• What is a blog?
• What is a self hosted blog?
• What is WordPress?
• What are the advantages of Self hosted wordpress blog vs free blogging sites?
• How can i get a self hosted blog? How can i get started blogging?

So without further ado, here it goes.

What is a blog and who is it for?

In a few words, a blog is a website. However unlike traditional forms of coding & languages used on static websites such as HTML a blog is more dynamic & can be a combination of different coding languages. Even after that HTML is everywhere inside the codes of the blog, in most cases alongside PHP & JAVA. So if you know a little bit of HTML then you can pretty much modify your blog easily.

In more detail a blog is your gateway to express yourself. It a dynamic website that can be easily updated, manages & configured. Blogs or as they are traditionally known as web logs are for everyone. Yes i mean everyone, be it corporates or small business, full time blogger or a work at home mom. In the current scenario many people from around the world are using blogs, for almost any purpose you can imagine, be it a fan site for a celebrity, a personal diary, a way to earn a living, a log for development activities or a simple way to update the world about your life. If you want to share something, write something or make money online then blogging is for you.

What is a Self Hosted blog?

Now that you know what a blog is, its time to understand the difference between a self hosted blog versus a blogging service. You might have noticed many online services that help you create your blogs easily, some of the well known services are live journal, blogger.com, wordpress.com, type pad, etc. All these sites allow you to create a blog without going through the hassles involved in installing blogs, plugins, modifying the blog, getting web hosting, domains etc. Basically they provide you free blogs on their own site. But like everything else that is free, free blogs have their limitations. One of the biggest disadvantage of the using these services is that the blog you are running, is actually ‘NOT’ yours. I will explain this more in detail later.

On the other hand there are self hosted blogs, which are complete stand alone websites [blogs] that does not depend on any sort of 3rd party services whatsoever. Yes, self hosted blogs do need a backbone and that backbone is the platform they use. A self hosted blog platform is nothing but a blogging CMS (Content Management System). Examples of these systems include wordpress.org (notice it’s not the same as wordpress.com), type pad, b2 evolution, movable type, joomla, durpal, nucleus etc. In a few words, these platforms let you control your blog in any way you want. And if you think having a blogger.com blog with a .com domain name, then please let me tell you that your blog is still not a self hosted blog.

What that means is that you need to ‘host’ the website (blog) on your own server, with your own domain name using a blogging platform, CMS, Script whatever you wish to call it. That is what a self hosted blog actually means. Because your blog is not ‘hosted’ by a 3rd party like blogger.

What is WordPress?

By now you would have already got an idea about what wordpress really is. But in order to avoid any confusion i would like you to note that the wordpress platform ( wordpress.org) is actually the same platform which is used on wordpress.com, it is a self hosted version of wordpress, just like blogger. Now lets get back to wordpress CMS. WordPress blogging platform is first of all Free, it is the single most platform in the world that has a dedicated team which is continuously updating it & providing new features, along with hundreds of other individual developers that provide plugins, add on’s, themes, etc.

WordPress is advance in every sense & is feature filled. In fact self hosted wordpress have a huge advantage in terms of SEO and that is a tested & proved fact. On the other hand wordpress.com is just like blogger (or blogspot) which is yet another free blogging site. Now that you know what wordpress is, lets get to the part you’ve been waiting for.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Self Hosted WordPress blog vs Free Blogging Sites:

15+ Advantages of having a self hosted wordpress blog:

There are many advantages of having a self hosted blog rather then a 3rd party hosted blog. Here are the advantages of having a self hosted wordpress blog. (Note: These are also the disadvantages of not having a self hosted blog or using free blogging sites)

1. Quality Content: Having a self hosted blog means self hosted content. Your content have a better chance of being indexed & starting a self hosted blog shows your seriousness about the topic you are blogging for. This would be seen as a quality content blog by the search engines.
2. Advanced Communication: Self Hosted Blogs gives you the advantage to explore opportunities when it comes to communicating with your prospective clients or visitors. You can have your own email IDs admin@yourdomain.com which also builds trust and shows professionalism. This however would not be possible in free blog unless of course you were using a domain and email forwarders. You can also add modules that allows you to organize events, contests, engaging content for your visitors, etc. This again is not so possible with free blogging sites.
3. RSS Feeds: Self Hosted wordpress gives you an upper hands when it comes to content syndication with its built in RSS & ATOM features. Not all free blogging sites provide RSS features as extensive as wordpress. Self hosted blogs gives you the ability to provide email & RSS subscriptions as well as pull in your RSS feeds to your social sites such as twitter, linkdin, facebook, etc.
4. Total Control: With self hosted blogs you are in complete control, in contrast to free blogging platforms this could be a huge advantage if you are an avid blogger. You get total control as its your web hosting, your domain & your platform (since you are the admin). You also don’t have to worry about bandwidth limitations, hosting space, etc. Imagine if you were using free blogging sites and had built a complete blog with active visitors & lots of content & one day all of a sudden you realize your blog was shut down, closed, deleted. No matter what was the reason, you take this risk when you opt for free blogging sites.
5. Ease of Use: WordPress blogging platform is as easy as it gets. The navigation of wordpress dashboard is extremely user friendly & with so many resources available online regarding wordpress & everything related to wordpress you can easily get used to a self hosted wordpress blog. Well the most important part is, you don’t need any coding experience in order to update, modify or improve your blog. This might not be the case when it comes to free blogging platforms.
6. Community: Getting yourself a self hosted wordpress blog also means that you are joining a very large wordpress community. Even if you were to say free blogging sites also have communities, i would say their community is limited to the ‘site itself’, for example wordpress.com community is limited to wordpress.com since all the blogs are on that one single domain. But if you are using wordpress self hosted platform you a bigger community & that means more ways to grow your network & build reputation.
7. Clean Coding: WordPress & many other self hosted blog platforms are developed by professional developers and have valid & verified coding. This means that what ever site you run using these platforms you will always be on the safe side because you will never have a coding problem, you are also free to edit the codes to modify & suit your needs. This again is not the case when it comes to free blogging platforms.
8. Promotion & social media: You can easily promote a self hosted blog since its a separate web identity. You can add sharing tools, plugins and easily promote to twitter, facebook, digg, etc. Being independent is always better when it comes to credibility, branding & of course making money.
9. User Friendly Interface: Self hosted wordpress sites can easily be customized, giving you the option to make your site as user or visitor friendly as possible, without all the cluttering or bad navigation. In fact the recent wordpress updates gives you the ability to add new navigation menus easily without depending on your theme for it.
10. Plugins: WordPress has a huge collection of plugins contributed by the wordpress community developers. Most plugins are free & you can find a plugin for adding almost any functionality to your blog. There are also some paid or premium plugins that offer certain features but they are usually not listed on the wordpress plugin database.
11. Endless supply of Themes & Design Options: Design of a blog is very important and could give you the edge over other bloggers. Modifying designs of a blog or finding free themes for free blogging services can be hard, if not impossible. WordPress has a themes database where you can find free themes. There are also many individual theme developers providing paid themes, some of which are really elegant & amazing. Self Hosted WordPress also provides you the ability to change or Edit the CSS of the blog or almost anything you can imagine. You can also find some free premium wordpress themes.
12. Affordable:Self hosted blogs are free, but you still have to pay for domain names, web hosting, premium themes & plugins, etc. However self hosted blogs are always preferred over free blogging platforms due to the branding & professional factor. And to be honest wordpress hosted blogs are affordable to a small business or even to a stay at home mom because the hosting & domain charges are minimal compared to the advantages you get.
13. Secure & Easy to fix: If you ever encounter problems with a free blog then your blog is as close as dead, however with wordpress hosted blogs you have hundreds of hours of security feature coding, thousands of support articles & the ability to create complete back up of your sites & upload them any time via FTP!
14. Branding & Reputation: Having a unique domain name & look gives you the reputation and branding edge over free blogging sites. Self hosted blogs are easy to brand & build as a reputable blog. Free blogs are regarded as free and you can’t expect to build a company or a brand on a free blogging service, can you?
15. SEO: This by far is the biggest reason why wordpress is so popular. WordPress self hosted blogs due to the simple & clean coding, instant content updates and great features gives you a bigger advantage when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. Search Engines love dynamic & continuously updating content, wordpress is exactly built on those concept. Better SEO = more visitors, which is better any day when compared to a dead, traffic less free blog.
16. Making Money: Yes that is right, if you want to make money blogging then switch to wordpress self hosted blogs. You have the ability to monetize your site, put on advertising such as ad-sense, banner ads, pop up ads, sell your site for a profit or even rent it. You definitely cannot do that on free blogging sites. Why? because some of them force their ads on your blog, some will simply not allow you to put any sort of ads on your own blog! In fact you end up making money for these free blogging platforms when you use their services, so choose wisely.

Disadvantages of self hosted blogs:

There aren’t many disadvantages to self hosted blogs, and the few that are depends purely on your situation.

1. Complicated Set up: If you don’t know how to follow simple instructions or are completely new to the web and have no tech knowledge then setting up a self hosted blog can be a denting task. However there are guides that can make this easy, but obviously it will take time. Free blogging sites are easy to set up since they provide the same set of themes, plugins, etc. All you have to do is create an account and your ready to go.
2. Cost: If budget is your problem or you don’t even have $100 or so to pay for web hosting & domains for up to a year, then self hosted blogs are not for you. Yes, there are costs but they are really worth it compared to the advantages you get. And of course you are not limited to a blog when you have web hosting & domain, you can do anything you can imagine!
3. Updates: Some self hosting blog platforms are hard to update, however wordpress blogs can be updated with a click of a button. So this is quite not a disadvantage unless you are using other self hosted blog platforms. Its a lot more complicated if you don’t know what your doing.
4. Hosting Issues: Having a bad host can ruin it for you & your blog. Some free & paid hosting services have downtime issues or the type of content you post, etc.  But if you are paying good & sign up for a reputable hosting company like Hostgator then this shouldn’t be a problem.

How can i get a self hosted blog? How can i get started blogging?

Finally now that you are aware of the advantages of having a self hosted wordpress blog. It is time to get started on blogging. The answer is really simple & a 3 step process:

• Get Web Hosting: I recommend HostGator Personally, because i use them myself (even this blog) & have had no issues in past 2 years. They also have unlimited bandwidth & space along with various features, the most important one is being able to install wordpress with a few clicks. Check out HostGator & their prices here. If you do plan to go with them then take the hatchling package as that is the most cheapest one & good for start ups. I personally use the baby package since i have more then 1 sites hosted with them. (Use code : SJRECOMMENDS to get 25% off)
• Get Domain Name: A good domain is important. Registering a domain should be cheap as compared to web hosting, most domain names cost around 7-10$ per year (.com/org/net) while a .info can cost as low as 2$. I usually register my domains with GoDaddy, sometimes with name cheap. Check them out.
• Install WordPress, Themes & Plugins: Hostgator provides fantastico installer, which makes it easy to install wordpress on your site in a few clicks. You can do this directly from your hosting CPanel account. You can get free themes & plugins as mentioned previously. If however you want more advanced & great looking themes then i recommend elegant themes. I personally use one of their themes for this blog & their themes are really great & absolutely cheap, they have more then 40+ themes for as low as 50 cents a theme.

TIP: If you register at Hostgator, then use the coupon code 'SJRECOMMENDS'
to get 25% of your package. Along with that, feel free to get in touch with
me if you need any help with blogging, i will try my best to help you.

Of course there is more to blogging then the above mentioned 3 step process. However i think this post is already long enough so i will leave that for my next post.

Final words:

Switch over to self hosted wordpress or any self hosted blogs if you are serious about blogging. And if you found this article useful then please share it! I would really appreciate if you shared it anywhere you want as a way of repaying me for the information. Don’t forget to follow me on twitter @sameerjoad & subscribe to my feeds to keep receiving more informative articles form me.

Till then take care & wishing you great success,

SJ

What they say:

• Search engine volume declining.
• Google dying out.
• Facebook and other social media sites are now the most valuable sites for marketing, including Viral and word of mouth marketing.
• No point of doing SEO
• No point of affiliate marketing via SEO

My answer to them:

Search engine volume declining:

Are you nuts? You are assuming here the search growth volume decline, but do you even know that almost every single person on the internet will use ‘search engine’ to search for something? Do you expect someone to go on facebook and search for ‘how to loose weight?’.  If you think SEO is dead, then you are just too much negative.

Google dying out?:

Do you know which sites get the most visitors per month? Yes its facebook, but do you know which sites make the most money per month? Oh wait you don’t . But they are not social media they are amazon, google, ebay, etc etc. Do you find facebook or twitter on those top earners list? Nope. So in simple words, most visited doesn’t make them most worth or most earning sites.

Facebook and other social media sites are now the most valuable sites for marketing, including Viral and word of mouth marketing:

We internet marketers don’t give a damn for ‘what site’ a user visits. We do SEO to rank on search engines, do you know the purpose of search engines? It is to ‘search’ for what the people are looking for on the world wide web. So if SEO is dead then all the websites on the internet are dead!

No point of doing SEO:

It is funny that some people assume, SEO IS DEAD and yet they say that ‘Facebook’ is the most searched keyword on any search engine. Now isn’t that contradicting. If google wasn’t there or any search engine for the matter of fact, will your average user be able to find anything??? ANYTHING AT ALL?? It is already shocking enough that they can’t find facebook without searching Google or yahoo. Does that mean SEO is dead? I don’t think so.

No point of affiliate marketing via SEO:

Another well known fact is that, 90% of searches on social media sites are of no monetary value. Social media sites are only for socializing or marketing a product which is ‘common’ like movies, etc. YOU CANNOT SELL medical products, or even anything that doesn’t make it ‘social enough’. If that was the case then why would millions[assuming] of internet marketers spend time on SEO and not just make friends on Facebook and social media sites & sell to them like ordinary sales men in real life? Well why should we, when we have Search engines. In fact search engines are killing the ‘real world’ market because more and more people go online and search for products, its reviews and information before buying them from markets or shopping malls. Why is that? Why can’t they  go and use facebook for such a purpose. Because Facebook or Social media isn’t for that purpose.

What they still keep saying:

• Facebook is most searched term on all major search engines
• Facebook and social media sites can over take Google and other search engines
• Facebook is democracy based, Google is authority based.
• Social media sites get more search volume then search engines.
• Viral marketing is the game changer.

What i think about that:

Facebook is most searched term on all major search engines:

If you think as mentioned above, then your common senses have failed you. An average user can’t find a single site without searching it on google and yahoo. And we expect social media to help us make money? yea right keep dreaming. The only way that i have seen people making money via facebook is by those stupid fan pages and cpa offers. FOOLING the avg user. Did you realize that the avg user searches for ‘facebook’ on the ‘search engines’? So facebook is perhaps alive because of search engines, but still it earns nothing compared to what google and yahoo earns. Why is that? Because facebook needs lots of resources to accommodate its ‘users’. It is not for business it is for socializing. So for us merchants we need to sell stuff, not meet people and talk to them for 8hrs and convince them to buy some products which they never wanted to even try. BUT via SEO we get those people directly to our sites and get them buying what they are looking for.

Facebook and social media sites can over take Google and other search engines:

If facebook and social media could have overtaken Google and other Search engine giants then it would have happened by now, but instead we get reports of these Search engine Giants offering to ‘buy’ sites like facebook and twitter. Who is making more money here now?

Facebook is democracy based, Google is authority based:

Regarding facebook being democracy based and Google being authority is pure rumors and utter BS. It is the users who search on google and it is us the ‘webmasters’ who make our sites capable and competitive to rank on google. So in my dictionary it is the other way around. If you provide good content and do hard work you will rank on google and be the authority, but elected by democracy of the searchers. But on facebook – do we ever search there?

Viral marketing is the game changer:

In some cases yes, but assuming only viral marketing can change the game then you are wrong, Viral marketing +SEO are the top game changers. They go hand in hand and the faster we realize this the better and easier Internet marketing is.  So no you can’t rely on viral marketing only. In fact some social media sites can just ban you for spamming.

Social media sites get more search volume then search engines:

Facebook is visited by the same people over and over again for socializing. TELL ME SOMETHING, can facebook send ‘ITS OWN USERS’ to your site? No it can’t, even if you try it might be considered spamming, unless you want to spend money there you got nothing. So in terms of value, google and search engines get more ‘worthy’ visitors. Why isn’t facebook earning as much as google if it has more users then it?

They still don’t stop:

• We can make more money via Social traffic then SEO traffic.
• Viral marketing without SEO yields better result in shorter time.
• SEO is not stable and will die and we will be better off with social media.
• Yahoo is closing its Publisher program because  SEO is dead.
• SEO doesn’t benefit the ordinary ‘webmaster’.

Neither do i:

We can make more money via Social traffic then SEO traffic:

So is SEO dead? Well let me tell you something about viral marketing. Viral marketing don’t last forever. Here you are for a month, next month someone better then you comes, down the dumpster you go. But with SEO you can maintain your positions on certain keywords. This gets you – TARGETED TRAFFIC, .ie organic traffic. Is that worth more then the UN-TARGETED traffic those merchants get from social media sites? YES.

Viral marketing without SEO yields better result in shorter time:

Here’s the thing -

Time spent on social media sites = time wasted [1]

Time needed for viral marketing = time spent on social media sites [2]

then from [1] and [2],

Time needed for viral marketing = time wasted

How is that? Let me put it this way, facebook has people who are addicted, they visit the site to chat with friends, they send mails , they log off. Spending huge time on facebook, But is that of any value to us the sellers? No.

Now on search engines – user searches something = he wants or is looking for something = he finds our sites = he gets what he is looking for = we earn $$. Can that happen on facebook?
NO!  Unless you pay for advertising.

SEO is not stable and will die and we will be better off with social media:

Now imagine, everyone stopped SEO, Google and all search engines died. What next? who will visit our sites? Will anyone ever know our sites exists? Won’t facebook ban us for posting links? Even if we did just to our friends – it will be un-targeted traffic = no value. Which makes Our sites = useless, we make no money. No money means  no income for facebook. No income for facebook and so much users with high maintenance means  facebook is dead. SEO is the backbone of the internet marketing scenario . IT WILL NEVER DIE.

Yahoo is closing its Publisher program because  SEO is dead:

Last but not the least, i believe yahoo died the time it sold itself to Microsoft, i.e Bing.
You might not know but people on facebook are ‘humans’ and so are they on all social media sites. They don’t know anything unless someone spams them, they ask questions and doubts to their friends via status – why can’t they just search facebook to find answers? because its not possible. And when someone asks such questions. Do you know what reply people give on social media sites = just ****ing google it. Oh and that reply is common everywhere, facebook, twitter, yahoo answers, etc etc. Its true there is immense power in social media but SEO is not dead. period.

YPN died out because they can’t compete with Google and have bad policies? and perhaps they don’t have enough publishers because they are not worldwide?

SEO doesn’t benefit the ordinary ‘webmaster’:

If that is the case and if SEO dies, then so does any other website on the internet that isn’t ‘advertised’ offline. Which means a total of estimated 10-50 million ‘ordinary’ merchants, webmasters, freelancers, sellers etc will run out of business and it also means the economy would fall to ‘WORST’ conditions ever.

Q. Can word of mouth i.e viral marketing alone save us without the use of SEO?

A:Not always. It will take a 100 years for you to sell a common product to every user on the internet. Because not everyone has same tastes, or is rich, or is located in a place where they can avail those items. But if you were to make a website, target a keyword and rank top on the keyword on any major search engine, you will sell your product to every single person who visits your site.

So does that mean Social Media and viral marketing is Dead?

Let me put it this way, if i wanted to rely on viral marketing to sell a product to 10 million people. Let that be the basic goal. Then, that would mean 10 million people should just buy my product by word of mouth. This is very unlikely. BUT if i were to do the same via SEO, Viral marketing together by Ranking with certain keywords. And then get 100% organic traffic and say get an average of 1 million people monthly.[which is possible on high traffic niches] then i can reach my goals in less then a year. How? because i will have ‘targeted’ customers. More over, even if i don’t sell on first try i can always build leads, follow up. Spread my product all around the internet. Using ‘Search engines’ we can get many affiliates interested in promoting us, and these affiliates will still in turn promote our product using ‘search engines’. Can you do all this via facebook or twitter? You might be able to, but it will take lots of spamming and hard work. And it might not be automated as well along with the fact that you will have to do it all alone and by yourself without help of any affiliates etc.

What did you learn? SEO is not dead, don’t give up if you don’t rank well on search engines. Because in the end search engines were still alive when myspace was popular, is still alive when facebook and twitter is and will still be when other social media sites evolve.

Google Page rank has been a topic of discussion for a long time. It is believed that page rank directly or indirectly affects your search engine rankings. A few years back Google told most webmasters that page rank is in fact 1 of the 200 different elements of a site that they use to calculate the search engine rankings.

But unlike Google’s statement, most SEO experts and companies considers Google Page rank a important element of SEO. Almost every webmaster, big or small keeps an eye on their page ranks. In some cases page rank can be a deciding factor while selling advertisements or getting advertisers for the website.

Google to remove Page rank?

A few years ago back in 2007 google requested feedback from webmasters weather or not to remove pagerank from the webmaster tools. But at that time it was rejected by most webmasters. However recently Google with the introduction of Google Labs for webmaster tools and other changes, also removed the Pagerank Data from webmaster Tools. This change however went unnoticed by most of us, however it has surely started a endless discussion and line of questions. With the first one being, is Google going to remove pagerank?

Susan Moskwa from Google explained it like this:

"We've been telling people for a long time that they shouldn't focus
on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it's the most
important metric for them to track, which is simply not true. We removed
it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it,
but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it."

There is no doubt Google has been trying to tell webmasters for so long to improve the content and quality of their websites and not just concentrate on building their pagerank. We all know how most webmasters try to gain pagerank, which is by link building.

Does this means an end to link building?

Trying to gain pagerank not only encourages link farms or spam but loads of different problems. Perhaps which is why Google is having a hard time due to the ‘pagerank addicted webmasters’.

But  it does not end just here, Google’s move has left many of us startled. What should we do now? Just completely forget about pagerank? But how is that going to help many of us who depend on pagerank for selling advertising banners on our pages, seo services, link building services??

Is Google changing its algorithm for ‘serps’? Maybe or maybe not, but it surely gets you thinking. The google toolbar still shows pagerank. But its been removed from the webmaster tools. So pagerank is just for show, now? It kinda takes out the whole point of having pagerank in the first place.

Will it affect online business?

Lets not start speculating that Google is going to remove pagerank completely without any official announcements. [since they didn't announce removing them from webmaster tools we can't be sure] But telling webmasters not to concentrate on pagerank building is definitely going to affect business. Specially for those people who own directories, article directories, link sales, seo services, link building services, etc. The list is endless, i mean if Google tells you to forget about pagerank, why would you and thousands of other webmaster spend precious time and money trying to build links for a good PR?

It is going to have some minor effects on blogging community as well. Its going to kill the purpose of ‘dofollow’ blogs. For some blogs there will be loss of comments aswell, maybe link exchanges will also decline.

Are their any advantages?

There are many advantages, firstly there will be less spam. No more link farms and it will be a boost to some ‘real’ sites and blogs with unique content. Why?

Because if Google removes PR, it would mean all high PR sites and link spammers might drop and other sites will rank better depending on the quality of content, this is good news form a searchers point of view.

But will Google remove PR?

That is the question which everyone seems to be asking right now. Is google thinking to remove PR from its serp algorithm? If it does how is it going to affect us all?

The answer is not yet clear but from recent changes, we can see where Google seems to be heading. Keeping all assumptions on one side, it could simply mean Google is trying to deviate the attention of webmasters from the PR craze and wants them to start building content and quality? I think that would be the most safest way to understand Googles Intentions, but no one is sure what lays ahead in store for us.

What should i do?

There is nothing you need to worry much right now, but if you are thinking into starting directories or getting involved in link building business, directly or indirectly then i would recommend you to start finding a new path. Because many webmasters are now not worried about pagerank, this would mean less business for such services.

If  you are a pagerank addict, continuously trying to get a good PR. Specially by spending lots of money on link building services and good SEO services then its time to stop and just concentrate on your content quality along with ‘on page’ SEO. I also found many bloggers using blog & forum commenting as a method to build quality links, this will not work anymore so instead try providing quality to your readers and build a network. At Least your likely to save some time.

And if Google ever removes pagerank completely then it will have different affects on different businesses, try to avoid indulging in such business or services in which having a good PR is necessary.

*****

Until next time, have a good day and a great week ahead, let me know what you think of this move from Google?

SJ

Many of us are victims of stress. Stress is common among all working class people, regardless of age or sex. This is one reason why stress is prevalent everywhere in the world.

Medically speaking stress is bad for your health, i.e it can give severe damage to your brain or nervous system, no i am not a doctor but i can safely say stress is bad for health. And if that wasn’t enough stressing out in our day to day life is extremely easy! Yes you can get free stress and it is so contagious that any fool or stupidity of others can be the reason for your stress.

But leave all that aside and lets come to the point i want to share with you all, “blogging while stressed“.

99% of people fail at making money online

The reason?

99% of them are desperate, but what that has to do with stress? Quite simple, countless number of people are trying to make some extra cash online, while some dream of becoming over night millionaires. When we are desperate, we do whatever we can in order to try and get what we want. But hitting your heads on the wall or your legs on the floor won’t get you nowhere. Which is what 99% of us are doing.

Where is the creativity? The originality? Where is the passion? All i see is people trying to rip each other off. One person trying to copy the success of another or just simply doing what others ask you to. But even still you fail at making money online!

The more you fail, the more you are stressed

It comes to a point that you keep failing one trick after another, one method after another. All this leads to stress, or to be more specific ‘Information overload!’. What can you do after that? 99% of us will most likely quit. The left 1% will keep trying.

And when everything else fails, there is one last resort. That is blogging. Its not hidden the fact that there are millions of new blogs born everyday on the Internet. But most of these bloggers are ‘stressed out’ desperate money makers that are now trying their luck at blogging. But this simply won’t work!

Why? Because stress is bad for blogging. If you blog just to make money, 99% of the time you won’t make enough to pay off your hosting. Because blogging is not about just ‘making money online’, its about sharing your views, your opinions and thoughts to the world. But right now, all i see is a net filled with bogus people that ‘use’ blogging platforms to try build money making sites. [i don't call them blogs, because they are simply NOT!]

‘But i am a hardworking, Dedicated and Passionate Blogger’

Are you? We all say we are, but if you seek money from a blog which is not even a few days old and got around 2-3 posts, then that is not dedication or hard work.

If you blog about anything and everything and concentrate only on blogging about affiliate products or schemes that will earn you money, then you are not passionate.

What i will say is you are stressed, most stressed bloggers don’t even know what they are doing, they just want to ‘try’ everything. Without any research or knowledge regarding the niche they blog about. That is the difference between top bloggers such as problogger, jhon chow, etc and the rest of the bloggers. They have a passion about their niche and they are defiantly not stressed.

How to kill stress?

Stress is bad for blogging, simply because when you are stressed you are not creative. No matter how hard you try you cannot get par to the level you want to achieve. Not only will stress kill you, but it will kill your blog as well. If your blog posts are filled with stressful remarks or poor attempts to convince your reader into doing/buying/trying something then you are more likely to loose the few leftover visitors you have.

But there is always a cure. Even if you are not stressed in the real life at that particular moment, a portion of your brain keeps worrying or thinking about ‘how to make money online’ or anything that you do online. If you are a full time blogger, then your worry is definitely about ‘what to blog about next?’ How to get traffic? How to find new advertisers? Where to look for reliable affiliate programs? There are so many questions and tonnes of problems which we are likely to face before we could earn our first few $ online. But it’s not impossible, in fact all it requires is a calm and fresh mind.

Specially in the case of blogging, having a relaxed mind is very important. Because when you blog with a relaxed mind, the words flow out on there own. Its hard enough to maintain a blog, managing your plugins, keeping it updated, not messing up the database, keeping it organized, constantly trying to improve the looks, keep a track of your traffic and stats, keeping off spammers and finding new readers.

After reading all those tasks i am sure, most people would not want to get into blogging, but its not as hard, only the set up is. Thanks to wordpress it’s quite easy, but making money is NOT!

Now comes the hard part, how do you keep relaxed? How can you stay active and not get stressed every time something dint work?

The answer is : take a break. Clear your mind of all the things you heard and tried. Once your fresh and ready to give it another shot, come back and start working. We all know how important relaxation is to remove stress. So go on a vacation, watch a few movies or just hang out friends for a few weeks.

My Message : Stress is bad for blogging, and blogging is bad for making quick buck. Don’t blog if you want to make money as soon as you start and definitely don’t blog when you are desperate for it and have absolutely no knowledge in the field your blogging about. If you are blogging and have quit blogging because you don’t see much results, then its likely because of the stress you get when you try to make money online. Don’t give up, keep trying. But at the same time make sure you are not getting bored or stressed. Enjoy what you are doing, be passionate.

Don’t forget that giving free knowledge or sharing your opinion [it doesn't matter if others agree with you or not, you will most likely end up as a good or bad blogger] without hesitation is what makes up the concept of ‘blogging’. And when you do that, you will definitely build up a loyal base of readers. Don’t ask others to do something which you won’t do yourself. Simple as that.

Remember stressful and desperate posts will kill your blog!

*****

I guess i am making it too long, so take care. Give it a tweet if you appreciate my advice and find me on facebook. Until next time, good day,

SJ

‘Word of mouth’ advertising simply means spreading the words about a site, product or anything via humans. In other words, it is the most easiest, super performing and cheapest forms of advertising and/or marketing method. In our daily life, word of mouth is everywhere. Remember when your friend suggests you a song? Or a favorite restaurant? Or which car to buy? Or did they show you a amazing website they just found? How about that weight-loss product they which they used?

All of these are ‘word of mouth’ free marketing. It is a good method as long as your website, blog or forums falls under ‘general’ categories such as entertainment, music etc

Consumer vs Seller

How can word of mouth marketing benefit consumers?

I am no marketing genius, but i can tell you this. If i am about to buy a new car, i would definitely take advices. If i am going on a movie we would definitely watch the one which everyone seems to be talking about. Won’t you? As a result ‘word of mouth’ advertising is very beneficial to the consumers. Because it gives the us, the consumers the knowledge we need, the reviews, the experience and information of the product or simply the recommendation of what/what not when we need something.

For a seller, word of mouth is viral. If people are talking about ‘it’[assume 'it' to be whatever you want] then that ‘it’ is a hot money maker.Period. Every form of business uses the ‘word of mouth’ advertising methods. Be it by creating stunning advertisements for there products or creating controversial stories or reviews. This form of advertising cannot be out-beaten by any other. People are tend to do, to buy or to see what there family members, friends and everyone else is.

however its useless if you trying to sell something, do affiliate marketing, make money via adsense or cpa. because you are making your own family members and friends to buy something which isn’t worth the time or efforts you put in.

How can ‘word of mouth’ help small business/sites?

Specially on the Internet? Does word of mouth just means telling about your creations to your family and friends?

word of mouth is not limited to just ‘you telling your friends & family’ but in a more simplified sense, if your site is amazing and worth the time for your visitor then those visitor [who ever they are, from any corner of the world] will definitely tell others about your site, that is the word of mouth.

like how we come to find about sites such as facebook, youtube, blogger, bing, etc etc most of them are via word of mouth, not advertisements that you come across. Always remember content is king, no matter what your niche is, if you want to dominate it then concentrate on quality. Put your self in the shoes of your visitors and think like them.

Here is what i do, when i create a website, or a blog post or anything online. I first test it out myself and ask my friends to test it too. Then ask yourself,

• do i like this website?
• will i buy this product?
• is this webpage worth my time?
• am i enjoying the sites design?
• is this site user friendly?
• are these posts and information valid and worthy?
• Will this benefit me?
• Is this the right price?
• Are these information relevant to the topic?
• Will i recommend these to my friends?

be honest to yourself because you are visiting the site as a visitor and do what you would do while surfing other websites on the Internet.

How can i start the next ‘word of mouth’ revolution??

Easy there. Don’t get carried away, its not easy to get people talking. Specially for us bloggers, no one actually reads blogs these days – thanks to the countless number of ‘unwanted’ and ‘repetative’ blogs out there. But there is still hope.

Word of mouth is a very hard advertising & Marketing form. But it is very well worth the time & efforts you put in aswell.

There are always ways to make your site popular by ‘word of mouth’, how?

1. Create topics that are short, simple and to the point. Give your visitors what they are looking for, don’t send them on a wild goose chase.

2. Write about controversial topics, this would definitely get you lots of criticism, but on the other hand it is a good way to give short term boost to your website traffic, this method works best in sites related to celebrities and current world issues, etc

3. Comparison – compare a subject, a product or website with others or with yours. Give your honest opinion about these. This will help the visitors make a better choice while you play the role of a middlemen

4. Write about hot and current topics. Share your view, after all this is the Internet and the only reason you are going to be successful is by being honest to yourself and giving your opinion, within limits of course.[make sure you don't go wild, it could do the opposite of what you want lol]

5. Don’t try to force your visitors or clients into doing ‘word of mouth’ advertising, this is mostly seen in the case of ‘e-mail this to your friend’ ‘share it with your friend’ ‘send this to your friend and get this/that free’ etc. Such tricks are short-lived, maybe to get something those visitors might do as you ask, but you are forcing them to do so. And its a proven fact that the others who receive those emails or any sort of info from friends are less likely to visit your site or even try it out. It will be somewhere in the spam/junk folders.

6. Be funny, creative and think out of the box. No one is going to talk about you, if you are like every other ordinary blogger/seller. Word of mouth works when there is something ‘unique’ or should i say ‘crazy’ to discuss. But remember, it could be also embarrassing and life destructing if you do something extreme foolish, like most of those youtube stars do nowadays.

7. Don’t create a hoax, never lie. Have you seen about the story on CNN recently about a 6 year old boy flying away in a hot air balloon? and later it turned out to be a hoax. This is a best example of ‘word of mouth’. Sure it created a story and made it a international news. But now that is turned out to be a hoax, it is going to be opposite of the parents might have expected. Long story short, don’t lie just to get fame or popularity. Specially in the online world, fame & popularity is useless because its only limited to your ‘user name’ or a particular site. Creating a hoax in order to be famous or get good ‘word of mouth’ visitors is going to be very harsh later on. The consequences can be fatal in some cases lol

8. 1 small trick for ‘freebies sites’ is to give freebies for ‘free’. Did that make sense? Well here’s the thing, nowadays 90% of the freebies sites on the ‘Internet’ are NOT free. The site owner obviously wants to make money, its either a CPA or some sort of obstruction the visitor has to face in order to get his freebie. If your freebies are ‘free’ it will definitely get you lots of ‘word of mouth’ visitors. But then again, how will you make money? The answer to that question is easy. You make money by giving freebies. Do a search on google, there are many CPA networks that have ‘freebies’ offers which you get ‘paid’ for to promote. So imagine if you are extremely popular in your niche, this 1 cpa offer can bring you big bucks without forcing your visitors to fill unwanted surveys, etc.

Last but not the least remember to go according to your long term plans. Word of mouth can also be achieved if you keep it simple, honest and don’t concentrate on just making money!

Good luck & i would like to apologies for my delayed posting – thank you for being patient everyone.

regards, SJ

We all know that every company, person and brand seeks reputation. Reputation, respect, popularity, domination all go hand in hand. Without reputation no company can get good clients or sell any of there products.

But in the online scenario this might be different a bit. No questioning the fact that online giants such as Google, Microsoft, yahoo,etc are all about reputation. Google won’t stand and watch if someone tries to hurt their reputation, they got a reputed search engine. And there competitors such as yahoo and bing wants to get a share of that online reputation. That is the reason why the have signed contract with each other, to bring down the giant. Its all about reputation in the industry!

However small companies and websites can’t be bothered much about reputation. Every company has some sort of reputation. Even hackers and scammers have a reputation to maintain, ironically they love the popularity and reputation they get. One such example is the a group of people who call themselves ‘RELOADED’, they got a reputation for hacking games and providing free versions and patches via torrents. No one is afraid since in the online world, you can hide your real identities quite easy.

I want money, one way or the other.

That is the mentality of most people in the ‘make money online’ niche. Actually not just this niche, but the entire www. Why do you think people and companies invest so much in online development and products? Because the web is easy to access and explore. And there are huge advantages to those who want to make money. In the online world, you can sit at home and be newton.

There are lots of people who wants to make money online. Some of them get lucky and earn a ton. Some fail miserably and quit. While some keep trying and become desperate! Most of the time they don’t make a single buck online, even after years of trying.

This creates a tendency among desperate people seeking income solutions. 60% of these are involved in the GPT [get paid to] industry. The rest run sites and sell duplicate, warez, stolen content to make money. There are many rings of sites and people that are involved in scamming. They don’t care for reputation, Only money. And they get them one way or the other.

Reputation does matter!

The path you chose decides the future. If you chose the path of making money the wrong way, then you will definitely get caught one day or the another. The risks are always high. Digital retailers and payment gateways are getting very serious regarding this. There are stiff rules and if you got bad reputation, then those companies will just kick you off. And yes i am talking about companies like clickbank, amazon,adsense, paypal,etc. Without those making money online is very hard and nearly impossible.

Yet there are some people who want to scam others, there reputation gets worse and worse. And what is worse about them is that they don’t regret what they do, take a look at the screen shot below. I receive such phishing mails from paypal[not really paypal] everyday and they ask me to register in those sites. If you are not cautious then you might get scammed! But thanks to the scam watching services who keep us up-to-date with the reputed scammers.

Here is the link to the phishing paypal site : http://mkbae.com/stageon/paypal.com/ [DON'T ENTER YOUR ACCOUNT DETAILS!] but if you got free time, give them some trouble by spamming the heck out of them!

Bloggers on the other hand can’t survive without reputation. And you earn reputation by your blog posts and reaction to your readers. Making money with blogging is impossible  unless you got good reputation. Because everyday there are thousands of blogs born, but still there are only a handful of them that make more then $1000 per month. These includes people such as jhon chow, carl ocab,etc. So if you are looking to make money by blogging then you need to build reputation.

How to build good reputation?

There are many ways you can build reputation.

• Interact with your readers, visitors and customers.
• Build a network of loyal visitors, build forums to interact further.
• Reply to readers comments and encourage discussions.
• Giveaway freebies, everyone loves freebies.
• Don’t spam them, this includes spamming there emails, co-blogger,etc.
• Act as a authority of your niche, not just ‘act’ but ‘be’ the authority of your niche.
• Don’t talk about, promote or teach anything that you yourself don’t know much.
• Do not spam your blog with lots of advertising, pop ups, pop under, etc
• Write valid, up-to-date, interesting, thought provoking, controversial and informative posts.
• Warn readers of other scammers, illegal stuff, harmful affects of certain ‘illegal’ or ‘immorale’ subjects in your niche.
• Don’t start selling as soon as you see your first few positive visitors. You will make them run away too.
• Be patient, don’t push yourself. When the time comes you will see good results.
• Join other webmaster,make money online and blogging forums, or any forums related to your niche.
• Interact with other bloggers, comment on there blogs, follow them on twitter, etc.
• Advertise your blog and get traffic, try to convert each of those visitors into RSS subscribers.
• find out your own ways to earn better reputation among your niche. The possibilities to gain respect are endless but hard. Don’t quit trying.

It takes years to build reputation, but a mistake to kill it!

Yes it’s true. It takes years to build good reputation and a single mistake could kill everything!  So if you are building a good reputation i would advice you to stay clear of anything that is wrong.

This includes staying away from ‘bad sources’ and people affiliated with it. One small mistake and there goes the rep. Since things in the Internet spread like wildfire you won’t even know how far and quick rumours can travel!

That is why companies like horizon sue there own customers for tweeting things. But i doubt you will have the money to sue all badmouthers. So buckle up and stay focused on your goals.

Reputation = money

That is the secret of most brands. No matter how close the competitors are. Or how better there products and pricing are, if a brand has reputation. Then they can merely sell anything they want. There are lots of real life examples of this. And the same applies on Internet Marketing as well.

Which brings  us to our lesson. Reputation is money. Without reputation you can’t make money, well not legally at least. So before you start building money, build relationships and reputation. Get respect and become the athuroty in your niche. Before you know it, money will start coming your way.

Hope you understand the value of reputation and how it can change your buisness. Consider this scenario as a Game and reputation takes you a level higher. And bad reputation will drop your level. It’s up to you now, how you play the game and write your own story.

good day and happy rep building,

SJ

That is the first most question i will ask before you go further. Blogging as you know is very popular and almost every day there are around 50,000 new blogs born. This makes blogging a very popular activity among people. However most people blog only for a purpose. Mostly for personal reasons.

While on the other hand some blog for earning a income. There are also blogs from corporate companies that blog about their products and services. There is a recent trend among blogs and there usage. Many people are now using blogging platforms for various purposes and blogs are no longer used as blogs. You can use a blog to start a arcade site, a article directory, a wiki, a link directory, the list is long. But blogging is still the king of online discussion.

Advantages of blogging – why i blog!

As you already know blogging is becoming quite easy. The best part about it is that anyone can get a free blog on blogger, wordpress or any other service they want to use. So starting a blog is very easy and cost free. There are many advantages of blogging . These are the advantages of blogging in my own theory. In other words i love blogging because of these advantages.

1. Blogging means ‘web log’. In other words you are your own boss. You don’t need to listen to others or follow instructions. Blogging lets you to express yourself. Which is why you can blog about anything you want. On the other hand writing requires you to follow specific guidelines.
2. Blogging for passion. In other words blogging without the intention to make money. Blogging gives you the platform to talk freely and you don’t have to scatter around the Internet to express yourself.
3. You have full control of your time and your blog. There are no time limits and you can post whenever you want and whenever you want.
4. When you blog – you talk. Everyone is free to read your blog posts and your thoughts, articles and work is open to the world. You get all the credit.
5. Blogging helps you build a brand and gains loyalty among your readers
6. Your blog can be customized and optimized to be presented in any way you like, giving you the advantage of how you want your blog to look.
7. Blogs are search engine friendly, no matter what your article is about – Google will surely pay you a visit.
8. Blogs are easy to create and maintain. Some blogs have drag and drop features and you can get pretty much anything you want from your blog.
9. Blogging is irrespective of time and place for both the readers and the authors.
10. Blogging allows you to participate and socialize with your visitors and readers.
11. Blogging helps you to further develop your writing skills. The feedback you get on your blog posts can help you gain more knowledge and shape your skills and talents.
12. While blogging you discover amazing ideas and innovative solutions to problems and issues. You share your knowledge with the world at the same time others share theirs with you.
13. Blogging involves social media and encourages discussion. Blog posts spread like fire on the Internet.
14. If your blog is regular and informative, then the power of ‘word of mouth’ is at your disposal
15. you can create polls and surveys among your visitors. You can do lots of research without actually annoying your visitors
16. Blogs have plugins and widgets that makes blogging very competitive among all other methods of website development and discussions on the Internet.
17. Blogging gives you the advantage of ‘earn while you learn’ and ‘learn while you earn’. The potential is endless.
18. Blogging saves time – you create, edit and publish posts direct from your blogs. You don’t have to go through 10 different sources in order to publish your work.
19. Blogging saves you money – some features of blogging and its compatibility gives you the ability to have any functionality on a blog. Thus saving you money from buying other resources such scripts,etc
20. Your blog lets you experiment different possibilities.
21. Blogging gives you self satisfaction. The biggest reason why many bloggers blog is for self-satisfaction. When you feel happy and when your hard work starts paying , no matter what purpose it is. The feeling is great!
22. Blogging gives you the opportunity to make money and educate your readers.
23. Blogging keeps you busy, if you are bored or don’t have anything better to do you can always blog!
24. Blogging makes you self discipline. You learn lots of things such as time management, proper way of communications and sometimes even anger management when you get spammed continuously!
25. Blogging gives you the power of online and offline networking. Not just that it also lets you fight a system and ask for changes. Blogging is ultimate tool for freedom.

Tell me why you blog?I hope these advantages encourages you to start blogging if you don’t do that already!

Take care and keep in touch, till then have a good day,

SJ

well yes you read it correct. Till now people keep talking about alexa ranking, alexa traffic ranks, etc etc but no one ever told you that there is actually a way to get traffic from alexa.

But before i come to that let me tell you a bit about alexa. Alexa is a ‘site monitoring’ service that monitors your site statistics, such as traffic, geo-analysis, page views, age group of traffic and many more things. It then ranks your website among all others based on your traffic in a particular month. This is called a alexa rank.

What is the use of traffic rank?

Alexa traffic rank is of no direct use to you. Unless you are a web analytic of course. However it does effect your sites popularity and income indirectly. When advertisers look for websites to advertise on then they consider few factors, alexa traffic rank is one of those factors.

Alexa is very popular among all webmasters, there is absolutely no webmaster that don’t use alexa to monitor his site and improve his rankings.

Tell the secret already!

ok alright, there is no big secret. Its a very simple thing which the smart savvy people have noticed and are taking extensive advantage of it. While others might not even know of such a feature.

You must be wondering what this feature is which you can use to get traffic ‘from’ alexa? Well let me explain you in easy words. Alexa has a feature called ‘reviewing’. Everyday thousands if not millions of people look up on sites such as google, yahoo, msn, twitter, youtube, facebook, amazon….. the list is too big. But you know what i am talking about, the big guys with the traffic rank 1-100 get lots of views on there profile pages.

Won’t alexa care?

That is the sad part unfortunately. Alexa as a big reputed company should be more considerate about its own site. I find many people writing ‘useless’ reviews on sites with good traffic rank. Sites such as google, yahoo, etc. Not only does they write useless reviews, they actually SPAM the hell out of them.

Take a look at the screen shot below on reviews for yahoo.com or go directly to this link. Make sure you go to the ‘review’ section though.

You see how people simply just spam like that? But worse off, there are others who actually pay a visit to those links. This has been tested in fact, if you go and write a review with a reference to your product then you get lots of targeted visitors. But your product must be relevant to the site you write a review for. That works even better.

Now wait! I am NOT asking you guys to spam there. Now that you know of a way to do so. But i told about this basically for everyone to know more about the services they use. Informational purposes only. I didn’t try yet but i wonder what effect it will have on my site in terms of traffic.

I also noticed some people write reviews multiple times and some do this on daily basis to try and keep their reviews on first page. This is hilarious and am rather disappointed in alexa. I mean don’t they have any maintenance? How can they allow so much spam on their reputed site? If that wasn’t enough, but these reviews also hurt the image and reputation of the sites about which they are written. For someone who is new to facebook and if he reads such Spam reviews about it on alexa, do you think that person is going to join facebook? I highly doubt that.

Is there another way?

In fact there is. There are 2 ways you can get traffic ‘from’ alexa, legally and spam free traffic. But how?

1. You can use the above method ‘without’ spamming, meaning giving your honest reviews with a link to your blog or site under your name. Such reviews won’t be considered spam and would actually get you traffic and people won’t even call you a spammer. So review writing on alexa is a new traffic generation method on my list.

2. You could do it like how the others do. Make your site popular, gain higher rankings. No don’t worry, rankings in top 100 or even top 100k is very hard. But you can aim for higher traffic ranking in a particular country or on a particular topic. I mean there are 190+ countries in the world [not sure how many total, damn i am not good at geography] and each country has its own ranking sites.

Once again please don’t spam and i do HOPE someone from alexa reads this message and actually employees someone to remove off those Spam comments and reviews. I had the notion that they do have staff who does that, but i guess they get too much spam reviews daily. In that case how about ‘moderating’ the reviews before publishing them?  That won’t be hard to implement i guess. Folks at wordpress might be helpful too. It will certainly reduce the spam.

And sorry for the late post guys, i was busy with lots of work. Take care and don’t spam. good luck in this new adventure, do it legally though.

Till then have a great day,

SJ

Yes free premium wordpress themes. In case you missed part one then here is the link once again : 30+ FREE premium wordpress themes

This is part 2 as promised by me to my readers with more new free premium wordpress themes which you might be  needing. Have fun!

Notice:

None of the themes belong to me, and none of them are hosted by me, all credit goes to the original designers and publishers, your free to download and use them as per the license agreements, and please don’t ask me regarding support issues, refer the original providers. I am showcasing these themes only for my readers – i don’t actually have any affiliation with the theme designers or providers, but their work is worth the mention.

OK here it is part 2 of the ‘free premium wordpress themes’ series

1.Old Cam Mag

Theme Information:

Oldcam magazine is a vintage inspired theme with organic shapes and elements.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

2.Auto Slug

Theme Information:

AutosSlug is 3 column Free WP Theme with an eye catching and perfect color combination of black, gray and red with easy to manage features including extra gallery widgets.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

3. NeTech Magazine

Theme Information:

netech magazine wordpress theme is an internet technology / hosting related theme.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

4. The pinnacle theme

Theme Information:

Image in Every Post (automatic resize)
Advertisement/Banner Ready
Gravatar on Comments
SEO Optimized
Works with the Latest Version of WordPress 2.8 (and below)
Threaded Comments

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

5. iBizPress Technology

Theme Information:

Professional designed premium wordpress themes. Sliding featured area and theme option page included. Theme available in 5 colors.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

6.Caffine Theme

Theme Information:

caffine free wordpress theme for your blogs

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

7. MonoMag  Extended

Theme Information:

Monomag Extended is a mixed-column Magazine style wordpress theme with an editable .PSD logo and the ability to create automatic featured post and thumbnails.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

8. PhotoMadness Theme

Theme Information:

Gallery (Automatic Resize)
Advertisement/Banner Ready
Gravatar on Comments
SEO Optimized
Works with the Latest Version of WordPress 2.8(and below)
Threaded Comments

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

9. Parchment Theme

Theme Information:

Advertisement/Banner Ready

Flickr RSS Integration
Featured Video
Gravatar on Comments
SEO Optimized
Works with the Latest Version of WordPress 2.8 (and below)
Download FONT for Logo Customization

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

10. Freebies Point

Theme Information:

FreebiesPoint is an elegant designed 3 columned wordpress theme integrated with some of best color combination of blue and white. The theme comes with a slider displaying the latest activities.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

11. Vintage Poker Theme

Theme Information:

vintage poker is an easy to install gambling related wordpress theme.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

12. EqoMag Theme

Theme Information:

EqoMag, free wordpress theme for your blogs. The required plugins attached with zip file.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

13. DanzurElite Theme

Theme Information:

DanzurELITE is a Magazine Style mixed column free wordpress theme featuring a great combination of usability and outlook. The theme is 100% widget, adsense, feedburner ready and features the option to choose between an editable .PSD logo and the default hyperlink style TITLE/Tag line. The required plugins attached with zip file.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

14. Zinrus Casino Theme

Theme Information:

Online Casino Template 30, Online Casino WordPress Theme.

Theme Features:

Magazine style
Elegant ajax tabs menu.

“plug & play” slider makes a slideshow out of arbitrary content on main landing page. The slider automatically rotates the contents until the user explicitly selects a content to view. “Manual” or “auto” display mode available. Blog owners can sell advertisement space or promote casino affiliate links via this ultimate function. An example shown in demo.

“plug & play” style sheet switcher enable visitors to switch between 20 pre-made color schemes (ChiliRed, Crimson, DarkViolet, DeepPink, DodgerBlue, ForestGreen, GoldenRod, Indigo, Khaki, LawnGreen, LightSeaGreen, Magenta, MediumBlue, MidnightBlue, OrangeRed, Orchid, Peru, Sienna, SteelBlue, Teal) with a single click. There is no plugins needed and no tweaking from the user end is required.

video slot ready, 125×125 ads ready, 468X60 ad ready and widget ready.

Compatible with WordPress Version 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.3, 2.3.1, 2.3.2, 2.3.3, 2.5 , 2.5.1, 2.6, 2.7 and 2.8

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

15. MagWin Theme

Theme Information:

Magawin Theme features:

* Ready for Adsense space at the header
* FREE Logo is enclosed in PSD format for easy customization
* Ready for 125*125 ads
* Ready for Twitter
* Ready for featured posts gallery, please note that it requires Featured Content Gallery plugin which can be downloaded from featuredcontentgallery.com.
* Ready for thumbnails

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

16.Brown Mag

Theme Information:

BrownMag, 2 column free wordpress theme.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

17. Nat Mag

Theme Information:

NatMag, magazine style free wordpress theme.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

18. Weeberto Theme

Theme Information:

Weebertro is a Magazine Style mixed column free wordpress theme featuring a great combination of usability and outlook. The theme is 100% widget, adsense, feedburner ready and features the option to choose between an editable .PSD logo and the default hyperlink style TITLE/Tagline.

The required plugins attached with the theme zip file.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

19. Aliva Press Theme

Theme Information:

Alivapress is a Magazine Style mixed column free wordpress theme featuring a great combination of usability and outlook. The theme is 100% widget, adsense, feedburner ready and features the option to choose between an editable .PSD logo and the default hyperlink style TITLE/Tagline.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

20. ExtraVazine Theme

Theme Information:

- Ready for 125125 ads
- Slideshow gallery for featured posts
- Ready for Twitter
- Ready for Widgets
- Ready for thumbnails in posts – no need to create custom fields, images are pulled directly from post (if there are any)
- Images are all optimized for fast loading
- Each post is ready for social bookmarks
- FREE Logo enclosed in PSD format for easy customization

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

21. Blue Star Theme

Theme Information:

Blue-Star, Premium WordPress Magazine Theme. It comes in 3 colours. The required plugins included with theme zip file.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

22. Magzinely WP theme

Theme Information:

MagazinelyWP is a beautiful magazine style theme with widgetizied sidebar, clean design and featured posts box.

-Fixed width
-Cross browser compatible (tested in all popular browsers)
-Custom logo (.psd included with download link)
-Featured posts box with featured image
-Attractive tabbed sidebar
-Widget ready sidebar
-125×125 banner ads spacing
-2 columns
-Adsense optimized

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

23. Online Casino Template

Theme Information:

Online Casino Template 36, premium gambling wordpress theme. Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

24.BizMax Bloggin theme

Theme Information:

Bizmax is the latest money maker wordpress theme from web2feel.com.

This is an elegant theme designed with a nice color scheme and clever placement of ads and banners for you to make more cash out of your blog.

List of Features:

1. Premium theme layout.
2. Multi-level dropdown javascript navigation menu.
3. Featured sliding posts.
4. Site wide customizable 125 x 125 custom banner ads.
5. Adsense: Three adsense units on any given page on the theme. [On the header (460x60), Along with the post (460x60), On sidebar (300x250)]
6. Tabbed content area [Featured Video, Flash tag cloud, Popular Posts]
7. Two widgetized sidebars
8. Optional Currency rate widget
9. Page navigation enabled.
10. WP 2.7 ready, threaded comments
11. Theme support
12. Custom theme option page in the admin panel.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

25. Today AutoBlog

Theme Information:

TodayAutoBlog is 3 column Free WP theme with an eye catching and perfect color combination of black, gray, green and red.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

26. Premium Automotive Theme

Theme Information:

Premium Automotive WordPress theme is a CMS autos style theme. Create branded sites with a theme that is completely widgetized, header graphic that is customizable, auto navigation style and easily edit the header, alt, title and META tags to improve your search engine ranking and quality score.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

27. Okinawa Sky Theme

Theme Information:

Okinawa Sky – Premium, Elegant Blue WordPress Theme. The required plugins have been included with the theme files.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

28. Poker Ashor Theme

Theme Information:

3 Columns, Widget ready, Ads Ready PokerAshor wordpress Theme.

Features:

* Tested on latest WordPress 2.7 version
* 3 columns
* Featured Posts section
* Featured video section
* Thumbnail images with posts.
* Fixed width
* Widget ready
* Gravatar ready
* Adsense ready
* Site-wide 468 x 60 Adsense banner Ads.
* Sponsor Links encrypted
* Threaded Comments
* Theme support
* Most Popular Posts on Sidebar
* Most Discussed Posts on Sidebar
* Tab Navigation
* Feedburner Email subscription integrated
* Options Page to edit the Feedburner ID, Featured Video Details
* Horizontal Category Navigation
* Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

29. Portfolio Mag

Theme Information:

PortfolioMag can be used to show off your work (web design, photography etc.) but it can be used as a news site, magazine etc. Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

30. Theme Junction Collection

Theme Information:

A premium quality magazine wordpress theme for your blog. Suitable for business websites, personal websites and much more! Has a great look and feel to it with tis top-notch design.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

31. Hosting Mag

Theme Information:

HostingMag, free hosting wordpress theme for your blogs.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

32. Readers Magazine

Theme Information:

ReadersMag, 2 Column free wordpress theme for your blogs.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 2 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

33. Red Glamour

Theme Information:

Want to sizzle with a Fashion or Entertainment Blog? Red Penchant is a solid firt step. It’s magazine layout still leaves enough space for sidebars and ad revenue. Works with the latest WordPress release. Available in Blue.

Features:

• Tested on Latest WordPress version
• 3 columns
• Widget ready
• Fixed Width
• Cross browser compatible with IE, FF, Opera, Flock & Safari

License: Free to use must keep footer intact AS IS

That’s all for part 2, i am working on part 3 as well but can’t make any promises. Enjoy these themes meanwhile.You will need winzip extractor to open most of the files, and if you find any missing or broken links please do tell.

Till next time have a good day,

SJ

Its almost the same thing as a artist without imagination, a road without cars or a job without payment. Many blog owners who are successful knows the power of these small little files known as plugins and usually those who fail at blogging are the ones that never experimented with plugins.

Which is why you must know about your possibilities and expansion into the blogging world. WordPress is a excellent open source platform and the best fact about it that their are endless possibilities for creating your ‘dream blog’ with wordpress and getting almost any feature you want working in a wordpress blog and all this is possible because of plugins and widgets.

So i prepared this list of 10 most useful and must have plugins for any wordpress blogger. Also i have included 5 bonus plugins which are not a ‘must’ but helps in enhancing your blogs!

[Please note that the list is arranged alphabetically and all plugins are equally important]

1 . Akismet

Akismet is from the creators of wordpress itself and it is already available to you by default, i can’t imagine surviving without akismet. Akismet blocks and stops Spam in your blog which is a necessity for any active blog!

Akismet is free to use and it requires a API key for it to work, you need to register at wordpress.com and get a account, this account also grants you a AIP key to use with akismet anywhere on a wordpress blog.

2. Add to Any : Share/Bookmark/Email Button

This is one of my favorite plugin, this plugin is has been powering my blog and spreading it viraly since the start. The best part about is that its not ‘visibly abusing’ to your visitors and just a small button on the end of each post which has resulted in so many sharing and caring for my posts. I recommend this plugin to any blogger because it is a viral one!

3. All in One SEO Pack

This plugin is the backbone of my blog, its the life of my works because this is the plugin that has been generating endless amount of organic Google friendly traffic for me every month.

AIOS pack enables you to easily add keywords, title, description and meta tags to your post making it very search engine friendly, this plugin is a MUST if you want to generate organic Search engine traffic.

Using this plugin i am ranking in top 10 on Google for many keywords and my search engine traffic is never less then 300 unique every month from Google for those keywords, which is a very big thing for me considering that this blog is only 2 months old.

4. Comment Luv

Spread the luv!

Comment luv is a plugin that enables you to give back to your readers, using this plugin the people who comment on your post has the ability to use a snippet of their own blogs feed, which means that they would love to comment on your blog! This plugin helps you get social – in few short words it will increase your comments count because their are people who loves comment luv blogs.

You need to register on the comment luv website to get it, but its free so welcome to the community!

5. Comment Relish

Ever wondered how to get loyal visitors? or increase the amount of your RSS subscribers? or better yet thank your visitors for participating on your site?

Well Comment Relish does just that! It will send a automated personalized message, just like a auto-responder from aweber or getresponse, the best thing about it is that it won’t spam your commentators, it only sends the message once per email. So that means you can thank them for commenting on your blog when they do it for the first time only!

I use comment relish to remind those readers of subscribing to my RSS feeds and to follow me on twitter, this is working like a charm and is really helping in the growth of my blog at the same time not spamming the commentators to death.This plugin is also free.

6. Contact Form 7

This is a must have plugin for every blog, specially for every new blog!

Contact form solves a very big issue among wordpress bloggers which is having a ‘contact form’ using which your visitors could contact you, it builds your own branded contact form which does the job very well, you can add and include custom fields and can have a form about anything you want, be it feedback forms, contact us form or selling advertising on your site. Plus its really easy to use and insert on your pages.

7. Google Analytic Plugin

If you don’t have this plugin in your blog then you rather stop blogging right now!

Google analytic plugin easily connects your Google analytic account and wordpress blog, this plugin is important because you want to know each and everything that is happening with your blog and the outside world. Tracking your visitors and then optimizing yourself to perform better is what every successful blogger does and this is the sole reason why you need to use Google analytic.

8. Google XML site maps

Since Search Engine traffic what matters most for any blogger, you need to provide the search engines with a ‘passage’ to each and every corner of your blog!

This is where this plugin comes into play, smartly designed this plugin creates XML site maps which tells the google bot of the whereabouts of your pages, posts and every single corner of your site, the more the bot crawls the more higher are your chances of SE traffic and higher rankings!

9. TweetMeMe Button

Twitter is perhaps the most viral social media till now and its really easy to take advantage of this!

Tweetmeme button makes it easy for your visitors to tweet/retweet your blog posts and spread the word, the one thing i noticed is that tweetmeme button gets more attention then any other share/save buttons which makes it viral and infectious! This is also used by industry giants such as mashable and tech crunch and it usually creates a twitter trend for them, so why not take advantage of this?

10. Digg this Button

Digg is very well known to everyone, which is why you need a ‘digg this’ button to get your articles and blog posts on the top!

The best use of digg this button is getting your posts indexed fast, believe it or not but search engines loves ‘social buzz’ and digg has helped me to get some of my posts indexed in less then 12 hours which is very good and welcoming news for us bloggers!

Bonus Plugins

These plugins are not a ‘must have’ but their use are really fantastic which is why they are making to this list!

1. DoFollow plugin

This plugin removes the evil ‘nofollow’ tags from your blog and thus increasing the amount of attention and comments you get on your blog, but be warned you need to use ‘akismet’ if you want to use this one because it will double the amount of spam comments you receive!

2. FeedBurner FeedSmith

Feeds are the heart of any blog and having subscribers to your feeds is important! This plugin detects all possible ways to access your feeds and redirects them to feed burner making it easy for you to track your subscribers.

3. Subscribe to Comments

This plugin gives the option to your visitors to subscribe to other comments on a blog, thus increasing the amount of comments and social interaction among your readers.

4. Top Commentators widget

More like a widget then a plugin but you need the plugin installed and activated in order for the widget to work, it enables you to show your top 5,10 or any number of commentators on your blog, this creates a competitive spirit among your readers and increases the amount of social interaction and comments on your blog. The widget can be displayed easily on your sidebar, footer or any widgetized space using the widget tools from your blog dashboard.

5. WP-Cumulus

Evey wordpress blog uses tags, but displaying those tags in your sidebars looks very ugly.This plugin makes your tags look more organized and cool, by displaying them in a flash embedded 3-d space.

That’s all for the top plugins but remember you need to add them to your plugin directory and adjust the settings of each individually, and respect the copyrights of the plugins.

Also many plugins might not go with your current themes so you will have to test them before that, and some themes requires certain plugins to be functional such as limit post plugins or page navigation plugins, these plugins are common which is why they are not included in the list, these plugins are supplied by the theme owner or designer.

P.S i don’t like spam and i don’t recommend you to abuse any of these plugins and spam!

Don’t forget to share and Buy me a smile (see sidebar) and of course join me on twitter, my fan page & subscribe to the feeds to stay updated. Till then have a great day,

SJ