Yesterday in the morning, I upgraded my wordpress from 2.3.3 to the new WordPress 2.5. Easy as the preview WordPress’s versions, I finished to upgrade my WP in a couple of minutes. To enter the admin panel, I had to update my database with a simple click.

I thought to write this post yesterday, but I wait another day to test the new platform and give you my report:

The Sections

The main change is the new structure of the wordpress panel. It is very cleanest, easy to navigate and beautiful than the preview version. The new dashboard is not so far to the preview version, though it is more organized, those boxes make easiest to check the recent backlinks, the comments, the statistics and everything you have there.

Also I like how you can jump between different sections through the Related links. You can see this box in every section of the new panel.

About the widgets, I think the old way to place them on the sidebar was a little more easy. They implemented 1-click to add the widgets, which is easiest than Drag and drop. But to remove a widget, you need to click Edit>Remove. Two clicks vs One Drag and Drop, D&D wins. However, still being very easy to place widgets on the sidebar.

The Writing Experience

There are new features which really improve the writing experience. Now, you can write in fullscreen, something good that help you to concentrate and don’t lose the focus on what you are writing about. Something interesting is that now you can add media as images, videos and audio, uploading them from your pc.

There are more technical features, but I will let you to discover them by yourself, upgrade to WordPress 2.5 now!

Writing is the essence of bloggers. Besides the knowledge of HTML code, the participation in social networks or building a marketplace at their blog, writing is the basic of every blogger, making us writers.

I have read about some ideas to organize your thoughts before to write a post. From making drawings, I will give you my techniques to organize my ideas before to write a post:

• Making Mind Maps: A mind map is a visual representation of chunks of information and the relationships between those chunks. Starting with a central idea, you would create a basic mind map by writing a phrase that identifies the central idea in a piece of paper. Then, you should write keywords based on the main idea, linking them with lines. By following the lines, you will be able to visualize how you can detach the topic. After that, the ideas will start to drain through your neurons and you will write without problems. The concept of mind maps, is to connect the general idea with the most detailed ones.
• Writing Keywords: This can be or not, part of the Mind Maps. Writing many keywords will help you to have an idea about the things you can mention in your post. Once you wrote a keyword, is good to write a little text or whatever you have in mind, relating the keyword and the main topic. Sometimes, I use Google Sets, which automatically create sets of items from a few examples.
• FreeWriting: Sometimes, when you want to write something, you get stuck thinking in front the screen, trying to get something good. After a moment, you still thinking and having nothing of your post, something that can be frustrating. In these cases, you should write everything you think, being good or bad. You have not the need to write it with sense, the order doesn’t matter here, just write all the ideas that crosses your mind. Then, read and underline the good things you can use on your post, and your mind will link all the ideas automatically. Generally, I do this in a paper, and not in the computer.
• Setting Categories: Before to write about a topic, you should think big. More general than the idea itself, the category is an important factor which can help you to canalize your idea. In fact, the category is the major keyword of your post.

I know that sometimes, many bloggers get stuck writing a post, it happens to all us eventually. By following the four things listed above, you could easily organize and environment your post. If you have another way to organize your ideas before to write, comment it here, will be fine to hear other voices.

As you know, Social Networks are a powerful tool to expand your brand. Besides to make friends and share the content you like, social networks are being used to promote many Internet businesses. This month, someone of my network has been attracting my attention due to his dedication.

Don’t forget this face, he could be the next millionaire entrepreneur.

His name is Patrick Hankinson. With only 20 years old, he is making thousand dollars with his website, with the help of social networks.

In these times, many Internet entrepreneurs present old and overloaded ideas, but not this one. At The Social Millionaire, Patrick presents a new business idea, combining the keywords with the social networks. His website connects consumers from all the major social networks to advertisers who want to reach this audience by keywords. Basically, he drive all the traffic he gets through the social networks, to the advertiser’s websites.

The Keywords

The keyword’s price starts on $5, but you can buy them for any higher price. The more you pay, the more visibility you’ll have in his website. Also, the advertiser who pays the highest price for a certain keyword, will appear the highest. If two advertisers bid under the same keyword for the same price, the advertiser who bought first will appear higher. There are several keywords there, and all them of advertisers who wants to promote their services through keywords, including me. As you can see, the system is very simple.

The Power Of Social Networks

Patrick uses the major social networks to promote his service. Myspace, Facebook and Twitter, are some of the networks where you can find him. Is very interesting how he has promoted his service, let’s take a look in the Alexa statistics:

With thousand daily visits in the first month, The Social Millionaire has a rank of 177k over million sites. In the chart, you can see all these peaks product of the social networks and all the reviews purchased by him.

Personally, I think that Patrick really knows what he is doing. Checking a review made on March 8th, I could noticed the number of friends and sales has increased considerably. In just 19 days, he increased his statistics from 122 friends and $106.5 on sales, to 354 friends and $2522.36 on sales! And I’m sure that this guy will continue increasing his traffic, friends, rank and sales in the next months.

As well as promote your brand, buying keywords in this site you will get a backlink. With the elimination of the Nofollow attribute, you will get a backlink, helping you to improve your rank in the major search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Are you still reading this? You should be buying keywords at The Social Millionaire!

Daily, many people visit my blog looking for blogging tips or information to monetize their blog. Some of them, read a couple of posts and get a subscription by e-mail, visiting me constantly and taking part in this community. Others, simply read something of their interest and never come back to my blog.

Once, I was a fan a John Cow, I visited his blog everyday and commented on all his posts. But eventually, for some reasons I lost the interest. I don’t want to lose you! Keep coming to my blog please! So In this post I will share my secrets with you, about how I keep my audience coming back to my blog.

The next is a list of 7 things to keep your visitors coming back to your blog, as a magnet attracts the metal!:

1. Giving them what they want: As I told you some lines above, most of my audience are bloggers and marketers. Here, they look for blogging tips, affiliate marketing programs and these kinds of stuff. What if I start to write about Poetry? You don’t need to be Nostradamus to know what will happen here, because it is so obvious that the people will start to leave! So, to avoid this, give to your visitors content related to your blog’s niche.
2. Sending them E-Mails: Let’s face it, nobody will visit your blog everyday. Sometimes, your readers forget about your blog with all the content in Internet waiting to be discovered. In these cases, is good to send them an e-mail reminding them about your existence, maybe with some promotion or just saying hello could be fine.
3. Poking them on social networks: There are many social media networks there. MyBlogLog, Sphinn, Mixx, Digg, Facebook, Propeller blah-blah… There are many social networks where you can interact with your readers. Sending them a simple message in these communities you can attract (again) their attention, and they will come back to your blog to see your advances. Also, you can forget all what I said in this point, and send them a message by Twitter!!.
4. Replying their comments: In an active community, many people leave a message in the posts expressing their thoughts about the topic in question. Although you get several messages, try to reply all (or at least the most) of them. Also a general message replying many of them could be good, but replying your reader’s comments it is the key of this. If you don’t reply their comments, they will feel ignored, and they will not participate in your blog.
5. Referencing their blog: If your visitors have blogs, you should reference them. This idea is not new, but it was getting more importance in the blogosphere the latests month. Referencing to your reader’s blogs, is a signal that represent that you care about them and their blogs. In addition of that, with this you help to increase their backlinks. This is a good way to attract simple visitors and make them your friends.
6. Commenting on their blog: If you referenced their blog, surely you have commented on it. Commenting in other blogs you are spreading your image and brand with many people. For each comment you do in other blog, at least 1 person will visit your blog through your comment, that’s sure. I have attracted some readers through this way.
7. Bribing them: Hahaha I have not reached this level of despair, but still being an alternative . Giving entrecard credits, dollars, free backlinks or whatever you want to give (for free) should work!

Good tips uh? You have 7 choices to keep your visitors coming back to your blog. You don’t need to do all them, but at least the points: 1, 3, 4 and 6 should be constant. Do you have another trick beside mines? So help me and my readers sharing it!

Happy Blogging

Hello readers!! Yesterday was a shaken day to me, so I didn’t post anything. In the morning I checked my emails, social networks, comments… Blogger’s things . Then, a couple of friends went to my house, we drunk some beers and talked about our vacations. The history continue but let’s talk about the contest.

The contest was very fought. I got 426 entries and most of the people get about 20 entries. I had to draw 3 times because the same person won 3 or 4 prizes! And It could not be. So I redraw two times more to get the winners… And here is the list:

Let’s remember the prizes:

1. A Review written by me, is for Simon of VividLamp.
2. A 300×250 banner in my posts for a month, is for Guardian Angel of Humane Blogging Tips.
3. A 125×125 banner for a month, is for Zack of Honest Marketing Secrets.
4. A 125×125 banner courtesy of Jason at Jason Boom dot com, is for Nitos of Nitos y JGM = Random Blog.
5. A 125×125 banner courtesy of Mark at Blogging Brainiac, is for Hendra of Henbima.
6. A Text Link for two month + 500 E-Credits courtesy of Mattaw at Money Bites, is for Robert of Reason-4-Smile.
   
7. A Text Link for a month + 300 E-Credits, is for Nick of Learn How 2 Earn.
8. A Text Link for a month + 0 E-Credits (with no extra credits ^^), is for BobbyT of BobbyT Blogging To a T
9. 300 Entrecard Credits, is for Indo of Indo Contest.
10. 300 Entrecard Credits, is for Vicky of Vicky’s Virtual Office.

Congratulations to all the winners! I will be sending the entrecard credits and adding the text links in a while. For the people who won banners, please contact me.

Well, for the people who didn’t win anything, good luck for the next time, remember the key of all success is to be persistent. The 100 bucks contest still being live, so don’t miss it and enter now!

The most common Internet business is the affiliate marketing. Many entrepreneur and bloggers, use this Internet business to get an extra income. But many of them, don’t get a little income, by the contrary, they get huge commissions from these programs. Before to continue with this post, let’s read the meaning of affiliate marketing:

Affiliate marketing is a web-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. Source: Wikipedia

In other words, it is to promote other company’s products and services on your website. When a sale is made, you get a commission. Some advertisers offer multi-tier programs that distribute commission into a hierarchical referral network of sign-ups and sub-partners. Snowballing, this system rewards a chain of hierarchical publishers who may or may not know of each others’ existence, yet generate income for the higher level signup.

The affiliate programs can give you a great income. In fact, bloggers as John Chow, Zac Johnson or Darren Rowse, make thousand dollars a month with them, but the question is How they have that success? They are normal people like you and me, how can you get high incomes like them?

They make thousand dollars with these programs for a reason, their brand. Think about it, they are elite-bloggers, the top bloggers on their niche. When a new affiliate program is launched, they are the firsts testing it. So, they make a post reviewing the service, inviting to the people to join to the program with their referral link. A week later, they have hundred dollars just with all the people who joined to the program with their links.

It is very easy for them, because they don’t need to do anything. In addition of the post, they just place some banners in their blogs, as everybody does. A month later, their accounts are full of money cause by all these referred people. Easy isn’t it? The problem for the regular bloggers, is to catch all these people to join in the program under your name, with your referral link. Being a regular blogger, you will catch few people, I’m talking about 10~30 persons. As a elite-blogger, you will get hundred of people referred.

The difference between you and them, is the brand, that’s all! To get their popularity level, you need to be persistent, participate as much as you can in the social media networks and make friends as much as you can. I know that I have told you this before, but this is the key to be successful with your blog. Establishing your presence on the web will give you the credibility that you are looking for, attracting more and more people to your blog and signing up to these affiliate programs with your referral link.

I have to admit that I really don’t know the exactly key to be successful in these programs. I have referred many people to Pepperjam and Chitika for example, but I don’t have made thousand dollars as other does. That’s why I ended the title of this post with a question mark. If you think that I missed something or you consider that there’s another important factor besides the brand, please comment your idea here to share these information with me and all my visitors .