Tips to Make Your Blog Stand Out

With a new blog being started every second it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. Following are some tips on how to differentiate your blog from the millions of others out there.

1. Select a unique topic - it is easier said than done to choose a topic that is unique from everyone else today in a blogosphere as crowded as we’re currently in - however opportunities do arise to start blogs on topics that are new trends, products or ideas. Being first doesn’t guarantee success - but it can help.

2. Develop a Unique Voice - while it may not always be possible to choose a unique topic it can sometimes be easier to cover that topic in a way that others do not. Finding a unique voice or style can set you apart from the rest.

3. Design - using a unique blog design doesn’t mean you need to pay big dollars for a custom design - start with a default one and tweak it with a unique logo, colors and layout. Visual first impressions count and can be the deciding factor as to whether people subscribe to your blog or not.

4. Useful Content - perhaps the best way to stand out from the crowd and make an impression upon people is to produce content that impacts them in some way. Write something that matters, that helps people, that solves a problem, that enhances people’s lives and you drastically increase the chances of them coming back and bringing a friend with them.

5. Love Your Readers to Death - this is key in the early days of a blog when readers seem scarce. The reality is that the 10 readers that you DO have already are a powerful resource - focuse upon them rather than the thousands of readers that you DON’T have. Love them - thank them for their comments - involve them in your blogging - promote them and the sites that they have and in doing so you’ll be building loyalty, trust and relationship that one day will pay off. Each reader you have has their own network and can open up new audiences to you.

6. Be Original - there’s nothing more dry than coming to a blog that has much the same content as every other blog that you’ve already read that day. Don’t just rehash news and talk about things in the same way that others are - dare to be different, play devils advocate, look for new angles in stories, translate the news for your readers and help them to work out how it impacts them etc

7. Express an Opinion - people who express opinions seem to get more attention than those who simply report news. Tell people what YOU think and you’re bound to get discussion between those who agree with you and those who do not.

8. Use Titles with Bling - post titles that draw people to read your post are essential and can be the difference between someone visiting your blog from a search engine, social media site or another blog and visiting someone else’s blog that has a more intriguing title.

9. Longevity Counts - many blog readers are looking to journey with someone and can be a little suspicious of new blogs and wonder how long they’ll last. Blog consistently for the long term and you build credibility, trust and profile in your industry.

10. Build Momentum - one mistake that many blogs make is that there is a sense that the blog is not really going anywhere. Posts appear on the blog that rarely relate to one another. I find that when I’m in the middle of a series or writing content that builds upon something that I’ve written before that readers really respond well. Its also this momentum that builds a sense of anticipation on a blog - which in turn builds subscriber numbers.

11. Drive People to Your Archives - one of the weaknesses of blogs as a medium is that in they often hide their best content. The content that gets most attention is the latest post - whether it is good or not. Blogs that not only highly what is NEW but find ways to highlight what is BEST in their archives draw readers to the content that is most likely to convince them to stay around for more.

The above points will have some impact upon helping your blog to stand out from the crowd - however the key is to work on more than one because together they make a significant difference.

Free Paying International Online Surveys

I’m going to list and discuss what some free top paying international online survey sites are able offer. Some will offer you money for taking surveys online, monthly prizes or incentives for bringing new referrals to these online survey sites.

Get Paid with Survey Savvy
Survey Savvy has more than 3 million members worldwide and is an online division of Luth Research, which is a leader in Market Research. More than $13 million has been paid out to members participating in internet survey taking. For participating in the program you get paid up to $20 or more for completing a survey online. If you have an IT and computer background then Survey Savvy offers some great earning opportunities. They offer a good referral program where you get paid $2 for each online survey that is completed by your direct referral and $1 for each survey by your indirect referral. If you don’t qualify for a survey, 50 individuals are selected to receive $10 each and every month out of a pool of entries from all members.

American Consumer Opinion Survey Panel
Evaluate new products, test new advertising, and tell companies what you like, don’t like, and want in the near future. The American Consumer Opinion Panel pays you cash to complete online surveys and is a reputable market research firm. They pay you between $4 and $25 for each completed online survey. You can expect to receive your payment within 4 weeks in the form of a check or American Express gift checks. They also support 9 different languages, including Chinese and Japanese. Make your opinions count and earn money!

Clear Voice Surveys
Clear Voice Surveys is a new survey panel that helps you to earn cash and rewards. As the name suggests, all you need to do is voice your opinions. Clear Voice Surveys stands out from other survey sites because while most survey sites only pay you for surveys you qualify for and complete, Clear Voice will pay you for each survey that you participate in. You can withdraw your earnings as cash through PayPal when your balance reaches $10, or use them to buy gift certificates at Amazon or Buy.com, or you can even exchange them for airline miles.

Spider Metrix Surveys
Based in Australia, Spider Metrix pays you to evaluate websites by taking questionnaires. Other international members are also welcome. You can also earn one point by taking short single question surveys on the site. Members, known as ‘spiders’, earn spider points as rewards. These can be redeemed as cash. Payment is made through Paypal. In Australia, they pay by check too.

Global Test Market Surveys
Global Test Market, a leading online consumer research firm, sends out loads of paid surveys around the globe. Members are rewarded for taking surveys in the form of MarketPoints (typically 50 to 100 per survey). This is an online currency which can be converted into cash. You can redeem your rewards when you reach 1000 MarketPoints (it's about $50). The advantage is that they offer paid surveys in many languages and pay in local currency in many countries. Global Test Market comes out top among online survey sites for sending the maximum number of surveys for international members, so the payout is easy to reach.

These are just a few international paid survey sites. There are many more out there.

10 Ways To Spreading The Word About Your Blog

The question that every beginner blogger asks is, “how do I spread the word about my blog?”

It’s a question that I get every time one of my friends start a blog. There are so many ways out there for any blogger to tell a wide range of people about your blog. The reach is large and can be rewarding if you do it the right way.

The trick is to find where your competitor bloggers are talking about your subject. The best way to go about this is by plugging in your niche + forum in your favorite search engine. Aside from that, here is a list to help spread the word about your blog.

Join forums

Best way to drive traffic to your blog is to join a forum and help other users by commenting of their posts. A blogger can generate a web presence and provide a service to others. Free information is a web traffic resource.

Use Entrecard

Most new bloggers join Entrecard to increase the visibility of their blog. I’m just started experimenting with Entrecard but it is possible to leverage it to your advantage. Check it out and see what it can do for you.

Comment on other blogs

Develop relationships with other bloggers in your niche. Give a valuable comment about their post and engage in conversations. Please do not comment “great post” or “loved it!”. Expand on that thought and tell them why you thought it was a great post or why you loved it.

Twitter

If you haven’t heard about Twitter then you’ve been living under a rock. Get on and join the crowd! It’s a great way to connect with other people all over the world.

Facebook

I’ve always thought that Facebook is the new Myspace. Everyone is networking on Facebook and it’s also another great way to market your blog. Chances are that you have friends on Facebook who you can share your blog with.

Article Submissions

As a blogger, you probably have a ton of articles to share.. right? If so, submit some to a site such as Ezine. You can get credit for your article and even drive traffic to your own personal blog. Some article submission sites pay bloggers to write for their site.

Email Signature

This is a free and easy way to market your blog. Just add your blog url address to the bottom of every email you send. For example, your email might say:

Hey John! I’m fine. I’d be more than happy to babysit the kids over the weekend.

Making Money
http://menjanawangonline.blogspot.com

StumbleUpon

Get your site Stumbled by other users. Visit stumbleupon to get the gist of it but there are plugins for Wordpress bloggers to add to the bottom of every post. By having your readers stumble upon your site, it can get shared to the stumbleupon community.

Write A Guest Post for Another Blogger

It’s nearly the same as submitting an article to article submission sites but you can write a specific article for another popular blogger. By doing so, you give the blogger some great content and in return you will get traffic forwarded back to your own blog. It’s a win-win-win situation.

Sharing with Family and Friends

Spread the word by actually telling your friends and family that you’ve got a new blog. A great friend or family member would do the best thing and tell anothe r person. Next thing you know, you’ve got word of mouth spreading.

Social Networking Sites and Advertising

Social Networking sites are used by millions of people around the globe and thousands of new users are jumping on social networking sites every day. Almost all of these social networking sites and new entrants are dependent on the advertising to generate the revenue to keep them going. However, a recent study shows that consumers have a very low tolerance for online ads.

A majority of those asked, accepted that advertising will appear on a web page but they had very low tolerance for more than 2 advertising units per web page. Some say that they would leave the site immediately if they thought that it was cluttered with advertising. Women are more likely than men to abandon the site. (Have lots of ads on the site and can’t figure out why people are abandoning, this might be a reason, time for me to do some testing)

It is not only the publishers who are negatively affected by the ad clutter but also are the advertiser’s products and services. Users are less tolerant of social networking sites advertising than other forms of online advertising. Ads on these sites have lower click through rates than traditional online ads. Lack of ad effectiveness and slowing economy is making marketers cut their spending on Social Networking sites.

Your thoughts and comments?

Advertising Marketplace and Ad Servers

Most blogs today are monetized either in full or in part by banner advertisements. Bloggers who sell banner ads have a lot of options in terms of monetizing their sites. I first started selling ads on my main website by hard coding advertisers into my pages and then changing them manually each month. While this works, it’s not the most efficient.

When I started selling ads I wanted to handle everything myself, rather than using a third party service that would take a portion of the ad revenue. I was greedy! This is a personal choice that will vary from blogger to blogger, but I’ve since changed my approach and I’m now using a third party service on all three of my blogs. At a certain point the ease of this approach made it worth the money to go with a third party. I have no preference, and I don’t think any approach is better than another, it’s just a matter of what works best for you in your specific situation.

The following services will not only help you to display the ads on your blog, but they’ll also help you to sell ad space. Although they take a cut of the revenue, the idea is to save yourself the time of managing the ads and to take advantage of their marketplace to earn higher dollar amounts, which may offset the commission that they take.

BuySellAds

I started using BuySellAds several months ago on one of my sites. I was skeptical of the service at one point. Like I mentioned earlier, I handled everything manually at my primary blog, so I figured I would test out BuySellAds.

BuySellAds takes 25% of the ad revenue, which is reasonable, but their system makes the process easy for advertisers and for publishers. It’s nice to check your email and see that an ad has been sold and is already being displayed (you can set them to require your approval or to display automatically) without any effort of your own.

My experience with BSA has been very positive overall. The customer service is great if you have any problems, and it’s very easy to set up quickly. From my observations it seems like most of their market belongs to tech-related blogs or tech-savvy audiences. For bloggers who want an easy hands-free approach to selling ads, I recommend trying buy sell ads. One of the nice things about their service is that it’s not limited to 125 x 125 ads, you can specify the dimensions of the ads.

Performancing Ads

Performancing Ads was launched a few months ago, and they seem to have been pretty successful so far. Performancing, of course, is a Technorati Top 100 blog with a large and established audience of bloggers. I haven’t personally used the service, and the terms listed on their website are somewhat vague, in my opinion. With Performancing Ads you can either sell 125 x 125 ads, or you can participate in a traffic/ad exchange with other publishers. Published opinions of their service are very mixed.

Blog Ads

Blog Ads is an invitation-only ad network. Their commission of revenue is 30% for those blogs in their network. You can get accepted into their program by being sponsored by someone that you know, or you can contact them and they’ll notify you when a sponsor becomes available in your niche.

Ad Serving:

In addition to the marketplaces listed above, bloggers can also take advantage of ad servers that are available to help them manage and track results, although they will not sell the ads for you. Some of these options are more involved than the average blogger would need, as they are intended to be a comprehensive solution for larger sites.

OpenX

OpenX (formerly OpenAds) is a free, open source ad server with plenty of potential. It offers advanced inventory management and targeting tools as well as stats and reporting. It’s a great option for those who have serious online businesses, but probably more than what’s necessary for the average blogger.

Google Ad Manager

Google Ad Manager was launched a few months ago and has been perceived to be an “OpenX killer.” Google Ad Manager is also a free ad management service with all kinds of options. When it was launched I signed up for an account to give it a try, but I decided it was more than I needed at this point. It has lots of options for companies that have a team of people selling ads and just about any tool or report you can imagine. My opinion is that small bloggers are better off with a simplified solution since all the bells and whistles won’t even be used.

Got any experiences managing your ads...please share them with us. I'd like to hear from you.