Use your Blog theme as Twitter Background and bring a sense of Brand Identity to your Twitter Profile.

Why create a Custom Twitter Background

Twitter is the craze now. Starting conversation with people is now more easier than ever. It’s simple to track a person, follow his status and check out interesting stuff. However little focus have been given to take Twitter up as a serious Business Channel. Twitter can be a good place to cultivate your Business which are based on Web 2.0 especially if they appeal more to the young generation. Hence it becomes very important to build a Brand on Twitter if you want to seriously exploit advantages from this wonderful service.

Now all are not gifted with the art of Web Designing and Graphic Works. However, with little effort you can create a splashing new Twitter Background and save hundreds of dollars for the job. It is simple. Use your Website’s Theme to build Twitter Background.

How do we do it..? Let take an example of this blog itself. This blog follows a simple theme with a dark band for Page Navigation, Bold Orange for Title Background and finally a slight gradient Off White for the rest of the Content Area. Now I can create a similar layout for my Background base on Twitter.

Four things to remember on Twitter:

1. The images are not tiled. Thus advice you to use a large image which is well within the Size limit. I use a dimension or 2000pixel wide and 1500pixel
2. The only area to Advertise on Twitter is the left pane. (You can find other areas if you are creative enough)
3. Add a logo or Tagline to personalize your Twitter page even more
4. Remember to put your Website Address and Contact details on the Advertise Region

Learn how to Change Twitter Background Image and Colors

What tools do you need

If you are experience enough to operate an Image Editor, then I would suggest something like Fireworks or Paint.net. Adobe Photoshop for such task is not needed. You just have to create a layout from your site’s background. If still you cannot deal with it then I suggest you use any PRINT SCREEN software and remove the content and keep only the layout.

Here is how it will look..!! Interested..!!

Here is a screenshot of my Twitter Page (as of June 2009). It’s a simple modification like I talked about. Same layout of colors found on this blog, a logo to add personalization and finally the Contact details.

Follow Me on Twitter

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What would you do when you lost your WordPress Admin Password and the password recovery options is not sending you the correct password? Pay $100 to a developer or simple Follow the steps and do it for free.

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Method 1 – Using PHP MyAdmin

1. Open you Cpanel or other custom Web Hosting Backend, open PHP MyAdmin

2. In the list of Databases, click the WordPress Database

3. Click on the table called “wp_users”

4. On the next screen, click browse on “user_login” and find ID asociate with your login

5. Go back to “wp_users” table

6. On “user_pass” field click browse and find ID associated with your login. Click Edit.

7. Next to the ID number type in your new password (its case sensitive)

8. Once done, click dropdown menu and selected MD5 from menu

9. That’s it. Done. Make sure MD5 and password correctly.

Method 2 – Emergency Password Reset Script

1. Download the file. Click Here.

2. Copy the “emergency.php” to your Domain root. Do not upload using WordPress Admin Panel. Try FTP or File Manager.

3. Login to “http://www.domain-name.com/emergency.php”

4. Type the Admin Username and Password

5. It will send the email and reset the Password.

6. DELETE the Script. REMEMBER to do it.

* It worked with WordPress 2.6 but have not tested it on version 2.7

Useful Links

• WordPress Resetting Password
• Emergency Password Script

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Ever wonder how differently you can design your Blog with Widgets, when you have the option of choosing which one is displayed where? Widget Logic for WordPress helps you achieve exactly the same. Take full control of your WordPress Widgets.

Widget Logic gives every plug in an extra field called Widget Logic. This field lets you control how your Widgets appear on the Sidebar.

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Consider This Example

On Smart Blog Tips, I wanted to Show List of Popular Post on Front Page. But when the visitor is on a single post or page, I wanted to also display list of Recent Post available to him. Here are the screenies of them. It can be done using Widget Logic in seconds.

Front Page with only Popular Post displayed

Single Page with both Popular Post and Recent Post dsiplayed

Widget Logic option in Recent Post Widget

Widget Logic Installation and Resources

Installation is straight forward like any other plug-in. Go to the Admin Panel –> under Plug ins Tab click “Add New” then type “Widget Logic” and install it. Alternatively you can grab the plug in from below

• Widget Logic Download
• Widget Logic Homepage
• Widget Logic: WordPress Conditional Tags

There is a lot of things this plug in can do. At the moment I will let you figure it out. But I am planning to write post on how to overcome different problems using this simple yet wonderful plug in.

Have a nice Day..!!

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What is a Sitemap?

Sitemaps are similar to what Maps or Guidebook are for the real World. They show how information are structured on your site. A simple Sitemap would consist of a XML file that list URLs in your site along with additional META DATA. A Sitemap along with URL information mentions when it was, “Last Updated”, “How important it is”, “How often it changes” etc.

Search Engine Crawlers (also known as bots) keeps visiting your site again and again based on your site’s update frequency. When they to inspect your site, they are looking for three important things:

• Look for updated content in existing WebPages based on their timestamps.
• Look for fresh content and add it to their Index.
• Add a weight and relevance factor w.r.t. keywords for each Web Page

So now you can see how Search Engine Bots that understand sitemaps can really benefit from having Supplement information about the structure of your site. Sitemaps does not guarantee inclusion by the Search Engine Bots but they certainly help them do a better job at Crawling.

How important are Sitemaps?

As said Sitemaps are not compulsory or vital for your site / blog. In fact they are not really needed if you have a well layout site. However your sitemaps can really help your site if

• You have a new site.
• The content on your site are not well linked. Your site misses a good navigational structure.
• You site does not contain easy readable content for the Crawlers like Flash, Video, Audio and Images.

If you have a new site or a site not well read by Search Engine Crawlers, a good idea would be to register with Google Webmaster Tools and update your Blog / Site XML Sitemap.

How to make Sitemap for your WordPress Blog

Here you can learn a simple way to create an Effective Sitemap of your WordPress Blog which helps you do the following things:

• Help create XML Sitemap compliant with major Search Engines.
• Update it on every post edit or new post created.
• Gives you an option to Manually enforce building of the Sitemap.
• Prioritize your important Pages and Post Structure.
• Determine what portion of your Blog to include and what to exclude. You also select on a Categorical level.
• Set different update/build frequency based on Homepage, Pages, Posts, Categories, Author Pages, Tag Pages and Archives.

Download “GOOGLE XML SITEMAPS” from the “Add New Plug in Panel” or from the following link:

• Plug in Download Link
• Plug in Homepage
• Smart Blog Tips Sitemap Example

Setting up the Plug in for a SEO rich Blog

1. Basic Options

2. Priority Options: Selecting the second option based on “Comment Count”

3. Selecting the Site Content: Better idea would be to exclude category, tag and author pages. Also remember to exclude Categories that hold Site news or Posts which just aggregates links outside your site.

4. Change Frequency: Frequency should be directly depended on your posting frequency. Better idea for the updates would be “POST FREQUENCY divide by 2”.

5. Prioritizing content of your Blog: Homepage should be 1. Now if your Blog is made to look like a Static Pages (most affiliate marketers do that) give Page priority should be 0.6 or 0.8 and the post priority should be 0.2; but if your Blog contains more Posts like any other regular blog, reverse the order. Category, tag and Author Pages should have a minimum priority. Archives Pages can have a priority between 0.4 to 0.8 (the treatment is different because it holds all your Post links).

Important Links

• Sitemaps.org
• XML Sitemap Generator
• Sitemap – Wikipedia
• Google Webmaster Tools – Sitemap
• Google Sitemap Docs

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What is Affiliate Marketing?

What is Affiliate Marketing anyway? There is a lot of buzz around this word. And from the looks of it people seem to be making lot of money from it.

Affiliate Marketing is a marketing practice where you as a marketer generate leads for a particular product and earn commission based on the actions specified. These actions can be either referral, impressions, actions, signups and others.

The Basic Building Blocks of Affiliate Marketing

So, Affiliate Marketing is nothing more than referring someone else to a product, right? Wrong. The ground idea is correct but “just referring” won’t do any good. Rather it will waste your time as well as resources.

The Business Model of Affiliate Marketing is based on the following parameters:

1. Targeted Traffic
2. Convincing Content
3. A Good Affiliate Product

Targeted Traffic

Generating Targeted Traffic is the most important key for Affiliate Marketing. Affiliates payout money to receive targeted traffic. Most important traffic sources are the Search Engines. They are literally the window to the Internet for most people looking for content. The good thing is the top Search Engines helps you display Ads or more popularly known as Sponsored Results for a fee. The biggest player in this business is Google Adwords.

So what you do is, pay Google Adwords to send targeted traffic to your website. Now these visitors are more important than any other visitors that have came along wandering, because these visitors are looking for the exact content you have set up the site for. Hence the chances for conversion are much higher.

Convincing Content

Now that you have generated the Targeted traffic, and visitors are landing on you site, the next thing is to convince your visitor. Most important thing here is to identify how to promote the product or the need for it and yet not appear as a Salesman trying to sell the product.

A good practice is to identify the need of the visitor and address it. If you can explain how your visitor can benefit from the product, chances of buying it increases manifold.

A Good Affiliate Product

Now that the two important steps of the Model are dealt with and over, the final thing is the Conversion. This is where you convert your visitor to your affiliate’s Customer. Depending on the specific, you may be doing one of the following:

• Asking of Email Address
• Leading the Visitor to the Product Landing Page

Now comes the most important factor. Generating Money from your Affiliate Marketing! Having a convincing targeted Visitor won’t yield much if you are not promoting the right product. Here are the necessities of the right Affiliate Product:

• Should be highly relevant to the content
• Payout rates should be high
• The product should yield the benefit you speak about
• The product should be priced properly

How to become a Super Affiliate?

Super Affiliate or people earning loads more than a large number of other people are doing no strange things. They have no secret formula. They also rely on these three foundation blocks. Only that they apply their mind and understand it better.

Choosing the right product, getting highly targeted traffic and a high conversion rate is not luck. It comes out of research. There are no tricks here. It is achieve through thorough analysis on the subject, testing variables and then finalizing the most profitable one.

So the next time you try out with Affiliate Marketing, remember the three building blocks. Stay tuned for more tips and tricks on the subject.

Have a nice day..!!

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Tag Cloud forms a very important part of Blog Navigation and Internal Linking system. Imagine this, displaying Tag Cloud on a blog page places about 40 something links to other internal tag pages. Now imagine the aspect of link juice dilution when these are marked as “do-follow” vs. “no-follow” links. Too much link juice gets leaked by this way. WordPress by default does not have “no-follow” attribute added to the Tag Cloud.

• Download the Plugin here
• Upload it to your WordPress/wp-content/plugins Directory
• Activate it and you are done. This little plug in will save lot of link juice wastage

Have a nice Day..!!

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Windows Live Writer

Thanks Microsoft for coming out with such a nice little utility. Windows Live Writer is undoubtedly the best Offline Blogging Software. It supports a large type of blogs, but more importantly it supports WordPress. It also auto detects your Categories, Post Slug field, Tags etc. It also gives an option to save a draft online and post later. Cool isn’t it..!!

Download It

FileZilla FTP Utility

Filezilla is a nice free FTP client. Its supports FTP, FTP o/v SSL, SFTP etc. and runs on both Windows and Linux. Although I have never fully utilized it apart from transferring files from local hard drive to server, it does a very good job of transferring files and I am much happier with it compare to other FTP Clients. It also have a free server version incase if you want to set up a FTP Server.

Download It

Wamp Server

Wamp server helps you create, test and run applications using PHP, Apache and MySQL. It also has PHPMyAdmin and SQLiteManager to easily manage your databases. I used it to test my WordPresss Theme designs for my client, by running them on a localhost using WAMP. It’s much faster than running it on a live host.

Download It

Notepad++

Notepad++ is the most powerful text editor you can lay your hand on (Text Editor not rich Text Editor). First of all it’s free. Secondly, it provides Syntax highlighting for a whole bunch of programming languages. Provides a tabbed interface, remembers and auto loads open files, provide auto intended for better code visibility etc. The features go on and on and on. Simply the Best out there.

Download It

Win HTTrack

Win HTTrack is a very powerful offline browser. Now why would I use it? The reason is very simple. There are tonnes of beautiful sites out there, but my data plan for internet connection provides zero cost for night surfing. Also mostly I am on the move with a CDMA USB modem, which hardly gives any speed, just keep your connection alive. To quench my thirst of reading nice tutorials and great blogs, I rather download them and store them on a pendrive. That’s where Win HTTrack comes into the picture.

Win HTTrack allow you to download website and view them offline. You can change most of the options like The relative path you want to set, what types of files you want to download and what type of files you want to skip, other validation rules etc. It is the best offline website downloader out there.

Download It

Windows 7 Paint Tool

I am running a Windows 7 Beta Build version 7000. I must say it’s a very stable OS and leaps ahead compare to Vista. It have some Glitches here and there but surprisingly it’s better than Vista even in the Beta Version. Windows 7 presents with a revamp Paint Utility. Finally the ribbon interface debuts in MS Paint and I loved it. You can do pretty much same basic file editing and drawing. You can save files in PNG Format also.

Windows 7 Snipping Tool

Another nice addition to Windows 7 is a Snipping Tool. It lets you snip of cut selective portions of your screens and save them as a JPG, GIF or PNG image file. Very useful for taking screenshots.

Firefox Portable

Firefox is undoubtedly the best Browser out there at the moment with speed, security and tonnes of features and addons. What more interesting is, it also has a portable version available. Why do I need a portable version? Simple. I can take all my bookmarks, User Preferences, Addons, Local Bookmarks etc with me while I am on the move. I just have to install the Portable Version on the Pendrive and launch it from there on any computer and continue surfing from where I left last time.

Download It

Google Chrome Portable

Google Chrome is still not mature yet. But the good thing about this light weight Browser is that, first its fast  and secondly it provides a fresh breath of air compare to other Memory hogging Browser applications. Another good feature of Google Chrome is that it runs as a separate process for each tab. Why this is important? If you open a faulty site or a tab becomes non-responding, you can kill it without losing all your open applications. Another important thing, Chrome comes preloaded with Gears. Great to use for applications like WordPress Turbo Mode and Google Reader Offline.

Microsoft Excel 2007

Finally the last utility in the list and the only utility you have to pay to get – Microsoft Office Excel 2007. The most powerful Spreadsheet application on the planet. I use it t store and manage important details of my all projects and Websites. It is a handy utility to manage keywords, keep a list etc. Other features of this application needs no introduction. The Ribbon Interface rocks. (Had to say that)

So, what are the most important applications you use while Blogging? Share with other readers. Have a nice Day..!!

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How does Google treats it?

Google treats www.smartblogtips.com and smartblogtips.com differently. So, it might happen that your actually URL value as percieved by Google gets divided among both the formats.

If you have a fairly recent blog, its easy to setup a parmanent URL redirect and maintain consistency. But for cases where, the Blog is aged old enough, its difficult to do a permanent redirect. There would be a sudden drip in the rankings. But Google is smart enough and soon you can see your rankings return to normal.

Internal Links and URL Importance

Another important aspect of URL canocalize and how search engines determine the preferance of one over the other, would be the structure of Internal Links. Make sure you use same version of the domain name. Do not alternate between www and non-www versions.

Search Engine’s Take on URLs

Today, Search Engines to find the relevant information by making some adjustments. Some of the commonly known ones are treating www and non-www as same, removing or keeping trailing slashes, removing session IDs from forums, normalizing UPPER CASE domains, removing directory index like “index.asp” or “default.asp”, altering query strings etc. It varies from one Search Engine to another.

So, have you put thoughts in maintaining same version of URL throughout your Internanal Links? Share with us your experiences. Have a nice Days..!!

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Here are few tips you can use on your Minimalistic Blog to make it stand out and seek attention:

1. Remember to Keep it Simple. Incase of minimalistic design, remember that LESS is always better. But do not compromise with what you want to display.
2. Simple Header Image with preferably 2 column layout. Two column layout goes well with minimalistic designs. 3 Column layout looks cluttered and Bloggers tend to feed too many contents in them.
3. Strictly avoid Magazine Style layout. Magazine style layout are symbolized with Showing many posts and pages in the front page with excerpts and link to read the Entire Story. These do not go well with minimalistic design in general. (This is not a hard and fast rule and there are few exceptions)
4. Front page should show the full post rather than excerpts. If your average post length is very long, then you can use excerpts in the front page. Make sure you disclose a sizable section of your post in the excerpts. Use the <!—more—> Quick tag.
5. Avoid displaying category, tags, author near the Post Title. They make it look cluttered. However displaying Date is OK as it is very important aspect of Blogging.
6. If necessary, display category, tags and author details near the end of the Post. Better idea would be to use small font for displaying them as most people are not interested in them. It just provide an additional way of navigating the Blog. 50% Font size of the Body Text seems to be a good choice.
7. Use Contrasting Color for Post Background and Blog Background. This will make it stand out. However here contrasting does not mean opposite. So don’t go all Black and White. Contrasting should be such that a mixture of Dark and Light colors so that they make the elements stand out but do not stress the eyes.
8. Experiment with Large Post Title. Large Post Titles are a great way to grab attention to a particular post. However note that the Title should not be large enough that all headings spill to second and third line. Also it should be smaller than your Blog Title.
9. Use proper Line Spacing. Minimalistic blogs tend to put more paragraph contents in teh front page of the Blog. It is a good idea to use a higher line spacing to make it more easy on the eyes. 150% seems to be a good choice here.
10. Avoid array of Social Bookmarking Icons. If needed use a service like Share It or Add to Any at the end of the post.
11. Avoid other oddly placed widgets. Especially Header and Footer Widgets.
12. Avoid displaying Ads which takes up too much Space. Also these Ads break the design flow. See if In-Text Ads works best for your model and stick too them.

There are loads of other design tips specific to a Minimalistic Design. Share your tips with us via comments. Have a nice Day..!!

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It became second nature for visitors to ignore any page they come across as Sales Page or In Your Face Ads, there by increasing the bounce rate if these sites to alarming level. Few bloggers burnt there hand by promoting Affiliate Links too heavily and getting the stick from Big Daddy Google in their SERPs. Soon there was a new need. To display Advertisements in a way that is less obtrusive and yet help keep the money flowing in. Let us try to understand some ways in which we can show Ads without irritating Visitors.

Avoid Showing Ads on Front Page

Front page of your blog is usually the most popular page and the primary entry point to you rest of the Pages. The main aim of this page should be to reduce the Bounce Rate to a minimum. Showing Ads in the front page hurts in 3 main ways. First, it makes your site looks like a Ad promoted site, which reversely affects the perception quality of your content. Second, it takes up important screen real estate. Third, Affiliate ads are harmful for your SERPs.

Show CPM Ads in a Empty Corner of your Blog

What is it with the CPM (Cost per Impression Ads) anyway? Isn’t it a marketing gimmick. Just another cleverly thought out plan to squeeze more money from the Advertisers by charing them not for the number of clicks but the number of times the Ads are displayed. So, if you are going to be paid only for the display of Ads and their click ratio are very low, why not keep their exposure to the minimum. Place them in a place where they won’t fight for attention against your Blog’s Content. Such place would be bottom of sidebar (better if you have a three column layout), Below Comments on Individual Posts, Footer Widgets etc.

Avoid Large Ads above the line

My first mistake was to use a 350 pixel wide rectangle Adsense Code on my individual posts, just below the Title Line. It seemed like a good idea. Well, the Ad has a stats of getting the maximum rating, displays very vividly and would eventually be good for me. However I was horribly wrong.

What I did not realize was, my Website’s Bounce Rate was increasing dramatically. I figured this was the most important reason. It was simple. Most of my Visitors entered the site via Google Search Pages, which means they land directly to the page of their interest. Now imagine this, seeing a large rectangle Adsense Block right between the Title Line and the post content immediately following it. Before any chance of engaing with the flow of the topic, I am breaking it. This would be more prevalent in case of Smartphone and Netbook Users. Now that I know the mistake, I would be rectifying it and would advise you also.

Use the Content Block between the Post and Comments

You should be looking out for User Action on your Blog to devise a strategy for placing Ads. One important place is End of the Post. At the end of the post there is a sure shot possibility of any three of the following actions to happen:

1. Looking for Related Content
2. Looking for Engagement via Comments
3. Bounce out of your Website

The key point here is that, one of this action is gauranteed to happen. Which means the Visitor’s click ratio here would be the greatest and can effectively be used.

Avoid Ads in other Pages (Categories, Archives, Authors, Tags etc)

Best way to manage your Ads would be to keep it confined to Individual Post Pages and Sidebar. However you can also include Header Banner as they fetch good money. Apart from that,  your Blog should look like Ad free one.

You may ask why. The logic again remains the same. The front page is important as it gets the maximum visibility. On the other hand individual psots are the ones where the main content lies. So apart from these two sections, other sections should be Ad Free and help Visitors navigate the blog.

Make use of In Text Advertising

In text Advertising are a nice way to save Screen Real Estate taken up by Ad Blocks. Also the display of the Ads in that case are initiated by the Visitor itself making then have a higher Click Ratio. More importantly, they are less obtrusive and good on the Eye.

Avoid Tons of Affiliate Links

Some Blogger thinks a statement at the end of the post declaring “This post contains Affiliate Link” is enough. However they do not realize the decrease in teh value of SERPs that happen over time. When the next Pagerank Update happens,  they are found asking questions and reasoning why their Pagerank decreased?

Your webpage is a representation of a chain in the Algorithm the Search Engine Crawlers uses to determine the Usefulness of a links coming in and going out. Avoid using tons of Affiliate links. If your affiliate Product keytext appears 20 times, do not go blindly and add the link to all twenty occurence.

Have a nice Day..!!

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