The Blog Answerman

Just a quick heads up for everyone that I am live blogging all day today and taking your questions in real time right here on answers.today.com.  Whether you are brand new to blogging or just new to Today.com, I’m here to discuss whatever you need help with and to help you make your Today.com blog the best it can be.

Join me for the Live Bloggers Q&A Session today all day.  I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have about your Today.com blog or the network in general!

You can also get there by clicking the “Live Q and A” tab at the top of this page.

Whatever you do ladies and gentlemen here in the United States, if you are registered to vote please do so.  This is the biggest election in our country’s history and We The People need to be heard loud and clear in Washington D.C.

It is time to send a message to those who would rather do things their way instead of listening to the public who put them into office in the first place.  It is time to take control of our country back from people who obviously don’t know what they’re doing.

Please vote everyone!  Vote like your life depends on it because it may do just that.

As some of you may know I have been working endlessly on the new, updated Frequently Asked Questions section of the VIP My Account section here at Today.com.  I wanted to give you all a quick update that this section is indeed still being worked on and I hope to have the new FAQ completed very soon.

In the meantime I need to ask that you all visit the Today.com Forum and look in the Updates category for a post from me about the FAQ.  Reading this post will save you a great deal of time in trying to get answers to a few basic questions and if you have any questions not yet covered there, your input will make thte new FAQ even better.

Thanks for your time!

I know it feels as though I’ve been away forever but it just ain’t so! The Answerman lives!  In an effort to shame myself into posting more questions and answers here though, I have committed myself to National Blog Posting Month for November. This pledge commits me to posting every day for the entire month right here on the Answerman!

In fact, I am currently working on a brand new series of how-to videos that will cover all the great questions I’ve been receiving over the past few weeks but that doesn’t mean you can stop sending them in!  I want your questions; after all, what good is an Answerman if there are no questions left to answer?

Have you been to the forum yet?  A lot of your questions have already been asked, debated and answered there!

Despite having quite a few features available, the Today.com blogging platform is not without its limitations.  The good news is that there are free services available that can add all sorts of features to your blog just by signing up and adding some widget code to your blog.  Here are two of my recent favorites:

1.  Slideshare
This site allows you to add slideshows and even Microsoft PowerPoint presentations to your blog for free. Just sign up, upload and insert the embed code into your blog.  Simple!

2.  FeedBurner
It is your blog’s RSS feed on speed.  FeedBurner allows your blog’s feed to be served to thousands of new readers.  Their network is tremendous!

I have seen a common mistake among new bloggers looking for ways to increase the traffic to their web sites and it has to do with message boards.  I want to help you avoid that mistake because it can backfire on you.

The common rule of etiquette for message boards dictates that you are there to interact with people who share a common interest.  For that reason, you should avoid at all costs using any message board or forum as your own personal platform.  What I mean is that if you hit a new message forum and immediately start talking about your web site, you aren’t going to be taken seriously.

At some message forums in fact, the regulars will go so far as to subject you and your web site to a spam attack as a result of your lack of respect for their message boards.

Lesson:  Quit looking for the quick fix.  Traffic you can get with one or two clicks is worth less than traffic that comes from people who really want to read what you’ve written on a topic.

One of the toughest things about blogging is that the real world can sometimes get in the way of keeping us on task and on schedule.  What happens if a child gets sick or you have to take an unexpected trip and your blog sits dormant for a couple of days?  Not only have you missed a couple of days worth of pay but your readers will wonder why you left them high and dry.

Luckily there’s a way to ensure this doesn’t happen to you.

Continue Reading »

By now most VIPs already know that Today.com has a referral program and that you can can make some extra cash by helping other people get paid to blog. I encountered a question though that I hadn’t realized was out there: How do you see your referrals?

When you log on to your My Account page, the first thing you need to do is click on the “VIP Members”tab. When the drop-down menu appears, select “Traffic Stats” (it will look like the image on the left.)

Once the new page has loaded you will see the table below. Under “REPORT”, select “Referral Bloggers” from the drop-down menu and then click the “run report” button on the right.

This is the screen you want to see:

I’ve blanked out the details for privacy reasons, but in this screen you will have a link to the blog that was set up from your referral link, how many posts have been approved, etc. I always visit my new referrals to say hello and offer any help or moral support I can.

That’s how to find out about your Today.com referrals!

One of the easiest ways to give your blog posts some extra impact and visual appeal is through the use of images, but copyright issues should always been in the forefront of your mind when you are working online.  All too often people will steal photos and other graphics they  find online and use them without either paying for them (when required) or offering proper credit.

stock.xchng

This is one of my favorite websites for free stock photos and other graphics.  It has a fantastic selection and you are free to use them at no cost.  I do recommend crediting the image creator and while you’re at it, send them a message with a link to the blog post that uses their image.  Worst case scenario is that they’ll check out your site and give you an extra visit.

Here’s an example of how I do it:

photo credit: Rizzly

As you can see, there’s not much to it, but by naming the image creator you are giving them credit for their work (which they’ll appreciate) and showing yourself to be a responsible blogger (which your readers will appreciate).

Under no circumstances should you ever use an image (photo or otherwise) on your blog without having the proper permission to do so.  If you find an image you’d like to use, the proper netiquette is to email the creator and ask permission before you use it.

In the coming weeks I will be creating a static page here on Answerman that serves as a directory of reputable sites to find free stock photography and other images to use on your blog.  If you have any sites to suggest, please leave them as a comment to this entry.

StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking website that discovers other web sites for you based on your interests.  StumbleUpon categorizes sites into one of nearly 500 topics, and serves them to visitors based on their own indicated preferences.  This enables the site to offer visitors only pages that are relevant to the topics they have chosen.

The StumbleUpon Toolbar

The StumbleUpon Toolbar is a downloadable add on to your web browser that allows them to “stumble” through web sites with a single click of their mouse.  As a user chooses the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” button on the toolbar, the StumbleUpon database learns more about their interests and caters the content it sends to the viewer based on that information.  While this is useful to viewers, it also makes the StumbleUpon Toolbar exceptionally useful to the blog writer.

Once you have installed the StumbleUpon Toolbar, you can visit your own website and give it a “thumbs up”.  This will bring up a window that allows you to tag and review it by clicking on the blue thumbs up symbol which tells the database that you like it.  It will in turn send the page out to other Stumblers who have selected to view sites in the categories you have indicated that your page falls under.

This site is known to generate huge traffic bursts to specific pages within web sites that have been stumbled.  It is important to note that every individual post in a blog can and should be stumbled to receive the maximum benefit, and that the more people who stumble your pages, the more times it will appear to StumbleUpon users.  The traffic boost is immediate and it can continue infinitely.  I still receive massive traffic from pages that were stumbled weeks ago.

On average you can expect anywhere from 100 all the way into the thousands of new visitors per day depending on the topic and category of your stumbled page. Because the tagging program is limited to only five, it is best to use general category tags so that you receive the maximum amount of visits per stumbled page.  Encouraging your viewers to stumble your pages will also increase your visibility.

One final note and a word of caution:  Always tag and review your pages accurately, as to do otherwise can constitute spamming the system and it can and will backfire on you.  Other than that, the process is quite simple and you should have no trouble at all!

Best of luck using StumbleUpon to bring your web site tons of new visitors!