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This post really isn’t about blogging mommies. I’m using blogging mommies to stress a point. Although there are some really well done mommy blogs out there, this has nothing to do with blogging mommies.

The point is, like blogging mommies blogs, your blog needs to be specialized and geared to a specific topic and a specific group of people if you expect to do well and if you expect people to find you.

Blogging mommies is a good example of this because it targets a specific group of people and at the same time is topic specific and most importantly, there is a lot you can write about on the subject.

I’m not suggesting that you go out and start a blogging mommies site. I am suggesting that you make your blog subject specific and targeted to a specific group of people. My blogging mommies example does both.

Find a topic that is geared to a specific group of people and has a lot of material that you can write about and run with it.

The best topics to write about are the ones that are not super competitive. I ran an allintitle on Google for blogging mommies and found that only 133 websites use blogging mommies in their title and approximately 2000 people search for the phrase blogging mommies every month. If you don’t know how to run an allintitle search read this.

List out a number of topics that may be a good fit and you think may not be that competitive and do some research on the topics that you have listed to see how competitive each one is. Use a keyword tool to see how many people are searching for your topic on the search engines. If there is a decent number of searches and a low number of websites with your topic in their title you probably have a very good subject to write about that should get you indexed well on the search engines and should get you some traffic rather quickly. You will find a couple of links in the link that I provide above of a couple of places that you can do keyword research.

Find a topic that targets a certain group and will give you similar results as my blogging mommies example here and you will find that your blog will grow much quicker and you will have a more loyal following.

If you are just starting a business blog here are 5 business blogging tips to help get you going.

Know who your readers are
You have to know who your readers are if you expect to have a successful blog. Without the knowledge of who your readers are, how will you know what you are writing about on your blog is what your readers want? The best way to find out what your readers are most interested in is to track your posts to see what posts are being read the most and write more about those topics.

Post Often
One of the most critical things with a blog is that you post often. Posting once a month will not cut it. If your visitors see that you post on a regular basis they are much more likely to return to your blog. On the other side if they see that you rarely post any new information it is very unlikely that they will come back. You should post several times a week if you expect to get regular readers to your blog.

Use Targeted Keywords
For every post that you write it is imperative that you use a targeted keyword or keyword phrase for that post. Using keywords or keyword phrases in your posts will help people find your post when they run a search on what you wrote about in a particular post. Every post should use a different keyword. Take the time to do some keyword research on the subject that you intend to write about and use them in your posts.

Blogrolling
Many blog owners don’t take advantage of the blogroll feature that every blog is equipped with. Linking to other blogs will get you some nice back links. Don’t hesitate to refer to another blog that has information on the topic that you are writing about in your post because not only are you giving the referring blog a link, you are getting a link to your blog from the blog that you linked to. The more often you add a link in your posts the better. Keep the blogroll feature in mind when you post and don’t be afraid to comment on other blogs because that will get you a link back to your blog as well.

Keep an eye on your traffic
Keeping your eye on your traffic ties in with knowing who your readers are and what they want. To be successful with a blog or any website for that matter, you must know what your readers are most interested in and give it to them. If you write a post about getting more traffic to a website and a big percentage of your readers are reading that post it only stands to reason that you should be writing more on that subject. If you don’t have a tracking system in place on your blog you should get one setup right away because every day that passes by you are losing traffic.

A good place to go is statcounter. Statcounter is a great tracking system that will give you all the stats you will ever need for free. You can signup for Statcounter here.

If it has been difficult getting your blog off the ground try the above 5 business blogging tips. I think that you will find that they will help a lot.

Do you have a blogging spouse or perhaps you, yourself, are a blogging spouse. As most of us know blogs were created as an online diary that can be viewed by others.

If you or your blogging spouse run a business blog all information given on the blog will probably be unbiased and based more on facts rather than opinions unlike a personal blog that is based more on biased opinions rather than fact.

While a personal blog may be a great place to get out you or your blogging spouse’s stress and frustration it can also be a place where you or your blogging spouse may unintentionally air your unwanted dirty laundry so to speak.

When we get angry we generally say things that we really don’t mean later on. The problem is, in that fit of anger you or your blogging spouse may put something in writing about this anger.

The problem with talking about why you are mad about something especially if that anger is aimed at your spouse or your blogging spouse’s anger is aimed at you, everything that the blog readers read is one sided and very biased. Let’s face it, most of us will not admit to being wrong when we are in the moment of anger. We may admit to being wrong when that anger has subsided but will never do so when we are angry.

The serious problem comes into play when the readers of the blog post read you or your blogging spouse’s, angry post. People tend to take sides and since the blog readers have only one side that they can take which of course is that of the author of the post. There are two sides to everything and it is unfair to give only one side of the problem.

I guess the bottom line here is if you or your blogging spouse, have a personal blog don’t get too personal especially if it involves you and your spouse’s personal differences. Stick with the more upbeat things. The personal stuff should stay private. I understand that people love dirt and will come running to read it but you have to ask yourself is it worth it?

If you feel that you need to clear the air by expressing your anger or you feel that it is the only way that you can get people to visit your blog you may want to form a partnership with your spouse so that he or she can express their side as well. By doing this you will accomplish the traffic that you want and at the same time keep your marriage intact.

Personally I wouldn’t air my dirty laundry in public. Different strokes for different folks; it’s what makes life interesting I guess.

Blogging popups can be very annoying and obtrusive just like any other popup. Listed below are seven popup plugins that are not annoying or obtrusive and are actually very useful.

Avatar Blogging Popup
This Wordpress Plugin allows you to personalize, if not humanize, your posts, adding popups containings avatars next to mailto links, as well as next to any word.

Simple Images Blogging Popup
The Simple Popup Images plugin allows you to add pop-up images to your Wordpress 2.0 or 2.1 blog. You put a thumbnail image in your post; if a user clicks on it, a larger version appears in a separate window.

Firefox Blogging Popup Plugin For Wordpress
Wordpress plugin where you could promote Firefox browser and earn from the affiliate commission paid by Google.

User Bio Blogging Popup Plugin
This WordPress plugin searches posts and pages for the nicknames of authors. When it finds one, it turns it into a link which brings up a popup window with the author’s bio and image.

Simple Forum
As the name suggests, Simple Forum is a simple and straightforward forum that does the sort of stuff a forum is supposed to.

Blogging Popup Image Gallery
Is a WordPress plugin that utilizes ‘Pages’ as a container for a gallery.

Articles 1.0 Blogging Popup
This plugin allows you to easily present a list of posts you select outside of your blog chronology.

This blog was the first blog that I ever setup and I can tell you that I was the biggest blogging dummy there is. If you are as ignorant as I was about blogging in the beginning you probably are as big of a blogging dummy as I was.

I was such a blogging dummy that I had no idea what a blog was or how powerful of a marketing tool a blog really is.

I’ve been in Internet marketing for a long time but I’ve always owned html websites. With what I know now about blog websites and the benefits that come with a blog I will never go back to an html website again.

Here’s what a blog is in case you are just as big of a blogging dummy as I was. The word blog is short for weblog, which is basically an online journal. At least that was the idea of a blog in the beginning and a lot of bloggers still use a blog for this purpose but blogs have morphed into much more than that over the years.

Over time, online businesses saw the potential of setting up a blog and monetizing it so that they could do business from the blog because of the built in tools that would help them drive potential customers to their website.

In case you are a real blogging dummy and have never come across a blog until now, wordpress is the best and most powerful blog software out there because of its flexability and because you have full control over what you want it to do and look like. Wordpress is a free standalone blogging software and was perfect for a blogging dummy like me because of its ease of use. You can find wordpress here.

If you own an online html website and are not doing well with it, it might be a good idea to move it over to a blog because it will be a lot easier to get traffic with a blog. I know that you are still a blogging dummy but the best way to learn how to use a blog is by actually using it. I know it was for me.

You can find more info on blogging here. First go and download wordpress because it will be a lot easier to learn it as you go. You won’t be a blogging dummy for long because it is pretty easy to learn. I was a blogging dummy and I can tell you that I now have it down cold.

I found a cool wordpress donation plugin today that asks you to buy the author a beer if you liked the post that was written. Instead of coming out and asking for a donation this plugin asks you to buy the author of the post a beer.

I like the novelty of this idea. I’m not too sure how well this wordpress donation plugin will work in the long run after the novelty has worn off. I would have to guess when this plugin becomes more popular and more blog owners use the wordpress donation plugin it may become less effective. I do think this is a neat idea though.

The buy me a beer, wordpress donation plugin is displayed at the bottom of every post giving the reader the opportunity to buy the poster a beer after reading each post.

If you haven’t monetized your blog yet the wordpress donation plugin may be a good way to do so. I would think that a plugin like this would work best for blogs that don’t sell anything because most readers would view a monetized site as the blog owner doesn’t need the money and not donate.

The wordpress donation plugin works through the paypal system. When the reader clicks the buy me a beer button he or she is taken to your paypal order form where the donation is made. There is no required price but it is suggested that a glass of beer would be $3.00 and a pitcher of beer would be $7.50 but the person making the donation can pay whatever he or she wants. There is no minimum donation price.

If you have been thinking about setting up a donation option on your blog but didn’t know how, or felt uncomfortable about asking for donations, the buy me a beer plugin may be just what you need because it asks for you. You can download the wordpress donation plugin here.

Because of what happened to this blog overnight last night compels me to post this.

If you have a blog and don’t use any kind of spam filtering plug-in you are asking for trouble. I woke up this morning to 102 spams that were caught by spam karma.

The moron who attempted to spam this blog must have been using some sort of submission software because he or she attempted to post a comment to every, one, of the posts in every category on this blog.

If I didn’t have a spam filter in place I would have a serious mess to clean up after because some jerk thought that spamming a blog would be beneficial to his or her marketing approach.

The spammer has absolutely no clue on how to market because he or she didn’t even bother to try to spam a blog that is relevant to the product he or she is promoting. I don’t think that IM and Insurance quotes are real relevant.

Anyway, the point is, if you don’t yet have some kind of spam protection in place get it done right away. There’s no excuse not to. WordPress comes with Akismet so if you have a WordPress blog you don’t even have to find a plug-in for it. You only need to activate it.

Just because you haven’t had a problem with spam to this point doesn’t mean that you never will. At some point in time a spammer will find you. Make sure that you are protected when that happens.

It is so important that that you add new information to your blog or website as often as possible. This blog has seen a substantial increase in traffic over the past couple of weeks due to the fact that I religiously write something new at least 5 times a week. Since I have started this blog I have not posted less than 5 times in a week.

When I started this blog a little over 3 months ago my Alexa ranking was over four million. Today it is less than two hundred thousand. That’s not bad considering where I was just a few short months ago. I expect that I will be somewhere under 100,000 within the next few weeks. That is a good ranking that most websites don’t see in such a short period of time. Many will never see that ranking at all.

My Google ranking was zero as all sites are when first starting out. Within 2 months I went to a page rank of 3. The thing is, I went straight from a ranking of 0 to a ranking of 3. This site never saw a page rank of 1 or 2. It went right to 3.

The traffic to this site has steadily gone up week after week. While I do promote this site regularly, I know that I get the best results when I update the content on this site.

The biggest increase in traffic to this site has come way of the search engines. The reason for that is because I write something here almost every day. Think about it. People use words to find information or products online so it only stands to reason that the more we write, the better the chances are that people searching will find words that we have written to find us. That’s why it is super important to write very often.

I remember when I first started this blog and being envious of the blogs that I visited because they were higher ranked than I was and seemed to get a lot more visitors than I did. Well that’s not the case anymore. This site ranks higher than 80% of the sites that outranked me just a few months ago. The reason for that is they don’t update their site as often as they should. Most of those blogs I no longer visit because of the lack of information that they provide. I’m sure that these sites get inconsistent results because they just don’t do enough to get it to the next level or even maintain what they already have.

There is a point here. I’m not bragging about my progress. I am pretty darn proud of it though. I’m telling you this because if you are struggling hopefully what I just told you about this blog will shed some light for you and will give you some incentive to continue going with whatever it is that you do online.

You need to, especially if your online business is still in the early stages of development to work on it on a daily basis. Contrary to what you have been told many times that making money online is easy and quick. If you have been marketing for awhile I’m sure that you have already figured out that this is not the case.

There is no get rich quick method. There is only slow steady consistent along with persistence that will help you reach your goal. Only when you think that it can’t be done is when you are doomed. Above anything else that you do, keep updating your website with fresh valuable information and you will see real results that will happen when you least expect them to. This website didn’t get where it is today by accident. It got where it is because it has not been neglected for even one day. I suspect that it will take off very soon. All the signs of it are there. Keep writing and take care of business daily and you will be in the same position as I am soon.

If your website doesn’t use RSS you really should consider setting up one for your website.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Since you have a website, I assume that you want to get visitors to your website. An RSS feed will help you do just that. An RSS feed provides short descriptions of a website’s content. If you were to take a run over to technorati and run a search on anything you like, you will get a snippet of the most recent content for each website that is displayed.

Here’s the importance of using RSS to you. Every time that you update your website with new content or with whatever change that is made to your website, your RSS will announce to the world, including the search engines, that changes have been made and in return will send people to your website to check out those changes.

Bottom line, using RSS will help drive new, as well as returning traffic to your website. Another great benefit of having an RSS feed setup on your website is that when someone visits your site and if he or she likes the content on your website they can subscribe your feed via email or through a feed reader. This is a great benefit because you can bet that this person will be returning to your website sometime in the near future.

As we all know the more often people come back to our website the better the chance there is that they will buy something. The returning visitor’s come back because they trust you and see you as an authority on whatever it is you do and some of them will tell others about your website as well. There’s nothing better than word of mouth. It really gives you, and your website, credibility.

RSS is probably mostly responsible for the increasing number of blog sites popping up because they have RSS built right in. You don’t have to have a blog to run RSS on your website. Any website can use RSS. If you are interested in setting up an RSS feed on your website, you can use this form to help you set one up. http://www.webreference.com

One last thing that you need to understand about RSS, if you don’t have a lot of content on your website and you don’t intend to update it on a regular basis, RSS will not do you much good. Regularly updated websites are the sites that do the best with the search engines and in general for that matter. RSS will help you get the most out of your updated content.

In a nutshell, RSS will help get you noticed with the search engines along with your visitors.

I just finished reading over at the wordpress blog that the 2.1.1 version of wordpress has been compromised by a cracker.

Anyone who has downloaded this version over the last 4 days has a cracked version of the software. If you have downloaded this version within the past 4 days you need to get over to wordpress and download the patched version 2.1.2.

Wordpress has deemed the entire release as dangerous. You can download the patched version here. http://wordpress.org/download and you can get the full story here. http://wordpress.org/development/2007/03

Get over to wordpress and download the patched release and then post about it on your blog. The more bloggers that post about it hopefully will minimize the damage that something like this can do.

WordPress 2.1.2 Patched Release
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