social site. You may have to restrict access to content or even better. Ensure that postings that are not relevant to your business are deleted. A bad impression can be made by such postings and cost you a potential client.

Finally, you should get people to access your online business profile as it increases the chance of a potential client accessing your work. Get a digital signature and link it with your postings on social media sites for people going through your postings to have access on reading your profile.

What you see is what you get. This is one the most outstanding thing that will be reflected from your online profile. Profile pictures should be captured right in sober mood and in the right attire. Avatars should strictly be a disregarded too as they tend to reflect you’re hiding something. You can also include a few professional photos of yourself or the business premises. Have a photographer take the photos and avoid making edits to the photos.



Author Bio:
As a business advisor and marketing manager for online businesses, the author has extensive experience and writes as a freelancer on essaypro.com where her essays have earned her top writers’ awards severally