Link Referral

It was Kaye of Random WAHM Thoughts who lured me in to the world of blogging. It was from her I discovered and learned some traffic sites and widgets and all. One of the best traffic builder site she referred to me is Link Referral.

Link Referral is a traffic site. Signing up is very easy. You just need to give some details, confirm your email and it is ready to use. The best thing is it is FREE. You submit your site and it will be displayed next to your name. If you are joining the site, one important thing you must know is categorizing. You need to put your blog or site in the best category it will fit. Like my personal blog, its main category is life and home and its sub category is personal.

In each category you are listed, there is someone on top, which in time can be you. HOW?

1. Signing in everyday. It gives you an edge if you sign in everyday.
2. Visiting other sites. Every 24 hours you are allowed to visit 30 sites. Each time you visit a site your ranking will increase.
3. Review other site. You are also allowed to review other site (every 24 hour), 5 sites max. If you think it is a hard task, it is not. You juts have to visit a site listed (preferably on the same category as you are), look around and click on the button that says review this site.
4. Choose a favorite site, 1 site per day.
5. Answer or post on forums. There's a lot of topics on the forum that you can choose.

In my experience, reviewing other site, is the most effective way to increase your rank. But of course, unless you do it all, you will not be on top 1.

This is my favorite traffic site because I met a lot of blogger friends here. Here are some of the reviews my personal blog received:

The blog is entertaining and remarkable. The author deserves to be a writer with the good organization and the ideas flow crisply. I followed the site. . Home of Good Ideas

Absolutely loved the site. Your template is simply beautiful. I think we are all full time moms and part time worriers, lol.. Daily Mind Wanders

Hi! I really like your site. First of all, it's wonderful for me.. being in the southern US to get a glimpse of your life. I enjoyed your warm funny writing... and I look forward to more! Just keep writing! Oh, and I do like your topics! Very funny and relevant to what every mom in the world goes through!. Creative Personal Development

A very nice color combination. A quick comment on your banner. Try to make "Make or Break" bigger and more grandiose. And the byline, "Living the life of a full time mom, part time worrier" does not have a sales pitch. Think in terms of visitors' benefits and they will stick to your website like bees to honey! Create a catchy byline that tells that what benefit they will get but do not describe the benefits, use advertising techniques subtly. ASEANPEDIA

Won't you love to read really nice comments regarding your blog? Or some constructive criticism on how you can maximize your blog? This is just great.. so what are you waiting for? Review this site

List Your Blog!

My personal blog is a PR2 blog and I am working really hard to have a higher PR for it. Directory Listings is one great way of increasing your Page Rank. If you are still on the wonderworld, Page Rank only means links and links and links. The more links, the higher PR, simple as that. Listing your site in a directory can help increasing your link (ok I am being redundant here) Anyway, here are some directories where my personal blog is listed and where I plan to list this tech blog..

Blog Listings
BlogRankings.com
Blog Directory
Globe of Blogs
Dmegs Web Directory
Web Blog Directory
Pinoy Web Listing
Pinoy Blog Directory
Web Directory
Directory Kit-GraphiK
Directory Storm
Search Engine Submission - AddMe
Blog Directory

Introduce Your Blog

Is it common? Or do we really have to introduce it? I mean, do we really need to make our first post sounds like an introduction. I believe so. I think it is just courteous to give your readers a heads up on what they might expect from your blog..

You can either make a list of what are the topics you will tackle, make an introduction of yourself or why did you choose that title. Think of it as an introducing yourself to a new acquaintance. Make it simple and short, not scary but amusing. I know my intro is not good, but hey that's why I am telling you this. LOL

Monetizing Your Blog

One of the reasons why I started blogging is the promise of earnings through my blogs. The simplest form of earning through blog is through adsense. Simplest in a way that you don't have to do anything, by chance you can earn something from it, not unlike paid post where you work your bottoms off. In adsense, you just display their ads. Easy? not that much actually.

In displaying adsense, you earn through clicks, when people click your ads, when people visits your site. That's the harder part, the hardest part. I tell you, after I started my blog, after a month or two, I did not gain any cents from my ads. NOT A SINGLE CENT! I searched and searched the web for the answer, the techniques to maximize my adsense earnings, the right place for my adsense, the right etc.

I even experimented on my adsense placement. The placement that works best with me is one below the header and two on my side. On this blog you will notice, I had one on top, one on the side and in between posts. Let's see what the effect will be. The right lay out that works well with me is the one you can see in my personal blog. Works well with me in the sense that I like how it looks. Somewhere in my search though I came across an article that suggests that the best lay out of your adsense is the large rectangle. GO on try it on your site.

Other than the right placement, there is of course, how to increase your traffic. From experience, a reader will most likely WILL NOT click your ads. Specially your avid fans or avid readers. A reader that will likely to click your ads is someone that ends up in your site through a search engine. They are the ones looking for informations and landed in your site not by chance but because you can give them informations. And those information is in your POST. As always, a quality post is the key, and if the readers wants more information, they would click your ads (that is related to your post) definitely!

And lastly, an older post weighs better than newer post, so from time to time revisit your old posts and edit it or add more information on it.

Blogger Templates

Templates..

Now when I started blogging this is the most difficult part for me. I can't decide what template I would use. Since I was super excite to see my blog up and running, I contented myself with the templates available here. If you will notice they have 16 available template with two or more variance. My favorite then was the dots template and I used it with my personal blog. It took about a month before I got bored with it and look for another template. Again, if you have noticed, templates that are readily available here are templates with two columns only. When my blog started to pick up some traffic and readers, I want to include more widgets (or decors as I refer to them) and a two column blog does not have much space. I want more and look for FREE 3 column lay outs.

Make or Break is a 3 column, side-main-side type. I was really fond of this type, balanced and clean. Now with this blog, I am experimenting on a different type of 3 column template. As you can see, this has main-side-side kind. I think it looks good too. There is also this kind where the main column is on the right most part. Judging from the looks of both blogs, I think the best 3 column template is the main-side-side.

Free 3 column blogger Templates site and samples:

Make or Break template

Blogger Templates Optimized

Free Blogger Templates

I love almost all template

Bloggertricks

Noob Template

Check out the sit I have listed, they have the best 3 column FREE templates.

Publishing Your Blog

After figuring out what you blog title is, you need to think of a creative and available blog spot address fr your blog. I know it is kinda hard to make a good address that is also available. You have to keep in mind though, that when making a blog spot address, you have to make it short. Shorter address is easier to remember than longer ones. And of course, it has to be a bit related to your blog contents.

My personal blog which is titled Make or Break has the blog spot address http://pehpot.blogspot.com/

Why pehpot? why not makeorbreak?

Well it is obvious.. make or break when written without the spacing is hard to pronounce.. or read.. makeorbreak.. me, I read it as makeor break.. yeah like mateor or meteor.. which is funny and confusing

see what I mean.. So I named it as pehpot.. my nickname here in the blogosphere. easy to remember and easy to say..

This blog however is a different case. I tried acquiring the http://noob.blogspot.com/ address but it was unavailable. So to make my life easier I decide to just use http://techpehpot.blogspot.com/ as this blog's blogspot address. As I have said in my intro, I am not a techie person but since this blog talks about some technical stuffs with regards to blogging, figured out techpehpot is the right blog address. And of course, this is also a good identifier, that this blog is also by pehpot.

In my article The Perfect Blog Title, I mentioned some good title for blogs..and tried it as a blog spot address.. but most of them are taken already. If you have a unique name as me, try incorporating it in your address, more likely than not, it is available.. after all it's a unique name.

The Perfect Blog Title

What is the perfect blog title? If you landed here by search, most likely than not, you know how much a title is worth. Right? So you came here looking for the right answers. I tell you I am not an expert, but I will give some points you have to consider before giving out a title on your site.

1. Site Category related
Easy to digest, it should be related to the category your in. If you are talking about cars, Wheels or something like that is a good start. If you are a mommy blogger like me, a more personal title would be apt. Don't commit the same mistake I did. My personal blog is titled Make or Break, which is actually a mommy blog. Tell me, based on the title, does it sound like a mommy blog? I am just too stubborn to change it and I like it very much.

2. Short and Catchy
This is also important. Short and catchy, for easy remembering. Say, if I have a blog that has a title: This is the blog of pehpot that she updates regularly, do you think it would score fair against Noob?

Make your title short then just add some description. So how about this one?
Title: Pehpot
Description: A blog she updates regularly.

See the difference?

3. Easy to remember
This one is not for your readers but for your own sake. Your blog title should be friendly to your memory. You would not want to end up scratching your head every time people asked you about your blog. right?

And Lastly, make it readable, and English friendly, if you are aiming for readers around the world, make sure your blog title is not deviating that much on the English vocabulary.

Some blog titles I can think as of the moment:
The phrase in italics is a description

Mommy Blogs:
Mommy Diary
Blogging Mom
Baby and Blog

Food Blogs:
Plates and Saucers
Appetite
Mealtime

Health Blogs:
Cells
Regeneration
Slim But Fit

Money Blog:
Green is my favorite color
Earnings
Paycheck

Travel Blogs:
To Go
Travelogs a travelers blog
Sight Seeing

Any suggestions?

Directories

Free Web Directory softensive
Web Directory

BadgeHag (aka Button Grabbing)

LISTINGS (aka link exchange)

Random WAHM Thoughts

Home Buddies
Lifelots
Mike Mamaril
Princess Ishi's Diary
Me, Myself And Jess
My Little Angels
WAHMaholic
The Open Book of My Life
Josie's Window
Wonder Wifey

Link Exchanges And Paid Reviews

If you want to have a link exchange with me, drop me a line in this post..

This is what I offer:

For my Personal Blog which is a PR3 and a link popularity of more than 10,ooo:

Blogroll exchange: Add me to your blogroll, I will you add you to mine.

Paid Review: I can review your blog, give you 5 back links, 4 from your old posts and one from your home page, minimum of 200 words with photos from your site for $10 dollars.

Button Grabbing: Grab my badge and I will grab yours too.

Link Exchange: I also offer a link exchange through post, I will post an entry, create three links for you in exchange post an entry with three links from my tech blog.

Here at NOOB, I offer the following link exchange:

Button Grabbing and Link listings.