There are a lot to learn from FreelanceSwitch which has gained over 17,500 subscribers within 3 months. FreelanceSwitch has released a official FreelanceSwitch Ebook called How to Be a Rockstar Freelancer.

The book covers everything from getting started to expanding your business. Written by Collis & Cyan Ta’eed – the founders of the site – it’s packed with new information, advice and insights not covered on the blog.

The book is available now as an eBook for $29 and will shortly be on Lulu as a paperback.

Source: Click here to view more details

When I tell my readers about the advantages of guest-posting on popular blogs, I often get a response along these lines: “A popular blog would never publish something I’ve written. I’m just not well-known enough.”

There are two things wrong with this response. Firstly, to say that a popular blog wouldn’t publish something you wrote is an assumption. You haven’t tried, so you don’t know.

The second flaw: “I’m just not well-known enough.” If you approach the blogger in the right way with a good idea, how well-known you are simply doesn’t matter. I wrote my first article for ProBlogger, a Technorati Top 100 blog, when I had less than 200 subscribers.

Bloggers aren’t interested in your profile. They’re interested in the content you can bring them.

In this post, I want to share the strategies I used to secure guest-posting spots at three Technorati Top 100 blogs (ProBlogger, Copyblogger and Zen Habits) without any prior contact with the owner. I don’t include that information to boast — I simply want to show you that these methods work. If they worked for me, they can work for you.

Photo by jurvetson

Why guest post on popular blogs?

Guest posting benefits you in two ways: it builds your niche profile and sends you traffic. The bigger the blog, the greater the benefits.

While you stand to gain much more when writing for a popular blog, you’ll also be faced with a few challenges:

• Popular blogs have a high editorial standard.
• They receive a lot of guest-post submissions, so you’ll be competing with many others.
• Popular bloggers have little time to spend talking you through the process.

The following tips are designed to make these challenges as manageable as possible.

Choosing where to guest post

Make a short-list of popular sites likely to be visited by your target audience. Rather than aiming for the top of your niche straight away, you might want to try to be published on the second or third most popular site, just so you have somewhere to go once you succeed.

Each blog has its own style of content. It’s important to pick one with a content style you have the ability to emulate. If what you write is too different to the kind of ’style’ the blog has established, it won’t be accepted.

Coming up with the perfect idea

Resist the temptation to come up with a low-involvement idea because you don’t like the thought of spending time on content for someone else’s blog. If your article is of a high quality, you get a number of benefits:

• More people will want to click back to your blog.
• If you want to guest post again in future, you’re likely to be instantly accepted.
• People are more likely to remember who you are.

When thinking of an idea, make sure that it fits into one of the blog’s topic categories, that it’s of interest to the blog’s target audience, and most importantly, that it’s something the blogger hasn’t written about before. Do a keyword search to narrow the chances that you’re repeating what’s already been said.

For inspiration, try looking at the blog’s list of popular posts, if it has one. Can you explore one of those ideas further? Can you put a unique twist on one of those formulas?

Gulp: pitching your post!

Don’t write the article before it’s been accepted. Sending the pitch and the article all at once requires the blogger to make a decision too quickly. They’re likely to file away your email and never get back to it.

Also, if your article is for some reason rejected, it might be difficult to find another place to publish it.

The idea pitch approach works because it requires only a light commitment from the blogger. It’s the method I’ve used to secure all my guest posts. As you’re writing your email pitch, keep these tips in mind:

• Be clear. Barring a short introduction, you should keep your email consistently on point.
• Be brief. Popular bloggers get so much email that they’ll file away anything that looks too hard to tackle. You really can’t be too brief.
• Sell your idea. Explain why it would work well for their blog.
• Sell yourself. Throw down a link to the best blog post you’ve ever written. Sell yourself as well as your idea. Let the blogger know you’re capable of something remarkable.
• Ask for minimum commitment. Don’t ask the blogger if they want to publish your post — that’s asking for too much commitment too early. Ask them if they’d be willing to simply look the post over if you write it. This might sound like a weak commitment, but I’ve never had a blogger who said ‘Yes’ to this refuse to publish the post after they’d seen it.

If you want some firmer guidance, here’s a simple template you can use:

Hi ____,

My name is ____ and I blog at ______. I would love the opportunity to guest post for your readers and I have an idea I think would go down really well.

The post would be about _______________. If that sounds good to you, I’d be happy to send along the finished post for your consideration.

Cheers,
______

Unless the idea is too similar to something the blogger has already written about before, or if it’s not well-suited to their target audience, the blogger will probably be happy to see what you come up with.

Once again, you haven’t asked for a final answer. All you’ve requested is that the blogger look over what you write. Once you reach this stage, your chances of being published are very high. At worst, the blogger might request that you edit the post.

Opportunities to look out for

There are certain situations which make a blogger more likely to accept a guest post.

1. If the blogger mentions they’re feeling sick. Offer to write a guest-post so they can get some rest. You will need to produce something quickly, though, as most people don’t stay sick for too long!

2. If the blogger mentions that they’re going on vacation. Usually this will be followed by a call for guest-posts, but once the call goes out, you’ll have heaps of competition. Get in early by making your pitch as soon as your targeted blogger starts to mention sandy beaches and palm trees.

3. If the blogger hasn’t been posting as much as they used to. Emphasize with their being busy and offer to take some of the load off. Most bloggers who haven’t been able to post consistently will feel that, to some extent, they’re neglecting their audience… making them all the more likely to publish a guest post.

And remember:

Those people who say that it’s impossible to write for a popular blog probably haven’t tried. Once you become confident enough to make your pitch, you’d be surprised at how easy it really is!

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Thank you Skellie for Writing this amazing post on Blog Perfume

Thank you Adii that he has featured BlogPerfume on his 53 Top Blog Designs of 2007. All of them look really nice and I am sure you can get inspiration from looking at these amazing blogs. Most of them have some really nice content as well. Make sure you do not miss them.

Source: http://www.adii.co.za/2007/12/10/my-53-top-blog-designs-of-2007/

Small Potato has written a really nice article about “Premium Theme Buying Tips“. This article isn’t about not trusting your favorite free-theme author; it’s about protecting yourself and making sure your money will be well spent. I think buying themes can really save you lots of time, you can concentrate more on the content itself. Buying themes is a trend, and you just need to do it properly and worthwhile. Here are some of the tips of buying premium themes from WPDesigner.

• Do you recognize the theme author?
• Is everything within this theme…legal?
• What are the features and hidden options?
• Is there a FAQ and how’s the support?
• Is there a live demo or preview?

And More…

Source: http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/11/27/premium-theme-buying-tips/

WordPress was originally created as a weblog or blog platform. But now WordPress has grown so powerful that you can use it to create any type of website and use it as a Content Management System (CMS). WordPress has made it so easy that even a non-programmer can build a wonderful website.

In WordPress Theme Hacks, Nick La is going to share some of his WordPress tricks with you on how to make a better WordPress theme. He will focus more on the frontend development.

Source: http://www.webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/wordpress-theme-hacks/

Blogging is the new national pastime–not just for Americans, but for Internet-connected people all over the world. It’s an activity that spans all age groups and occupations. There are personal blogs, social blogs, and professional blogs. Whatever the topic, someone has probably blogged it. Some of us get paid to blog and others pay for the privilege of blogging (on a particular site or with particular software).

The Internet made it possible for anyone to publish content to a worldwide audience. The Web log, or blog format, has made it easier and more convenient. But all blogs are not created equal. Some draw an eager following and others languish in obscurity. Regardless of your reason for blogging, you can make your blog better, more readable and–if it’s what you want–more popular.

View the full article on 10 ways to become a better blogger.

Source: http://articles.techrepublic.com.com…

It’s not so easy finding quality graphic design authors. So to make things easier for you, here David Airey has presented his top 50 graphic design blogs. He has categorised these blogs by their Google PageRank (PR), which is Google’s way of determining the authority of a website / blog.

Source: http://www.davidairey.com/top-50-graphic-design-blogs/

Blog post’s headlines are really important. A nice headline can drive you tons of traffic even your content is not that good. CopyBlogger shows us some new blood to your attention-grabbing arsenal.

• 1. Who Else Wants [blank]?
• 2. The Secret of [blank]
• 3. Here is a Method That is Helping [blank] to [blank]
• 4. Little Known Ways to [blank]
• 5. Get Rid of [problem] Once and For All
• 6. Here’s a Quick Way to [solve a problem]
• 7. Now You Can Have [something desirable] [great circumstance]
• 8. [Do something] like [world-class example]
• 9. Have a [or] Build a [blank] You Can Be Proud Of
• 10. What Everybody Ought to Know About [blank]

View the full article on 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work.

Source: http://www.copyblogger.com/10-sure-fire-headline-formulas-that-work/

Adsense is one of the most common revenue generators for blogs and websites. Usually you can drastically improve your click-through rate and overall earnings by positioning the ads wisely, by improving the content targeting or by optimizing the ad units directly. Below DailyBlogTips covers the point on how to optimize the Adsense units with 8 simple tips.

View the full article on 8 Tips to Optimize Adsense Units.

Source: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/8-tips-to-optimize-adsense-units/

For those bloggers out there who have decided to start their blogs, or launch their blogging careers, in 2007 Darren from ProBlogger present to you with 41 ways to kickstart your marketing efforts. Kick back, grab a cold one, and check it out. And if, in a year’s time, you’ve cracked the Technorati 1000, don’t forget where it all began. This is really a length and juicy post that can help you market your blog. Spare your time and read How To Market Your Blog in 2007 and put it in practice as well.

Source: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/01/11/how-to-market-your-blog-in-2007/