Social Bookmarking Icons for your blog

Do you have social bookmarking icons or chicklets on your blog?
Last year's explosion of social bookmarking sites like Facebook and Twitter have shown that people are influenced by their friends and online contacts when it comes to discovering new stuff online.

After a long search for a website I'm working on, I found two different ways to get these kinds of icons. One is super easy and the other, while still pretty easy, offers a ton of design choices.

The super easy method (for Blogger blogs) is to go to Sociofluid.com.
Check off the sites you want to include in your widget, decide on a size and how you want it to act when your viewers hover their mouse over the icons, then generate the widget. Easy Peasy.

Here's an example of their widget. I set the sizes at 32 and 48 and clicked to have it Grow Up with a mouseover. Here's what it looks like. Pretty cool. I wish it had a Flickr icon, though.

The other option offers lots of different designs. There are actually several sites with these free downloads, but the one with the choices I liked best is this page at wpzoom.com - yes, the WP refers to WordPress.

To use these, you'll have to download the file and install each icon individually, but you download each icon in all sizes so you can fit it into your blog or site perfectly. There are some really neat designs here.

As for me, I'll use the super easy method on one site, a hand-drawn design on another site, and bookmark both for when I want more.
Enjoy!


PS: Other sites I like that offer free social networking icons are:
http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2007/11/recent-posts-widget-plugin_25.html
and
http://www.wavemindedstudios.com/site/news/social-networking-icons






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Blogging from Flickr

In the last several blog posts you learned some easy ways to start using SEO to get more traffic to your blog. I wanted to take a moment and tell you just a little more about using Flickr with this technique.

In the last blog post, I said that if you have a Flickr account, you can set up your blog(s) from your account page. You can also set your own copyright preferences for your own photos. For more information on this, visit http://creativecommons.org/choose/ Based on how other photographers set their own copyright preferences, you can blog about some photos directly from Flickr to your blog.

Yes, Flickr accounts are free and very easy to set up. No, Flickr doesn't pay me to promote them; I just use Flickr for most of my online photo management and love how it works.

Once your Flickr account is set up and your blog(s) are set up, do a keyword search. I did a search in Flickr for "Ceramic Paint Pens" (quotes make sure the exact phrase is searched, not single words in the phrase.) If you see a picture you want to blog about and the copyright settings allow others to blog it, just hit the "Blog This" button and blog it from there.

 

Easy peasy.

Here's how my blog post looks:

Soup tureens with ladle., originally uploaded by Terry Wallis.

In this Flickr picture, photographer Terry Wallis mentioned how he bought ladles separately and used ceramic paint pens to paint them to match the tureen set.

I posted this directly from Flickr. If you click on the picture it will take you to the Flickr page where this photo is located.

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One more super easy SEO trick to boost your blog

In my last two blog posts I shared some tips on using basic SEO to get more traffic to your blog. I hope you've had some nice results from these tips. Today I've got one more thing you can do to build on the last post.

In the last post I suggested using Google Analytics to find out what keywords people were using to get to your site, and then blogging about these keywords. Using that trick, let's go one step further.

1. Go to Google Alerts and type in your keyword. Select what kinds of sites/blogs you want to search, how often you want to be alerted, and where the alert should be sent. In my case, I set up a Google Alert for "ceramic paint pens" (in quotes so Google searches that exact phrase.)

2. Like in the last blog post, you'll need to give it a week or so for the results to show up. When they do, browse through the links and see if anything would be of interest to your readers. I found this intriguing and related blog post at Re-nest. (The tea set shown there is amazing, isn't it?)

3. When you've found something interesting, blog about it, using your keyword three to five times. Write your own content with your own opinion and viewpoint. Be sure to get permission to re-post any relevant pictures found on the other website. Include a link to that site - partly as a courtesy to your readers if they want more info, party to add credibility to your own post, and mostly to give credit to the owner of the original content.

Your loyal readers will appreciate you sharing some interesting and related info and you'll have something fresh for your new readers. Don't be surprised if you get a mention at the other website for sharing their info with your readers.

Where else can you use this SEO trick? It depends on what your keyword is. Instead of just setting up a Google Alert, I have also found great content to blog about with a keyword search at the following sites.

Crafts, handmade goods, art - Etsy or Artfire

Food - try recipe sharing sites such as Recipezaar

Local stuff, travel, scenery, misc - Flickr

(If you have a Flickr account, you can set up your blog(s) from your account page. Then, if you see a picture you want to blog about and the picture owner has chosen to allow others to blog it, just hit the "Blog This" button and blog it from there. Easy peasy.)

If you try this on your blog, comment here and let me know how you liked it.  Don't forget to get permission before using any photos - and let the owners of the original content know that you've posted about them whenever possible.

Cheers!

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Another trick to get more traffic to your blog

In the last post I shared a tip that uses basic SEO to get more traffic to your blog.

Here's another very easy way to get more traffic to your blog - capitalize on your own keywords. Ok, it takes a little work and a lot of patience to get it started, but once you have it up and running, it's very very easy.

The screenshot below is from a Google Analytics report on my Pass It On Plates blog.

As you can see, the most popular keyword search that brings people to that blog is Ceramic Paint Pens.

So try this on your own blog.

1. Get a Google Analytics account. You'll need a Google account - if you have a Blogger blog, you already have a Google account. This is easy to set up if you know how to insert code into your blog. If you are not comfortable fiddling with the HTML of your blog, ask a tech-y friend for help. We don't want you to lose or damage your blog.

2. Once your analytics code is installed, you'll have to be patient and wait a week or so to see the results.

3. When you've had sufficient time for analytics to gather data on your blog, take a look at the keywords people are using to find you. Click Traffic Sources and then click Keywords. You can also change the timeline at the top of the page, if you want to see more than the past month.

4. What's the most popular keyword? Use it when writing your blog posts. Repeat the keyword three to five times (this tells the search engine spiders that this is a focal point of your blog post) and blog about this keyword more frequently than other topics. There's no rule that says you have to write every other post about this keyword, but as long as 30-50% of your posts focus on this keyword, you'll drive traffic to your site looking for information about this keyword.

In my case, since Ceramic Paint Pens is my top keyword (and in the picture you can see that my top 5 keywords bring in mostly new visitors, not repeat visitors - so my readership is growing) I try to blog about these more often than any other topic.

Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!

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Here's an easy way to get more traffic to your blog

No matter what you blog about, this easy trick will boost your traffic each time you do it. Make this a consistent habit and you could see a steady and regular increase in your blog's traffic. This tip makes use of basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization.)

1. Go to a popular homepage type of website like Yahoo and look up that day's popular searches. You can see this day's popular searches in the box on the upper right (shown in the picture above.) Today's top 5 popular searches are: Sandra Bullock, Amanda Knox, Jayson Williams, the Health Care Bill, and New Moon Reviews.

2. Incorporate one of these top search subjects into your blog post. Each of these subjects is a keyword, so for today's example, using the name Sandra Bullock is a keyword.

3. Make the post relevant and interesting to read, and repeat your keyword a few times. (Three times is good, five times is better.)

This may take a little creative thinking, but works like a charm if you do it right. 

When people surfing the internet type in your keyword, your blog post will come up in the listings. Actual mileage may vary depending on the keyword you chose, where in the listings it landed, and how interesting your text is, but you should see a bump in traffic.

Try it out and comment here with your results!

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I'm back - and have all kinds of stuff to share

Hello - I've missed you! The past few months have been filled with all kinds of interesting things and I'm learning some amazing things that I can't wait to share with you.

While my posting here won't be as regular as it had been, I do hope to be able to share neat stuff with you a couple times a month. That might be just right, anyway... it'll give you time to tweak my marketing tips to meet your specific needs and see how they work.

I'm still crazy for your comments, so please let me know how you used these tips and/or what kinds of results you got from them.







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Announcement!

Dear Loyal Readers,

I have some changes on the horizon to share with all of you.

Starting Tuesday, I will begin a new day job which will take up a lot more time and energy than my present job. While learning my new job, I will be posting less frequently than my usual two posts a week.

Once I get up and running with my new job, I'll be returning to college to complete my business degree in Marketing - and actually looking at a double major: Marketing and Advertising, since I have almost all the credits for an advertising degree right now.

So the downside right now is that I'll be extremely busy and won't have the time to devote to writing two posts a week. The upside is that when I do make an infrequent post, it will be really great information you can use. (Not that it wasn't before, but now it'll be really great info!)

If you don't want to miss a post, I encourage you to subscribe to this blog - there's a little box in the sidebar.

Thank you everyone!



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PS: The series I started on creating great viral blog posts is still saved in my "finish writing" folder and will be continued as time permits.