Most if us agree that WordPress is the best blogging platform. But to enjoy complete power of wordpress, you should host it on your own. For hosting a WordPress blog you need a good hosting service with PHP and SQL database enabled. I prefer 000WebHost. So let’s get started with a 5 minute installation
In one of my recent posts, I mentioned about a new Gmail Labs feature using which you could easily convert any of your mail in your Google mail-box into a Google Doc. But later on I came across an article in Digital Inspiration where in it was mentioned on how to convert mails of any other mail service providers into a Google Doc. Sounds interesting, isn’t it? So, if you do not hold an account in Gmail and looking for one such feature, then here is a complete how to guide for you. 🙂
First of all you will need a Google account wherein you can upload your files. So if you don’t have an account in Google then get it one here.
Once logged into your Google Docs account, you can see an ‘Upload’ option on the home screen.
As seen on the image below, you will get an unique mail id which you need to use while converting your mails into Google Docs.
Now, you just need to forward your email to the unique id provided to you and your mail will get automatically uploaded on to Google Docs.
To publish, return to the home page of Google Docs and browse to ‘Owned by me’ section and open the document you just forwarded from your mail box.
This final stage is just similar to that in Labs feature. Just open the document you want to publish and use the required option from ‘Share’ tab.
So, by this way even Gmail subscribers not willing to use the Gmail Labs feature for converting Gmail into Google Docs can make Google docs, but this trick is useful specially for account holders in mail services other then Gmail.
Many a times, after hitting the ‘publish’ button, I realized what I missed out or what additional things could have been done to attract more visitors. Later on, I realized the need of a checklist that I should make use of before hitting the ‘publish’ button. I discovered that the checklist really helped me out, as such I wanted to write about it, to help budding bloggers and other Co-authors of this blog.
Catchy Headline: To attract maximum people to read an article, an article must have a good, simple and a catchy headline.
Opening Contents: You must avoid writing off-the-topic and bogus things on the opening lines of your post, specially in the first paragraph. If you do so, many readers will go away from your blog ultimately affecting your blog and its credibility.
Spell Check: This is another important aspect, every blogger must practice. If yuo mkae scuh splleing erorrs, agian it mya aeffect yuor bolg. You can imagine how annoying spelling errors are, from the preceding line. 😉 So, you must never forget to run spell check before you feel, your post is ready to be published.
Grammatical Errors: Again, by this point your readers will judge you and your writing skills which ultimately would affect your earnings and revenue. So, after you complete writing the whole article, read it back atleast once to find any grammatical errors.
Bullets & Text Formatting: Readers usually tend to read the whole articles in brief, as such highlighting important things and making use of bullets should really help.
Images: There’s a famous saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” and I too feel the same. If you make use of a related image, it will further add stars to your article. Also, do never forget to rename the image relating to the contents of your blog as it is good for SEO.
Alignments: To make your post look decent and give an appealing look, I strongly feel, you should never publish your post leaving the whole text unaligned. For aligning the article you should prefer ‘Justify’ option. Also, if any images are used you must align them with proper margins and wrapping.
Back-Links: On the bottom of every post, you must add links of various things your wrote about in the whole article. For example if I am writing an article about ‘Opening a new Gmail account’ then on the bottom of post I should link to related pages like Gmail | Registration | About
Sources, Credentials and Related Articles Never forget to add links and give credits to those blogs or websites where you basically saw the articles you are writing about. By this your readers may not blame you, upto some extent, if the information you blogged about is false. Also adding up related articles on the bottom of every post is another tactic many pro blogger follow. This way, you can keep your readers stuck to your blog ultimately resulting in increase of your revenue and profits. 😉
Categories and Tags: Not to mention, this is the most important thing you must look. This will help your blog reader to browser your blog posts category wise and would also be helpful for locating similar articles.
Actually this is not technically a new feature Orkut has introduced, but this recent small change will make an old feature more usable for sure.
As you can see below, there is a new search box on your Orkut Homepage now called search friends in addition to old search orkut…
Now lets do a quick analysis of these two search boxes:
Search Orkut
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This is good for searching entire orkut. Results are gathered from all orkut profiles, communities and also topics posted in communities.
It support AJAX interface or in simple words, suggest results as you start typing. Suggested results are restricted to friends, so this can be used to search friends as well!
Below are 2 sample searches I made. You can see how easy to find your friend using old box too, if you are searching by their name.
Search Friends
You might be wondering why do you need this as we just used old search-box to search our friends nicely. Well if you are impressed with AJAX-based-suggest feature then its available with this new search box too!
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But as I highlighted above, old search orkut box can be used only if you are searching your friends by their name. It doesn’t work if you want to use different search criteria.
Consider this… You are free this weekend and like to go for a new date. So why not search some good options in your city, right in your Orkut friend list! 😉
If you get 189 results like me you can narrow it by using additional keywords! Check now…
<p></p> <p><a href="https://devilsworkshop.rsites.dev6.rt.gw/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2008/12/image19.png"><img style="border-right: 0px;border-top: 0px;margin-left: 0px;border-left: 0px;margin-right: 0px;border-bottom: 0px" height="354" alt="image" src="https://devilsworkshop.rsites.dev6.rt.gw/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2008/12/image-thumb17.png" width="254" align="right" border="0" /></a> One things I have noticed with this <strong>“Search Friend”</strong> feature is that results are slightly older. Some people I have removed from my friend-list 3-4 days back are still appearing while some recently added friends are missing. </p> <p>Another thing I didn’t like is placement of two search boxes. They are too close to each other, disturbing aesthetics of homepage where you spend most of your time. Also the width of search friend box is more than needed. I found two ways where search friends box will look better which I have highlighted in mock screenshot at the right.</p> <p>Finally, search friends feature is important for orkut users who have large number of friends. I myself have more than 650+ friends. I just can’t imagine browsing through all of them manually!</p> <p>So this is our complete analysis of new search friends box. Actually this feature was there, without AJAX-based-suggest, from long time on <a href="http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#FriendsList.aspx">friend-list page</a>, reachable by clicking <strong>“view-all”</strong> link. <em>(not highlighted, but can be seen at bottom in screenshot at the right)</em></p> <p><strong>Related: </strong><a href="https://devilsworkshop.rsites.dev6.rt.gw/enjoy-holiday-season-on-orkut/">Orkut Apps and Features you can use this holiday season</a></p>
In my recent posts, I wrote how Orkut (Google’s social network) and Kontera (in-text advertising network) are planning to cash out coming holiday season! If planned well you can also squeeze some juice for your blogs/websites. 🙂
From my more than 2 years experience of blogging, I know few things about these holiday seasons which can be used to make some extra bucks. So here I am posting part of my TO-DO lists, of-course in more organized manner.
Two major changes during holiday season…
Traffic: A tech-blog like this gets higher traffic. We are expecting 2-3 time more unique visitor in last week of December. Unless you are blogging about investments or stock markets, you can expect more or little rise in your blogs traffic.
Advertising: As more people come online for shopping, advertisers compete more to grab ad-slots. Obvious result is direct increase in revenue. Keep watching your AdSense eCPM over next 2 weeks and you will see the difference!
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How to handle rise in traffic!
Its time to put your best foot forward! Find what posts are getting maximum traffic from search engine. When you discover them…
Update them to make them more relevant, more readable.
Try to stuff links to other posts which you think your visitors will find useful.
Also check if you have any unanswered comments. Its better if you answer them.
Above TO-DO list is for individual blog posts. There are things you can do blog-wide…
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Add prominent email as well as feed subscription options.
Make your most popular, favorite posts, etc easily accessible.
Use caching plugins/techniques to sustain rise in traffic. WordPress users can go for wp-super-cache plugin!
If you want to analyze your traffic, nothing beats Google Analytics. Even if you don’t use it, its better to start using it right now. You will gather enough data before Christmas and that will help you optimize your website for last week of December, when traffic will be at peak!
How to make those extra bucks…
As its holiday season, you will need some extra bucks to party hard! Thankfully advertisers spend extra on advertising during season as people do a lot of online shopping.
If you are running a travel or products blog you should go for as many affiliate program as possible. Not a single product should be referred for free! 😉
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Try following tricks for AdSense
Keep only one single ad-unit on a page, above the fold.
Do not surround AdSense block with anything. Not even feed subscription box, etc.
No matter how ugly it will make your theme, go for one of rectangle ad-format like 336×280, 300×250.
Also follow usual AdSense tips like blending ads with your site, using section-targeting, etc.
There are reason for each of above tactic but I will explain them in detail some other day. For time being note that, above all highlight AdSense block in ways that will attract more clicks! Why???
You get more new visitors in holiday season. They are also in hurry!
When you visit a site quite often, you develop ad-blindness for it. So you almost never follow ads. But a new visitor, that’s too in hurry, if find himself on wrong site, will give AdSense links a try in attempt to find next direction.
You can notice whitespace beside AdSense block on top of post pages which I can reduce by using ad-format 468×80. But that will make AdSense less prominent and will expose main content too early to a visitor. Thou shall never expose more than needed! 😉
Of course, all of above are based on my personal observations. I am following these things myself. For example, there was a box listing related, most-popular posts & recent posts on top of every post. That was pushing my dear AdSense block little-down. Now I moved that box below the post to give AdSense more room!
Different things works for different blogs. The best way to get best for you is to keep trying! So go on trying and let us know your findings! 🙂
If you are looking for new ways to monetize your blog/website in coming new year 2009, Kontera can be a good choice. You will not only get decent direct revenue from traffic but you will also get $25 bonus!
Just paste Kontera code on your site and relax. Kontera is simplest ad-network to implement.
When your earnings will reach $75, Kontera will round it off to $100 and you will receive your first payment from Kontera.
Kontera also offers $25 whenever you invite your friends to join Kontera. More details about kontera are here. If you have any questions, feel free to use following comment form. Thanks Vered. 🙂
Google Blog Directory is a single place for listing all official blogs run by Googlers. They are sorted in five categories viz. Google-wide, Products, Ads, Developer and Region. Each category list blogs in it along with description, latest post and feed subscription link.
You will surely find some amazing undiscovered blogs of your interest like I found Official Google Mac Blog at the time of writing this. Being a Mac user and Google loyalist, I always wonder how much Google juice I can have on my Mac!
Another blog which I discovered from this directory is Google Open Source Blog. Its about Google’s Open Source projects and programs.
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How To Get Them All!!!
If you are die hard fan of Google, you must be wondering how can you subscribe to all these blogs in one shot! Fortunately, you can Install the Google Blogs Gadget and tab to your iGoogle homepage. If you use Gadget, then you will get options like subscribing to any particular type of blogs.
I wonder why Google Reader do not have feed bundle for all these blogs!
Anyway its time to enjoy this feast of blogs and do let us know which Google blogs you like. 🙂
Google Adsense-Analytics integration is creating a lot of buzz and almost every blogger/publisher waiting for this integration to arrive on their AdSense account. Yes, Google is offering this integration option on-demand so first thing you have to do is fill-up this small form.
Once you submit it, integration link will appear in your account as highlighted below within 24 hours.
Once you follow that link, you will be asked to integrate your existing Google Analytic account or if you don’t have one, you can create new Google Analytic account.
After that, you will be presented a list of websites (profiles) to link with AdSense. If you have only one blog/website its fine. Otherwise you can make a choice!
Next you need to select primary domain in case you have multiple domains on your account. I don’t think this will make much difference except one presented in next step below.
In final step, you will get new codes for non-primary domains. No code change is needed for primary domain. This is the only advantage of a choice you made in above step. There may be more to it, but it will become clear with time later on!
After this you will get Adsense performance results with a day in Analytics. The entire linking process is available as a video too. Watch it…
Do not forget to check following video to get maximum out of this integration. I am sure, careful usage of this feature will increase your sites overall revenue in coming days! 🙂
Bit.ly, one among the most famous URL shortening service has announced the launch of a Gmail gadget which you can use to shorten long URLs instantly from within your Gmail inbox. You must be aware, few days ago Gmail launched a ‘Add gadget by URL’ feature into its labs series. By activating this feature, you can use any external Gmail compatible application into your Gmail inbox. Today we are going to make use of once such external gadget which will help you to shorten any long URLs right from your Gmail inbox. This gadget will really prove useful when you are sharing some long URL to your online buddies.
To use this gadget, first you need to activate ‘Add any gadget by URL’ feature which will be available under Settings-> Labs tabs. After you enable this labs feature, open Settings-> Gadgets and add the following URL into the form given.
After you add the above URL into the form and save it, you can see a new window below ‘Chats’ on the left panel of your Gmail inbox which will help you shorten any given URL into a http://bit.ly/xxxxx format URL. I found this gadget useful, you too give it a try and let us know your opinion about it. 🙂
Every alternative days Google is coming out with cool new features in its network of services, may it be Orkut, Gmail, Google Calendar or Google search. Truly speaking I don’t have any words left to thank Google for all their efforts towards improving its service. As such I am directly coming to the point. 😉 It is not more than a few hours that Google announced the launch of its all new gadget for Google desktop – Gmail gadget.
I personally tried my hands on this new gadget, and I have simply one word to say – "Awesome"!!.. As this is start, I don’t have any complaints about it. But one bad this is that, as of now, Gmail gadget is available only for windows users and mac or Linux users cannot use it. 🙁 Windows users if you have Google desktop installed, just download the Gmail gadget from here, else you will need to download and install Google desktop first.
So, like me, if you too check your mails frequently, then I would say you to download this cool gadget without waiting any more. 🙂
In my recent posts, I wrote how 
