DO YOUR BLOG A FAVOUR

Are you thinking that your blogsite could do with a bit of a makeover? Want to do something to it that will make it stand out more from the increasingly crowded blogosphere? Perhaps add a few bells and whistles?

Flame Tree Flower

...well read on.

To standout in the blogosphere today you need to give some visual 'oomph' to your site. Luckily there's a lot out there for the discerning blogger.

I've compiled a list of various third party widgets that should be part of any blogger's armoury. I'll show you how within a few minutes you can have polls running on your blog, create RSS feeds, get mailling lists subscriptions, and collect statistics on visitors to your blog or website.

Best of all everything on this site is COMPLETELY FREE! Better than free, I'll show you how you can use that extra traffic to generate money

If you feel I've missed any goodies off this list - why not drop me a comment at the bottom of this page?

Contents

Scripts & Widgets

  • Sitemeter & HiStats (view the statistics of visitors to this site)
  • Clustermaps
  • Notify list (join my mailout)
  • Monitize your site with ADSENSE or AFFILIATE WINDOW
  • FeedBurner (subscribe to further updates on blog widgets)
  • Poll Daddy (use a poll here of the different widgets...people can vote their fave)
  • Site Snap (implement site snap on this site..put url below for example)
  • Flickr Badges (display a Flickr photo gallery)
  • YouTube movies on your blog
  • Photobox galleries
  • Soundbox
  • Javascript Kit (insert some javascript examples)
  • My Blog Log
  • Traffic Boosting simple ways to direct traffic to your site

Website Services

  • Palette Generator get the most appropriate color schemes for your site

Tools

  • GoodKeywordsGenerate Good Keywords

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Make Money From Your Website Traffic

I’ve been reflecting this week about the amazing diversity of opportunities that are opening up for bloggers to earn an income from or through their blogging.

I’ve long advised that bloggers seeking to earn an income from blogging spread their interests across multiple revenue streams so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.

The wonderful thing is that this is becoming easier and easier to do with many many options opening up. I thought I’d take a look at some of the ways that bloggers are currently making money through blogs.

The key things to know are what best use you can put your advertising space to, i.e. which Affiliate systems will pull in the most money.

Adsense and Affiliate Window are some key players in the site based monetization

Affiliate Window

Affiliate Window you get paid when someone clicks through on a advert with earnings per click going up to $10, it's clear to see a clever blogger can generate a significant income stream

You can join the AffiliateWindow for free through the link below, they then take around 24hrs to vet your site and you are off and running

   

Google Adsense

Googles contextual advert system is called Adsense. With Adsense you get paid much smaller amounts for each click, however you can join the referral scheme which allows you to earn a much larger earnings for each lead you give for a select number of products

You can join the Google Adsense free, click on the button below and follow the instructions.

Create A "Flickr Badge" Photo Gallery

Method 1 (Badgr customisable Flickr Badges)

  1. Go to the badgr constructor site.
  2. Select the parameters for the Frame, Mode, and Tag. The real advantage here is you can customise the number of columns and rows and size of the image's in the badge.
  3. Then go to the Generator tab where the code will be built for you. The easy method is to copy the code in the field below the "myspace code" which is all in an embed tag (this is easier for blogs or quick stuff). If you are going to use the SWFObject code you'll need the SWFobject javascript flash player detection and embed script see.

Method 2 (A Flicker Badge - either flash or HTML)

  1. Login your to www.flicker.com
  2. Go to the "Tools" (the link is hard to find but it is at the bottom of the "your photos" page).
  3. On the right hand side of the 'Tools' screen click on "build a Badge" (due to lots of complaints Flickr may make put this tool in a more prominent position in the future).
  4. Follow the instructions to create the Badge (more detailed instructions can be found here)

Method 3 (A Flicker Badge - Flash)

  1. This is effectively the same as the Method 2 except you will select the flash version a the start rather than HTML.
Method 1 Method 2 Method 3

www.flickr.com

www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from Flickr tagged with new zealand. Make your own badge here.

Other Flickr Tools

A Flickr Slideshow

Embedded Flickr Slideshows

Dig those flash Flickr slideshows? All that’s needed is a bit of code to embed them within your website to give your readers something dynamic. 

 <iframe align=center 
src=http://www.flickr.com/slideShow/index.gne?user_id=653214@N00&tags=foo
 frameBorder=0 width=500 scrolling=no 
height=500></iframe>

Place this somewhere on your website or within a blog post. Change user_id from 12345678@N00 to your flickr id, which you can find out with this idgettr. Also replace foo with the tags of the photos you wish to display.

Other parameters include the following:

  • contacts=
  • text=
  • tag_mode=
  • favorites=
  • group_id=
  • frifam=
  • nsid=
  • single=
  • firstIndex=
  • set_id=
  • firstId=

Here's one I made earlier!

Add You Tube Video To Your Blog

  1. Create a YouTube Account
  2. Search for the video you want to post
  3. There are two options:<\li>
    1. Put the 'Embed Object' code in your blog
    2. Or if you have a www.blogger.com account you can directly post it.
  4. I prefer the first method as it allows you to alter the size of the video by modifying the width & height attributes (note: you have to edit both sets of height & width attributes of the code).

Try watching this video!

Embed object

Post Directly

Create Interactive Polls And Survey"s For Your Site

You can vote on the above poll! Click on an answer and see the result!

You can generate polls like this with PollDaddy .

  1. Go to the PollDadday site and create an account
  2. Set-up a poll
  3. Paste the HTML/JAVASCRIPT into your blog or website .. voilà!
 e.g. poll results

Collect A Readership Mailing List With "Notify List"

Notify List creates a system whereby you can collect a mailing list from readers of your blog or website, you can then user this list to communicate more directly with your readership via email

To create a Notify list

  1. Visit http://notifylist.com.
  2. Create an account.
  3. Post code onto your blog or website. Users can then enter their email details which will be compiled at your notify list account.
  4. A field like this will then appear on your site:

Collect Information on visitors to your site

Here are two services that will collect information on the visitors to your site, both are good however HiStats is completely free and has a nicer interface while Sitemeter has a free version and a trial version. Hey you don't even have to choose - use both..

Histats

I personally prefer HiStats - reasons

  • Better Interface
  • You can manage multiple sites from a single account

Click on the counter below to view the statistics form this site

Sitemeter

However Sitemeter does have one or two good things going..

  • Excellent visitor location information
  • Stores better referral detail on which links your visitors used to visit your site

Click on the sitemeter below to view this page's stats

How To Set-up "SNAP Preview" On Your Website Or Blog!

To see an example of the Snap preview, hover the mouse icon over this LINk and Snap will show you a image of what that link will take you to. Cool...eh!

Try it on some of the other links on this site..

Note SNAP may not show preveiws of same-page-pointing-links and some links generated by scripts

  1. Go to the Snap website.
  2. Select a color scheme & logo (optional) for the Snap preview floating callout window.
  3. Enter your URL etc.
  4. Copy the HTML/JAVASCRIPT into your blog or website...
  5. The first time a link is hovered over Snap will get the image which usually takes a few seconds, after that this information will be cached at the snap server so subsequent previews will be instantaneous

JavaScript Kit

To follow shortly

Traffic Boosting

I'll complete this section soon

StumbleUppon

Squidoo

Del.ici.ous

Digg

Get your Digg Icon onto your site for extra exposure

Here is the code you need

 <script>
digg_url ='POST_URL';
</script>
<script src="http://digg.com/api/diggthis.js"></script>
Here is the results for my Digg... If you've found this useful - let everyone know and give me a Digg!

Other Article Submission Sites

Use Google "link:" to see who has created backlinks to your site

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Tuesday, 27 February 2007

Other Blog & Website Tools?

Everyday new cool tools are being invented and made available on the web, if you know of a widget, website service or third party tool that I might want to review on this blog please place a comment on this post.



Happy Blogging!!

Posted by afolarin at 01:13 1 comments

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Accessorize Your Blog

Pimp-up, Jazzify, Bling Your Blog.....it's all here. Detailed instructions on a huge range of 3rd party bells and whistles FREELY AVAILABLE FOR YOUR BLOG.