One of the best ways to increase your visibility is to become a guest blogger at a popular blog. This is a chance for you to gain exposure to a new audience and credibility by being associated with highly-respected bloggers with major followings. Guest blogging is a win-win situation for everyone if done right: the blog gets excellent and free content to use while the guest blogger gets increased exposure for their blog, brand or products.

Of course, there are many other people who want to become guest bloggers for the same reason it might make sense for you to do the same. In order to get the prime guest blogging spots on the top sites you need to make yourself and your content stand out from the pack. Here are five tips on how to make that happen:

1. Read and Understand the Blog: It’s amazing how many people contact major blogs wanting to be guest bloggers without fully understanding what the blog is all about. Each blog has its own topics that are of interest to the owners and their readers. If you suggest content which is not appropriate your guest blogging request is going to be denied.

Instead, read through the past two to three months of blog posts to see what topics the blog is focused on. You’ll want to avoid pitching topic ideas that have already been covered, but at the same time you might be able to pitch a rebuttal to a previous post or a different take on a popular theme. This will also give you a strong sense for the tone of the blog.

2. Know the Guest Blogging Guidelines: Not all blogs accept guest bloggers, so you’ll want to make sure they do before you pitch them with your idea. If they do accept guest posts, chances are that they’ll have specific guest blogger guidelines published on their site. It’s important to review these rules before you contact a blog. You don’t want to break any rules at the start which might anger the blog owners and make it harder for you to convince them to let you be a guest blogger. If you seem uninformed about the guidelines of the blog, it’s tough to convince a blogger that you will provide great content.

3. Write the Blog First: If you are dealing with a very popular blog, chances are that the site’s owners and editorial team are extremely busy. Taking the time to establish a rapport with the blog’s management, pitching a story idea and then working through the details is time-consuming. In many cases, it’s better to just write a blog on a topic you feel confident will work and send it to the blog. If they like it, they can publish it without having to jump through hoops. If they reject it, you can take it to another blog.

4. Prove Yourself: It’s important to provide your credentials when sending over a guest blog in order for the bloggers to understand that you are an expert in the field. A guest blog written by a savvy industry professional is going to carry more weight than one written by a random person. Explain to the blog why you are the right person to discuss a certain topic with their audience and what perspective you bring that can’t be found anywhere else.

5. Write a Compelling Headline: A great headline can do more than bring readers to your blog — it’s also the perfect way to grab the attention of the owner or editor of a blog. Much like readers, the people you contact with a request to guest post might only skim to the title of your proposed post. If it’s interesting and engaging, they’ll want to read more; if it’s boring or stale, they’ll move on. One great tip is to write a headline that proposes a question you will answer in your article.

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The secret to responding to the rapidly changing needs of your audience is in fact no secret at all. The cold hard truth is every single blog in existence, can in one way or another be improved. Neglecting to continuously scan your much beloved site can often drag you into the bottomless pit of failure.
The following are an array of tips I have developed through trial and error.

1. Perhaps the most obvious, yet surprisingly the most neglected. Continuously updating your blog with fresh content provides an incentive for your readers to come back. Neglecting this point will also make any of the following tips practically useless. This is covered more in depth here and here.

2. Whenever giving out your email address, ensure it is made out on your blog domain.

3. Jump onto favicon.cc and learn how to create a favicon for your blog. Creating a favicon can consequently differentiate your blog by creating a lasting impression in the minds of your readers. Furthermore, your site is more visually appealing when your visitors are sorting through links in their address bars.

4. Make your blog user friendly by removing any unnecessary widgets from your side bar(s). Besides slowing your site down, an excessive amount of widgets will shift the focus off your content and may make navigating your site more difficult.

5. Simplify any contact forms that you might have on your blog. The epitome of blogging is being able to easily establish a dialogue with your readers and neglecting this can disadvantage you big time.

6. Create a permanent glossary section if your blog is of a technical nature. Besides adding value to your blog, it creates the impression that you’re willing to help out the less experienced visitors.

7. Remove any additional Flash images, videos or other content that might take time to upload and aren’t really necessary.

8. No tacky music please, as it is very irritating and increases uploading time. Furthermore, it creates the impression that you’re merely an amateur.

9. If you don’t post original creative content on your blog, add a copyright advisory note at the bottom of the page. Getting busted (which you probably will) will adversely affect your reputation and create a mountain of other legal related problems.

10. Remember to include an archives section, especially for a long running or complicated blog. While this provides a convenient way for your visitors to browse your older posts, it is also something search engines wish for under their pillows.

11. You can also create a map for navigation through various posts.

12. Add internal links within the content of your posts, linking up relevant posts for easy access. This promotes your other work, which consequently keeps users glued to your blog for longer. This is also an effective SEO strategy.

13. Add relevant pictures or diagrams wherever applicable. This can make a blog post much more tempting to read.

14. Your content should be formatted so that it is easy to read.

15. Run a spell check on every post before posting it. Neglecting this can damage your reputation as somebody who is both competent and committed.

16. And a grammar check.

17. Create a theme for your blog and stick to it. Your readers need to have a clear image of what it is exactly you’re offering.

18. Unless some content is more relevant, create all text in one uniform color; otherwise your blog may look too jarring.

19. Add you contact details and keep these separate from you private contact details. While point number 5 centered on the importance of a contact form, the internet is now a much more complex place than it previously was. Allowing your readers to reach you on several social media mediums can intensify the sense of community around your blog.

20. The font used should be large enough to be easily read but small enough to be considered a part of a blog for grown ups. Please don’t disregard this tip because it is last. I have seen this endlessly on a wide array of blogs, and cannot help but feel for the owner who is more than likely suffering as a result.

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Build an Empire?

When you’re deciding to become a website publisher you will fall into one of two broad categories:

Publish 100 websites that each earn $1 a day profit
Publish 1 website that earns $100 a day profit

The reality of it is, most people end up somewhere in between. Having 100 websites leaves you with maintenance, management and content issues. Having one website leaves you open to all sort of fluctuations (search engines algorithm’s, market trends, etc). You can adapt your plan on the way, but you’ll have an easier time if you start out going in the direction of where you want to end up.

General or Niche

You can build your website around general topics or niche ones. Generally speaking niche websites work better with adsense. First off the ad targeting is much better. Secondly as you have a narrow focus your writing naturally becomes more expert in nature. Hopefully this makes you more authority in your field.

If this is your first try at building an adsense website, make it about something you enjoy. It will make the process much easier and less painful to accomplish. You should however make sure that your topic has enough of an ad inventory and the payout is at a level you are comfortable with. You may love medieval folk dancing, but the pool of advertisers for that subject is very small (in fact it’s currently zero).

Once you’ve gotten the hang of how Adsense works on a website, you are going to want to dabble in some high paying keywords, you may even be tempted to buy a high paying keyword list. This does come with some dangers. First off the level of fraud is much higher on the big money terms. Secondly there is a distortion of the supply and demand relationship for these terms. Everyone wants ads on their website that make $35 or more a click, however the number of advertisers who are willing to pay that much is pretty limited. Additionally the competition for that traffic is going to be stiff. So, don’t try to run with the big dogs if you can’t keep up. If you have to ask if you’re a big dog, then chances are, you’re not. I have used a high dollar keywords report from cashkeywords.com and was pleased with my results (see cash keywords free offer recap).

New Sites, Files and Maintenance

When you’re building a new site don’t put adsense on it until it’s finished. In fact I’d go even farther and say don’t put adsense on it until you have built inbound links and started getting traffic. If you put up a website with “lorem ipsum” dummy or placeholder text, your adsense ads will almost certainly be off topic. This is often true for new files on existing websites, especially if the topic is new or different. It may take days or weeks for google’s media bot to come back to your page and get the ads properly targeted. TIP: If you start getting lots of traffic from a variety of IP’s you will speed this process up dramatically.

I like to build my sites using include files. I put the header, footer and navigation in common files. It makes it much easier to maintain and manage. I also like to put my adsense code in include files. If I want/need to change my adsense code, it’s only one file I have to work with. TIP: I also use programming to turn the adsense on or off. I can change one global variable to true or false and my adsense ads will appear or disappear.
Managing URL’s and channels

Adsense channels is one area where it’s really easy to go overboard with stats. You can set up URL channels to compare how one website is doing to another. You can also set up sub channels for each URL. If you wanted to you do something channels like this:

domain1.com – 728 banner
domain1.com – 336 block
domain1.com – text link
domain2.com – 728 banner
domain2.com – image banner
domain2.com – 336 block
domain3.com – 300 block
While this is great for testing and knowing who clicks where and why, it makes your reporting a little wonky. Your total number will always be correct but when you look at your reports with a channel break down things will get displayed multiple times and not add up to correct total. Makes things pretty confusing, so decide if you really need/want that level of reporting detail. TIP: At the very least you want to know what URL is generating the income so be sure to enter distinct URL channels.

Once you know you are going to put adsense on your website you’re going to have to consider where to put it. If this is new site it’s easier, if it’s an existing site it’s more difficult. While there are some people who will be able to do it, in most cases I’d say if you just slap the adsense code in, you’ll end up with a frankensite monster (props to Tedster of WMW for the buzzword). While every website is different, Google has published some heat maps showing the optimal locations. No surprise that the best spots are middle of the page and left hand side. Now I’ve done really well by placing it on the right, but you should know why you’re doing it that way before hand, and be prepared to change it if it doesn’t work out.

Google has also has published a list of the highest performing ad sizes:

336×280 large rectangle
300×250 inline rectangle
160×600 wide skyscraper
From the sites that I run, I do really well with the 336 rectangle and 160 skyscraper. My next best performing ad size is the 728 leaderboard, I don’t really use the 300 inline rectangle too often. So really it depends on how well you integrate these into your site. Placement can have a dramatic effect on performance. TIP: When working on a new site or new layout you may want to give each location it’s own channel for a little while until you understand the users behavior.

Another ‘trick’ that can increase your CTR is by blending your adsense into your body copy. For example if your body copy is black, remove the adsense border and make the title, text, and URL black.TIP: Try changing all of your page hyperlinks to a high contrast color (like dark red or a bold blue) then change the adsense title to the same color.

The one area where I’ve found blended ads don’t perform as well is forums, especially ones with a high volume of repeat members. Regular visitors develop banner blindness pretty quickly. One ‘trick’ to keep the ads from being ignored is to randomize the color and even the placement. As with any of the decisions about location, placement and color it’s a trade off. How much do you emphasize the ads without annoying your visitors. Remember it’s better to have a 1% CTR with 500 regular visitors as opposed to a 5% CTR with 50 visitors. TIP: For forums try placing the adsense ads directly above or below the the first forum thread.

Using Images

One of the latest ’secrets’ to make the rounds is using images placed directly above or below an adsense leaderboard. This has been used for a while but came out in a digital point forum thread where a member talked about quadrupling their CTR. Basically you set up the adsense code in a table with four images that line up directly with the ads. Whether or not this is deceptive is fuzzy and very subjective. Obviously four blinking arrows would be ‘enticing people to click’ and be against the adsense TOS. However placing pictures of 4 laptops over laptops ads isn’t, so use your best judgment here and look at it from the advertiser or Google’s perspective. If you have a question as to your implementation being ‘over the line’ write to adsense and ask them to take a look.

As far as using the images, I’ve done it and can tell you it definitely works. You get the best results when the images ‘complete the story the ads are telling’. For example if you have ads about apple pies, use pictures of freshly baked apple pies, instead of granny smith, Macintosh, pink lady, and braeburn apples. TIP: Don’t limit yourself to using images only on that size ad unit, it works just as well with the other sizes, like the 336 rectangle.

Added:
I got a little criticizm for this and rightly so, as I wasn’t specific as I could have been. Do not use very identifiable brand name or products for your images. Use generic non-specific stock images whenever possible and appropriate.

Multiple Ad Units

Another way to increase ad revenue is to use multiple ad units. According to Google’s TOS you are allowed to post up to three ad units per page. Similar to standard search results the highest paying ad units will be served first and the lowest being served last. If there is enough of an ad inventory, place all three ad units. However you should pay attention to the payouts. Current assumption is you get 60% of the revenue (on a $0.05 click you get $0.03). So if a click from the third ad unit is only paying between 3 to 5 cents you may want to omit it from your page. This is one are where giving your ad units channels does have value. If one ad unit is getting a higher percentage of click throughs you’ll want to make sure the highest paying ads are being served there. TIP:Use CSS positioning to get your highest paying ads serving in the location with the highest CTR.

Adsense in RSS

With the growth of blogs and RSS feeds you’re starting to see adsense included in the feeds now. IMHO this doesn’t work, and here’s why:

You only get to place one ad unit.
You have no control over finding the ’sweet spot’ for the ad unit.
The ads are usually poorly targeted (this is getting better).
People develop ‘banner blindness’.
I know people like being able to read full postings in their feed reader, and there are at least a dozen other reasons for full posts from pleasing your users to mobile offline computing, all of which are completely valid. However if your website depends on generating adsense revenue to survive, then bring them to the site and show them the ads there.

Affiliate Sites

Placing Adsense on affiliate sites is tricky. Are you giving up a $10, $20, or $30 sale for a $1 click? This is something you have to test on your own to figure out. If you aren’t converting now it’s definitely worth a try. I like to use adsense on my article pages. For example let’s say you had an affiliate website where you sold shoes. You’re going to need some related articles to ‘flesh out’ the site. Things like ‘getting a shoe shine’ or ‘finding a shoe repair shop’ these are excellent spots for adsense. While you won’t get rich, they will usually provide a small steady income and cover things like hosting costs.TIP: If you find you have pages getting more than 50 clicks per month add more pages about this topic, and link the pages together. Mine you logs for the search terms used.

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Being an entrepreneur is about more than just starting a business or two, it is about having attitude and the drive to succeed in business. All successful Entrepreneurs have a similar way of thinking and posses several key personal qualities that make them so successful in business. Successful entrepreneurs like the ambitious Richard Branson have an inner drive to succeed and grow their business, rather than having a Harvard Business degree or technical knowledge in a particular field.

All successful entrepreneurs have the following qualities:

Inner Drive to Succeed
Entrepreneurs are driven to succeed and expand their business. They see the bigger picture and are often very ambitious. Entrepreneurs set massive goals for themselves and stay committed to achieving them regardless of the obstacles that get in the way.

Strong Belief in themselves
Successful entrepreneurs have a healthy opinion of themselves and often have a strong and assertive personality. They are focused and determined to achieve their goals and believe completely in their ability to achieve them. Their self optimism can often been seen by others as flamboyance or arrogance but entrepreneurs are just too focused to spend too much time thinking about un-constructive criticism.

Search for New Ideas and Innovation
All entrepreneurs have a passionate desire to do things better and to improve their products or service. They are constantly looking for ways to improve. They’re creative, innovative and resourceful.

Openness to Change
If something is not working for them they simply change. Entrepreneurs know the importance of keeping on top of their industry and the only way to being number one is to evolve and change with the times. They’re up to date with the latest technology or service techniques and are always ready to change if they see a new opportunity arise.

Competitive by Nature
Successful entrepreneurs thrive on competition. The only way to reach their goals and live up to their self imposed high standards is to compete with other successful businesses.

Highly Motivated and Energetic
Entrepreneurs are always on the move, full of energy and highly motivated. They are driven to succeed and have an abundance of self motivation. The high standards and ambition of many entrepreneurs demand that they have to be motivated!

Accepting of Constructive Criticism and Rejection
Innovative entrepreneurs are often at the forefront of their industry so they hear the words “it can’t be done” quite a bit. They readjust their path if the criticism is constructive and useful to their overall plan, otherwise they will simply disregard the comments as pessimism. Also, the best entrepreneurs know that rejection and obstacles are a part of any leading business and they deal with them appropriately.

True entrepreneurs are resourceful, passionate and driven to succeed and improve. They’re pioneers and are comfortable fighting on the frontline The great ones are ready to be laughed at and criticized in the beginning because they can see their path ahead and are too busy working towards their dream

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Why do search engines exist? That may seem like a strange question considering the fact that search engines are designed to search for information.

OK so search engines exist to search, but who benefits most from search engines? Well, businesses benefit from search engines, but search engines do not primarily exist for businesses.

Search engines exist for the benefit of the searcher. The consumer is the individual that should gain the most benefit from a search engine. Search engines will always work to protect the trust of the consumer.

Many businesses will use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies that ultimately fail because they were developed to exploit the search engine or explore a flaw in the algorithm of the search function. Once the flaw is discovered there is typically a radical restructuring of results. This can be frustrating to business owners, but it generally causes very little concern for the consumer.

Why? The search engine continues to learn from past success and failure as it improves search results.

With that in mind let me suggest that when you as a business owner begin to explore SEO techniques you should always make sure that the techniques you use are ‘white hat’ or generally accepted by search engines.

You can improve your results by concentrating on a well defined keyword or phrase. You can also gain points by making sure your have a steady supply of fresh content. This can allow you to discover the greatest overall marketing push from search engines.

I’d like to suggest one of the most positive ways to improve SEO marketing enhancement is to involve yourself in article marketing.

If you’ve never heard of this strategy before it is simply writing articles that have something to do with your product, service or industry. In this case you do not need to write articles that only deal with your site keyword or phrase.

Once you write articles (generally 400 words of more in length) you submit the article to as many free article directories as possible.

How does this help you?

Virtually all free article marketing directories allow you to place a bio with up to three links that must be included by anyone wishing to use your article on their website or blog.

Essentially there are two things that happen when you use this marketing technique. The first thing that will happen is your site will gain more exposure as individuals use your article and readers choose to visit your website(s) as a result of reading your work. The second thing that happens is search engines will recognize these multiple backlinks to your site and tend to rank your site higher. They do this because the more links back to your website from other site sources usually indicates a heightened level of trust and that makes your site a more positive choice for higher rankings.

If you can refuse the idea that you should find a way to trick the search engines and simply work to discover positive ways to direct traffic to your site you may actually find a more positive SEO experience and greater online visibility in the long run.

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