How To Get Connected With Famous Bloggers

Who doesn't want to get connected with big names in their domain? The connection provides more attention of targeted visitors and earns recognition for you. There are many ways to grab attention of seasoned bloggers. If implemented carefully, you can easily create a strong connection with famous bloggers. Let's see how to achieve this and create a strong network of fellow bloggers.

Link To Their Posts

This is one of the best ways to get noticed by famous bloggers. Write a pillar post and link to their masterpiece within that post. Repeat it whenever you find there is a scope of linking to one of their gems. They will eventually notice it through trackbacks. In this way, in future whenever you will directly interact with them, your blog and your name will immediately click in their mind and they may tweet about your blog or a link to your blog post.

Follow On Social Media Sites

Social Media has opened tremendous opportunities to grow your blog and to interact with like-minded peers. Follow the big guns on popular social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkdIn. This is an excellent way to directly interact with them and to grab their attention. Your direct conversation on twitter will attract the attention of large number of followers of the famous blogger.

Send Guest Posts

This is one more way to get connected with seasoned bloggers. Write a killer post and mail your article requesting to appear as a guest blogger. Remember, your post should be of high quality and ideally should be a problem solver article. In this way you will increase your chances to appear as a guest blogger on their blog. This is an excellent way to connect with them and to leverage their strong network of readers and fans.

Provide Solution To a Problem

As I said earlier, sending a problem solver guest article increases its chances of being published on their blog. Similarly, keep an eye on their activity on twitter, Facebook and similar services and whenever they fire any question to their audience, provide a prompt and unique solution to their question. This is probably one of the quickest and best methods to get noticed by famous bloggers.

Patience Is Virtue

And last but not the least is patience. Famous bloggers have very busy schedules and gets tons of mails from their readers and fans. Sometimes, they may not respond to your mail about your general query or a request for guest blogging. The key is to never lose hope and keep trying. In this whole process make sure you do not bombard them with repeated mails.

Over To You

What other ways do you implement to get connected with seasoned bloggers, and how much do you succeed in achieving the desired results?

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Written by Rajeev Edmonds | | View Comments

25+ Best Magazine Style Blogger Templates

Magazine style templates are admired and used my large number of bloggers. There are dozens of magazine style Wordpress templates that has been converted by developers for blogger platform. Here is the list of select magazine style blogger templates.

1. Alpha Blogger Template by Falcon Hive

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2. Revolution Theme by Brian Gardner (Ported by Aborregate)

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3. Tekikon Blogger Template by Template Godown

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4. Indomagz Blogger Template by GosuBlogger

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5. Grid Focus Blogger Template by BloggerBuster

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6. Visionary Reloaded Blogger Template by Blogger Templates

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7. Magazine Style Red Blogger Template by Jackbook

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8. Magazine 1 Blogger Template by Rohman Abdul Manap

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9. Magazine 2 Blogger Template by Rohman Abdul Manap

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10. Cellar Heat Blogger Template by MagzNetwork

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11. Daily Inspired Blogger Template by Woork

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12. Vibrant Blogger Template by GosuBlogger

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13. Arthemia Blogger Template by ThemeLib

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14. Blue Steel Blogger Template by BloggerBuster

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15. Personal Mag Blogger Template by ThemeLib

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16. Rebel Magazine Blogger Template by ThemeLib

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17. WP-Polaroid Blogger Template by eBlog Templates

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18. Revolution Church Blogger Template by Bloganol

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19. Revolution Lifestyle Blogger Template by Bloganol

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20. Revolution Code Blue Blogger Template by Bloganol

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21. Revolution Code Gray Blogger Template by Bloganol

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22. Revolution Code Red Blogger Template by Bloganol

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23. Writer's Blog Blogger Template by OurBlogTemplates

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24. Newspaper Blogger Template by OurBlogTemplates

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25. A Click Apart Blogger Template by OurBlogTemplates

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26. Fundamental Blogger Template by OurBlogTemplates

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How To Knock Out a Scrapper In 2 Easy Steps

Content theft has always given sleepless nights to webmasters and bloggers. In recent years, with the development of RSS technology and automated feed scrapping CMS (Content management System) this problem has become graver. Let's see how to deal with a scrapper with minimum efforts.

You've developed a nice blog and piled up massive quality content working diligently month after month. Suddenly one day you discover that a scrapper has replicated your entire blog. You tried to contact the blog owner but all in vain. You have no time to write long mails and to fax long documents to concerned authorities. Well, here is an excellent way to quickly report scrapping incidents to Google and Adsense without the need to send any FAX.

Reporting To Adsense

If the scrapper is displaying Adsense advertisements on his blog, then half of your job is already done. Find the 'Adsense Ads Feedback Links' beneath the ads as shown in the image below.

Interestingly, this link has a unique property of tracking the original source (blog/website) from where you have clicked it. Clicking this link will land you on a page asking for subscribing to Adwords and Adsense. Scroll down and find the following link at the bottom of the page to give your feedback about the site or advertisement.

Clicking this link will open up a questionnaire to get your feedback. Click 'Also Report a Violation?' link as shown below.

The questionnaire will ask you whether it's an issue with website or ads. Selecting website will open a multi-choice option. Select 'The site is hosting/distributing my copyrighted content'. As soon as you will check this option a blank text field will open up to give details about your complaint. Here you can give your details including links of original content vs infringed content. After filling all details, give your e-mail address and send it to Adsense team. You just saw that there was no need to fax long documents and everything was pre-formatted ready for you. This whole exercise will just take your 5 minutes.

Reporting To Google

So after reporting his advertising partner, it's time to get him kicked off from Google's index. This can be a big blow for the scrapper's blog. Again in this case there is no need to send long emails or fax. Google has an excellent Spam Result Reporting Form, through which you can report scrapper's blog appearing in Google SERP's. Follow this link and you will be provided a reporting form to inform about spam entry in Google search result. Make sure to check the Duplicate site or pages option while filling up the information. Again, this whole exercise will just take your 5 minutes.

Update: Now you can file a DMCA complaint for a splog on Blogger platform via online contact form. This only applicable to blogs scrapping content on Blogger Platform. For other blogs and web sites you have to follow regular DMCA notice procedure.

Over To You

Have you ever been the target of scrappers? If yes, how you dealt with them?

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8 Ways To Make Sticky Blog Posts

Crafting a blog post is almost same as creating a sculpture. This process involves mixing of ingredients in the right way to convey your message in the most effective manner to your readers. Here are 8 best tips for creating sticky blog posts that can keep the readers glued to your post until they finish reading it.

Eye Catching Title

The very first thing that grabs the attention of the reader is post title. It's an entry point to your post page. The post title should be luring enough to entice the visitor to click and reach the original post page. Follow the KISS ("Keep it simple, stupid") principle while crafting post titles. "Simple and straight to the point" titles works best in pulling the readers.

Appealing Post Beginning and Post End

The opening paragraph is the second most important part of the blog post. Sometimes we create a killer post title but fail to compensate it with equally great opening, resulting in bounce back. Your reader's anticipation and imagination must be fulfilled after he lands on your post following the attractive post title. There are various approaches to open a post and you can use choose the best approach depending on the need and situation. Following are some of the ways you can use to open blog posts.

1. Ask a question
2. Use metaphor or an analogy
3. Start with eye-popping statistics
4. Say something controversial

Similarly; closing paragraph is the third most vital part of any blog entry. There can be two approaches to it. Either you can provide complete solution and information on the subject, or you can leave some questions for the readers to trigger the comment trail. The latter option is often used by large number of bloggers to get more comments.

Use Power of Lists

Collection of resources in the form of bulleted lists is one of the best methods to make post more attractive and sticky for readers. Visitors love bullet lists that give quick and easy access to tons of information. If there is scope, do not hesitate to create a list to increase the stickiness of blog post.

Use Power of Illustrations

Picture speaks a thousand words. Spice up the blog post with relevant images to make the reading experience more interesting and fulfilling for the visitor. Use of images can make even a dull post look attractive to the reader.

Weed Out Useless Jargon

Sometimes, newbies use filler content to pack empty places in the post. Nowadays there is tons of similar content on web and visitors tend to skip posts containing useless stuff. Trim and weed out all junk information and condense the post into meaty useful information pack. That's what the reader is looking for. Clear and crisp, to the point and easily understandable information.

Stress More On Quality NOT Quantity

Creating a very long post should be avoided in most cases. With the emergence of social media sites, a large chunk of blog traffic comes through these sites. Studies have shown that the traffic from these sites have comparatively higher bounce rate then that coming through organic sources, and retaining the visitors coming from these sites is a challenging task. Readers are looking for quick answers to their questions. They have no time to read a mini-novel for a small problem. Try to keep the posts short (300-500 words) and simple. Avoid narrating a story and elaborate the problem in minimum words.

Spelling and Punctuation

Now this point is quite obvious. A blog post free of any grammatical and punctuation error is the key to better reader experience. As soon as you finish the post, don't be in a hurry to press the publish button. Devote some time in proofreading, editing and correcting all the mistakes. Once you are satisfied, publish it on a test blog. Now open the post as a visitor and read it carefully. This way you can pick up many more shortcomings and errors that you may have missed earlier. Repeat this process until you are not completely satisfied.

Minimum Ads

Aggressively stuffing ads in and around post body is a sure shot way to repel the visitors. Place the ads carefully and if possible keep the content part completely free of any ads. Avoid embedding graphical ads in the main content. Blended text ads at the end of post body are a good choice.

Have Your Say!

What other methods you use to make blog posts sticky? According to you what is the best way to make the post more luring to the reader?

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30+ Blogger Widgets And Plugins

Blogger platform has undergone major improvements in last two years. Not only the blogger development team has added several new features to the platform,, but countless new blogger templates are being developed around the globe. Here are some best widgets and plugins for blogger powered blog that can spice up your blog for better reader experience.

1. Top Commentators Widget by BloggerPlugins - This excellent plugin has two versions. One for blogs having small number of comments and the second variant for blogs receiving lots of comments.

2. Translation Widget by BloggerPlugins - This one click install widget add multiple language translation support to your blogger blog.

3. Recent Post Widget by BloggerPlugins - This is highly customizable widget. You can set number of posts to display, post summary and it's length.

4. Recent Comments Widget by BloggerPlugins - A highly customizable widget. You can set the number of comments to display, author name, date and size of comment. You can also use CSS to gel it with your theme.

5. Label Cloud Plugin by phydeaux3 - This is one of the most popular label cloud generation plugin for blogger. You can customize various options after installing this plugin.

6. Archive Calendar Widget by PurpleMoggy - Very impressive archive calendar widget with customizable options.

7. Archive Calendar Widget by phydeaux3 - Another very popular archive calendar widget. Highly customizable for better browsing experience for the readers.

8. Recent Posts Widget by Feed2JS - This excellent plugin makes plugin installation and customization very easy. Just fill in the form and click the button to generate widget code.

9. Recent Comments Widgets by Blogger-Templates - Just fill in the options in the form and one click widget code generation. Excellent plugin which is highly customizable.

10. Picasa Web Albums Slideshow Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - A unique plugin to show photo slideshow from any picasa account. Ideal for personal blogs, photo blogs and web design blogs.

11. Search Form Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - If you want to add site search box in your blog's sidebar, install this plugin.

12. Google Talk Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - This plugin adds the Google Talk client to your blog so that your readers can directly converse with you.

13. Recent Comments Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - Yet another recent comments widget with customizable options and one-click install.

14. Sudoku Game Widget by Blogger Templates Designs - Want to add some interesting puzzle games for your visitors? Then install this plugin to integrate sudoku puzzle game in your blogger blog.

15. Google Translate Mini-Flags Widget by MadToMatoe - Very useful translation plugin powered by 'Google Translate'. One click install with multiple language translation facility.

16. Recent Comments Widgets by MadToMatoe - One more recent comments widget for blogger blogs. Again you can customize the number of recent comments to be displayed.

17. Reactions Mini-Poll Widget by ThemeLib - Want to host a poll on your blogger blog? Install this plugin and get customizable polls for your readers.

18. Alexa Traffic Widget by TechKnowl - Display your Alexa stats with this customizable widget.

19. Snow Flakes Widget by TechKnowl - Add a stunning snowfall effect in your blogger template in the festive season.

20. Popular Posts Widget by TechKnowl - A very simple popular posts plugin using Yahoo pipes to filter out popular posts on your blog.

21. Flash MP3 Player Widget by TechKnowl - This cool plugin allows you to embed flash mp3 player in your blogger blog. The player is very light with custom options.

22. Rating Widget by Outbrain - If you want to integrate rating system with your blogger posts, then this excellent plugin is the best choice. It has rating system plus related posts integration in same widget.

23. Multi-tab TOC Widget by Beautiful Beta - If you want to display multi-tab table of contents section in your blogger blog, then install this widget. Very popular among blogger users.

24. Tab View Widget by Hoctro - The coolest plugin showing tabbed posts with animated post excerpts. A must for your blog's sidebar.

25. Random/Rotating Banner Widget by FreeYaSoul - Very useful widget for displaying rotating banners in your blog's header. You can customize and can choose any number of headers.

26. Social Bookmarking Widget by Lasvak - This is perhaps the most easily installable bookmarking widget for blogger. Just copy and paste a single line of code in your blogger template and your bookmarking icons are ready.

27. Paypal Donation Widgets by Etienne - Integrate different types of paypal donation widget in your blogger blog with ease.

28. Podcating Plugin by Talkr - If you want to integrate podcasts to your blog, register for this service and get free podcasting plugin for your blogger blog.

29. What's Next? Section Widget by eblogtemplates - Integrate a Wordpress style 'What's Next' section below blogger posts with this excellent widget.

30. Twitter Profile Widget by BloggerBuster - Add your twitter profile and twitter updates with this useful plugin developed by Amanda Fazani.

31. Bookmarking Widget by SocioFluid - One of the best social bookmarking plugin for blogger. Big animated icons with one click installation.

32. Advanced Recent Comments Widget by Csabi - This is highly customizable recent comments widget. The number of configurable options provided by this widget makes it one of the best recent comment widgets for blogger platform.

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How To Keep Your Domain Name Safe

Your blog's domain name is by far one of the most important assets of your blog. It's a brand through which your blog is recognized. One day you wake up and see that your domain name is no more yours and is hacked. It can happen to anybody, anytime. But we can take some precautions to minimize this risk. Let's see what we can do to keep our blog's domain name safe from hackers.

Register Domain Yourself

Let's say, you have decided to hire an expert for designing your blog's theme and for installing your blog CMS. His package also includes domain registration for you. Beware and never fall in this trap. Always register your domain yourself. The person who registers the domain with his name, address, email and credit card details is the legal owner of the domain. So, if your designer is registering a domain name for you, he will be the legal owner of the domain, not you. Once you have decided to register a domain name, make sure to check that your domain registrar is ICANN accredited.

Use WhoIS Guard

Almost every domain registrar provides whois guard subscription on yearly basis to protect your sensitive contact information. Keeping your registration information public invites spammers and domain hackers, especially if your blog or web site gets popular. With WhoIS guard protection enabled your contact information is kept secret preventing any unwanted customers filling your inbox with junk.

Lock Your Domain

Always keep your domain registrar's lock enabled to prevent any unsolicited 3rd party domain transfer requests. That's how domain hackers steal domains. Locking your domain to your domain registrar ensures that no unauthorized domain transfer can take place.

Enable Account Activity Alerts

Some good domain registrars provide the facility of email alerts for any account activity. You can see below, how I regularly receive security alerts whenever any activity is performed in my domain account.

The security notification includes user name, IP address, time stamp and modification done for specific domains. Ask your domain registrar whether they provide similar security alerts or not. Normally, this is service is free of cost.

Keep Registration Information Up-to-date

Whenever you register a domain, you provide 3 types of contact information to the domain registrar.

1. Registrant's Contact
2. Administrative Contact
3. Technical Contact

The first one is of course your own contact information, the person who is registering the domain. Normally, if you are maintaining your blog on your own, you must provide the same contact information in the other two, as you gave in the 'Registrant Contact'. Always, keep your contact information updated. As soon as you change your email, phone or mailing address, do update your contact information in the domain account. If you forget to do this, you will not receive any notifications, alerts and reminders from your registrar and you may end up loosing your domain.

Keep Domain and Hosting Separate

Are your web host and domain registrar separate? If not, think about going this way. These days almost every web hosting service provider is coming up with hosting plans that include free domain with hosting package. I would never advice to go with this kind of arrangement, as it gives complete control of your hosting and domain to one company. In future if you are not satisfied with the hosting service and want to switch, they can create trouble for you by locking your domain and preventing any transfer.

Renew In Time

As your domain expiration time approaches, your registrar sends you several reminders for renewal. Ignoring these reminders and not renewing your domain in time can cost your very dearly. After expiration date, your domain goes into redemption grace period, and you can still get it back. But it will cost you anywhere between $100 or $200. So register your domain for long period (2 or more years) and renew in time to prevent any unwanted expenses or loss of domain. The best strategy is to register a domain name for long period (let's say about 5 years) and annually extend it for one year adding it to that final year. This way your domain expiration date will always remain that many years (5 years in our example) ahead.

Last Piece of Advice

And last but not the least are some general security concerns.

1. Use a separate email account for hosting and domain.
2. Use strong passwords and change them frequently.
3. Keep a back up of your password and registered information.
4. Do not go to your registrar's site via email links. Keep the habit of manually typing the address. This extra burden can save you falling into trap of hackers and phishing sites.

What Else I Have Missed?

I would like to hear more new methods you may have used to keep your domain in safe hands. What other safety precautions you implement to keep your domain safe?

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Blog Traffic Analysis Demystified: Part - 5 (Motion Charts)

In continuation of this series, today we are going to look at one of the best data visualization tools available in Google Analytics - 'Motion Charts'. We will learn how to use this amazing data representation tool to get more clear picture of traffic trends over a period of time.

Motion charts are flash animated data representation charts. They represent data in five dimensions. The x and y axis represents various metrics and the color and size of the dots help distinguish each entity uniquely. The slider helps you visualize the data in motion over a period of time. You can access these charts by clicking the 'Visualize' button as shown below.

The following video demonstrates how we can use these charts and can benefit from it.

Motion Charts In Google Analytics

The sheer simplicity and visual appeal makes these charts a must use tool in your web analytics kit.

Series Posts

1. Blog Traffic Analysis Demystified: Part - 1 (Hit Rate)
2. Blog Traffic Analysis Demystified: Part - 2 (Sessions)
3. Blog Traffic Analysis Demystified: Part - 3 (Advanced Segmentation)
4. Blog Traffic Analysis Demystified: Part - 4 (Link Tracking)

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How To Reduce Blogging Stress

Gone are those days when people used to blog just for fun or as a hobby. Today large number of people blog professionally. A good number of them are maintaining multiple blogs with large reader base. This has given birth to stress problem among bloggers due to tight blogging schedules to meet the expectations of their readers. How to deal with this situation to get maximum output without putting much burden on ourselves?

Choose Your Blog's Niche Wisely

It is often observed that the biggest factor responsible for stress is - "struggle for creating new and fresh content for the blog". A couple of readers emailed me about this situation, where they have created a blog but struggle to get new ideas for fresh content, leading to stress and depression. The solution to this problem is very simple. Choose your blog's niche wisely right from the beginning. If you love web designing, create a blog about it. If you are creating a blog on a topic that you love to talk, write and discuss about, you will never fall short of ideas. This will automatically remove any stress related to this situation.

Don't Set Unrealistic Goals

New year comes and you are ready to make resolutions. There is nothing wrong in it, and in fact they give a reason to work hard and to achieve our goals. But what if we try to set very high goals that are unachievable in a given time frame. Problem gets graver when a blogger knows about these unrealistic goals and still strive hard to achieve them. This leads to depression and frustration. You very well know your limitations and caliber. Do not blindly follow your peer's resolutions. If he is setting a goal of getting 2000 new subscribers, you should not try to emulate him. Analyze, study and do some research about your traffic growth, visitors behavior and subscription growth. Once you have collected all the data, calculate and set a reasonable target.

Create Blogging Schedule

Create a timetable dividing it into slices reserving appropriate time for content creation, social media marketing, replying to comments and mails, search engine optimization and general maintenance of your blog. Always allocate the usual office hours for maximum output. Late night and unusual hours are only going to aggravate the problem further.

Socialize With Peers

This is one of the best methods to reduce blogging stress. Socializing with like minded people not only give mental stimulus but also helps in getting new ideas and resources to improve your blogging skills.

Automate Tasks

Wherever possible try to automate the tasks to reduce the burden. For example, welcoming new followers on twitter, comment moderation (common akismet take cares of 99.99% spam), scheduling of posts, canned reply to general queries of readers and so on. This can save huge time for other important stuff giving you peace of mind.

Take Complete Break Once A Week

Reserve one day in a week to take complete break from blogging. Spend time with your family or friends. This is the best stress buster that will rejuvenate your mind and body giving you fresh energy for the next week. You can plan a dinner, a movie, a concert or just a stroll to nearby park with your spouse.

Over To You

Have you undergone similar situation before? How you cope with this kind of situation?

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Reducing Ad Blindness: Rotating Ad Colors For Adsense

'Ad Blindness' is a phenomenon in which visitors consciously ignores the presence of advertisements on a web page. This leads to reduced click through rate (CTR) and affects your earnings. If large chunk of your visitors are returning visitors and if you have not done anything to prevent this phenomenon, you can loose significant amount of your earnings. Let's see how to deal with this situation by some simple palette rotation tricks.

I still remember when I first started using Digg. In the beginning, I used to pay attention on the top right rectangular ad on the home page of Digg. Gradually I completely forgot the presence of this ad. This is called 'Ad Blindness'. Now it only attracts my attention, when some new sparkling ad is placed there. So, the solution lies in constant change of ads.

Change Is Good

How about taking same porch egg in breakfast for years without any change in the menu? And what if you get same boring TV episode week after week without any break? Not feeling good? It's a common human tendency to ask for change when we talk of consumable goods. That's why companies roll out new and multiple color models of their products. Same rule applies to advertisements on our blog.

Palette Rotation: The Key Is In Your Hands

Ad palette rotation works on a simple principle. Every time a web page is refreshed, a new ad with different color combination is served to the reader. This catches the attention of the visitor and clicking probability increases dramatically. Let's see how to implement this technique with Adsense advertisements.

Creating a multiple palette Adsense ad

For creating a muli-color rotating ad in Adsense, go to 'Adsense for Content' and select the 'Ad Type'. Once you reach the 'Choose Ad Format and Colors' option, select the 'Use multiple palettes...' option from the 'Palettes' drop down menu.

Hold 'Ctrl' key and select up to 4 different palettes. If you want, you can choose just two or three palettes. It is always advised to choose all the available 4 palettes for maximum benefit.

Once you have selected all the palettes, you can see its preview as shown above in the example. In this example, we can see 4 different palettes that have been chosen for a single ad. All these palettes will be used by the ad in round robin fashion on subsequent refreshing of web page. It means, if a visitor refreshes the page 4 times, he will see different color ad one after another from these 4 palettes. This will automatically divert his attention to this change and clicking probability will increase.

Be Careful

Sometimes, newbies overdo in enthusiasm by combining very flashy palettes. This can prove fatal and may drive away visitors. Always create eye soothing color combination that gels well with your blog theme. First try them on a test blog and take feedback from some of your fellow bloggers. Once you are sure that the generated palettes will not repel the visitors, transfer the rotating ads on the main blog.

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10 Incredibly Useful Blogmaster Tools

Today in this post, Hitesh Sahni from ProChow shares some very useful tools and services for bloggers.

Already there are overwhelming number of posts and articles on tools and resources which facilitate the work of a blogger and improve the blogging efficiency. So why another post again on the same thing. The previous statement itself has the reason for it. You can browse your way into the blogosphere until you find the real gems of blogging or you can read this post.

I would have easily created a list of 50+ or 100+ tools that I use on a regular basis but that would have given no value. This is because such lists are already available in abundance. Here is a list of particular blogmaster tools which are very little known but are heavily useful. These are the tools that make you feel - "I wish I knew about it earlier enough".Enjoy.

NotePad++

Although most of the publishing platforms today offer friendly user interfaces and simple graphic layouts , but tweaking the Html or the CSS directly is the only way to have complete control over the look of your blog. Notepad++ is as simple as the traditional Notepad, but it comes packed with many useful features, including syntax and html tags highlighting, auto-completion, drag 'n' drop, macros.

Browser Shots

When you load your blog on a different browser, other than the one which you used to design your blog, it is probable that some unpleasant surprises will appear. Browsershots takes screenshots of your site in different browsers and report them back to you. All you need to do is to type the URL of your site, select the browsers you want to test and wait some minutes to see the screenshots. The service includes all the versions of IE, Firefox, Safari and Opera and you can even select different screen resolutions.

ServerMojo

Server monitoring is an essential tool for any blogmaster. Its a simple fact that when your server is down you lose money! Servermojo is a free monitoring service that can check your blog every 15 minutes to ensure it's up and running. It will monitor your servers web, ping, dns, mysql and more. The system will send you free notifications by Email any time your server is not responding.

Copyscape

Blog content plagiarism is widespread these days. This tool makes it easy to find copies of your content on the Web. Simply type in the address of your web page, and copyscape does the rest. Copyscape finds sites that have copied your content without permission, as well as those that have quoted you. You can also place free copyscape banners on your website to warn potential plagiarists against stealing your content.

Google Trends

One of the key ways to get more exposure is to write about whats hot and whats popular. You can view the latest Google search trends with this tool. It is very useful for getting a sense of what the most popular keywords searches currently are, so you can possibly utilize them for your next blog post.

Big Boards

A very simple yet effective way to promote your blog is through the use of online forums. Big-Boards.com is an excellent resource to find large forums related to topic of your blog. Most of the boards allow the user to create a signature, make sure you use it to place a link to your blog with a small description of what users will find there.Now you are set, just engage in the discussions and contribute with useful information, so that people will want to check out your signature link.

Meta Tag Analyzer

The title tag might be the most important factor on the header of a site, but all the other meta tags (description, keywords and author) should also be considered. Meta Tag Analyzer is a very helpful tool for understanding your meta tags. All you need to do is to type the address of your site and it will report the status of the page, the number of keywords, the relevancy of the title, the quality of the tags and much more.

FileZilla

Whether you have a blog or a normal website one of the most important applications that you will use is the FTP. The File Transfer Protocol is the most efficient way to get pictures or files to and from the server that is hosting your site. This open source FTP client is fast and reliable and it also has all the advanced features that you will probably ever need.

Ecto

I'm a big user of this tool. It is blogging tool that allows you to post offline. It also has a nifty two click 'blog this' function that lets you highlight text in an article that you want to quote. With just one key stroke you can import the highlighted text, article title and a link to the article into your blog tool from your browser to be posted with just another click. Using ecto you can speed up your posting to over 50 posts per day.

Fireshot

I know that you are already using some firefox addon to take website screenshots. But this is an addon with a difference. Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify web captures and insert text annotations and graphical annotations. It's possible to choose whether you want to capture entire web page or take screenshot of only visible part of the web page.

So that's it. There may be probably more tools. But they demand one's own discretion about whether they can be called as little known and heavily useful. Feel free to suggest your favorite tools.

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