Thanks to Madame Deals for this weeks Ask A Blogger post.

What is SEO?

I am going to start out with I am not an expert. I frankly know a little bit more than some of you. I however thought I would share what I know (learned Thanks to Duane Forrester, Sr. Product Manager of Webmaster Outreach, from Bing.). I believe when you own a site you need to share what you know so you can discover what you do not know.

I am going to give you three tips that I learned from a call I had with Bing. Yes, Bing the search engine people. They were nice enough to have an SEO training and boy do I need more.

Okay so here it goes:

[Read more…]

You’ve been writing good content and have started to build an audience.  Now you need to make sure they keep reading your posts and see that you’re site is a valuable resource.  In having good content, it is important to provide your readers with quality links while allowing them to easily navigate back to your site.  Personally, there is nothing worse than clicking a link on a website and being directed to a new page.  I might have to hit the back button several times to find the original site or I end up losing the site completely.  Having links open in a new window is beneficial to the author and audience alike.  So, how do you do it?

We already talked about opening a link in a new window when “deep linking” text within a post.  Amee put together a great video to walk you through those simple steps.  But some of you may wonder what the code looks like that is forcing that link to open in a new window.  This knowledge  is particularly important if you’re adding buttons or ads to your sidebar.  You don’t want the reader to be directed away from your page when they print a coupon or checkout a sample offer. 

Example:

I have Madame Deals button on my sidebar.  I want to encourage readers to visit the site, but I don’t want them to forget about me in the process.  This is what the button code for Madame Deals looks like:

<center><a href=”http://madamedeals.com/” ><img border=”0″ src=”http://madamedeals.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/button.png”/ width=”125″></a></center>

The problem? The way this code is set up, Madame Deals page will load right over mine.  As people click through Amee’s great content, it will be difficult to come back to The Coupon Challenge.  However, adding this small snippet of code changes everything: target=”_blank”

<center><a href=”http://madamedeals.com/“ target=”_blank” ><img border=”0″ src=”http://madamedeals.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/button.png”/ width=”125″></a></center>

Now Madame Deals will open in a new window and The Coupon Challenge will remain in the background.  Readers can easily learn what Madame Deals has to offer then return to The Coupon Challenge with one click of the mouse. 

Learning basic HTML can take you a long way in blogging by retaining readers and saving money. 

Looking for more blogging tips? Search for Ask a Blogger

If you need hosting, we both use Host Gator and Love them.

This weeks Ask a Blogger post is from Amee with Madame Deals

Do you have an Advertising promotion plan? Do you know how much you need to make to run your business?
 
We have talked about advertising but lets go further. Who are you advertising with? Are you making enough? How do you know? Are you doing it right? I have to say I have no idea. The ads on my site we set up someone else. I created an excel document with the advertisers name and then placed in the monthly revenue. I did so for three months. I then looked up my stats on Google Analytics to confirm that my traffic has increased so my revenue should also increase at the same rate. It wasn’t.  I thought wow I have all these Google ads and I am making peanuts. What am I doing wrong?

I asked my friend and she told me to hire 3 Reasons Design. I asked her how much she made a month and lets just say I was making less than peanuts. I was making change and she was making dollars. Since the motto of the site is Making Dollar$ out of Change I knew I needed Brad. I obtained Brad’s rate, which he has agreed to offer at a discount if you contact him and say you’re heard about him through Madame Deals. He charges $40 an hour but agreed to offer you all a rate of $35 an hour. I had a lot of work done since I have three unique dashboards.  Your bill will not be even close to mine. I would estimate it should run you $75.

[Read more…]

We’ve posted about our experiences blogging and tricks we’ve learned, but neither of us will pretend to be a blogging expert.  We learn something new EVERY day.  This week, we asked our friend Kas from Southern Bellas Ways to Save to share about Stumble with you all.  Amee and I are just learning to Stumble, so this post is to our benefit as well as yours. 

1.  First things first make sure you have a Stumble Upon Account

2.  Set up your interests. I personally clicked things that would most interest me. These are the types of sites that will come up when you click the blog stumble button on your toolbar.

3. Download the browser toolbar (I use FF)

4.  On your toolbar you will see:  STUMBLE> ALL> I LIKE IT (THUMBS UP)> THUMBS DOWNS> TAG BUTTON> FACEBOOK SHARE BUTTON> INFO> FAVORITES> STUMBLERS> TOOLS

5.  Throughout the day I click the Stumble button and see lots of random websites. Even some blogs I frequent. I click the thumbs up/thumbs down accordingly. If you REALLY want a post to take off you should click the INFO button and leave a review of the site or post you are stumbling. Make sure you choose the right tags as well. IF it’s a recipe don’t write shopping etc.

What makes Stumble Upon work is that you are discovering other posts/sites not just your own.  So for every 10-20 then stumble your own. It takes time to build your stumbles, but once you do your rating gets bumped up and it will benefit the person you stumble.

*Please note: You can’t stumble giveaways

Looking for more blogging tips? Search for Ask a Blogger

Do you stumble?

After spending a few weeks talking about how to make money blogging, we’re stepping back into posts about blogging itself.  Amee and I both use WordPress and couldn’t be happier about making the switch.  One of the fantastic features about WordPress is all the plug-ins available to help make your site run smoother and to help you make the most efficient use of your time.

Below are some of our favorite WordPress Plugin’s:

– WPtouch– A plugin which formats your site with a mobile theme for visitors on Apple iPhone / iPod touch, Google Android, Blackberry Storm and Torch, Palm Pre and other touch-based smartphones.

– Comment Love– Send a response when someone leaves a comment

– Wibiya Configuration– Wibiya enables blogs to integrate the most exciting services, applications and widgets of their choice into their blog through customized web-based toolbars. Our platform offers a one-stop solution for integrating, managing and tracking third-party applications.

– All in One SEO Pack- Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog

[Read more…]

Okay so we have talked about everything from getting started and writing a post, and making money blogging.  We’ve discussed contests, building relationships with other bloggers, and actively promoting your site with good content, readers & strategy.  We talked about affiliate programs last week.  We figured this week it is only fair to share our address book. Yeah!

I am going to put in here that you all might not be accepted into certain programs. I am still not accepted into certain programs, that is life. I say keep trying.  This is a job that you have to take because you love it not because it is going to pay the bills. It may eventually but not always. I am very honest that I take posts for money. I put it in my disclaimer Madame Deals does not run on love, hope, or peanuts. It runs with effort, intelligence, and CASH! I believe it takes money and time to grow a business. I think of my business much like cable programming there are “shows” which is the content and articles. There are “commercials” which I equate with paid posts and ads on my side bar and in some of my posts.

Finally there are more aggressive ads called referral links. I personally do not send other bloggers spam. I will not send out my referral links to others on a weekly basis. I am only sharing them now because my in box is full of people asking for them. I am kind of on the fence because if I give you all my advertiser information then we will all have the same “commercials” on our sites.

[Read more…]