I’ve been a blogger for several years now, and I’m always open to the idea of trying out new blogging platforms. I’ve blogged about a wide range of topics, and my friends often laugh at me about this. From the tongue scraper to wine goblets, I’ve blogged about just about everything.

I try to get the best variety of options available, as I know that whatever I choose to blog with is something that I want to be convenient, rich with features, enjoyable, and attractive looking to my viewers.

I’ve been through my share of good ones and bad ones, and I’d like to tell you about three of the blogging platforms that I’ve found to be the best of the bunch. The best part is that these are all free.

First of all, I’d definitely recommend taking a look at Blogger, which is offered free of charge by Google. It’s very easy to set up a blog this way, and you get the benefits of having your content indexed shortly after it’s published.

If you want something a bit more sophisticated in terms of giving your blog a custom look and feel, then I’d go with WordPress. There are literally thousands of templates and themes, not to mention the great plugins that automate so many tasks that’d normally require some pretty heavy programming.

If you’re into the idea of expanding the offerings of your blog with many nice, fun widgets, WordPress can be a great way for you to go. It’s free to set up, and there are thousands of widgets that you can add to your blog at no cost.

The last one I’ll mention is a more recent addition to the blogosphere, and it’s called Posterous. This is a great service that allows you to post to your own blog without ever having to set it up. As long as you email them your post, they’ll have it up automatically for you in less than a minute.

The best part is the fact that you can upload videos and pictures directly to the blog via email, and they’ll post those too.

Find more work by this author at the Little Tikes kitchen resource.

If you have a web based business you already know how important traffic is to the health of your business. The best way to get more traffic to your site is through using SEO, or search engine optimization effectively.

However, you may not be familiar with some of the tools out there and how they can be used to help you bring in more traffic and start making more money with your website. Well, you’ll find that there are many great top SEO tool tips that can help. Here are a few great tips that can help you take SEO tools and use them to their fullest potential.

Tip #1 – Use Articles as Tools to Drive Up Search Engine Rankings One of the best SEO tool tips to keep in mind is to use articles as tools to drive up search engine rankings. You can use great SEO tools to take articles, spin more articles, and then begin submitting them to various great article directories. This is a great way that you can build up great rankings, more links to your site, and you can generate more traffic as well. Write articles that are related to your site. It will help you get fast results, and is one of the best tips to keep in mind.

SEO Tool #2 – Keyword Density Checkers ? Another must-have SEO tool, a keyword density checker looks at the keyword density of your website. Since keywords are largely what bring visitors to your website and are the biggest factor in determining you page rankings, this is a great tool to have. A keyword checker will help you use keywords in the proper density to get your page moving up the search results.

Tip #3 – Used Advanced SEO Tools for More Traffic and Excellent Conversion Rates Last of all, another of the best SEO tools tips you should remember is to use advanced SEO tools if you want to bring in more traffic and reap excellent conversion rates. Advanced tools and techniques can be used to really begin to make your site successful and lucrative. It’s a top technique that will help you to get your site up there on the search engines, and you may even make it to the number one ranking with this technique as well.

Simon M Skinner has worked in the SEO and internet marketing industry since 2002. He has successfully optimized websites from a wide range of industries. He owns webpositionexpert which markets SEO tools and ebooks. If you are looking for industry leading SEO tools and information then be sure to check out webpositionexpert.

SEO, or search engine optimization is something which a lot of people find intimidating ? after all, the name sounds like something which isn’t going to be a whole lot of fun. However, it doesn’t have to be an ordeal.

If you take the time to learn a little about search engine optimization and are willing to practice, you just may find that SEO has become one of your favorite things to do! First of all, let me explain what search engine optimization is. In essence, SEO is using keywords (the search terms people use when conducting a search on Google, Yahoo or other search engines) in your website, your articles, anything else which will be published on the web. Why is this done? Because using these terms makes a website or article easier to find using a search engine. Since most people don’t look to deeply into their search results ? a page or two, usually, you’ll want your website to be as closer to the top of that list as possible. SEO is a big part of getting there. Let’s say for instance that you have a website which sells flowerpots. You’ll want to make sure that your website is optimized for the same words that people search for when trying to find flowerpots online.

You’ll find that in many different ways, SEO can be fun. If you do it right, it really doesn’t have to be all the complicated. Once you look at the process as a fun one, you’ll enjoy it more and it will become easier for you. Need some ideas to make it fun? Well, one great idea is to start out just writing what you want to say in the text for your website. Don’t actually worry about the keywords or anything, but just sit down and write. Once you have completed the writing, go back and take a look at it. See how much you have already used phrases and words that are relevant. Then you can go back and add in more keywords that you’ve missed. When you use pronouns, such as “it” you can replace the pronoun with your keyword.

This is because while you can have a lot of fun with SEO, it is possible to overdo it. People really don’t want to read something which is overcrowded with keywords. A good rule of thumb is to keep your keywords to 1-2% density. What does this mean? It means that you should have one or two keywords per 100 words of text. For instance, if you have written a web page or article which is about 400 words long, your keyword should be in there about 4-8 times. Try making a game of it and see if you can “hit the target” on your first try. With some practice, this will become second nature and you’ll be producing search engine optimized content with the best of them.

Yes, SEO needs to be well balanced, but it is nowhere near as difficult as so many think it will be. If you take the time to be well informed and you work at it, you can make SEO fun to work on. Just make sure that you do your SEO like you would chocolate chip cookies. You need enough chocolate chips to have great flavor, but if you have too many, you will have a huge mess. Remember this when working on SEO. Make it fun, keep it balanced, and you’ll find that the SEO just falls into place for you.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is what every webmaster wants. SEO can give your site long term free targeted traffic from the search engines. If your website gets ranked for a high traffic competitive keyword by the search engines, you have hit a goldmine. But SEO is not easy. It may take months of back breaking work for you before you succeed.

If you dont know SEO than it means optimizing your site for search engines so that it gets ranked on search engine pages. You do this by On Page Optimization and Off Page Optimization. On page Optimization means that you include the title tag, description tag, keyword tag and H1/H2 headers to tell the search engine the keyword that you want to be ranked. Search engines dont like keyword spamming. So keep the keyword density on your page below 4%.

This is known as On Page Optimization. The search engines like it. But they love the number of quality back links that your site and that particular web page gets from other authority sites. This is called Off Page Optimization. The more quality back links your site gets, the higher it will get ranked.

Let me be frank, both On Page and Off Page Optimization requires hard work for a few months. There is no shortcut. Google does not like reciprocal links.

Many people want to take short cut to SEO. They download Black Hat SEO eBooks thinking that these black hat techniques may give them success. Nothing is further from the truth. Search engines dont like black hat techniques.

A number of SEO software are now available online that claim to help you in getting good traffic from the search engine. One such software is SEO Elite. Many people think that this software get help them in getting there website get ranked on Google, Yahoo or MSN.

SEO Elite can only tell you whether your site is being ranked for a particular keyword and how many backlinks you are getting for your site. It cannot help you in On Page Optimization or Link Building. You will have to do this stuff yourself.

In my opinion, you need not waste few hundred dollars on such SEO software. Google gives you the resources that does these things free for you.

Open a Google Account and register your website at Google Webmaster Tools. Submit a sitemap of your site. Within days Google will index your site. When you add new pages, Googlebot will get notified and index that page in a few hours.

In the Google Webmaster tools, you will find the link Search Queries. Click on this link. It will show you the keywords for which your website had been ranked in the past week.

Click on: link:http://www.yourdomain.com on the Google Webmaster Tools page and you will find the backlinks that Google is counting for your site. If Google is not counting a backlink, it has no value.

Now, this is a free method that does not require you to pay hundreds of dollars. Why you need to buy SEO Elite if Google can do the same thing for you free. And if you are using Google Adwords for advertising your site than you can use Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a great free tool provided by Google that tells you everything. How many visitors visited your site on a given day, the countries from where the search was made even the cities, how much time they had time spent on the site, their referral path, the bounce rate that your site had, how many pageviews per visitor; keywords they used to find your site on the search engines, how many direct visitors and how many referring sites are giving you visitors.

Affiliate marketing is one of the ways to make money online where you dont need your own website or your own product. Affiliate programs are very popular now days on the internet. You can join anyone. Clickbank is a famous affiliate program that sells digital products. Commission Junction is another affiliate product that sells physical product.

In each affiliate program, you will find many products. When you promote a product and sell it, you will make a commission. You can promote a product by advertising the merchants website. This method is known as Direct Linking or Google Cash Method.

The affiliate program will provide you with a unique link for each product listed on it. When you will advertise that link, people are going to visit the merchants website. If someone likes the product, a sale will be made. Each sale means a fixed percentage as a commission for you.

But how to promote the merchants website, there are many methods. One of the method is through using Pay per Click Advertising. In Pay per Click Advertising, you pay for each click that your ad gets. Google, Yahoo and MSN, all three search engines have very popular PPC programs.

You can join Google Adwords for only $5. Similarly MSN also allows you to join its system for $5, the same with Yahoo. If you are new, Google, Yahoo and MSN may give you a $50 or $100 voucher that you can use in the beginning.

Look for a free voucher when you open an account on these search engines. The voucher will give you $50 or $100 worth of free clicks. Dont waste these clicks. Use them to test a few products for free in the beginning.

First, choose a niche that you want to promote like music, movies, weight loss, dating, iPods etc. Once you have chosen your niche, select a product that you want to sell. Start a campaign on any of the search engine by making ads.

Your daily budget in the beginning should not be more than $2. It will help you do your testing without wasting too much of your money. Choice of keywords is very important in keywords because for each click you are paying.

Think what type of keywords; people are going to write to search for the product. Long tail keywords are the ones that convert well on PPC. Long tail keyword means a keyword containing three or more words. Avoid one word keywords. They have lots of traffic but generally dont convert.

Google, Yahoo and MSN all three give you a free Keyword Tool that you can use to see what type of keywords people are typing to search for the product that you want to sell.

Use them, choose your keywords wisely. If a website does not convert on 50 clicks, simply abandon it. Choose another merchants website. Your aim should be to make $50 daily in the beginning.