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WordPress is a wonderful blogging platform. It contains plenty of great functionality that ease the work of every blogger. One of the most valuable one is the ability to extend the system functionality with plugins.

The possibilities are endless and this is why, actually, there are zillions of plugin available. In fact, this is a real and a big problem when you are an inexperienced blogger. Just figure out… you just finished your WordPress installation, you are proud of yourself and you are ready to add more, but what? What are the plugins you should add as a starting point? Which ones are really essential?

Of course, everyone may have a different answer to this question. It would mainly depend on the value you give to each functionality. I try to make the exercise and I made a list of 8 WordPress plugins I would recommend as a startup kit!

Here it is:

1. Askimet

In few words, Askimet catch every comment that look like SPAM and will put them on a list to be validate - just like your email spam filter. Thus, this plugin let you do what you really enjoy: creating fresh and valuable content!

2. FeedSmith

This plugin detects all ways to access your feed, and redirect them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.

3. Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin creates a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as well as custom ones. Everytime you edit or create a post, your sitemap is automatically updated and all major search engines that support the sitemap protocol, like Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and Yahoo, are notified about the update.

4. Maintenance Mode

Every website or blog need maintenance. Someday you may want to update your blog design, create new sections, upgrading some components or scripts, etc. In fact, there are tons of reasons why you may want to put your blog in maintenance mode. This plugin allows you to do that by adding a splash page to your blog to let your visitors know your blog is down for maintenance. Logged in administrators still have full access to the blog including the front-end.

5. Share This

Social media sites are excellent platform to distribute content and create a strong brand. The first rule to help your content being distribute is to make this distribution process simple and easy for your readers. The Share This plugin provides a quick, simple to use, and unobtrusive way for users to add your post to many social bookmarking sites, or to send your post link via email, AIM, Facebook, MySpace and more.

6. WP-Cache

Are you expecting tons of traffic to reach your blog? Are you expecting to hit the Digg front page? Of course, if this is the case and you really hit the front page, you better be prepared to receive the wave! Just as an example, the first time Skellie hit the front page of Digg, the server that were hosting her blog became overloaded and her blog wasn’t reachable anymore – at least temporary! Now, if you don’t want to live the same story, you better be prepared.

WP-Cache is an extremely efficient WordPress page caching system to make you site much faster and responsive. It works by caching WordPress pages and storing them in a static file for serving future requests directly from the file rather than loading and compiling the whole PHP code and the building the page from the database. WP-Cache allows to serve hundred of times more pages per second, and to reduce the response time from several tenths of seconds to less than a millisecond.

7. WP-DBManager

Another possible nightmare is a server crash. Do you make a backup of your blog recently? What would be your reaction if I tell you that you may potentially loose your blog content at any time? Of course, if you made a backup of your whole blog recently, you are reading these lines just relax. However, if you never made any backup or if you just can’t remember because it’s too far away in your memory, then you may be more anxious.

This plugin allows you to backup your database automatically according to a configured schedule. Every backup may be sent to your inbox. You may also consider some other alternatives for this plugin if you want to backup your whole blog.

8. WP Contact Form III

Blogging is all about relationship! Once again I say it. I really think that focusing on efficient communications is essential. Of course, your readers may leave you some comments or feedback on the comment section of your posts, but what about if they want to send you private message? Developing an easy way to contact you is a must! Thus, your contact page should include a contact form to help your readers to get in touch with you easily. This plugin allows you to include a friendly contact form easily.

I would really enjoy hearing you on this point. Since it is pretty subjective, I would appreciate if you could recommend some others plugins you consider as a MUST.

Photo by ericmcgregor

Last Friday, Darren Rowse from ProBlogger published a great interview with Mehdi, the author of StrongLifts.com. As Darren precise it in its interview, “StrongLifts.com is a good example of a blog that is focusing upon a niche topic and growing a readership quickly over the last 12 months”. I highly recommend reading this interview with all you attention, but for the benefits of this article I’ll just put you in context.

In short, Stronglifts.com is a blog about how to build muscle and lose fat through strength training. Thus, this blog is very focusing on a particular topic. The blog went online May 1st 2007. It reaches 1000 RSS in November 2007. 5000 in January 2008. 10 000 at the beginning of May 2008 and as of today it count more than 15 000 subscribers!

Since I really believe I can learn from other bloggers’ experiences, I read the interview several times to get the best of it and make a list of lessons I could learn from it. I would like to share this list with you; I already get benefits from it, I guess it could be the same for you!

1. Blog About What You Are Expert In.

If you want to successful and publish quality content, you must be aware of what you are blogging about. Blogging is all about sharing and creating relationship. If you write about something you are expert in, if you write about one of your passions, you’ll be and stay more motivated over time. Your blog must be an extension of who you are!

2. Determine Your Winning Social Media Network.

Every social media network won’t work well in every niche! Take the time to experiment which one deliver you more traffic. Make a list of networks were your articles rank well and focus on them.

3. Don’t Underestimate The Strength of Forums.

Forums are great places to interact with targeted audience. They are terrific to help you build your authority and to help other persons on the same niche as you. It’s also great places to build relationship and create some inbound links to your blog with a relevant signature.

4. Convert Your Traffic Into RSS Instead of Money.

Converting traffic into money is great, but it’s something that won’t last forever if you don’t base your business model on a strong foundation. Thus, you better convert your traffic into readership and build a strong relation with your audience. After, and only after, you should think about how you build your monetization model. Focus on something that will last!

5. Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.

Mehdi said he tried almost every online tip on how to make your RSS count to increase. He said that none of these worked for StrongLifts.com but he continued to observe and experiment. One day, Mehdi found a relevant way to reach his goal. No matter what you want for you blog, experiment and find the best way to do it! Every niche has different audience. Consequently, you’ll need to find the way that best fit for you and your blog.

6. Track Your Visitors And Analyze the Results.

Tracking your blog for visitors and content is essential! If you want to be successful you have to know who you visitor are? Where they come from? What do they read? Where do they leave? These are only few questions you may answer with a tracking system. This information is critical if you want to build your strategies on a good base.

7. Precisely Determine Who Your Audience Is.

If you don’t know who you audience is, how could you know what will fill their needs? Building a wide and strong readership require to know who your audience is. It will help you to produce and distribute the proper content. It will help you to build an efficient marketing strategy and promote your blog where your audience is!

8. Offer Something For Free.

Mehdi offers a free eBook to every visitor. This eBook is a way for him to help people going further in their training goal and, thus, demonstrate his authority. Helping people by giving them free stuff will predictably attract new and more visitors. Mehdi offers an eBook , but you may want to offer something else like a useful tool or anything that could be valuable for your readers.

9. Focus On Gaining Experience, Authority And Readership.

If you want to build a popular and lasting blog, you’ll need to focus on gaining experience, building your authority and growing your readership. These 3 elements last in time. You’ll always keep the benefits with you as something highly valuable.

10. Always Learn Lessons From Your Mistakes.

Gaining experience is, most of all, learning from our mistakes. In fact, doing mistakes is inevitable. Whatever you will do and whatever the results are, the most essential is to learn from it. Doing mistakes is an incredible way to learn; and hopefully learn fast enough to avoid repeating the same thing! Build your attitude on positive thinking and continuous learning!

11. Sharpen Your Determination.

There is no success without determination! If you want to be successful you must be determine to reach your goal and your dream! Determination is a mindset and an attitude you must sharpen everyday! As I previously said, blogging is not easy. Being determine and persistent are essential ingredients to reach your ultimate goal of success!

12. Be An Example Of What Your Say.

Is there a better way to convince somebody to do something than doing it our self? I guess not. In fact, everybody starts with the premise that you will do the best for yourself. If you succeed to sell yourself as an example to follow, you’ll gain authority and respect from your readers. This will then add value to everything you will write or recommend.

13. Help Your Audience Generously.

Helping your audience will allow you to build strong relationships. Moreover, it will let you gain new experiences and better understanding of what your audience really need. Your generosity will always pay back. You don’t know when and how, but the natural law of return will always give you what you deserve!

14. Publish High Quality Content.

This is not a secret for anyone. Publishing high quality content is essential to attract visitors and convert them into loyal readers. The value and the creativity of your content will, among other things, determine your authority. Of course, this will be base on the perception and subjectivity of your visitors, but in general quality content is almost the same for people from the same niche.

15. Guest Post On Popular and Valuable Blogs.

Guest blogging is known as a very efficient way to increase visibility. In order to optimize the effect, Mehdi recommend to make a list of blogs with a high amount of readers and who often get on Digg / Del.icio.us / StumbleUpon front page.

16. Be Audacious: Don’t Ask For Permission to Guest Post.

Medhi also recommend being audacious and sending directly your article to the first blog on your list. If the blog owner accepts to publish it, you are on your way. However, if he refuses try to send it to the second blog, and so on. If you get 5 negative responses, you may question the relevance and/or the quality of your article.

17. Write a Relevant and Valuable eBook For Your Audience.

Writing an eBook for your audience is a great way to put together your best tips and tricks. The goal should be to gather together a bunch of essential information that will fill the main needs of your audience. Just to help you about the content, here are some questions: what are the most common problems for people on your niche? Are there known techniques or strategies to avoid them? What are the common mistakes or pitfalls? Write your eBook with your audience in mind. You won’t read your own eBook , your audience will!

18. Before Starting Your Blog, Observe And Read A Lot.

Mehdi recommend to everyone to observe blogs and bloggers and to read a lot before starting a blog. We often tend to underestimate the effort needed to maintain a blog. Thus, getting as much information as possible before starting is essential for the new blogger.

19. Believe In You and On Your Success.

As for the determination and the persistence, believing in yourself and on your success is critical to succeed. Some people may tell you that you won’t do it or that it’s too difficult. Whatever the reason behind those negative thoughts, stand tall and believe in you! You are unique. Where somebody failed, you may succeed! The strength of your beliefs will determine your success!

20. Don’t Blog For The Money.

If your only interest for blogging is the money, you will most likely be disappointed! Blogging is a lot of work and it requires a real passion to write about something month after month and year after year. Mehdi said: “if you are looking for an easy way out of your day job or if you’re looking for easy money: don’t do it, because you have the wrong mindset and will fail”. Again, blogging is all about sharing and building relationship. The money is the cherry on the sundae!

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!

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Being audacious is generally something we consider as positive. When we look at its definition we can find 3 main keywords: fearless, reckless and confidence. These are 3 keywords that I really like because they are based on actions! Being audacious generally requires demonstrating courage, persistence and action in opposition to fear that just paralyze and put you into a passive mode.

Audacious blogging is all about being dynamic and taking the proper actions to always move forward. It’s giving the best of you even when times are harder. Being audacious is taking the bull by the horns and walking tall and proud! Blogging is not something easy. You are not doing an easy thing, but you don’t want to do easy things! All you want is to be happy and successful; and you must be convinced that you will be! You can do it!

Skellie was, for me, the first blogger to really talk about audacious blogging. Her post Audacious Blogging was really inspiring to me. In this article, she said that audacity is not a quality but a practice. I really agree with her: a practice is based on concrete actions while quality is only based on potentials.

In her article, Skellie listed some action examples. In this article I decided to give you my thoughts about it and to list my own actions. Of course, you’ll probably find plenty of other ways to demonstrate your audacity and I would be interested to hear it. So don’t hesitate to comment!

1. Ask for guest posting on well established blogs.

Don’t hesitate to ask for a guest post on high traffic blogs. If you don’t ask for it, you’ll never get it! This is as simple as that. Of course, well established blogs often have tons of requests for guest post, but this is where audacity comes in. Take the time to write a clear and personal email and don’t hesitate to include some original writings. Be sure to have a valuable and attractive article ready to send. Be confident and persistent. You have nothing to loose; you can just win! Maybe it won’t be possible the first time, but try again later. Of course, being persistent doesn’t mean to be harassing; be careful about that!

2. Offers something valuable for free.

Offering something valuable for free also demonstrate your audacity. Let’s think about something like a review, an artwork like a logo, any professional services or an eBook. These are things that may be very valuable and useful for your visitors and your readers. Demonstrating generosity make everything possible! New relationship begins with pure act of generosity. Don’t ask anything in return. Let the natural law of return do its own job!

3. Don’t be afraid to give your own opinion on something.

Giving your own opinion require courage and confidence which are essential ingredients of audacity. Always remember that an opinion is personal. You may, however, make the difference between opinion and controversy. Giving your opinion is audacious, controversy may be dangerous! Of course, it’s a great way to get visibility and attention, but you’ll need to assume what you said and live with it! I personally think that giving your honest opinion with respect is a better plan! Remember that your opinion is unique. This is a great opportunity for you to demonstrate your knowledge and your experience. In summary, it’s a chance for you to show your authority.

4. Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.

Depending on what you want to experiment, this may require lots of audacity. Experimenting is trying something without knowing the real outcomes. In fact, the more risk you take the more audacious you are! I think that the best thing with experiment is the fun we can have doing it! Being audacious and having fun altogether is the perfect mix! Put your fears aside and take the bull by the horns: experiment, experiment and experiment! You’ll gain experience and you’ll be able to bring creative writings and reports to the whole blogosphere.

5. Be a social media power user.

Social media network are very effective to build a loyal readership. In fact, this is true if you base your presence on building new relationships and altruism. I already talk about that on my article The Secret to Developing a Popular Blog. Everyone’s success relies on each other and this is true online and offline. Build a knowledgeable and efficient team around you and you’ll be in a good position to be successful! Being a social media power user means that you need to be active, visible and educated! Choose 2 or 3 social media network and be sure to properly understand how they work and the services you get from them. Then, be dynamic and use their services as often as possible! Of course, use them for you but also use it generously to help your friends getting more visibility!

6. Ask for links on well established blogs / websites.

As for guest post, asking for a link on well established sites may require you some courage. Some of you may not feel really comfortable with that, but this is what audacity is all about! Get out from your comfortable zone and try to go off-road! Audacity always reward its performer. It would be not be realist to expect every site to accept your request to add a link for you. However, it is realist to think that you’ll get some if you really are persistent! Don’t be afraid and write an original and confident email. You may be surprise about the results!

7. Keep an eye open on new things.

Audacious blogging also sounds to me like being proactive and few steps ahead. Thus, keeping an eye on the newest things is quite relevant. You may develop you own process based on strategic sites to get your preferred information. Depending on your niche, there may be more or less of them. However, don’t forget that the information itself doesn’t make you an authority. What makes you getting more and more authority is the way you’ll show up this information. You may have the best sources and the best relations, but if you don’t present the elements people are interested in, you’ll be out of the game! The audacious blogger works hard; keep an eye open on every opportunity and take the time to filter and structure the proper information.

8. Be an active forum member.

Forums are wonderful places to create contacts. It is also a great place to show up your knowledge and help people getting better in the area where you are an expert. Audacious blogging is based on actions. Forums give you the chances to create new opportunities. They give you the chances to present you as a reference and a knowledgeable blogger. The secret is to be active and visible. Take the time to welcome new members. Browse through subjects to give your opinion and share your experience in every area. Show your presence. People remember what they see on a constant basis.

9. Show your presence on offline workshop and conferences.

Workshops like SOBCon are great places to meet bloggers live! Personally, I really think that being present to offline events is quite audacious. However, it’s obviously a great place to meet famous bloggers and to make some excellent contacts! Having a live discussion with other serious bloggers and probloggers is an experience I’d like to have. I would encourage everyone to participate to one of these workshops at least once just to gain the experience! Experiences are the best ingredients to enrich yourself and to help you becoming a better person.

10. Take the initiative to create new and useful things.

Creating something requires audacity, because being the first always get the attention to everyone around! Do you feel uncomfortable with judgment? Is it one of your fears? Being judge negatively is something everyone dislikes. However, there will always be people that like what we do and people that don’t like what we do! That’s all. Again, push those fears away and move forward! You’ll build your self confidence and create true relationship with people who like what you do! Create new groups on social media networks or everywhere else. Create a new kind of article, create a new tool, or create a new way to do something. Daniel Scocco did something audacious when he claims May 1st as the RSS Awareness day. Daniel creates something that gets the attention of the whole blogosphere! For sure, he probably receives some bad emails, but he probably gets really great comments too! Being creative and innovative will give you the attention you deserve. The more audacious you are, the nearest you’ll be from success!

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 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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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.

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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!

Photo by Katie Tegtmeyer

There are mainly 2 schools of thoughts when we talk about post frequency. One thinks that it is a must to write on a regular and a scheduled basis. In fact, people joining this school of thought often fear that the whole success of their blog rely on it. They fear about loosing their subscribers or about not generating enough content. The danger with this ideology is to generate redundant content or content with no added value. Writing something on a rush may be subject to quality issues. Fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with this since there are certainly some clients for this type of content; after all, the quality is subjective.

The other school of thoughts is the one that say that you don’t need to post frequently nor to post on a regular basis to have a successful blog. Of course, it doesn’t mean to post only 1 time monthly. It just means that you don’t have to post every day or to follow a very tight schedule. Naturally, if you are a prolific writer who cares about the quality of its content, then go ahead and write as much as you can!

I personally think that writing is an art. I always try to give the best of me everywhere in my life and this is also right for my blog. In fact, if I don’t know what to write about or if it doesn’t sound valuable or interesting to me, I just don’t write! Also, if I don’t find enough time between the responsibilities I have in my life, I don’t write. I learn in my life that the art of saying nothing is as valuable as the art of writing or talking. This is something that may differentiate you and your blog.

Maki says that “What you don’t publish, defines your site“, and I totally agree with him. By saying nothing, you may influence positively your audience about you and your blog. I’m sure you care about the image people have of you. Obviously, you would like to have a solid reputation and being recognize as an authority. I really think that what you don’t publish is essential to meet this goal.

This is something I want to be clear with my audience: I won’t write something if I don’t see any added value in it. I personally have to be convinced about the quality of my writings before publishing it. This is something I really care of. And I know this is also something I want to find on my readings. I really enjoy reading Maki, Skellie and Leo. Their writing style and their contents are always excellent. In fact, if writing is an art – as I said before – I’m sure they are all three descendants of Picasso! They are all three examples of excellent content to me.

I really think that an engaged audience is priceless. Subscribing to a blog and being a follower is all about respect, reputation and trust. In general, we follow people we respect and people we trust. We follow people that own something we would like to have. It may be the authority, the talent, the popularity, etc. But, most of the time, we follow bloggers that care about quality and added value. I think that following models is something healthy for our quest of success!

I would like to thank my own audience for their trust and their time. I would like to reiterate my invitation to give me some feedback through my contact form. I’d really appreciate 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!