Several times I had an idea of starting an e-commerce website, where I could offer something or resell, but every time this idea got crashed, only because I had no proper ecommerce software. While I’d not mind paying for it, within reasonable limits, I’d want to have a god control over the sales and get access to comprehensive statistics, which most, so to speak “reasonably priced” e-commerce shopping carts do not provide. After a long search, the only software I really liked was the Australian AShop.

First of all, they offer a free trial for 10 days, secondly they are relatively (very) cheap and thirdly — they offer more features then you could ever hope for. This includes Google Checkout integration and CVC (Security Code) support, so basically this piece of software does all the work for you. As a part of their promotion, if you purchase their shopping chat software, they will provide you with absolutely free (customized) design for your newly opened eCommerce site. Of all the sites I checked, no one offered this much for such a low price, so I should think you get a great value for every dollar you invest in it.

This review contains sponsored links.

We all want our blog to look fresh and sleek, and therefore we either need to design it ourselves, or download a brand mew Web 2.0 WP theme. Here is a list of 10 most beautiful (in my humble opinion) Web 2.0 themes, currently available for download.

1. WordPress theme by Web2Themes. Demo | Download

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Well, it’s obvious, ain’t it? Just pick a subject and say everything you have on the matter, be it a complain or praise. However, it’s not always this simple, especially not when you have to keep up with your online visitors, who don’t really mind weather they would read YOUR blog, or someone else’s, as long as they get access to the information they want. So, how to write a blog entry that would guarantee you will not lose your reader after a few lines and moreover this reader will come back?

Basically, it’s not what you say, it’s HOW you say it. How many times you ended up reading something you have no particular interest in, yet the story was so fascinating and thrilling that you just had to finish reading? I bet at least once it happened to all of us. This happens only when the storyteller not only knows what he is talking about, but also knows how to present his story in the utmost effective way. Your information is a diamond in a rough - know how to polish it til it sparkles and present it like a real jewel.

If you were a good student in your literature class, probably you were taught how to build a written topic. The best way to arise interest in the subject from point zero is to start off by asking a question. By asking a question you automatically force the reader to think of an answer, and if he does not have the answer, what will he do? Exactly, he will read what you have to say about it! On this occasion I’d add that you should avoid banal questions on casual subjects, because if the issue has been milled over hundreds of times before you, no one will have interest in your blog entry. Another good idea for starting a post could be a famous quote (sort of prologue)

So, let’s say you have a killer title and intro, and grabbed the reader by the neck, what’s next? Next, you have to make him keep reading… until the end. This is tricky because from now on it fully depends on your writing skills and writing style. Some people have a talent here, others have to follow simple rules to ensure the blog post is going to be perfect, and believe me, everything is “learnable”, writing skills included.
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There are quite a few ways to ruin a blog. The competition is enormous, there are thousands of better bloggers out there and in order to be read and recommended, you have to beat this competition. However, there are also many ways to unintentionally ruin your blog and the sad thing is, many good bloggers (i.e. informative bloggers who have something to say) do it. The techniques I list below were not tested on toptut.com (nor on animals) but were tested on friends’ blogs and are based on solid theory as well as common sense and logic. Should you decide to watch your blog suffering a slow and painful death, I’d recommend to implement all of the 3 methods for best results. So…

1. Stop updating. You worked hard and added a lot of content already, readers should be grateful you bothered to write all this already. Don’t bother anymore and most important don’t get tempted to post about some new gadgets or upcoming news.

2. Require to register in order to leave a comment. Believe me, your blog’s visitors have no life nor anything better to do than to take the time and register in your blog, then log in every time they re-enter. These are the little hassles that make the surfing experience slower and more annoying, but they’re going to love it. Remember to keep the accounts waiting for manual activation.

3. Animate the dull world. Who will read a boring text against a boring layout? Take example from Las Vegas (biggest world’s ‘wow’ factor) and create your own little “Las Blogas”, — blinking and colourful. Ideally you should add a lot of affiliate banners that promote money making sites (”pay us 20$ and we will pay you 20000$ tomorrow”-style; this would be very much Las Blogas!). The more affiliate banners - the better, but to add some more zest to the design itself, I’d suggest using red font text against black animated background - your readers will sure have their eye sight destroyed, but perhaps it was worth it. The good thing is, if they’d want to complain about it, they can’t - they need to register in order to comment and since your blog will not be updated anymore, you won’t get to activate their account anytime soon. You see, all thought through.

Now, this was a quick “blog terminator” tutorial. Hope it was of use and will help you to achieve the results fast and easy. I’d want to add however, that if you are unwilling to see your blog dying in pain, it could be a good idea to try and avoid all the generously given advices you just read.

After I have published last month my rather controversial post - ‘Get many quality PR5 backlinks for FREE‘, I got quite a few emails and comments criticizing the way I take the D-List and advocate blatant spamming for the sake of a link.

Let me get this straight - I do not support spam, and as I said in my previous post already, I am against leaving silly comments on other’s blogs just as much as I am against to have my own [do-follow] blog spammed. If you want to get some more info as to how the “free links” strategy works, please go here. Once again, leave a comment only in blogs and posts where you feel you have something to say, as an addition to content, or reaction.

So, here it is, a list of 20 PR4 blogs that provides quality, ‘follow’ links in their comment section:

1. Reality Wired
2. Achille
3. Jon Lee’s blog
4. Catch a Falling star
5. Sweet Agring
6. The Fit Shack
7. 5 x Mom
8. Smart Wealthy Rich
9. Home Based Business
10. 3 Day Mom
11. Advertising for success
12. Are we there yet?
13. Article writer blog
14. Biz Mark Tech
15. Blog about money online
16. Boston Brat
17. Clapping Trees
18. Buy Me blog
19. Candid Quips
20. Charmed and Danderious

20 Links for now, next bunch of links will follow in about 1-2 weeks from now, so be sure to subscribe and not to miss the event.

* Super Spammy Tip: I’d suggest, if you are really sneaky, to look at the older posts that interest you where you might be able to comment, because… Older posts are more likely to be well indexed and have their own PR!

Also, the bloggers from the list above are going to get a ‘ping’ and will most likely come to check who is the kind spirit that linked to them, so if you want this kind spirit to change your anchor text, please drop me a line.

This is going to be a long article and it will come in 2 parts, but I hope this won’t be a boring read. If you don’t feel like going into great details, perhaps just reading the highlighted lines in bold will help you already.

So, first let’s see, what makes a blog to be a success? 1. High PageRank (nor necessarily, but good to have). 2. Tons of readers (either RSS subscribers or “just” returning visitors. 3. Genuine backlinks (which means people link to you themselves, because you provide a useful content).

Now let’s see, what from the mentioned above points is in your control? I am sure you would agree that while you can only hope for a good PR and readers / traffic, content is something that is fully in your hands. So…

Rule nr. 1: Don’t promote an empty site. Never start the advertising campaign before you know for sure your website gives readers a good reason to come back. Start promoting only when you can sincerely give this question a YES! Answer. It could be graphical or written content, but as long as you do offer more than a visitor can possibly digest in one visit – it’s good. Therefore, when you know for sure that anyone who stumbles across your site would want to come back later at least so that he can keep browsing around – you can start gathering back links and spam around.

Promoting before time has a big negative effect, because all those who get to see your link (even in links exchange request in the forum), will look at an empty, dead site and will never come back, never recommend this site to a friend and rest assured – will never link to it from their own will.

Rule nr. 2 Provide the highest quality you can. You can’t always beat competitors with a lower price, you can’t always be more creative then the rest of the brainy geeks on the net and sure thing you can’t blog about something everyday that no one else does. Well, you can, but how big will your reading crowd be? All you can do is, do the same as everybody else, but just do it better. This sound pretty general, so let me give you a few examples. If you concentrate of writing, write what you are passionate about and make sure you are familiar with the topic good enough, so you won’t mislead the readers with any inaccurate, wrong or irrelevant info.

Write an article and leave it on your hard drive for a day or two, then come back to it with a fresh mind and ask yourself, is this a good writing? Is it rich in words, descriptive, informative and interesting? How slim is the chance that you may lose your reader somewhere in the middle? Be honest with yourself, if it was not your article, would you read it through? Don’t cheat with an answer, because eventually you will only kid yourself and end up disappointed and frustrated, why no one reads nor leaves feedback. Believe me, if it’s good, eventually you will get to rest of your lavres. If you offer graphics, are they unique or can an average surfer grab them (or maybe even better material), practically on any other site? If you offer tools, are they unique, or is it yet another PR checker, with which you will never beat the competition anyway. If you display wallpapers, are these yet again shots of Jessica Simpson’s bust, or are these truly sensational photos that no one had seen before?

Rule nr 3. Ask yourself, who will read your blog? It’s essential however, this might not be a very easy question to answer. Can you tell what sort of audience will be interested in your blog the most? Men, or women? Teens and kids, or older generation? Local people or worldwide? Webmasters, housekeepers, businessmen, students, geeks, losers, or is it going to be a totally general website that will cover all audiences? I believe if you blog about cleaning viruses or provide some PC-related help you can end up gathering all of the above people’s categories in your website (except maybe geeks who will be offended by a mere thought of you, simple mortal, trying to give them an advice.) When you will have a rough idea about who are going to be your main visitors, you can slightly adjust and improve. For instance, desserts blog will most likely be visited by 27+ women, so knowing you are dealing mainly with the weak sex, gives you the opportunity to expand the horizons of your blog and keep your traffic entertained, instead of losing visitors due to irrelevant content.

Let’s say toptut.com is targeted to designers, Photoshopers and webmasters who want to make money online (but I’d go as far as to assume that they do not know HOW, as they follow articles that help them to reach their goal). Bearing this assumption in mind allows me to add some additional reviews on miscellaneous affiliate programs (personal experience is the best review) as well as PSD / photo downloads (any photoshoper will gladly grab them). So I stray from my main topic – tutorials, but keep the visitors happy. At least I hope I do. Do I? This also helps when it comes to affiliate sales - it’s far easier to target to audience when you know what they are interested in, instead of jut offering everything and hoping they are going to like it.

These are the 3 rules for now, I am going to write part 2 in a week or two from now so stay tuned for more…

Bloggers know how hard it is to gain FeedBurner readers and since the number of readers displayed on your blog is dynamic (updated daily) and once the count goes down it can stimulate other readers to leave (the logic is: everyone leaves, why should I stay? So many people can’t be wrong!).

But, there are reasons for people to unsubscribe, and you - the tricky blogger, should avoid them. So, what can it be?

1. Your Blog is Boring. Even if this is the real reason you probably would not admit, but consider it to be the Nr. 1 reason for losing readers.
2. “Read More” results in Reading Less. There is no good reason to add the “Read more >>” tag in the middle of your post and cut the story into 2 halves unless it’s a huge article or sponsored post where you don’t wish to put entires fully on display. Mostly, bloggers do it to gain more hits but from what I know, many readers just read until the ‘more’ line and leave. You can lose a reader or win an extra hit, it’s 50/50, - would you gamble or just go for the safest bet and avoid the “more” tag?
3. Marshland of Info. Unless you have a groundbreaking opinion to share, don’t cover all the CNN’s news and SEO’s innovations. Have mercy on your readers, don’t tell them about iPhones, they heard already! Don’t tell them that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, they know already! In other words, don’t introduce your readers to outdated or “overdiscussed” theme.
4. Readers die in solidarity with the blog. The easiest way to lose readers is not to update your blog. Unlike posting boring posts, this won’t even require any action on your part. If you update daily, your readers will know they should come and check daily for updates, however if you leave it for weeks it’s hard to expect readers will be stubborn enough to come back over and over again just to see some old titles gathering dust. Just feed your visitors with some info so your Feed will benefit. You can have a life and like many bloggers make scheluded posts (this one, by the way, is scheluded to July 6th and will be posted when I am far away from my computer). Having a life is no excuse for forsaking your blog!
5. Flood the Readers with Sponsored Posts. Most readers would understand your desire to make money off the site or to cover the cost, however, remember to keep a good proportion. All these diet pill reviews and payday loans make the blog look cheap. Don’t review every product unless it’s really hard-to-pass-by money and remember to tell your readers the review was sponsored, in order not to lose their trust in your opinion. I’d say a ratio of 5:1 (regular : sponsored) is the very maximum if you want to build a good community of readers and followers.

Do you make these mistakes? Well, don’t.

First most of us did not know what will be the benefit for us, the simple mortals, after Google has acquired FeedBurner. Only a few weeks has past and the first advantage for the bloggers is that stats has gone free. All you need to do is activate the FeedBurner’s stats and add the small piece of code to your index.php file (detailed instructions are on the website).

Well, at least something positive came out of Google’s monopoly.