Top 10 Most Valuable eBrands

Did you know that a great brand can have a market value of several billions? Amazing right? And I´m not talking about the whole company, forget about the assets, buildings, machines and other things, I´m talking about the intangible stuff, the brand, the name, the logo and the company image. It is the brand the one that gives a face to the company, it is the brand the one that fights every day in the battlefield of business. On the Internet it is not enough to have a good website or a good blog with tons of articles if you don’t have a good brand, no one is going to know you exist and no one is going to remember who you are. Thousands of millions are spent each year by global companies to maintain and to improve their brands. Ok, enough explanation about the importance of a brand, let´s go straight to the point. In this list we include online companies as well as those that have been playing an important role on the Web for more than 5 years. Here it is, the Top 10 most valuable eBrands list. (According to Interbrand)

1.Microsoft ($56,926 million)Top 100 brands rank: 2

2.Intel ($32,319 million) Top 100 brands rank: 5

3.Hewlett-Packard ($20,458 million) Top 100 brands rank: 13

4.Google ($12, 376 million) Top 100 brands rank: 24

5.Dell ($12, 256 million) Top 100 brands rank: 25

6.Oracle ($11,459 million) Top 100 brands rank: 29

7.Apple ($9,130 million) Top 100 brands rank: 39

8.eBay ($6,755 million) Top 100 brands rank: 47

9.Yahoo! ($6.056 million) Top 100 brands rank: 55

10.Amazon.com ($4,707 million) Top 100 brands rank: 65

84 Great Looking WordPress Themes

Sven Lennartz and Vitaly Friedman of the Smashing Magazine have a great compilation of some really great themes for WordPress, the post is called “83 beautiful WordPress themes you (probably) haven´t seen” they are actually 84.

I found this list really useful for those who want to give their blog a new fresh look. Take a look at the list and download the one you prefer, as they say: “All themes offer quality, elegance and a user-friendly interface”. If you don´t want to mess with layouts and stylesheets, this is a good option.

How to Write Killer Posts

Hi There!. The following post includes 4 fantastic tips on how to write killer posts for your blog, they really work, I´ve seen posts out there that really catch my attention, after some research I conclude that these are maybe the main tips on how to do that with your own posts, I hope you implement them in your blog, you´ll see the results. Follow these tips on each post you write.

Write killer-attention-grabbing headlines

Since your title is what’s going to attract most people to read your article, you need to work on creating a killer headline. One that’ll stand out from the rest and grab the reader’s attention. Some great pointers when it comes to creating a killer headline include usage of the following phrases – How to, Discover, Attention, Did you know, etc, etc. Titles containing these words have always proved effective, so it’s a good idea to follow this technique.

Do research to see what are you going to write about

Subscribe to as many blogs as you can related to what you are blogging about to receive their feeds, by doing this, you´ll be able to see what are the latests topics and news, Don´t copy, this is just to give you an idea on what you should be blogging about. Subscribe also to newsletters, most of them are weekly or monthly newsletters, so this is another way to get ideas for your posts. Let me give you an advice, do research every night, let´s say 3o minutes to 1 hour, write down your ideas, and start writing your posts the next day.

Make sure your posts are keyword-rich

It’s always better if you can incorporate keywords into the posts you write. You need to place that keyword in your headline, in your intro, and you’ve also got to maintain a keyword density of around 2-3% in your paragraphs.
why? Search engines rate your post or article according to its keyword density. Also, if readers type in the keyword term matching yours, your article is likely to come up in the top 10 results. When they click through to read it, and then visit your blog thereafter, you’ll be generating targeted traffic…and hopefully some money.

Create small and direct posts

Small posts are easier to read and easier to remember, most readers like to read small and direct posts. Sometimes I tend to write long posts because I want to give you all the information I can, anyway, what I´m trying to say is that most of your posts (not all) have to be small and direct, lets say about 250 to 350 words. I´ve seen blog posts with more than 2,000 words.

Use paragraphs

This may sound a little bit strange, but readers hate posts where all the information is contained in just one paragraph, its harder for them to read and to scan, organize your posts so that your readers can understand it.

Add your style

What´s this? Well, what I´m trying to say is that always use the same format and the same style for your posts, if you are going to use add your signature at the end of a post use it at the end of all your entries, that´s just an example, if you already have a style for your posts stick to it.

Professional WordPress Themes

WordPress is a very powerful blogging tool. Do you remember all those posts about blog design and about the importance of having a good image? Well I found some very nice themes for your WordPress blog you have to pay between $50 to $60 per template but it´s worth it because they have a very professional look. So if you want to have a great looking blog invest a little. Template Monster has a huge collection of templates just for bloggers with different designs, just select the one that fits your needs and download it.

If you want to include AdSense ads or other ppc advertising in your blog remeber not to use a template that uses flash because AdSense does not support this kind of technology. Here are some designs I liked because of their layout and color combination. I hope you enjoy them.

10 Famous Quotes About Dreams

I´m not talking about the dreams you have when you are sleeping, I´m talking about the kind of dreams that can make you fly and that you have even when you are awake, yes, those in which you believe and that sometimes can make us cry. We all have dreams, some of us dream about success, money, love, wealth; others dream about having a nice house, the perfect wife, the perfect job, who knows?!, I don´t have to continue with examples , you have your own dreams. Well enough talking, here are some very inspiring quotes about dreams. I´m going to begin with my favorite.

1. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams” – Eleanor Roosevelt

2. “All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.” – Orison Swett

3. “A man’s dreams are an index to his greatness” – Zadok Rabinwitz

4. “A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams” – John Barrymore

5. “Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.” – Unknown

6. “Help others achieve their dreams and you will achieve yours.” – Les Brown

7. “Dreams do come true, if we only wish hard enough, You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.” – Sir James M. Barrie

8. “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France

9. “Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.” – Goethe

10. “I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau

If you know another good quote about dreams please let us know in your comments.

How to Categorize Your Blogger Blog

Blogger is a great tool to start blogging, but when it come to functionality and features it is a little bit obsolete. For all newbies, blogger seems to have all the necessary features and tools for a blog, and that´s ok, I mean, when I first start blogging I was using this platform. But for those that know more about blogging and all that stuff, Blogger needs something more, like for example: “labels” you can add labels to your posts with the new Blogger but you can´t add categories, like in other platforms, for example: WordPress. In a blog it is very important to categorize each post, because this improves navigation and functionality, your readers will be more comfortable and they´ll know exactly where a post is.

In this post I want to show all Blogger users, how to add categories to their blogs using a very simple but effective technique. I remember some posts explaining how to add categories ,but using an application that it seems to be no longer available, it was (or is, I really don´t know) called Labelr. Since there is not another tool to categorize posts in Blogger let me show you the technique I used when I had a blogspot blog, it worked for me, it is a bit different than other techniques but it solves the problem.

Create all categories

First of all go to your dashboard and select the blog you want to categorize.

When you are in the control panel of your blog, select the tab to “create” a new post.

What you are going to do now is add the title for your category, something like: “Category: Money Making Techniques”.

In “Post and comments options” set your post to an earlier time, maybe five months ago and disallow comments for that entry.

Now publish the post, and thats it, do the same for each category you want in your blog.

Add categories to your template

Once you´ve created all your categories, go to the “Template” tab and start adding the links to your template, wherever you want them to appear.

Save changes and republish.

Categorize your posts

To file an entry under a certain category just copy the post´s URL and go to edit the post of the category you want.

Where you write the content of the post, write the title of the entry you want to categorize, and add the link.

Save and publish one more time.

Do the same process with each post in your blog, this will take time but it´s going to make a big difference in your blog.

As I said this technique worked for me, there are other ways, here are some links where you can find different techniques to add categories to your Blogger blog.

Li-Zhao has a great post on the same topic, it is more like a hack, it seems very simple to use, try it.

Karl Bunyan of the K! Blog has another great post about this.

WordPress 2.1 Released!

At last! New version of WordPress is officially out! WP 2.1 was released one week after version 2.0.7. This new tool includes new features, let´s take a look at them.

Autosave – forget about losing your posts, this new feature, saves your drafts frequently.

Tabbed editor – You can switch easily while writing a post from a WYSIWYG to coding edition.

Improved Upload manager – You can easily upload and manage your images. You can also edit the image attributes after the image is uploaded.

New visual Editor interface – This new version comes with a new interface that allows you to switch from one tab to another while you are writing your posts, tabs are: visual and code.

Spell Checking – The visual editor includes now the spell checking feature.

Pages can now be drafts or private.

Privacy – Most bloggers are not going to find this feature useful because most of us want exposure not privacy, but this new feature allows you to block your blog for search engines and directories. Who wants that?.

Comment Feeds – This new feature now includes all comments and not just the last 10.

Well these are some of the features of the new WordPress 2.1 check the webiste to know more or go straight to the download page.

Most Common Mistakes of New Bloggers

This is a very interesting post, but first of all let me give you two reasons why most new bloggers don´t succeed. These are also the main reasons why they make so many mistakes the first months of their blogging experience.

Reason number 1 – Because they don´t realize about the importance of blogging and about all the opportunities this activity offers. Many of these new bloggers don´t know how to blog , they just want to own a space to write and share with others. They don´t see it as a real business or maybe they are just afraid about it. Big mistake.

Reason number 2 – Because they simply don´t care. They don´t want to make money at all. These kind of bloggers forget their blogs after some weeks. It is not important for them or they have more important things to do.

Now the mistakes, these are very common, and believe it or not we all have commit at least one of them while blogging. The best advice is to avoid them as much as you can.

Mistake 1 – To always write about yourself instead of a good topic. Ok, there are few successful blogs out there where the main conversation is about the author´s life and hobbies, but lets face it, no one wants to read about you, unless you are a famous businessman or a famous celebrity, but also in those cases what people really want to read is about your experience and about your knowledge. So pick a good topic and stick to it.

Mistake 2 – Not updating. Yes, there are a lot of “death” or “dried” blogs out there, because their authors stopped updating them. Many bloggers stop updating their blogs after two or three weeks because they give up too soon in their blogging adventure, remember, success takes time. No matter what just keep updating as much as you can. Write frequently.

Mistake 3 – To forget your readers. I think that a blog is nothing without its readers, a good blogger is the one that cares about them. If you want to be a successful blogger just listen to your readers and try to please them, give them what they want, and always, remember, no readers, no money, no success therefore no blog.

Mistake 4 – Not replying to comments. This mistake is very similar to number 3, interact with your readers, this will increase loyalty and readership. If someone makes you a suggestion show them that you are paying attention to what they are writing to you and a good way to do so is to reply to that comment.

Mistake 5 – Not being unique. As I said one of the reason why many new bloggers fail is because they don´t know how it works, because they don´t know that they have to be unique and different, that´s what people are looking for. So don´t copy and use your own style. You can always write about the same things as the other blogs but try to be different, write your own opinion about that topic and go further.

Mistake 6 – To hide subscription options. There are many blogs , good ones in fact with no subscription options available, or with hidden RSS buttons at the bottom of the page, this is not a good thing to because you want to keep your readers informed and you want them to keep coming to your blog , so give them what they want, show them all the options you have available.

Tips to Get More Backlinks

I´ve published some similar posts with tips to promote your blog and about the importance of backlinks, but this time I´m going to give you more tools and tips about this. As you know Link Popularity plays a BIG roll in your website/blog ranking within the Search Engines. So the main thing is that the more links pointing to your website or blog, the higher up the search engines will rank it. The question here is: “How can I get high page rank links without having to buy them?” you cannot afford to waste time looking for partners, because your time is gold, you must use every single minute to make money. In this entry I want to show you some useful tips to increase your number of backlinks ant to increase your PR in major search engines.

Post comments in other blogs. When you add a comment in a blog and when you add your blog´s URL a new backlinks is created, but try to post comments only in those somehow related to what your blog is about, don’t start posting in each blog you find out there. Contribute with the community, that´s what the blogging business is all about.

Submit to directories. There are a lot of free web directories on the web now and there are an equal number of sites that list free web directories.Here are some directories you might want to try.

Link Exchange. It is important that you exchange links only with related sites. If a site has nothing to do with your site a reciprocal backlink from it will serve little to no purpose. Post an entry and let people know that you are open for link exchanges.

Join forums. And contribute posting comments, use your URL as your signature, try to participate in the hottest threads, don’t start posting comments without content just to get backlinks because it is probably that your entry will be deleted by a moderator.

Link Baiting. If you don’t know what this means, it is when you write a controversial or a very interesting post or article that catches the attention of a large audience that wants to blog about that, this is going to generate automatic free backlinks. Write a creative post, this kind of links are very important because people are choosing to link to you, what gives your blog an extra value.

Submit articles. If you know a lot about something write an article for free distribution, or for reprint, and submit it to free article directories.

Monetize your Blog with booBox

booBoox is a brazilian project that will help bloggers monetize their blogs and earn money selling all kind of stuff. Right now there is a demo available to understand this great project.

This new concept is very interesting because it´s a different and unique way to sell products in your blog or website. This is how it works:

Bloggers add images to their posts and a small red icon is added to them. If a reader clicks the icon on the image a lightbox opens showing some pictures of products related to what you are writing about. The important thing is that readers don’t leave the blog when they click the icon, because the blog will remain open behind the lightbox where the transaction is going to take place.

Readers are asked: “Do you want to buy any of these items?” and they can choose the product they want to buy just by clicking on it. After that, still in the lightbox, a new page opens like Amazon.com or other online store where they can buy the product.

But how does the publisher earns money with booBox?

If the reader buys the product at amazon.com or at the other online stores the publisher earns a commission via the affiliate program.

This is another good option for those bloggers and publishers who want to earn money selling products related to the content on their blog. One problem I see with this affiliate program is that it is going to be a little difficult to make readers click the icons on the images because many of them are not going to know that they need to click the red icon to buy a product. Let´s see what happens, well that´s all for now, give it a try.

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