Welcome to Catchtheposts! I hope that the content of this blog will be helpful to you. Don't hesitate to use the contact form to send me your comments, feedback, suggested topics or questions. Thanks for visiting!

If you're new here, you may consider to subscribe and receive all new tips for free. Updates may be delivered on your feedreader or directly on your mailbox!.

Photo by Stewart

Day after day, you work hard on your blog by creating high quality content or by making it more usable and attractive. Owning a blog and producing original content require lots of time and lots of efforts. Of course, you don’t want to loose anything related to your precious work.

Backing up your blog should be a priority among your blog activities. There are plenty of article concerning blog backup, however I think that this topic doesn’t get the attention it really deserve. In fact, you should backup your blog daily or, at least, weekly. Period!

Let’s imagine few seconds that you loose all your articles, all your comments, your customized Wordpress theme, your photos and all your downloadable files. This would be a disaster, isn’t it? How much time would be required to reconstruct a blog like the one you just lost?

Backing up your blog is something simple that doesn’t require so much time. In fact, it really worth the time it takes!

The Basics

When we talk about backing up your blog, this means that you need to backup your blog database which mainly includes your articles and your comments, and your blog platform which include Wordpress itself, your themes, your plugins, your photos and your downloadable files.

Backup your blog = Backup your blog database + Backup your blog platform

Backup Your Blog Database

The simplest way to backup your database is by using a Wordpress plugin. There are several plugins regarding this activity, however I decided to only list 3 of them – which I consider as excellent plugins:

BackUpWordpress.

BackUpWordPress is a Backup & Recovery Suite for your WordPress website. This Plugin allows you to backup database as well as files and comes with a rich set of options.

Homepage: http://wordpress.designpraxis.at/plugins/backupwordpress/

WP-DBManager.

Manages your Wordpress database. Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.

Homepage: http://lesterchan.net/portfolio/programming.php

WP-DB-Backup.

WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database.

Homepage: http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup/

Take a look at them and choose the one that better fill your need.

Backup Your Blog Platform

As you notice in the last section, BackUpWordpress let you backup both your database and your platform. This has the advantage that you may not forget to backup anything if you schedule an automatic backup.

However, if you choose to use WP-DBManager or WP-DB-Backup, you’ll need to do your blog platform backup manually. The simplest way would be to use a FTP client like CuteFTP or to use a specialize software to synchronize your remote files with a local backup.

In Summary

Don’t forget that anything could happen anytime. Of course, the worst case seems to be a server crash. This type of failure is major and may rarely happen, but it could. Moreover, this type of failure often results in corrupted and/or unrecoverable data. However, there are some other situations that may happen more frequently. Let’s think about a simple cut and paste that may erase, by mistake, a bunch of lines on your theme; after you submitted it, it’s too late! You are a human and, by nature, humans are not perfect and do mistakes. However, you have the control to avoid this type of disaster. If you don’t have any backup process yet, invest few minutes right now to get the tools you need. Prevention is the key!

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!

Photo by angela7dreams

It is the goal of every blogger (or at least most of them) to develop a popular blog. As you may be aware of, I recently wrote an article on this topic which was mainly focusing on content distribution. Moreover, I was also demonstrating the importance to develop a firm core audience based on true engagement.

Still on the same subject, I read, last week, the article of Daniel Sococco titled Having an Opinion: The Secret Sauce for a Popular Blog. All through my reading, I was thinking about the relation between Having an opinion and what I wrote in my own article. This key is the engagement!

Engage Yourself.

Developing a true engaged audience is not easy. It takes time and lots of efforts. In addition, your readers must find one or several significant reasons to subscribe. Why do people subscribe to your blog? Of course there are various possible reasons. However, at the end, every reason has the same root: the engagement and the adherence to the values your blog and you are carrying.

In fact, this may be summarize with a single sentence: developing a true engaged audience is possible if you – as a blogger – are demonstrating your own engagement! How could you ask someone to be an engaged and loyal reader if you are not an engaged and loyal blogger? This doesn’t mean to give your opinion and your position on everything. It only means to be true and authentic on everything you do. Your reputation is the foundation of your authority.

Demonstrating your engagement may be quite simple. Here is a small but accurate list of elements that may help you.

Demonstrate your presence.

Being engaged is, at first, being present. You may demonstrate your presence by taking the time to leave a comment or two on some of your readers’ blog. It may be by answering everyone that leaves you a comment or an email. It could be through your blog but it could also be through social media.

There are countless ways to demonstrate your presence to your audience. The most important is to do it with a smile and to be constant!

Be true and authentic.

Being true and authentic is determinant to build a strong and positive reputation. If you stay who you are and if you are are sincere on what you do, you’ll build something true and unique. Playing a game may works for some time, but when the game is over, there is nothing you can do to clean up your reputation.

Be generous.

Being generous will always be a must! True relationships are based on true sharing and acts of generosity! There are so many opportunity everyday to demonstrate your generosity. It could be by giving some backlinks to someone or by giving a positive review. The more creative it is, the better it is! Don’t miss a chance to be someone supportive.

Note that every act of altruism will influence the perception of your readers. If you give them all the attention they deserve, they’ll give you more than you may ever think!

Summary

I often hear and read about engaged readers, but what are you personally doing to gather your own community around common values? What are doing to create a true significance around your blog’s adherence? Have you do a true engaged action for your readers recently? Relationship is not effortless. As in your personal life, you must take care about people around you and concretely demonstrate your support. A community is based on common interests but it is also based on common sharing and true engagement!

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!

One of the most challenging elements when trying to be profitable online is to get a maximum of visibility to get the most important volume of traffic possible. There are several ways to reach that goal and one is to buy traffic through a professional advertising company.

TNX.net is a text link advertising business that quickly gains more popularity on the market. They offer professional services for both webmasters (publishers) and advertisers. As a webmaster, you may take advantage of unique TNX features to accumulate TNX-points and get an additional income channel for your websites. As an advertiser, TNX provides you an innovative way to get a high volume of non-reciprocal links from thousands of relevant websites for a very low price.

How it works

The first step is to register with TNX. I was very impressed by the simplicity of the registering process. In fact, it’s nothing more than a simple 5 fields form. No complex process, no sensitive information required! The account is then immediately available.

Once logged in, you will have access to your main dashboard which is well design and very clean. The whole interface is quite intuitive and easy to use. All your account information is available on a single page.

There is a sidebar on the left side of the page that gives you access to all the tools you may need to use. The sidebar is divided in 3 different sections. A section for the webmaster related features another one for the advertiser related features and the third one for the affiliate program information.

For Webmasters

The section for webmasters presents a button to get the TNX code which only requires a simple copy-paste to be installed on your web pages. The code is fully available in PHP and in Perl. It also seems to be available in ASP in an experimental form. The webmaster section also presents 2 buttons related to your sites management. Note that adding a new site is very easy, but you will need to wait from 1 to 3 business days for approbation.

Moreover, a button to sell your TNX-points is also available. There are 2 different ways to sell your TNX-points. The first one is to sell it to other TNX members and advertisers. The second is to sell it to TNX itself. Currently, TNX is doing a buyout at 0.88$ per 1000 TNX-points. Note that this price is increasing every week due to growth of the TNX network and its effectiveness. In addition, it is actually not allowed to transfer more than 500 000 TNX-points per day.

In term of unique features, TNX offers to webmasters the opportunity to sell links on every page of their websites. According to TNX, this method could be up to 10 times more profitable than selling sitewide links. As a webmaster you may also choose their advertisers by your own. In fact, this means that you may exclusively place relevant links on every page. You can get more details concerning this feature on the DP Forum.

Note that the price of every link is calculated automatically. More precisely, it is mainly based on the Google PageRank (PR) of each page, the website category, the link popularity, and the number of outbound links. Actually, there is a tool available on the TNX website to calculate your potential income.

For Advertisers

The section for advertiser presents a button to create a new campaign. This brings us to an intuitive interface that let us choose the different characteristics of the targeted websites to publish your ads. The possible characteristics are the web category, the geo-targeting, the Yahoo! Backlinks and the Google PageRank. According to those different parameters, TNX estimates the number of backlinks you may expect if you spend a given amount of TNX-points per day.

Another button brings you to your campaign management page. Among other things, the management of your campaign allows you to freeze a campaign in the case it has not enough link placed.

The two last buttons of the sidebar are related to your campaign statistics and the acquisition of additional points. Actually, TNX quickly gains more traction on the market and this is mainly due to their low prices. In fact, for as low as $11 a month, TNX claims that you may get up to 10 000 static links that will point to your website.

A New Text Link Perspective

We may not underestimate the value of getting well-targeted traffic from relevant websites. TNX has based their system to offer the best services possible in term of efficiency and relevancy. TNX offers unique and valuable features and this is another reason why they increase their popularity. In fact, TNX combines the benefits of contextual advertising, text link brokers and relevant exchange of permanent non-reciprocal text links. TNX gives another perspective of paid link advertising.

In addition, TNX offers a free tool to make link looks more natural. In fact, this tool aims to avoid any penalization from Google. According to TNX, the variety is the key to success. The TNX link generator is, therefore, focus on generating a wide variety of the same link. For more details concerning this tool, you may consider visiting the DP Forum.

Also, you may be aware that TNX published some simple tips which help their advertisers to rank #1 in Google for highly competitive keywords. These tips are mainly some guidelines you may follow to be successful in terms of Google ranking. You may want to get them on the DP forum.

The Affiliate Program

TNX is offering an affiliate program that allows their partners to earn some TNX-points by referring new webmasters. In fact, as an affiliate, you will receive 13.3% of all TNX-points that are generated by the websites of the webmasters your referred. TNX allows 3 ways to refer webmasters. The first one is with direct link on your own sites. The second one is by using referral link. This could be done with a text link, a 125×125 banner, a 468×60 banner or a 468×49 banner. The last one is by direct link to other sites. TNX invites their partners to gently use this method because it could be disapprove by forum moderators.

In Summary

TNX is getting more popularity and more traction into the current market. Their unique features, their effective network and their low prices give them a lot of leverage on the market. No matter if you plan to use it as a webmaster or as an advertiser, TNX definitely offers good opportunities to earn additional income and to get more visibility online. Note that TNX currently have a limited offer to get links from 5000 quality websites for free! You’ll find the link by visiting the TNX website. It’s a good opportunity to give it a try for free!

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!

Photo by icanteachyouhowtodoit

My article of April 4th was related to the Guest Blogging Contest of the Search Engine Journal (SEJ). In that posts, I was saying that you cannot loose by participating; you may only be a winner!

The contest is now started and I guess you may want to read the article I submitted. As a bonus, you’ll see my picture! The URL is the following: The Secret to Developing a Popular Blog

Of course, I would highly appreciate your support. The best way to support me is to read the article and to distribute it everywhere you can. It can be by sending it to a friend, twitting, commenting, make a post on it, send it to social media like Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, reddit, etc. Also, as usually, I will highly appreciate your feedback!

Thanks in advance to all of you!

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!

Photo by donlbe

Social Media are essential in term of content distribution. In fact, this is one of the most efficient ways to get visibility. Obviously, the more visibility you get the more chance you have to build a popular blog.

In term of visibility, the most effective spot is clearly the Digg Front Page. Many bloggers tried to break the Digg code by doing some experimentation. Late last week, Invesp.com published an article titled: Secrets Revealed: Breaking the Digg Code. This sounds quite audacious for me, but I think it worth the reading. The secret isn’t reveal in the blog article but in a 20 page PDF report. In fact, Invesp.com claims that they were able to get 63% of their submission to the first page of Digg in 2007. Note that the report is exclusively available for their feed subscribers. So, if you are not currently one of them, you’ll need to subscribe to get your own copy. The report outlines a 4 weeks step-by-step instructional program. It is clean and well done.

Keep in mind that this report is the result of an experimentation. Note also that I really don’t support social bookmarking games. Social Bookmark sites are founded on quality values which make them exceptional platforms for any kind of valuable content. Reading this report to satisfy your curiosity seems to be fair for me, but then, you’ll be the only judge about what you will be doing with it.

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!

Photo by Hamed Saber

Relationship is the foundation of any core audience. It is mainly based on emotional engagement. In fact, I think this is why it is so important to me. There are many reasons that may lead a reader to subscribe to a blog, but I think that the strongest is definitely emotional. If readers like what you are doing and/or if they like you as a blogger, you’ll increase your chances to win a new member in your core.

Relationship is getting stronger when there is true sharing between the two parties and this is precisely what I want to do. As I put in the headline, I want my core audience to know they are on the top; the top of my priority and the top of my blog! Let me explains.

My core audience is on the top of my priority because without them – maybe you are part of it – my blog won’t be alive. In fact, I would be a blogger without readers which make no sense to me. This is why I plan to make some actions to give more visibility to my core audience. Beginning next month, I’m planning to make two 125×125 spots above the fold exclusively available for my subscribers. These spots will most likely be place above my sponsors’ spots.

The Conditions to Get a Spot.

The first spot will reward the top commenter. So there will be two conditions to take the first 125×125 spot:

1. Be part of my feed readers (via email).
2. Be the top commenter at the end of the month.

The second spot will reward a random feed reader. In fact, I’ll randomly pick a reader among my feed readers’ list. So there will be two conditions to take the second 125×125 spot.

1. Be part of my feed readers (via email).
2. Be the selected reader in the draw.

Note that it is essential to be part of my feed via email to have a chance to get a spot. It may seem a little annoying for some of you, but it is the only way I have to properly identify each reader. The two 125×125 spots will be changed the last day of each month and the comment counter will be reset at the same time. Note that if you don’t have your 125×125 banner, I’ll be able to help you. You’ll just have to contact me. Of course, I would’ve liked to make some place for all of you, but I cannot change the space taken by a 125×125 spot!

You can subscribe by email here:

A Special Page.

Rather than doing the impossible, my plan would be to make a new page with text links. This page will be available for anyone who asked for it. The only condition would be to submit it originally! What does that mean? I don’t want this page to look like a link farm. I want it to be creative and original! In fact, I would like that you submit your link incorporated in a personal presentation of your blog. You may also include a 75×75 picture to give some colors to your presentation. Please, choose your picture carefully! I’ll reject every picture that looks inappropriate. Your presentation must not have more than 80 words. Note that you also need to be part of my email feed reader to have a place on this special page.

Now, let’s recap. To be part of this special page you need the following:

1. Be part of my feed readers (via email).
2. Create an original presentation with your link included (and optionally include a 75×75 picture).
3. Limit this presentation to appreciatively 80 words.
4. Ask me to include it in my special page via my contact form.

You can subscribe by email here:

If you have any questions, comments or feedback, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’ll be pleased to get back to you as soon as possible.

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!

Photo by re_birf

Have you ever run out of idea when trying to make your blog post? Have you ever experiment a writer’s block? Don’t worry about that! I guess every blogger experiment that scary feeling someday.

The goal of this post is precisely to give you effective ways to find new ideas. My recommendation would be to try one or several of the following ways before running out of ideas; prevent it instead of healing it!

1. Set alerts on specific keywords.

Setting alerts with either Google or Yahoo is a great way to prevent running out of ideas. All you need to do is define a list of keywords that will be relevant to your blog’s topic. Then, log into your Google or Yahoo account and set your alerts based on the keywords you previously defined. I would recommend to setup alerts on both news and blogs. This will help you to cover an acceptable part of what is happening on the web.

Resources:
Goggle Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts
Yahoo! Alerts: http://alerts.yahoo.com

2. Visit new blogs on your niche.

Sometimes, we just need to break the routine to get new ideas. To do so, I would recommend visiting new blogs on your niche. There are plenty of places where you can find them: blog directories, blogroll from your favorite blogs, social media, forums, search engines, etc. Depending on your niche, you’ll find lots or few blogs to visit. Take the time to read some recent articles and browse their archive.

Resources:
Google Blog Search: http://blogsearch.google.com
Yahoo! Blog Directory: http://dir.yahoo.com/news_and_media/blogs
Google Blog Directories list: http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Weblogs/Directories
Yahoo! Blog Directories list: http://dir.yahoo.com/News_and_Media/Blogs/Blog_Directories

3. Browse the most popular articles from other blogs on your niche.

You may find great article ideas when browsing the “Popular Articles” section of a blog on your niche. It may help you getting more inspiration as well as helping you finding popular topics to update or expand. The most important aspect, when you start from that point, is to really make your updated content original and unique. To do so, take the time to read carefully the articles you may want to update or expand and only take the main ideas. Then, start from the scratch and present those main ideas by exposing your personal thoughts. Then, it would be kind from you to insert a link back to the original article.

Resources:
7 Efficient Ways to Increase the Value of Your Content

4. Look at what people are looking for.

Looking at what people are looking for may help you a lot to find a new article idea. In fact, keywords may help creative minds to find terrific ideas or at least be the starting point of an efficient brainstorming.

Resources:
Google Trends: http://google.com/trends
Google Zeitgeist: http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html
Yahoo! Buzz: http://buzz.yahoo.com
AOL Hot Searches: http://hotsearches.aol.com
Dogpile Search Spy: http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/searchspy

5. Look at what people is looking for on your blog.

More specifically, it may be very helpful to know the search engine queries that lead people to your blog and what people are specifically querying while they are on your blog. This type of information may help you to focus your effort on articles that actually get the attention of your readers. Almost every tracking software will allows you to get this information. The most known one is Google Analytics. However, you could also consider using Sitemeter which also offers a great service.

Resources:
Google Analytics: http://www.google.com/analytics
Sitemeter: http://www.sitemeter.com

6. Encourage your audience to suggest topic or ask questions.

Another great way to find new ideas is to either open a question session with your audience and/or create a “Q&A” or “Ask The Blogger” section. This is a simple and effective way to interact with your audience and find targeted ideas for your articles. Depending on the questions and the subjects submitted by your readers, you may want to organize them into categories. This will ease you job to create articles based on common topics. Note that this method may also be very successful to get new loyal core readers.

7. Browse through Social Media.

Social Medias receive tons of new submissions each day. It is a tremendous place to find plenty of new creative ideas. All these websites offers the possibility to make a search that may help you to find hot topics on your niche. Moreover, most of them offer also a way to filter the results by rating or by time. Get ready to take some notes and to create your own list of new ideas.

Resources:
StumbleUpon: http://www.stumbleupon.com
Digg: http://digg.com
Del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us
Mixx: http://www.mixx.com
Technorati : http://www.technorati.com
YouTube : http://www.youtube.com

To get even more…
Yahoo! Social Networks Directory: http://dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Cultures_and_Groups/Cyberculture/Social_Networks

8. Browse forums on your niche.

Forums are places to share ideas, ask questions or talk about general topics. Therefore, it is another good place to find fresh ideas. It is also a great place to participate in idea sharing and challenging discussions. To find forums related to your niche, get to your favorite search engine and type keywords relevant to your niche followed by the word “forums” or “forum”. For example, if your blog is related to health, you’ll have to type “Health forums” or “health forum”.

9. Look at the most popular things.

Taking look at the most popular things may help you to target your articles on things people are really looking for. It could be software tools, hot topics, breaking news or anything else relevant to your niche. There are several places where you could find popular things. The following resource list gives you a starting point.

Resources:
Wordpress Plugins: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins
Firefox Extentions: https://addons.mozilla.org
eBay Pulse: http://pulse.ebay.com
Technorati: http://technorati.com/pop
Digg: http://digg.com (Use the “Popular” filter)
Del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us (Use the “Popular” filter)
Mixx: http://www.mixx.com (Use the “Popular” filter)

10. Look for the most recent things.

As for the popular things, the newest things may have a good traction on your readers. It is always great to demonstrate that we are up to date in our niche. It may have a positive and significant impact on your authority. In fact, this could lead you to terrific opportunities to create original and unique content and thus, create a lot of back links pointing to your articles.

Resources:
Wordpress Plugins: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins
Firefox Extentions: https://addons.mozilla.org
Technorati: http://technorati.com
Digg: http://digg.com (Use the “Upcoming” filter)
Del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us (Use the “Recent” filter)
Mixx: http://www.mixx.com (Use the “Recent” filter)

11. Browse articles directories.

Articles directories get a large amount of article submissions each day. These websites aim to allow writers to get more visibility and to promote their sites and services through article submissions and, on the other hand, they help webmasters and bloggers to get free content based reprinting rights. As a matter of fact, these websites become large databases of ideas. All you need to do is to make a simple research with some relevant keywords.

Resources:
EZineArticles: http://www.ezinearticles.com
Article Dashboard: http://www.articledashboard.com
Go Articles: http://www.goarticles.com
Article Pros: http://www.articlepros.com
Articles 888 : http://www.articles888.com

Of course, there are many others…

12. Pay attention to your daily experiences.

Ideas are everywhere! They can be in a park while walking or they can also be on your day job processes. In fact, an action or an observation in a particular context could generally be translated in another context. For example, observing your children sharing their toys may gives you an idea about how generosity or altruism may impact your activity on a social media context. Everything is possible for an opened mind!

I would really appreciate if you could share your own experiences about writer’s block. How do you find new ideas? What are your personal experiences in that area?

I really hope this list to be useful and valuable for you!

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!

Photo by Ella’s Dad

Generating traffic and getting more engaged readers require some ingredients. In this post, I would like to focus on the value of articles. You are writing articles every day or several times each week, but are they really value-added?

The strength of your articles may have a significant impact on the way your content will be distributed and on the perception readers will have from you and your blog. The circulation of your content and your authority are critical to build a wide and strong readership.

Creating quality content isn’t an easy task. In fact, as I already said before, quality is subjective. It is based on your own values, your goals, your interests and many other personal elements. However, no matter on the niche you are, there are several points that may help you to create added-value content.

The following list do not pretends to be exhaustive. However, it refers to elements that may raise your readership by influencing how readers will perceive your content and your blog and by increasing the distribution of your content.

1. Cover the main perspectives. Depending on the type of content you are publishing, covering the main perspectives may apply or not. For sure, any news or story coverage should include this element. The main goal for this point is to present the different visions behind a story. For example, some people may be very favorable to a particular project for different reasons and others may be against it for very legitimate reasons also. It is very interesting and very enriching to cover the different visions behind some news or stories. In general, people are pleased to read articles that may help them to make their own opinion.

2. Cover the impacts. Whatever you are writing about, your topic may raise some potential impacts on something or someone . It could be on you, on your readers, on the blogosphere, on the society or on the economy. Every action, every change, every movement have an impact on something. For example, Google AdSense did a change by adding their sliding/scrolling feature on text ads. In fact, this is an important change that may have a significant impact on the income of many bloggers. Covering the impacts may considerably increase the value of your content.

3. Take position. People generally enjoy reading about the opinions of others. It In fact, more than the position itself, it is the different arguments somebody will raise to support this position that will attract most of the attention. The danger behind taking position is the perception. If you take position on something, be sure to be clear. Take the time to well formulate your different arguments and to reviews them before publishing it. You may also consider asking a friend, a relative or another blogger to review your article. Taking position will add value to your content and will make it unique.

4. Include examples. In my opinion, one of the most important characteristics of good content is clarity. One possible way to make your content clearer is to add examples. Don’t hesitate to include examples to explain a point you have in mind. Sometimes, words are you not enough and example with context may really help. In fact, if you have a doubt that something is unclear, try to find an example that would be relevant to what you are trying to present. Note also, that many people are example-oriented; they better understand or confirm their understanding with an example.

5. Insert supportive schema. Another possible way to add value to your content is to add some supportive schema. As for examples, schema may help to clarify and understand what you are trying to explain. Translating words into drawings or pictures may be very helpful for many people. In fact, schema are generally demonstrating more than words could do. If possible, this is a must for every article. In my opinion, this is a strong way to easily add value to your content.

6. Insert link resources. This is something clear to me: no articles could pretend to be exhaustive and totally complete on a specific topic! You may have done the largest research or you may have read articles written by the most knowledgeable experts; you’ll never be able to put all this information on a single article. This said, the best way to help your readers in that area is to give them the references. Concretely, this means that you may share with your readers your best links by inserting them into your articles. This will allow your readers to be properly guided to the best sources of information. There will be no need to your readers to start again the same research you did. You allow them to save time and you really increase the value of your content for a better distribution.

7. Insert relevant pictures or videos. As for the schema, the pictures and the videos give a visual support to your articles. The real value of these elements will depend on their level of relevancy. The more relevant they are, the more value you will add to your content. It is, therefore, essential to make a targeted and serious research to find the best pictures or videos. I would recommend being very careful about the intellectual property related to this kind of media. Take the time to read the license carefully of what you find. You may also consider reading my article describing the steps to safely get the best of Flickr.

Don’t underestimate the power of adding value to your content. Sometimes, a small time investment may results in terrific results. Creating value-added content is essential to build a strong readership.

The content you create is the foundation of the perception people have about you and your blog. It is also the catalyst to a wide and deep distribution. In fact, it is critical to properly evaluate the process that conducts the creation of your content in order to efficiently meet your personal goals.

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!

Photo by laurenatclemson

Last Monday, Search Engine Journal announced an original Guest Blogging competition with more than 9000$ in prizes. Since then, the prizes value increases to more than 10 000$. Of course, the prizes are quite interesting and I invite you to take a look at them on their website. However, I would like to focus on the most interesting point with this competition: by submitting your article and participating, you already are a winner!

In fact, this is right if you follow the instructions carefully. When a commenter asked the following question:

“Will you accept all the guest posts which are submitted ? If not , then the ones which you decide to accept and publish, will you inform the authors before hand ?”

Loren Baker answers the following:

“If all of the guest posts are relevant to blogging or search marketing, yes. And, I will inform the authors of the guest posts which are not using.”

This is particularly interesting because whoever you are, you will benefit of a wide exposure of your expertise. This competition is largely promoted and I expect a large number of competitors and readers. This is your chance to demonstrate your ability to convince the readers about your value. This is not an easy task, but keep it simple: be clear, relevant, creative and unique.

I would recommend to everyone interesting in that areas (blogging and search marketing) to participate. To do so, follow the instructions on their website. Note that you must send you article before April 15th. You still have some time to write a terrific article! Don’t miss your chance and catch this opportunity to demonstrate your expertise to a very large audience.

I wish you the best!

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!

One way to be more efficient and productive is to work with the best tools. Since I’m a big fan of Mozilla Firefox I would like to share with you 20 Firefox extensions I really enjoy. Give them a try when you’ll have few minutes and I’m sure you’ll like, at least, few of them. Have fun!

Effectiveness and Productivity

ScribeFire

ScribeFire is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.

MorningCoffee

Keeps track of daily routine websites and opens them in tabs.
This extension lets you organize websites by day and open them up simultaneously as part of your daily routine. This is really handy if you read sites that update on a regular schedule (like webcomics, weekly columns, etc.).

To Read Later

Temporary bookmarks on the fly, store your pages you want to read later here, instead of opening a multitude of pages in background tabs.

Cooliris Previews

Cooliris Previews gives you the power to browse and share Web links and rich media faster. Just mouse over any link, and the Cooliris preview window immediately appears to show you the content. To email it, just click.

Clipmarks

Clipmarks lets you clip and share pieces of web pages. Instead of having to bookmark entire pages, our Firefox add-on lets you “clip” the best parts (text, images and video).

BlogRovr

You don’t have time to read ALL those Blogs! Let RovR do it for you. RovR fetches posts from your favorite blogs about anything you’re browsing, and shows you summaries you can open read posts without leaving the web page you were on. BlogRovR also suggests popular items AND lets you Twitter about any site you’re on too.

Hyperwords 3.6

Select any word or words on any web page. A menu pops-up. Choose from any one of the many powerful commands. And that’s it. Fully customizable menu and behavior.

All-in-One Sidebar

All-in-One Sidebar (AiOS) is an award-winning sidebar control, inspired by Opera’s. It lets you quickly switch between sidebar panels, view dialog windows such as downloads, extensions, and more in the sidebar, or view source or websites in the sidebar.

RSS Readers

Sage

Sage is a lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator extension for Mozilla Firefox. It’s got a lot of what you need and not much of what you don’t…

Wizz RSS News Reader

A constantly improving RSS and Atom feed reader. It is fairly powerful, feature rich, well supported and has comprehensive online help.

Brief

Brief makes reading RSS feeds as easy as it gets. It is designed to have the right set of features to be both powerful and simple. Brief stores feeds on your disk and presents them on a seamless, interactive page.

Social Media

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more.

Delicious Bookmarks

The Official Delicious Add-on seamlessly integrates your browser with del.icio.us, the leading social bookmarking service on the Web.

Shareaholic

Found something awesome online and can’t wait to pass it on? Tired of copying and pasting endless URLs? Shareaholic allows you to share, bookmark and e-mail web pages quickly without leaving your browser. Supported services: * digg * del.icio.us * facebook * friendfeed * google bookmarks * magnolia * mixx * reddit * simpy * stumbleupon * truemors * tumblr * twitter * bzzster!

Handy and Cool Stuff

PicLens

PicLens instantly transforms your browser into a full-screen 3D experience for viewing images across the web. Our new interactive “3D Wall” and built-in search function lets you effortlessly drag, click, zoom, and zip your way around a wall of pictures for an extraordinary viewing experience.

MeasureIt

Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage.

Tab Effect

Add effects when current tab is changed.

FireShot

FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages. Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations. Such functionality will be especially useful for web designers, testers and content reviewers. It’s possible to choose whether entire web page or only visible part of this page should be captured. Screenshots can be uploaded to server, saved to disk (PNG, JPEG, BMP), copied to clipboard, e-mailed and sent to external editor for further processing.

SeoQuake

Seoquake is a Mozilla Firefox extension aimed primarily at helping web masters who deal with search engine optimization and internet promotion of web sites. Seoquake allows to obtain and investigate many important SEO parameters of the internet project under study on the fly, save them for future work, compare them with the results, obtained for other, competitive, projects.

ReminderFox

ReminderFox is an extension that displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and ToDo’s. ReminderFox does not seek to be a full-fledged calendar system. In fact, the target audience is anybody that simply wants to remember important dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc) without having to run a whole calendar application.

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. You can also subscribe by Email and have new posts sent directly to your inbox.

Also, if you like what you read, I’ll really appreciate if you could share it on Delicious, StumbleUpon or Digg using the links below. Thanks!