Thomas Sinfield from Make Money Blogging With Thomas Sinfield is selling a new ebook. Thomas’s ebook is titled A Beginner’s Guide to Making Money From Blogging: From a Beginner Who Did!!

This is a great guide for the person who wants to begin blogging, but does not know where to start. If you have been thinking about starting a blog and want a quick start guide, I recommend that you purchase this ebook.

What topics are covered by A Beginner’s Guide to Making Money From Blogging?

• What is blogging?
• Which blogging platform is right for you?
• How to purchase a domain?
• Where should you host your blog? By the way, I highly recommend Bluehost!!
• How do you install WordPress?
• How do you install a theme?
• How do you start getting visitors?
• How do you start producing valuable content?
• How do you use social media to attract visitors?
• How do you start making money with your new blog?

Who is this guide targeted to?

This guide is great for beginner bloggers. It is written with the goal of helping those who need a hand in getting started in blogging.

How much does this guide cost?

Thomas is selling this ebook for only $10. I think that this is the perfect price point for this ebook.

If you are on the fence about whether this ebook is right for you, take a look at Thomas’ excellent blog. This is also some more great information about this ebook here.

In tip number 32 of my article on how to increase RSS subcribers stated that you should submit your RSS feed to RSS directories. There is a new RSS directory that is promising to bring blog publishers and readers together – RSS Hugger.

I am excited about RSS Hugger because it promises to:

rssHugger aims to provide blog owners with a unique easy-to-use way to promote their blogs by sending them traffic, building backlinks for search engine optimization, as well as attracting new rss subscribers if the content is interesting to the reader.

I am interested in how much traffic I will get from rssHugger and how backlinks will be created.

Prior to this weekend, rssHugger cost $20 to submit your RSS feed to. Now you can get a free submission by writing a review of rssHugger. This is my review. However, I will write a more detailed review once I have been using it for a little longer.

Here is the rssHugger page for Newest on the Net. Check it out!!

Create favicon to add professionalism to your blog. A favicon is an image that is displayed in your browser’s address bar. Your favicon adds a nice touch by adding a visual to your url. Additionally, these free favicons make your website standout in your readers’ bookmarks folder.

Here is a step-by-step guide for how to create favicon:

1. Create our find an image that you would like to add be your favicon. My favicon is a derivative of my header image for Newest on the Net. From my header image, I created a smaller image that I use for my Gravatar image and any avatars for social sites. I created my header image and my avatar using photoshop. Alternatively, here is a favicon generator that you could use.
2. Once you have an image, use a favicon generator to create favicon. I used Favikon for my favicon maker, but you could also use the link in step one above. All that a favicon generator does is reduce the favicon into a 16 pixel square.
3. After you have created you favicon.ico file using the favicon generator, upload that file to your public_html folder on your wordpress server using an ftp application.
4. Next you have to add the following code to your header.php folder. Here is the code: <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”favicon.ico” />
5. Save your header.php folder
6. Refresh your browser
7. You should now have a favicon for your wordpress blog. Congratulations!!

If you know of another favicon generator, please tells us about it in the comments.

I hope you liked this tutorial for how to make a favicon.

I know you want to increase the number of people who subscriber to your blog. In this article I provide 35 guaranteed ways to increase your subscribers. This is the second article of my RSS Subscriber Series. The first article discussed the importance of RSS subscribers. Now let’s get more people to subscribe to your blog.

1. Produce Great Content. I hated having to put this first because this is the advice that everyone gives. But, there is a reason everyone gives this advice. There is no reason for a person to subscribe to your blog, if you don’t provide anything worth reading. You have to give your readers a reason to come back to your blog. If there is no reason to come back, why should they subscribe to your blog.
2. Post everyday. Let’s think about why people subscribe to a blog. It is so that they don’t miss any future posts. Therefore you need to be writing great content and publishing new content at a high enough frequency to make them think that they might miss an article. I think that at least once a day is good schedule to stick to. Make your readers fear missing one of your articles.
3. Don’t post off topic. Stay focused on your blog’s topic. Readers will not want to subscribe to your blog if you jump from one topic to another.
4. Use the large orange RSS button. People look for this orange button. It has become the universally recognized symbol for RSS feeds. I have seen sites that you can get the RSS button in different colors. I stay away from the other colors because the orange button is so easily recognizable now. Bottom line is that you want to make it very easy for your readers to find your RSS button.
5. Put your RSS button above the fold. If you are trying to get your readers to do something on your blog, like sign up to your RSS feed, make sure that it is above the fold. People are more likely to see anything that you put above the fold. A great example of a blog with an RSS button prominently positioned is Andy Beard’s Blog.
6. Offer a full RSS feed. Many people using RSS feed readers will not subscribe to a blog with only a partial RSS feed. I won’t. I have over 300 blogs in my RSS reader. I cannot read all of the articles. Therefore I use it to scan for article that I am interested in. I want to be able to scan the entire post, not just a snippet. Performancing has listed use of a partial RSS feed as one of the 41 reasons a blog fails. Vandelay Website Design has also written a great article discussing full versus partial RSS feeds. dcr Blogs has written Six Reasons Why You Need A Full RSS Feed. If you don’t believe me about using a full RSS feed, check out these articles.
7. Allow your readers to subscribe by email. It is hard for a lot of us bloggers to imagine people not using RSS readers, but believe me only a tiny percent of Internet users use RSS readers. Therefore, you need to promote a way for these people to subscribe to your blog. The best way to do this is to allow people to get your articles emailed to them. Everyone uses email today. There are many services that you can use to create an email form, but I use Feedburner. Feedblitz is another popular service to use for handling email subscriptions. Here is a good article by John Chow about increasing your RSS subscriptions with RSS by email. Entreprenuer’s Journey is a great example of a blog that highlights the subscribe by email feature.
8. Reduce the number of steps needed to subscribe. Using Feedburner to burn your feed is a great way to optimize the efficiency of the subscription process. I highly recommend using Feedburner’s RSS subscription service. In another article of this series I will describe the benefits of using Feedburner. According to a study performed by MarketingExperiments.com, they were able to increase their subscription conversion by reducing their subscription process by only one step. Shoemoney has a good article on how to increase your RSS subscribers using Feedburner.
9. Write an article explaining what RSS is and how to subscribe to your blog. Bloggers tend to be very technologically savvy. Sometimes we forget that our readers might not know what RSS feeds are and how to use them. You should write an article on your blog explaining what RSS is so that your readers will know that subscriptions are available. Darren Rowse has a great What is RSS? page on Problogger.net. DoshDosh also has written a great example for how to tell your readers about RSS subscriptions. Also, please check out Rich Gilcrest’s article describing RSS feeds.
10. Write an article explaining how to use RSS feed readers. A lot of people do not know what an RSS reader is and how it can improve their lives. You should write a post detailing the different RSS Feed reader options. Scobleizer has recently interviewed Eric Engleman, General Manager of Bloglines. Here is a great video explaining Bloglines that you can embed into an article explaining RSS feeds. Definitely give credit to Scoble.
11. At the end of each article ask your readers to subscribe. A reader is more likely to subscribe to your blog after she has read one of your great articles. Therefore, make it really easy for them to subscribe by placing an RSS icon or text based link at the end of your article. Daily Blog Tips has listed this as one of his 40 best tips for setting up a blog.
12. Use the MyBlogLog Widget. One of the best ways to increase the number of people who subscribe to you blog is to ask them to subscribe. Sometimes readers need to be encouraged or coaxed to subscribe. Maybe they aren’t even thinking about subscribing or maybe they are not using an RSS Reader. By asking them to subscribe, you remind them that subscription services are available. These next few tips provide ways for you to track who is visiting your blog, so that you can send them messages requesting them to subscribe. The MyBlogLog widget allows me to track who is visiting my site. When a new MyBlogLog visitor appears in my sidebar, I click their avatar and send them a message. I typically thank them for visiting and ask them to subscribe, including a link to my RSS feed.
13. Use the Bumpzee Widget. The Bumpzee widget works the same as the MyBlogLog widget. Using this widget allows me to track visitors who belong to Bumpzee. I send them a similar message.
14. Use the BlogCatalog Widget. This is another visitor tracking widget. It track people who register with BlogCatalog.
15. Make sure that your blog’s RSS feed auto-discovery is working. You might have noticed on your web browser has a little RSS icon. This icon appears whenever your browser auto-discovers an RSS feed on the site your are surfing. Go to your site and make sure that Internet Explorer and Firefox auto-discover your feed. Some subscribers are used to subscribing this way. You don’t want to miss out on adding a subscriber because your blog’s auto-discovery is not working.
16. Use the “What Would Seth Godin Do” plugin. This plugin allows you to ask your readers to subscribe to your blog. This plugin is great because you can configure it to display a message only to new readers.
17. Email readers who have left comments on your blog. Ask them to subscribe. If a reader is willing to leave a comment, they probably are the type of reader who would subscribe to your blog. Make your messages personal. The point here is to network with these commenters.
18. If a reader emails you, make sure that you email them back. If a reader is emailing you, it is likely that they will take the time to subscribe to your blog. If you do not email them back, why should they invest time in reading your blog. It is important for us to remember that our readers’ time is precious. If they are reading your blog, they are investing their labor in you. Do not let them down.
19. Link to your RSS feed when leaving blog comments. I am not sure that I feel comfortable doing this, because it might tick people off. However, it might be a great way to add subscribers. I will leave it to you as to whether you feel comfortable using this tactic.
20. Offer unique content that your readers can’t get elsewhere. By making your blog unique, you encourage people to subscribe to your blog, because they can’t get from others the information you are providing. If you just reiterate what others are saying, people might as well read the others.
21. Write easy to scan content. Blog readers want to consume a lot of information quickly. By making your writing easy to scan, people will be able to more easily read your content. Additionally, when writing your posts, think about how they will look in a feed reader. People do not have time to read every feed. Therefore by making easily scannable content, people are more likely to read your posts.
22. Write Interesting Headlines. Make sure that your titles stick out. Sometimes the only chance you have to entice a reader to read your blog is through your title. If your title is not interesting, they will move to the next website without reading your article and certainly before subscribing to your RSS feed. When people are reading posts in their feed reader they often scan headlines and read the articles that have interesting titles. However, make sure that the headlines fit the content of the article. Nothing will make you lose a subscriber faster than writing irrelevant headlines. To get a good feel for interesting headlines check out the most popular articles on Digg or Sphinn. The popular articles tend to have great headlines.
23. Offer a free eBook for subscribing. This is a great way to get people to subscribe. Incentivize them with more valuable content.
24. Offer free content using the Feedvertising plugin. The Feedvertising plugin only displays certain text to people subscribing to your RSS feed. If you make it known that only subscribers will be able to access valuable content, people will subscribe to your blog.
25. Guest blog on other bloggers’ blogs. By guest blogging, you are creating attention for yourself on other bloggers’ blogs. This gives you a chance to convert their subscribers into your subscribers. Be careful though. You need to write great content when guest blogging. If you post subpar articles on your guest blogging gigs, you will waste your opportunity for attracting new readers to your blog.
26. Participate in blog carnivals. A great way to get noticed by a lot of bloggers and their readers is to participate in blog carnivals. The more you can get readers’ attention the more you can grow your number of subscribers.
27. Encourage other bloggers to post guest articles on your blog. Not only does this add great content to your blog, the guest blogger will typically write an article on their site asking their readers to check out their guest article on your blog. Hopefully, some of their readers will also become your readers.
28. Start a podcast. Creating podcast episodes is a great way to encourage people to subscribe to your blog. Not many bloggers are using podcasts. So this is a great way to stand out in the crowd.
29. Be active in forums. Build you online presence and brand by actively participating in forums. By helping people within your niche people will come to know you as an expert in your niche. By being an authority in your space, people will want to subscribe to your blog. Here are 10 forums to make you a better blogger.
30. Link to your RSS feed in your email signature or forum signature. This will allow your readers to immediately subscribe to your blog. I would link to both my site and my RSS feed. That way the reader can choose which action to take.
31. Link out to other blog articles. By helping your readers find other great content you can create loyal followers. Your readers will want to subscribe to your blog, because they know that you will lead them to other valuable content.
32. Submit your blog’s RSS feed to RSS directories. By submitting your RSS feed to RSS directories more people can find your feed and your blog. DotSauce has a great list of 55 RSS directories that you can submit your feed to.
33. Use paid advertising to generate a lot of traffic to your blog. If the paid advertising targets people interested in your niche, hopefully some will subscribe to your blog. I recommend using Google Adwords or StumbleUpon paid ads.
34. Your content should include your opinion or commentary about news within your niche. People are more likely to subscribe to your blog if they want to know your thoughts about topics. They can get news from many sources, however, you are the only person who can give them your thoughts.
35. Publicize your subscriber number. Once you hit 100 subscribers, I recommend that you publicize the number of subscribers that you have. People like to follow, not lead. If people see that others are subscribing to your blog, they will be more likely to also subscribe. The term used around the blogosphere is social proof.

Please subscribe to my RSS feed so that you don’t miss the other articles in this RSS Subscriber Series.

I have read some great articles this week. I hope that you like them.

Great Ways To Increase Traffic To Your Blog:

• How To Market On Facebook – Performancing.com has a great article about how to market on Facebook. I really like the idea of creating a group. In fact, I am going to create one for Newest on the Net. Stay tuned for the creation of this group. I hope that you will join. We can help each other find new sites and online services.

• The 7 Secrets To Viral Content – Daily Blog Tips has written some great tips for creating viral content. Several of the points raised I found particularly interesting. First, was creating a lot of value in a small package. This is an interesting concept. I often fight with the idea of creating a series of posts versus creating one large post. I think for viral purposes it is better to do one large value packed article. The second point that I found very interesting was,

Any information that does not make your post easier to understand, or support your core message, needs to be cut, and cut without remorse. If you can make the same point in less words, do so.

Social media is best characterized as a war for attention. You can’t waste a drop of it on the unimportant.

Blog posts need to be very succinct and scanable. People want to be able to retain a lot of information, but not focus too hard.

Improve Your Technical Blogging Skills:

• 5 Ways To Increase The Loading Speed Of A WordPress Blog – Aseem from Online Tech Tips has some great tips for increasing your blog’s loading speed. To summarize, Aseem recommends that you (1) uninstall unnecessary plugins, (2) reduce the number of images you use in your blog design, (3) use the WP-Cache plugin, (4) enable Gzip with WP-Cache (he includes a link to show you how), and (5) replace PHP calls with static HTML.

• WordPress Tip: Finding Future Post Permalinks – This article will really help you with your series posts.

• How To Make Your WordPress Blog Load Faster – Pingable has some more great tips for decreasing your blog’s loading time.

• Blogging Tip: Improve Your Site By Improving Your Theme – Kyle has written a great post about improving you blog’s theme. I have recently done the same on Newest on the Net.

Learn to Podcast:

• The Ultimate Guide To Podcasting – Cumbrowski has written an awesome guide for people who want to learn how to podcast.