Written by Sarah from Stuff By Sarah

Last week I explained about linking pages using the anchor tag. This week is about styling those links. For the basics of styling read my previous post Understanding CSS.

Target the anchor tag

In our CSS we can simply target the anchor tag using the a as the selector. So if we wanted our links to always be green and bold we could use

a {
    color: green;
    font-weight: bold;
}

If you wanted to have links in a div with the id of topmenu to be white (because perhaps the topmenu has a black background) but all other links to be in blue then we could have

a {
    color: blue;
}

#topmenu a {
    color: white;
}

Notice here, the first ruleset uses just a as the selector. This means all anchor links. However, the second ruleset uses #topmenu a as the selector, and this means all anchor links enclosed in the element with an id of topmenu i.e.

<div id="topmenu">
   <a href="/">Home</a> | <a href="about.htm">About</a> | <a href="contact.htm">Contact</a>
</div>

By putting the ‘#topmenu a’ ruleset second you automatically override the properties in the first ruleset with the second ruleset’s property values. This means that the colour is set in the first ruleset and the second ruleset overrides the colour for that particular selector. However, if you set perhaps the font weight to be bold in the first ruleset, if you didn’t specify anything for the font weight in the second ruleset then it would inherit the font weight setting from the first ruleset.

So to recap:

• Single tag selectors apply to every instance of that tag on a page eg. a, p, h1, div
• You can override some or all properties by specifying a second (anywhere later in the file), more targeted selector eg. #idname a, #content p
• Any properties not specified in the second ruleset will automatically be inherited from any rulesets already applied to that tag.

If, for example, you had a top menu with a black background colour and a side menu with a blue background colour, and you wanted white links in the top menu, yellow links in the side menu, and blue links everywhere else, but you wanted bold links for the side menu and the page links then you would use

a {
    color: blue;
    font-weight: bold;
}

#topmenu a {
    color: white;
    font-weight: normal;
}

#sidemenu a {
    color: yellow;
}

As you can see here, the topmenu links have had both their colour and font weight over written, whereas the sidemenu just has the colour changed. Both the topmenu and the sidemenu will only inherit their rules from the first ruleset for the anchor tag. The sidemenu ruleset will not inherit anything from the topmenu ruleset as they are unrelated, so the order of these two rulesets has no bearing on the outcome.

Styling Link States

With page links we can go one step further and style the different states for a hyperlink. A hyperlink typically has 5 states which we target using pseudo-classes:

:link

The state for a link that has not yet been visited

:visited

The state of a visited link

:hover

The state of a link when the mouse is hovering over it

:active

The state of a link when it is being clicked

:focus

The state of a link when it is selected but hasn’t been clicked (this is unsupported in current versions of Internet Explorer)

These pseudo-classes are not just limited to the anchor tag in browsers that support them (such as Internet Explorer 7, Firefox and Opera).

So now we can specify what colour link to use before and after the link has been visited, and we can also have the link change to a third, different colour, when someone hovers their mouse over it. So, for example, we could have all links, in all states, in bold, and then we’d have non visited, visited and hover states in blue, purple and red respectively. To do this we’d use

a {
    font-weight: bold;
}
a:link {
    color: blue;
}
a:visited {
    color: purple;
}
a:hover {
    color: red;
}

Another common property with links is the text-decoration which is used to control whether a link is underlined or not. Often you’ll see sites with non underlined links until you hover over them. To achieve this we can use the following:

a {
    font-weight: bold;
    text-decoration: none;
}
a:link {
    color: blue;
}
a:visited {
    color: purple;
}
a:hover {
    color: red;
    text-decoration: underline;
}

The other values that the text-decoration property can have besides none and underline are overline, line-through, blink and inherit (although I wouldn’t ever recommend using blink as it’s just distracting).

You can set other properties on links such as a background colour, font size, font family and more. Next week I’ll explain more of these properties and how they can be used.

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

MediaWhiz, owners of the text link marketplace Text Link Ads, have just launched InLinks.

The InLinks option was first added to TLA last year and started getting promoted heavily on Text Link Ads 2 months ago. They have now went mainstream with it and have launched InLinks properly, and have got a lot of attention by doing so.

I did a quick review of InLinks in September so regular readers should have a good idea of how the InLinks system works. I always welcome another method for bloggers to make money but Google certainly disagrees. There is no disputing that InLinks is against Googles paid link policy however the problem is, it is very difficult for them to spot it as the links are embedded in the content and there is nothing to suggest that a link is paid.

Darren Rowse states that 31% of ProBlogger readers actively sell text links on their blogs so there is definately a big market for this kind of service. Google blogger Matt Cutts is obviously not happy about this. He contacted TechCrunch and said :

Google has been very clear that selling such links that pass PageRank is a violation of our quality guidelines. Other search engines have said similar things. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has also given unambiguous guidance on this subject in the recent PDF at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2008/03/P064101tech.pdf where they said “Consumers who endorse and recommend products on their blogs or other sites for consideration should do so within the boundaries set forth in the FTC Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising and the FTC’s guidance on word of mouth marketing,” as well as “To date, in response to this concern, the FTC has advised that search engines need to disclose clearly and conspicuously if the ranking or other presentation of search results is a function of paid placement, and, similarly, that consumers who are paid to engage in word-of-mouth marketing must disclose that fact to recipients of their messages.”

Oh, but you say your blog isn’t in the U.S.? Maybe it’s in the UK? Then you’ll be interested in
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2008/uksi_20081277_en_5#pt11 which covers unfair trade practices and specifically mentions “Using editorial content in the media to promote a product where a trader has paid for the promotion without making that clear in the content or by images or sounds clearly identifiable by the consumer (advertorial).”

But you’re not in the UK? I believe many of the unfair commercial practices directives apply through Europe, e.g. http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/rights/index_en.htm to prohibit misleading or aggressive marketing.

The reality is that accepting money to link to/promote/market for a product without disclosing that fact is a very high-risk behavior, in my opinion.

ShoeMoney hit the nail on the head yesterday when he said :

They are not law and if Google was following the FTC’s suggestions I doubt Google Adsense/adlinks would be engaging in some of the most deceptive advertising methods I have ever seen on the internet.

Also I am curious then why Google is not requiring Firefox to display that they are paying Firefox billions of dollars to be the default search engine each time you search. The funny thing is not even firefox developers know they are getting paid so much by Google as you can see in my posts about it before. Talk about a lack of disclosure.

I have to agree with the above statement. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I completely understand why Google have their paid link policy but they are not upfront about a lot of their monetization methods so it’s hypocritical to point the finger at everyone else.

Should you use InLinks?

I don’t want to recommend or discourage anyone from using InLinks, just be aware of the risks. It is quite difficult for Google to detect links being sold on your blog however if you are caught by them you could get a penalty and lose a lot of search engine traffic.

If you promote a service on your blog and rely heavily on search engine traffic then it’s probably not worth the risk. If you are struggling to make money with your blog but your blog has a good PageRank, perhaps you think it’s worth the risk of getting a penalty.

I’d love to hear readers thoughts on this issue. Would you use InLinks?

Link : InLinks

* Disclosure : I have used my affiliate link in these ads.

Written by CT Moore from Share Results

Whether or not you’re an affiliate blogger, engaging your audience is paramount. After all, blogging is about building communities, and one of the ways you do that is by contributing to the experience of your members.

Well, when it comes to advertising, a survey from MarketingSherpa showed that adding certain things to an ad increases user responsiveness. One of the things that the survey covered was video, and it showed that featuring a video in an ad can increase responsiveness by 49.5%. Of course, bloggers aren’t advertisers, but the lesson still stands: adding multimedia to your content enriches your readers experience.

For affiliate bloggers, the lesson is even more important. Essentially, if you’re going to be promoting a certain range of products and services through your content, you might want to incorporate video into (and alongside) that content.

In fact, even ShopNBC has seen how video can increase conversions. As Greg Howlett at Marketing Pilgrim reported, customers that watch videos convert at twice the rate of customers who do not.

This doesn’t, of course, mean that affiliate bloggers have to become part-time video producers. For instance, 10 hours of content is uploaded to YouTube every minute. So chances are that there’s some kind of content on the video sharing site that can be used alongside your content.

As the MarketingSherpa study suggests, watching another everyday person user or interact with a product is something that can really influence a user’s mindset. It both gives the user a chance to see the product in action and bolsters your blogs credibility. Not only does the video content provides a richer user-experience for your readers, but it shows that you’re confident enough to bring other social media (shareable video) into the community that is your blog.

Even if you can’t find a video of that specific product, embedding video that is related can put the consumer in a purchasing mood. For example, if you can’t find a video about ringtones, specifically, then see what there is in the way of music videos for whatever ringtones are most popular at that moment.

In fact, many affiliates (bloggers and not) already use YouTube as a source of landing page content. Consider Mark from 45n5: he uses mashup scripts that pull relevant content from YouTube and displays it on his product pages.

Of course, if you prefer to have a bit of your own branding on the video, you can also get a handy cam and shoot a quick video of yourself using the product. After all, online video is often so effective at engaging users because it’s not as high production as television or film. As John Kerr, Director - Southeast Asia for Edelman, once pointed out, “the shaky cam is now seen as the most trusted form of media.”

Overall, videos are great way to engage your readers. And if you’re an affiliate blogger, that engagement can translate into higher conversions because the consumers (1) gets to see products in action, and (2) enjoys a richer user-experience through your content — and that increases the perceived credibility of your site. Basically, including relevant video alongside your content is so easy that you shouldn’t overlook it as a way to engage your readers — and especially as an affiliate marketing tool for bloggers.

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

I mentioned in a post last month that the one thing which I actively see new bloggers struggle with is the main focus of their blog. I gave one example of a blog (sports blog) but Mike Smith has went one better.

Infact, Mike has went 49 better and wrote a post with 50 Passion filled blog niches YOU should be dominating. If you are thinking about starting a new blog soon but you’re not sure about what to blog about then you should find this list incredibly handy.

Here is the list in full

1. Political Blogging
2. Sports Blogging
3. Music Blogging
4. Academic Blogging
5. Animal Blogging
6. Law Blogging
7. Real Estate Blogging
8. Car Racing Blogging
9. Skateboarding Blogging
10. Acting Blogging
11. Comedy Blogging
12. Hunting Blogging
13. Snowboarding Blogging
14. Poetry Blogging
15. Cooking Blogging
16. Design Blogging
17. Family Blogging
18. Marketing Blogging
19. Relationship Blogging
20. Health Blogging
21. News and Gossip Blogging
22. Movie Blogging
23. Celebrity Blogging
24. Fashion Blogging
25. TV Blogging
26. Fishing Blogging
27. Computer Blogging
28. Tech Blogging
29. Spirituality Blogging
30. History Blogging
31. Scrapbooking Blogging
32. Shopping Blogging
33. Green Blogging
34. Photography Blogging
35. Video Game Blogging
36. Addiction and Recovery Blogging
37. Diet and Exercise Blogging
38. Organization Blogging
39. Graffiti Blogging
40. Construction Blogging
41. Short Story Blogging
42. Comic Strip Blogging
43. Travel Blogging
44. Journalism Blogging
45. Advice Blogging
46. Psychology Blogging
47. Activism Blogging
48. Self Improvement Blogging
49. Interior Design Blogging
50. Blogging about Blogging

A big thank you to Mike Smith for letting me reproduce this list for you guys. Cheers bud

Link : 50 Passion filled blog niches YOU should be dominating

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

Earlier today I posted details about how you can win a signed copy of Darren Rowse and Chris Garretts fantastic ProBlogger Book. Well I hope you still have an appetitie for another contest as I have news about 2 more!

Contest 1 : Blog Design Group Writing Project

The Group Writing Project has been live for about a week but there are still 11 days left in this great competition. Blog Design Studio, designers of the current Blogging Tips design, are looking for bloggers to write a post of at least 250 words on the topic of Blog Design. I think this is a great contest idea as it means you will not only be adding great content to your blog, you might also win a prize for your efforts.

Here’s a list of the prizes you can win :

1. Win a custom WordPress theme for your blog from Blog Design Studio (worth hundreds of dollars).
2. Premium Theme from Daily Blog Tips - Daniel has donated a premium theme from Premium Themes Now as the prize for second place.
3. Consultation from Kevin Muldoon (yes me!) - I will be giving some consultation to the first winner of the contest and doing my best to help the blogger with their blog.
4. Consultation from Mayank from Blog Design Studio - A prize for the third winner of the contest.

For full details of the contest please visit the competition info page at the link below.

Link : Free custom blog design contest - group writing project!

Contest 2 : Win a Template, Logo or Icon Pack at ProTycoon

Steve Michael from Brochure Monster contacted me recently about hosting a contest at ProTycoon, a great little blog I bought from former Blogging Tips author David Shaw recently.

To win a prize you need to write a review of Brochure Monster of around 200-250 posts.

There are three prizes up for grabs and each winner can choose from any of the following :

	Prize Option 1 You have the option to choose any of the templates at BuyTemplates.
	Prize Option 2 You have the option to choose any individual icon pack from IconGalore.
	Prize Option 2 You have the option to choose a logo from LogoAngel.

Full details of this link can be found at the link below.

Link : Win a Template, Logo or Icon Pack

Both of these contests require you to write a review on your blog. It may not be suitable on your main blog but can review them on your personal blog if you wish. Good luck to those who decide to take part.

Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell Editorial

I received an email from a new freelance blog writer recently asking if a blogging job she was offered was legit. I read the offer and indeed, it did seem like a legitimate job. So, she decided to take it.

The $50/Week Blogging Job

Two days later, she wrote me back to say that she didn’t think she was going to enjoy blogging, but she was going to complete the assignment because she had given her word.
FYI, it was five short posts a week, 100-150 words, for $50.

The assignment is to last into perpetuity. If all goes well for the first few weeks, this blog owner wants the poster to perhaps do more work for some other blogs he has.

So what’s the problem?

Signs a Blog Writer is Going to Bail

The problem is this blogger is probably going to bail on this guy, just when he’s thinking that he’s gotten a reliable blogger and can finally focus on other things. As a former recruiter and as someone who’s hired hundreds of freelance writers, my gut just tells me that this is not going to last long.

If you’re thinking about hiring a freelance writer to blog for you, following are some guidelines to adhere to to locate the most reliable blogger.

Blog Employers: Guidelines for Hiring the Perfect Blogger

Treat it Like a Real Job Opening: Blog writing is a bona fide profession now. Hence, you need to treat the hiring process like any other “real job.” This means getting some type of interview/vetting process in order.

Check The Blog Writer’s Blog: Part of the aforementioned vetting process should involve checking the blog writer’s blog. Look for things like how long they’ve had a blog, how often they’ve updated it, what their writing style is, etc.

Test Run: Before piling on assignments, give the blogger to be a test run. Eg, “write a month’s worth of posts and we’ll come to a more permanent arrangement after that.”

Pay a Fair Rate: Now this can be sticky, as there seem to be no set blogging rates. With freelance writers, you usually get more than what you pay for, so pay a decent rate if you find a blogger you like, especially if you want them to stick around for a the long haul.

If you’re lowballing, trust me, as soon as the blog writer finds a few more better paying gigs, off they’ll go – and rightly so. Good, dependable writers are worth their weight in gold (and of course, I speak from a completely unbiased point of view :-)).

If your blog is your business, give the blog writer the same respect you would to any valued employee of a company you’re running. This means paying a decent wage.

Beware of the Experimenting Freelance Blog Writer

Many freelancers try freelancing on for size. What I mean is, they’ll do it on the side, or they’ll take a freelance writing job or two just to see “if it works out.” This is what happened to the blogger above. She was idly surfing Craigslist one day while at her full-time job. On a lark, she applied to the job listing and landed the gig.

The Full-time Freelance Blog Writer versus the Part-time Freelance Blog Writer

There are many freelancers out there like this. While there are many reliable part-time freelance writers, I always prefer to work with full-time freelancers. Why? Because they tend to take jobs more seriously, adhere to deadlines and value each job more – for obvious reasons.

Remember, I owned an editorial staffing agency in New York City for 8 years and was a recruiter for 12 years, so I’m writing from a whole lot of first-hand experience here.

If you’re serious about hiring freelance blog writers, keep these tips in mind when you start the recruiting process.

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

Yesterday I received a copy of Stephane Grenier’s new blogging book Blog Blazers, or to give the book it’s full title, Blog Blazers : 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets to Creating a High-Profile, High Traffic, and High-Profit Blog! .

In the book Stephane interviews 40 of the most influential bloggers on the web. It’s a very simple concept but as you know, sometimes those are the ones which work the best. Stephane first started developing this book about a year and a half ago and you can see the general outline for the book in his post ‘Marketing And Sales For Small Online Businesses‘.

Before I talk more about the book, I though it would be good to give you all a little information about the books author

About the Author

Stephane Grenier has been working online for several years. In 2003 he established his flasgship company LandLord Max, which sells Property Management Software to real estate agents.

In June 2005 Stephane started blogging about himself and his online successes and failures on his blog Follow Steph. This blog has now become the main source of marketing and advertising for LandLord Max and gets over 500,000 unique visitors per year.

Blog Blazers - 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets

After a quick summary about blogging and why Stephane wrote this book, the book dives right into the interviews. The 40 interviews are packed into 206 pages with each interview being around 4-6 pages long, which I think is a good length as no interview seems to drag on too long.

Because each interview is only 4-6 pages in length, the book has a sort of magazine feel to it i.e. you don’t have to concentrate really hard when reading or sit and take notes. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of great information in this book, far from it, however because each interview is just a few pages long and because the interviews have so many questions in them, the information is just so much easier to digest.

Here is a list of all the bloggers who are interviewed in this book. I’m sure you will recognise some of the names

• Aaron Wall from SEO Book
• Ades Tynyshev from Ades Blog
• Al Carlton from Coolest-Gadgets.com
• Alex Papadimoulis of Worse Than Failure
• Andy Brice from Success Software
• Anita Campbell from Small Business Trends
• Asha Dornfest from Parent Hacks
• Ben Casnocha from My Startup Life
• Ben Yoskovitz from Instigator Blog
• Bob Walsh from 47 Hats
• Dan Lyons from The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
• Dane Carlson from Dane Carlson’s Business Opportunities Weblog
• David Armano from Logic+Emotion
• David Seah
• Derek Semmler
• Dharmesh Shah from On Startups
• Eric Sink
• Ian Landsman of Userscape
• James and Alex Turnbull from Google Sightseeing
• JD from Get Rich Slowly
• Jeff Atwood from Coding Horror
• Jeff Clavier from Jeff Clavier’s Software Only
• Jennette Fulda from Half of Me
• Jenny from 101 Reasons I Hate Being Fat!
• Jessamyn West from Librarian.net
• Joel Cheesman from Cheezhead
• Jonathan Snook
• Manolo from Manolo’s Shoe Blog
• Neil Patel from Quick Sprout
• Pamela Slim from Escape from Cubicle Nation
• Patrick McKenzie from Micro ISV on a Shoestring
• Penelope Trunk from Brazen Careerist
• Ramit Sethi from I will Teach You to be Rich
• Rob Walling from Software By Rob
• Rohit Bhargava from Influential Marketing Blog
• Seth Godin
• Stephane Grenier from Follow Steph (the author himself!)
• Steve Rubel from Micro Persuasion
• Trent Hamm from The Simple Dollar
• Yaro Starak from Entrepreneur’s Journey

Each blogger was asked a range of questions rancing from the basic ‘Which five blogs do you regularly Read?’ to the more taxing ‘What is your best monetization method?’. The answers were very interesting and highlights how different some high profile bloggers think.

For example, when asked about which blogs they read some bloggers preferred smaller more personal blogs, others preferred larger more mainstream blogs which broke news whilst others confessed to not even reading blogs on a regular basis.

There are hundreds of blogs referenced in the book, you will be familar with many of them but there are lots you won’t (I’ve added a few to my newsfeed already!).

Summary

Retailing at 16.95 US Dollars, Blog Blazers is a thoroughly enjoyable book which you will find hard to put down. It gives a great insight into how some of the most successful bloggers on the internet think and what they believe is most important when developing and marketing a blog.

If you are looking for some inspiration for your blog then you can do much worse than pick up a copy of Blog Blazers. Recommended

Link : Blog Blazers

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

Today is the sixth week of our $1,500 Forum Competition.

This week we have 2 signed copies of ‘ProBlogger : Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income‘ up for grabs. Co-written by Chris Garrett and Darren Rowse, the ProBlogger book has been hugely popular and is one of the best blogging books available.

This 10 chapter book covers every aspect of blogging for money and has something for everyone in it.

To find out more about the book please check out the Official ProBlogger Book Website.

Competition Details

Here is this weeks challenge :

Post your best blog tip in 140 characters or less

As always, I think it’s important that things are kept fair and competitive :

• You are only allowed one entry so make it count!
• Ideas/Suggestions should be original ie. don’t just copy someone elses idea and try and claim it as your own.
• Deadline for entries is 12pm ET Tuesday 25th November 2008

On Tuesday 25th November Darren will choose what he believes to be the best response

All entries must be submitted in the forum thread mentioned below. Good luck

Link : Win a signed copy of Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger Book

Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell Editorial

One of the responders to my post yesterday wrote the following comment:

I think the subscribers thing is overrated now after I have quite blogging. I finally realized that the non-subscribers are the ones that actually participate and interact in the blog posts.

I’m not so sure about the truth of this on its face, but it kind of solidified what I’ve believed for a long time. Mainly that, you shouldn’t worry so much about your blog’s subscriber count – at least for the first year of blogging. Following is why.

2 Reasons to Forget Your Blog’s Subscriber Count

Remember, I said for the first year.

Focus: During the first year of blogging is when you will find your focus. You may start out with one idea in mind, but once you start blogging, you may find that your blog takes on a different direction.

This can happen because of something that switches within you, or the way your blog’s readers pull you.

If you’re constantly obsessing over how many subscribers you have during this time, you can easily overlook what your blog wants to be – because you’re trying to “force” it in another direction.

Systems: After you’ve finally found a tight focus for your blog — ie, nailed a niche — then it’s time to put systems and processes in place to help you get your blog to the next level.

These systems will include things like blogging routine; advertisers you plan to target; charting out a growth plan; getting a professional blog design; adding a newsletter; etc.

After all of these tangibles are in place is when you start to build your blogging empire.

If you’re too focused on your subscriber count before you get these things in place, you run the risk of losing subscribers anyway. Why? Because once you get all of these elements in place, your blog is probably going to look different from the one you started with.

This alone will lose you some subscribers – and gain you others.

Conclusion about Blog Subscribers

The bottom line with blogging is that it is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme, which is why so many focus on subscribers, subscribers, subscribers in the first place.

If you’ve thoroughly researched your niche; put all of the behind-the-scenes elements in place for success; and work you tail off; subscribers are most likely going to come anyway. But, don’t cater to them before you have a solid product/service/business to offer.

Remember, what you’re building is a blogging business; you’re not “just blogging.”

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

I’m sure many of you will know Blogging Tips Forum member Suzzane Franco (forum username wahmsuzanne), who has been blogging since February 2008. Her blog covers a wide range of topics including affiliate marketing, social networking, search engine optimisation and more.

Suzanne is taking part in Daily Blog Tips blogging contest Blogging Idol 2 and is currently sitting in a respectable 11th place.

With so many blogs taking part in Blogging Idol, participants need to come up with new and inventive ways to get ahead of the competition and Suzanne has done just that. She sent personal videos to several Gurus asking for support in her quest to win Blogging Idol 2.

She sent videos to the following people :

• Travis (Sago) The Bum Marketer
• Bob The Teacher
• Rich Schefren
• Derek Gehl
• Frank Kern
• John Chow

Here is the video Suzanne did especially for John Chow.

John was very impressed with Suzannes creative and original idea to personalise videos and a day later he gave his full support to Suzanne in the competition. Getting exposure on a blog with around 40,000 subscribers can give your blog a huge boost so I contacted Suzanne to ask her a few questions about her blog and her progress in the Blogging Idol 2 competition.

Suzanne has answered my questions via email and via video. Enjoy

The Interview

Video Interview

Email Interview

First off, for those who don’t know you, can you tell everyone a little about yourself and how you first got into blogging.

I’m originally from Southern California (Orange County and San Diego) and relocated to the Texas Hill Country about 7 years ago. I’m work at home mom to Austin 13, Nathan 11 and Emily 9 … and soon-to-be stepmom to Alyssa 8 and Cobey 6 so as you can imagine we have a very busy household with sports and homework … not to mention meals! LOL

I got into blogging by accident really. I was hoping to find a creative way to market products through the eBay affiliate program so I started my Review Mama site. I quickly realized that I knew nothing about blogging or Wordpress and I actually started hanging around the forum here on Blogging Tips. Kevin, you probably remember that I was there uncomfortably asking all of the newbie questions and you were all so patient with me … so thank you for that. I had the suzannefranco.com domain for many years but there was nothing there. I decided to load WP there so I can try to learn how to use it without messing up my new review blog. I posted about my life and my kids and eventually I started posting about how I was making money online. I found quickly that I enjoyed it more than the other things I was doing online so I set out to learn all I could about blogging.

Your blog has been online for about three quarters of a year now. Have you experienced a lot of highs and lows during this time?

Well, I’m embarrassed to say that I back-dated some posts so that IF anyone actually showed up it wouldn’t look like I just started … so my posts started some time in May of this year.

My lows with anything internet related (and this is no exception) most always evolve around something techie going wrong. I’ve never had any training at all and everything I do is self-taught through research online. I would get frustrated by any type of coding, or file transfer … and I’ve had to learn the hard way to backup before I touch anything on my sites. *sigh*

The highs have honestly been in the great people I’ve met and the fun I’m having. I love “working” now and will challenge myself to know and understand more about blogging each and every day. My most recent highs have been related to the Blogging Idol contest and all I can say it’s been really fun!

I was very impressed with your idea to film personal videos for several high profile bloggers. Was something you had been thinking about for a while or was it more of a ‘quick flash’ of inspiration?

Well, the rules for Blogging Idol changed last minute so it wasn’t something I thought about for very long, no. We stayed with friends for the Halloween weekend and I was running ideas by everyone there and I got a lot of blank stares. They are not from the blogging world so they just didn’t “get” what I was trying to accomplish.

The strategies for the video invites were two-fold. I was hoping that at least one of these guys would show up to my blog and surprise all of us. But, honestly, I knew there was a chance that none of them would. The idea was to be a bit bold, to get my readers involved, and hope they’d subscribe to keep up on what was going on with it … and to hopefully take it viral with everyone else tracking these guys down to try to get them to come over to the blog. John responded very quickly after I emailed him … and I was floored (still am). The invites have paid off and, in fact, Bob The Teacher and I are planning to get together and do a teleconference of some sort so watch for that too.

There’s around 2 weeks left in Blogging Idol 2. Do you have something big planned for the next 2 weeks to encourage more people to subscribe to your blog?

Yes, I am putting together a contest that should launch as soon as Daniel opens up the voting. I am still looking for prize donations so I’d encourage anyone interested in some great promotion to contact me about that. I am also still offering to reserve a free spot in my upcoming Blogging for Bucks BootCamp just for subscribing to my feed.

What do you have in store for SuzanneFranco.com readers, after the Blogging Idol 2 competition has finished?

I will continue to stretch myself to learn and share everything I can about blogging with others. One of my favorite quotes is by Zig Ziglar, “If you help enough people get what they want … you’ll get what you want.” If I make my job helping others … I will be rewarded for that.

* End of Interview *

A big thank you to Suzanne Franco for taking part in this interview. I’m sure you all enjoyed it and I encourage all BloggingTips readers to support Suzanne and subscribe to her blog

Blog Link : Suzanne Franco, RSS Link : http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoneyMakingIdeasSuzanne

Coming Soon

Suzanne is one of many Blogging Tips readers who are taking part in Blogging Idol 2. In the next week I will bring you a report which shows how all readers are doing in the contest. If you would like your blog included in this list please leave a comment with the URL of the blog which you have entered. Thanks guys

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

Welcome to the 13th Reader Blog Critique. Last weeks critique of TechZilo had some great replies from Clare, Rarst & Desk Coder. I’m sure this weeks critique will generate some great feedback too.

This weeks review is on Linkers Blog, a blog which helps you build links, traffic and PageRank.

Here are the questions the owner Danny would like to ask you all about the blog :

• What is your favourite and least favourite part of the design?
• Is the text easy to read?
• How many ads should there be on the left hand side?
• Is there any widgets you would like to see on the right hand side?
• Is there anything blairingly obvious missing or anything you think is horribly wrong with the blog?

The most helpful and constructive commenter will get $10. Alternatively, if you prefer, I can register a domain for you at eNom and push it to your account Danny will decide who the best commenter was.

As usual, I remind everyone that positive or negative, all feedback should be constructive.

If you have any questions about any of this please let me know in this thread

Blog to be Reviewed : Linkers Blog

Written by Kevin Muldoon from System0

A quick roundup of some of good posts which have caught my attention in the last week

• Social Media “Rockstars” vs. “Narcissists” - Brett Borders gets his new social media blog off to a great start with this comparison of social media rockstars and self absorbed douchebags!
• 181 Free Twitter Buttons, Badges, Widget and Counters to Help You Find Followers - A fantastic collection of Twitter images and widgets.
• 10 Mistakes That Could Be Killing Your Blog - Leo Babauta looks at 10 things that could be hurting your blog.
• 3 Ways To Be a Better Blogger - 3 very good tips to help you improve your blog.
• Social Media Lines are Blurring - Bernie Borges looks at how social media sites are evolving.
• Building Your Blog’s Tribe - Some good tips on building a community around your blog.
• Guru Roundup Update … Wow! This Is Fun! - Blogging Tips regular Suzanne Franco talks about the help she has received from some well known friends. Stay tuned this week on Blogging Tips for an exclusive interview with Suzanne.
• 35+ Social Media Tools That Make Life Easier - A great collection of social media tools.
• Fixing Custom Favicons for Blogger Blogs - Amanda shows you fix your broken blogger favicon (Posted a week or so ago).

Written by Yuwanda Black from Inkwell Editorial

According to the latest reports on CNN, Japan, the world’s second largest economy behind the United States, is officially in a recession. If you blog for money, this news should be important to you because bloggers run international “empires,” so to speak.

So, how can you keep the visitors – and the dollars – flowing in during a worldwide recession? Following are three things to keep in mind that help.

3 Ways to Keep Your Blog’s Visitors Coming Back During a Recession

Pay attention to existing subscribers: Most bloggers are so busy chasing new subscribers that they forget to fully service the ones they have. Most marketers make this mistake.

But, consider this, marketing experts say that it costs three to fives times as much time, energy and money to obtain a new customer (subscriber) as it does to sell more to an existing one. How can you capitalize on this?

Offer existing customers a special deal, report, ebook, teleseminar, etc. to show your appreciation. FYI, as this is the holiday season, it’s an ideal time to show your appreciation to existing customers.

Market Even More: On an almost daily basis, I receive emails from freelance writers who are struggling in this economy. What I tell them is what I’m going to tell you as a blogger – market more. Many make the mistake of cutting back on their marketing efforts in a tough economy.

This is the exact opposite of what you should be doing. And with blogging, there are so many free, effective ways to market your blog that it will only cost you time.

Stay Cool and Consistent: Blogging is all about consistency. Some bloggers make the mistake of cutting back on their blogging – especially if they feel like “nobody’s reading it any way.”

It’s like trying to find a good deal in a trendy neighborhood. To make money in real estate, it’s all about location – and timing. Same thing in blogging. If you have a blog, you’ve already staked out your location. Now, you need to turn the timing to your advantage.

How can you make blogging in a recession work to your advantage, ie, take advantage of this time? Write really insightful posts about what’s going on in the world at large – and make it relevant to your niche. This can really set your blog apart, building its reputation as an authoritative, insightful spot visitors will want to visit to keep abreast of how the world at large affects their life.

Remember, most people have a herd mentality. Meaning, they will always do what’s easy and what everyone else is doing. Recessionary blogging is about doing what’s hard – riding out the storm until things turn around; finding the relevancy in what’s happening in the world at large and bringing it to your readers; having faith that things will turn around (it always does you know).

So, chin up. If you want to keep your blog’s visitors coming back, even though major world economies are in a recession, remain cool and consistent – in your marketing efforts, and in your blog posting.

Written by Amanda Fazani from Blogger Buster

Most bloggers prefer to display the date a post was published, which is often relevant to the subject matter of the post. Indeed, most blog templates include some elements of CSS styling for the post date (or date heading as it is often known).

When using Blogger to publish your blog, the date heading is only displayed for the most recent post of any given day. This means that if you make several posts in a single day, the date heading will only display for the last post published in this day.

While readers of your blog may be able to deduce the posting date in relation to other posts, many of us would prefer to simply display the date, especially when using a calendar icon or other template styling to display the date in a particular way.

In default Blogger templates (and indeed in most third party templates) there is no option but to use the restrictive <data:post.dateHeader> tag to display the date only for one post each day.

So in this post, I’ll explain a quick and simple customization which enables you to display the date for all posts in your blog, to inform your readers of the exact date of posting and ensure any date styling in your layout is rendered correctly.

Using the “Time-stamp” tags

The only method we can use to display the date on all posts on home and archive pages with Blogger is to replace the <data:post.dateHeader> tag with that usually reserved for the timestamp (permalink).

This is because the Blogger engine will render only one date-header statement for each day of posts, whereas timestamps are generated for each and every post.

If you take a look at the Settings>Formatting page in your Blogger dashboard, you will notice there are numerous options for formatting the date style for the timestamp, many of which mimic those used for the actual date heading.

The method we need to use for this customization involves switching the date-header tags for timestamp tags, and formatting the timestamp so it appears more like a date-heading instead.

Changing the template code to accommodate the date for all posts

This is a very simple customization to make.

Simply go to Layout>Edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard and check the “Expand widget templates” box.

Then search for the following section of code (or similar):

<b:if cond=’data:post.dateHeader’>
<h2 class=’date-header’><data:post.dateHeader/></h2>
</b:if>

Be aware that in your own Blogger template, the <h2> tags may have been replaced with a DIV or H3 tags instead. However, the surrounding code should appear in the same way.

Replace this entire section of code with the following instead:

<h2 class=’date-header’><data:post.timestamp/></h2>

Then preview your blog. If you have made more than one post in a single day, you will now see that the time-stamp is displayed for all posts on this day, whereas the date-header previously used would only display once for each day.

Optional:

As you are using the timestamp for the date heading of your posts, you may prefer to remove the timestamp from the post-footer section.

If this is the case, find the following section of code in your template:

<b:if cond=’data:top.showTimestamp’>
<data:top.timestampLabel/>
<b:if cond=’data:post.url’>
<data:post.timestamp/><a class=’timestamp-link’ expr:href=’data:post.url’ title=’permanent link’>Permalink</a>
</b:if>
</b:if>

And delete this entire section of code.

Be sure to preview your template agian before saving to ensure you have not accidentally deleted (or altered) any other aspects of your layout.

Formatting your new date heading

By default, the timestamp in Blogger blogs is set to display the time of posting, rather than the date. You may prefer to change this setting to reflect the date as this is more appropriate and informative for your blog readers.

To change this format, go to Settings>Formatting in your Blogger dashboard. On this page, you will notice a drop-down menu where you can choose the format for your timestamp:

Simply choose a setting which you feel would be more appropriate for your layout, and save this setting. Personally I prefer the full date option (ie: Tuesday, October 14 2008) though you may prefer a shorter date format instead.

Using this customization to display a calendar icon for each post

There are several Blogger customizations available which enable you to display a calendar icon to replace the date heading of your posts. It is possible to make this calendar icon display on all posts of your home and archive pages using the customization we have explored in this tutorial.

An example of a calendar icon

However, you should check the date format required to display your calendar icon correctly, and adjust the setting for your timestamp format accordingly.

Most calendar widgets for Blogger require the date to be formatted like this: dd-mm-yyyy. Unfortunately, this format is not available to use for timestamps. In this case, you would need to edit the JavaScript file used to parse the date in your posts, and replace this with a date-format which you can use as a timestamp (eg: dd/mm/yy).

Once you have edited the JavaScript file, upload this to your own hosting account and change the reference to this file in the <head> section of your Blogger template. You will then be able to see your calendar icon appear for all posts in your blog layout.

Here are two different calendar widgets which you could use in Blogger blogs:

• A Twitter style calendar icon for Blogger
• Create a calendar widget to replace post dates

I hope these tips have provided you with useful information for displaying date headings on your blogger posts. Please feel free to let me know what you think by leaving your comments and opinions below.

Written by Sarah from Stuff By Sarah

If you’re running a multi author WordPress site then at some point you’re going to want to have a list of the authors on your site, and give them their own page. All Blogging Tips authors have their own author page for example, which gives a brief bit of information about the author plus a list the posts they’ve written - view mine.

Creating an author page is not as straightforward as other template files, however once you know the right few lines of code to get started with, the rest is simple.

Link to the Author

Before we create a page for the author, we need to create a link to the author’s page. This is done within the post meta (or anywhere within the loop for a post) using the tag

<?php the_author_posts_link(); ?>

This will print out the name of the post author and the name will also be linked through to the author’s page. So you could precede this with ‘Written By’ for example.

The Author Template

Now we need an author template page. This is powered via the theme file author.php. If author.php doesn’t exist then using the template hierarchy, WordPress will use archive.php, and if this doesn’t exist, it will use index.php. So the best way to start is to duplicate your archive.php file and save it as author.php.

Next you need to find your loop within this file and then above this we can start adding the code needed.

Get the Author

To determine which author is being viewed we need the following code to be placed above the loop:

< ?php
global $wp_query;
$curauth = $wp_query->get_queried_object();
?>

This will then assign the author into the variable $curauth. We then use this in certain tags to then display the information we want. Anything entered into the Admin User screen can be retrieved and displayed on the front end (with the exception of the password of course!). The different tags available are listed below with their relevant field names in the Edit Profile admin page.

$curauth->aim;

AIM

$curauth->description;

Biographical Info

$curauth->display_name;

Display Name Publicly As

$curauth->first_name;

First name

$curauth->ID;

The User ID (uneditable)

$curauth->jabber;

Jabber / Google Talk

$curauth->last_name;

Last name

$curauth->nickname;

Nickname

$curauth->user_email;

E-mail

$curauth->user_login;

Username

$curauth->user_nicename;

User Nicename (usually the nickname in lowercase)

$curauth->user_registered;

The date the User account was first registered

$curauth->user_url;

Website

$curauth->yim;

Yahoo IM

To display this information you need to use PHP echo or print eg.

Full Name: <?php echo $curauth->first_name." ".$curauth->last_name; ?>

Of course there are some details listed above that I wouldn’t recommend displaying on an Author’s page for security. The user ID and username are two such items.

You can place these variables into standard markup (of course surrounded by PHP tags and using the echo as above), and you should place this above the loop but after the first piece of code where we defined the $curauth.

List the Author’s Posts

On an author’s page you’ll also want to list out the posts that the author has written. This is where the loop comes back into use. You’ve got the option of using the same listing as the archives page. If this is the case then keeping the loop code (which starts at if (have_posts()) : ) intact from the archive.php page should be fine. However, rather than listing the post content or excerpt, I would recommend to just list the post titles and perhaps the day they were created on (maybe the comments too!).

I’ve written about how to index your posts on your archives and categories pages, so the same method can be applied here. We simply add

query_posts($query_string.'&posts_per_page=-1');

within the PHP tags, right before the opening loop line ie.

if ( have_posts() ) :

or

if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();

(different themes may vary).

This will set all posts to display on one page thereby creating an index of posts for that user. Of course you’ll need to edit the tags within the loop to prevent the content or excerpt from being displayed. To do this I would recommend the following loop code

< ?php
query_posts($query_string.'&posts_per_page=-1');
if (have_posts()) :
    echo "<ul>\n";
    while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <li>< ?php the_time('d/m/Y') ?>: <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to < ?php the_title(); ?>">< ?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
    < ?php endwhile;
    echo "</ul>\n";
else: ?>
    <p>< ?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.'); ?></p>
< ?php endif; ?>

The Full Author Page

So now we have the pieces of our page, we need to fit them together. A typical example of an Author page could be

< ?php
	global $wp_query;
	$curauth = $wp_query->get_queried_object();
?>
<h2>More Info On Sarah</h2>

<dl>
<dt>Full Name :</dt> <dd>< ?php echo $curauth->first_name." ".$curauth->last_name; ?></dd>
<dt>Website :</dt> <dd><a href="<?php echo $curauth->user_url ?>">< ?php echo $curauth->user_url ?></a></dd>
</dl>

<h3>Info :</h3>
<p>< ?php echo $curauth->description; ?></p>

<h3>Posts by < ?php echo $curauth->first_name ?>: < ?php the_author_posts(); ?></h3>

< ?php
query_posts($query_string.'&posts_per_page=-1');
if (have_posts()) :
    echo "<ul>\n";
    while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to < ?php the_title(); ?>">< ?php the_title(); ?></a>, < ?php the_time('d M Y') ?> in < ?php the_category(', ') ?>. < ?php comments_popup_link('', '(1)', '(%)'); ?></li>
    < ?php endwhile;
    echo "</ul>\n";
else: ?>
    <p>< ?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.'); ?></p>
< ?php endif; ?>

This would then give a page similar to the below: