Whois Privacy - Time To Stop Using It!!!

Hi friends!!! Today, I have got some pretty new stuff to deal with. It's about whois privacy. I'm sure most the webmasters should know about this term and its usage. To  newbies and those who don't know what is "whois" privacy, it's basically a service that most of the domain registrars (like godaddy, name.com, etc...) provide to protect your information when a "whois", a kind of search , is performed on your domains.

If your still confused with, what exactly "whois" is??? Then, have a look at the two pictures on these two links - Site With Whois Privacy, Site Without Whois Privacy. So, it's pretty clear from the two pictures that the one with the whois privacy does not reveal any information about the registrant whereas the one without the whois privacy displays personal information about the registrant.

Well, few years ago, publishing information on net was a little scary issue. However, I feel that the scenario has changed now. It's time to display information about us to ensure our presence on the web. If you plan to make money from blogging or planning to do a business online, then its mandatory to provide a contact address and email address. By using whois privacy, you just lose your credibility.

I do accept that spammers and scammers can make a hell out of the email address but a dedicated unique email address will do good. More over, you can't do anything with these scammers. So, its up to you to decide whether to publish your information or not. I leave it you domain registrants.

FEBRUARY OFFER:
If you wish to avail the whois privacy on name.com, then you may can do it this month because it's free!!! They usually charge $1.99/year. However, this February 2011, we can avail it for free. Just make sure you type the following text - FREEWHOIS in the promo code area and click the apply button next to it just as shown in the picture below. If you feel that providing information on the web is insecure, then go for this offer.

If you have any problems with in applying the promo code or any other issues, you can always contact me via email or leave your comments below. So, I hope you enjoyed this post. See you soon in another interesting article!!!

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Why Are Most Bloggers Not Making Any Money?

This is a Guest Post written by Sharron Field. If you would like to write for EAB, then check out this page - Write For Us. We bloggers are a pretty dedicated bunch on the whole. We work hard at making our blogs look nice, read well, feature as high as we can get in the search-engine listings. We impart valuable information to do with our specialized subject in our chosen niche, much of the time without charge to any readers.

All in all we put a heck of a load of work into producing what is often some pretty good quality material, and to some extent our efforts are a reward in themselves. But it’s nice to get a little financial reward too, don’t you agree? – so many of us set about commercializing our blogs, not necessarily are we after making a fortune, though that would be very nice indeed thank you, but we’d just to make at least a little something to show that our efforts are appreciated if nothing else. Usually though, try as we might, it seems that no matter what we do, we just don’t seem to be able to make even a pittance.

So, we step back and take a look at ourselves: Maybe we’re not posting enough? – So, we post more. Maybe we’re not reading enough other blogs to gain sufficient enlightenment to write the quality of material that we’d like to. – So, we read more of other people’s blogs, then we spend ages search-engine-optimizing our blogs in the hope of a higher ranking. Just to make sure that the message about our blog-posts and the topic of our blog is getting out there - we post to social-media more, and we write more and post more…

Ultimate Result: Burnout, and no money. We’ve used up all our spare-time to get a few more readers and stay broke. Really frustrating!!! Isn't it???

 

This is something that a friend and colleague of mine, himself a professional blogger – making an income large-enough to comfortably support himself, his wife, and their two children from being so – calls “The Blogger Hamster Wheel of Doom”: When you’re on the Blogger Hamster Wheel of Doom; no matter how fast you go and no matter how much work you put in, you get nowhere. Even if we light up our blog like Times Square with banner-ads hardly anything changes Why is this? Something somewhere must be wrong – but what?

Imagine if you were in an offline scenario and you just published a new magazine that doesn’t seem to be selling. In parallel to it, we add more content and read other niche publications for inspiration. We mail all retail and social premises, ensuring they’ve heard about the magazine, and we advertise more and we increase the content again, adding many more glossy ads…

Will that make more people buy the magazine? No!!! All that'll do is just increase our workload. Why? Because we have the wrong mindset in both cases. Let me make that a little clear: If you want to write a blog, you need to think like a writer. If you want to sell a product, you need to think like a businessperson, a marketer. If you want to run a blog that sells product and make money from doing so, then you’ve got to think like both a writer and a marketer: You’ve got to become a complete package. Either be complete package or you stay on the Blogger Hamster Wheel of Doom.

To know more about Blogger Hamster Wheel of Doom, just check out the article here : “Most Internet Marketers/Bloggers are Broke”.

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Make Your Blog More Attractive - Tip 3

Hi friends!!! I received a lot of emails regarding the newer post and older post links. Many bloggers who run their blog especially those run on Revolution Church Blogger Template wanted to add "Newer Posts And Older Posts" link just like the one displayed on my blog. So, this post is specifically targeted to those who wish to have their page navigation as displayed below - check the encircled part in the picture below.

To add a page navigation as shown above, just follow the steps mentioned below.  

1. Navigate to "Design->Edit HTML" from your blogger dashboard. Make a backup of your template before modifying the HTML by clicking on the "Download full template" link at the top of the page.
2. Now, search for the following block of code in your template. Use "CTRL+F" to fasten your search.

#blog-pager-newer-link {
  float: left;
  display:none;
}
#blog-pager-older-link {
  float: right;
  display:none;
}
#blog-pager {
  text-align: center;
  display:none;
}

Note: If you do not find the above block of code, then you should find the following block.

#blog-pager-newer-link {
  float: $startSide;
 }
#blog-pager-older-link {
  float: $endSide;
 }
#blog-pager {
  text-align: center;
 }

3. Now, replace the above mentioned block of code with following block of code.

#blog-pager-newer-link {
  float: left;
  display:inline;
}
#blog-pager-older-link {
  float: right;
  display:inline;
}
#blog-pager {
  text-align: center;
  display:inline;
}

.blog-pager{font-size:12px;}
.blog-pager a:link, .blog-pager a:visited{
  display:block;
  float:left;
  padding:6px 10px;
  text-align:center;
  background:#888;
  color:#FFF;
  font-size:12px;
  font-weight:bold;
  margin-right:8px;
}
.blog-pager a:hover{
  background:#444;
  color:#FFF;
}

4. Save your template. That's it. Very simple!!! Isn't it???

CUSTOMIZATION:

You can change the colors of the blocks by changing the color codes. To do so, first finalize what color you want the button to display before hovering. Later, decide what color the button should display on mouse hover. Check out the HTML color code table here - HTML Color Code Table. Now, replace the text highlighted in green on step 3 with the code you chose from the HTML color code table.

If you find any difficulties in installing the above mentioned scripts, then leave your comments below or contact me via email. If you got inspired by a page navigation style run on some other blog, you can share it with us. We will find the code for that style and post it on our blog in the upcoming weeks. So, keep your comments coming.

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Author Info Widget For Mulitple Authors On Blogger

I'm happy that few people have started writing guest posts on our blog. You may write a post for us too. Check out the guidelines on Join Us page. While I was happy with the guest bloggers on my blog, I had a problem to worry. The initial "About The Author" widget, whose tutorial can be found on this page - "About the Author" box below every blogger post, supports only one author but not multiple authors.

I don't think this would be a concern for Wordpress Users because they will have some plug-in which will do the work for them. Whereas, we blogspot users have to work out the code. And I did find a solution to this problem. In fact, I found two solutions for the same. First one seemed to be foolish while the second one was spot on. 

Let me just explain the first one "A FOOLISH IDEA" - I thought to paste the code for single author  describing about me on all posts which I published. For those posted by other authors, use the same code with their description instead of mine. Just imagine the time it would take to republish my posts, that is more than 100 posts, with the initial code below every post. I googled to find a solution but I never got one. Later, that night I sat down to write up the code. Surprisingly, it worked. So, here goes the code - SECOND SOLUTION.

Follow these simple steps to install "About The Author" widget on your blog for multiple authors. Complete the procedures mentioned on this post - "About the Author" box below every blogger post, before your proceed with following steps.

1. Go to "Design->Edit HTML. Make a backup of your template before modifying the HTML by clicking on the "Download full template" link at the top of the page.
2. Expand your blogger template. Now, search for the following line in your template. Use "CTRL+F" to fasten your search.

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>

3. Replace the above code with the following piece of code.

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<b:if cond='data:post.author == "ADMIN NAME"'>

Note: Replace ADMIN NAME with the administrator of the blog. If multiple administrators, then place any one of the administrator's name.

4. Once replaced, come to the end of this block of code. That is, you should find the following lines.

</div>
</b:if>

5. Once found, its time to add the description about the second author. For doing this, place the code  mentioned in this text file - Multiple Author Widget For Blogger, below the lines mentioned in step 4.

6. Replace "GUEST BLOGGER NAME" with the name of your guest blogger. This could be found from the name which gets displayed on the post page. See the following picture for better understanding. 

7. Replace "GUEST BLOGGER DESCRIPTION" with the information about your guest blogger and "GUEST BLOGGER IMAGE" with the image URL of your guest blogger, that is, upload the profile image of your guest blogger to Picasa Web Albums and get the URL of the image posted. Use that URL here. I hope you understood the instructions. If not, just check out the example in this text file - Multiple Author Widget For Blogger Example. 

8. Save your template. That's it.

The same steps can be repeated for any number of authors. I tried to keep the procedure as simple as possible. If it seems to complex, just hit contact button on top and you can straight away email. We would love to receive your comments about the widget. So, please keep them coming. See you soon with another interesting blogger hack!!!

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Why are you going to start Blogging?

This is a Guest Post written by FirstHosting. If you would like to write for Everything About Blogging, check our guest posting guidelines - Write For Us. Blogging has become a permanent career for many people, especially students these days are going to consider it way of earning for their whole life. Pro-Blogging is simply not that easy.

If you are going to choose blogging as your permanent career, then you really need to be a pro blogger. Don't just consider it as a joke. Dedicate your self to it, it may then be your career, other wise it will just be a waste of time. Today, we are going to discuss why people choose blogging.

WHY BLOGGING???

Every thing needs a plan if you don't have any plan and you are going to start blogging then its simply not possible, first set your goal and work hard to achieve it. You should set your money goals only if your blogging is mean to money, so that you can work accordingly. Because anything without a plan is useless.

PATIENCE

I will say that patience is key to online success, because most people think that they can make money online in days, but indeed online earning is same like offline, you need time to establish your things, and get well known to people and it really takes time, don't just bother your self with quick money online offers, they are just scam. So, be patient and work hard.

WHAT TO BLOG???

There is one more thing, many people just start blogging by choosing a scrap domain, and later they realized that they did really a big mistake, so to avoid this. You should take a breath and decide which topic or niche you are good at, then decide proper domain regarding your niche and then start blogging.

Last but not the least, you must have good command on language so that, you can write well and people will love reading you.

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3 Tips To Make Images SEO Friendly On Blogger

I sat down last night to find out why Wordpress blogs have better search engine rankings when compared to the Google's Blogger. The answer which I found was that Wordpress blogs are highly SEO optimized (especially those run on Thesis Theme), meaning that the plugins on WP make it flexible for the user to optimize his/her blog more compatible with the search engine algorithms. Whereas, this is not the case with blogger.

This post basically deals with one simple trick that will make our blogger/blogspot blogs more search engine friendly. I have sufficiently talked about title tags and meta tags in my previous posts. So, I have discussed only about optimizing our images in this post. Follow these simple steps every time you post an image on your blog and I'm sure your blog will rank better than it did before. Moreover, you will drive traffic through your images by doing this.

Once you upload an image using the post editor, click on the HTML mode. You will find a code something like the one shown below. Its now time to optimize this code for better SEO. 

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Y-YtpYKTlW9nQRP0e1OcQIRwvQ5E6cp0je-buhhbU_WKtZ0ryIFJA4xbEHjr7Ue3SvJQzY5dMcHgqzbJGnOCizyIBntE0Ts8nHRvYU5hHDEgzpJguBWgB-WuLcmM4K0-cC6WH5GJfIo/s1600/CSSEditLogo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Y-YtpYKTlW9nQRP0e1OcQIRwvQ5E6cp0je-buhhbU_WKtZ0ryIFJA4xbEHjr7Ue3SvJQzY5dMcHgqzbJGnOCizyIBntE0Ts8nHRvYU5hHDEgzpJguBWgB-WuLcmM4K0-cC6WH5GJfIo/s200/CSSEditLogo.png" width="200" /></a>

1. ADD THE TITLE TAG

Title tags basically display the text when the mouse is hovered over the image. So, how do I add this tag to my image? It is very simple. Just add the following piece of code and insert the text that best describes the post. For example, I want the message "CSS Tutorials" to get displayed when I hover my mouse over the image on the right. To do this, I should modify/add the code as follows.

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Y-YtpYKTlW9nQRP0e1OcQIRwvQ5E6cp0je-buhhbU_WKtZ0ryIFJA4xbEHjr7Ue3SvJQzY5dMcHgqzbJGnOCizyIBntE0Ts8nHRvYU5hHDEgzpJguBWgB-WuLcmM4K0-cC6WH5GJfIo/s1600/CSSEditLogo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img title="CSS Tutorials" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Y-YtpYKTlW9nQRP0e1OcQIRwvQ5E6cp0je-buhhbU_WKtZ0ryIFJA4xbEHjr7Ue3SvJQzY5dMcHgqzbJGnOCizyIBntE0Ts8nHRvYU5hHDEgzpJguBWgB-WuLcmM4K0-cC6WH5GJfIo/s200/CSSEditLogo.png" width="200" /></a>

2. ADD THE ALT TAG
The alt (alternate) tags are basically those text which appear instead of the image, that is, when the images do not upload faster either due to a slow connection or host problems, these text will be replaced in place of the image. So, it is very vital that every image on your blog has an alt tag. To add this, add the text highlighted in green. For example, my alternate text for the picture above would "CSSEditLogo" and I have highlighted the same in the code below.

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Y-YtpYKTlW9nQRP0e1OcQIRwvQ5E6cp0je-buhhbU_WKtZ0ryIFJA4xbEHjr7Ue3SvJQzY5dMcHgqzbJGnOCizyIBntE0Ts8nHRvYU5hHDEgzpJguBWgB-WuLcmM4K0-cC6WH5GJfIo/s1600/CSSEditLogo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img title="CSS Tutorials" alt="CSSEditLogo" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Y-YtpYKTlW9nQRP0e1OcQIRwvQ5E6cp0je-buhhbU_WKtZ0ryIFJA4xbEHjr7Ue3SvJQzY5dMcHgqzbJGnOCizyIBntE0Ts8nHRvYU5hHDEgzpJguBWgB-WuLcmM4K0-cC6WH5GJfIo/s200/CSSEditLogo.png" width="200" /></a>

3. PROPER IMAGE NAME

The most important factor regarding the SEO would be a proper name to the image. Make sure you include the keywords when you name your image and let it be relevant to the image. It is very important that you avoid spaces because these are generally replaced by %20 and will have no value when it comes to SEO. So, the general idea would be to use '-' or '+' sign for blank spaces.

Example: Instead of CSS Edit Logo, it is better to use CSS+Edit+Logo or CSS-Edit-Logo as your image name. You can completely avoid this confusion by using Yahoo! Smush.it™.

I suggest you to use Yahoo! Smush.it™ before you upload your images to Picasa because it speeds up your blog by decreasing the size of your image. You might read the following article to know more about the various tools to speed up your blog : Speed Up Your Blog - Tips And Tools. It is important to note that even though your image size is reduced, your image quality will still be retained.

I hope these tips would be handy for newbies to optimize their blog SEO. I'm sure if you practice this on a regular basis, your blog will rank much better on Google and various other search engines. So, if you have more tips, please share it with us via comments or you may write a guest post for us. For more details about guest posting, visit the following link -  Write For Us.

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