One of the largest obstacles for us to take websites from “Good” to “Great” is finding the time to focus only on it.  If you are like me, you have full-time jobs, family obligations, desire to spend time with friends, movies to see, and so on.  Trying to squeeze in 30-60 minutes a day (or maybe even a week) can seem impossible.

When I first started blogging, I could post a good three or four articles a week and still have plenty of time to play video games, watch the Sci-Fi Channel, or have dinner with friends. Today, it seems that I’m lucky if I can update only one of my sites with a short post. I recently read “No Plot? No Problem!” by Chris Baty and found an exercise in there that might help you find the time to write. The “Time Finder” as he calls it is a practice where you spend a few moments at night, map out what you did during the day at what time, and then categorize those items as: required, highly desired, and forgo-able.  Below is an example of my typical week day:

As you can see, my typical day is fairly straight forward. My job consumes almost 14 hours of my day (including commuting), leaving me with about 4 hours in the evening to dedicate to my personal life. Work, and everything associated with me maintaining my job, would be classified as “Required.” The author says I should mark all of these items in red, since they can’t be touched.

Usually, I had plenty of time in the evening to dedicate to my websites as well as SeededBuzz, but since I’ve signed up to participate in the Tough Mudder this Fall, most of my evening has been consumed with exercising. So, exercising right now is classified as “Highly Desired,” since I only have two months remaining to get in as good of shape as possible fore competing. Therefore, I should mark this in blue, since it is an activity I “could” pass on, but “would cause major stress or hardship” if I did not do it.

This leaves the remaining two hours in my evening that I can classify as “Forgo-able,” and should be marked in green. Do I really need to watch the news, check my e-mail, or watch TV every night? Maybe I can combine watching the news with my meal?

By using the “Time Finder” method, I’ve identified 90 minutes in a typical night where I can sit down and work on my websites.  It’s a simple tool that can help you do what you think might be obvious, but don’t ever think about doing on your own.  Now … if there was only a tool to help with making me less physically and mentally tired after a full day of work and then exercising.

If you have a method that works for you, please feel free to share it with the community.

Kimberley asks, “I still do not understand the ‘guest blog invite.’ Do they want the author to do a guest post, or do they want to post on the author’s blog?”

The way I read this question, it sounds like Kimberley is asking about the e-mails with the subject line “Guest Posts Invites you might be interested in.” The short answer is that a blogger is inviting you to write an article on their site. If you reference the e-mail, the message reads:

Would you like to promote yourself and your blog by writing a Guest Post on one of these Seeds?

Under each of these Seeds you can see who has published the invite. If you’re interested, all you need to do is follow that link and Private Message them with your idea for a post.

If you agree to work together your post should contain an introduction to you and your blog as you are the guest author.

The post should also be submitted as Buzz and therefore promote your post to an even wider audience.

For more information on the Guest Posting service, please reference the page entitled “Guest Posts & Guest Buzz.”

Guest Posting is a natural extension of the SeededBuzz philosophy. In the Buzzing process, you locate a Seed that has some sort of significance to you and/or your site. You write a post referencing that Seed and then post your article as a Buzz for others to see. By doing this, you are both promoting your site as well as the site that planted the Seed. Guest Posting isn’t much different.

With a Guest Post, you write your article and post it on the other users site, tapping directly into their readership. Additionally, you plant a Seed promoting your article which draws attention to both your work and the other persons’ site.

If you haven’t done so yet, accept a Guest Posting offer at least one time to see what type of feedback and/or new traffic to your site that you might receive. It might not be an option that works for you, but it never hurts to try. This could be your 2011 New Years resolution for your blog.

If you have questions about SeededBuzz, please visit the “Questions and Answers” section or visit us on Facebook.

One of my hopes for all of the SeededBuzz users out there is that they see a return on their investment. It takes a lot of time to build a quality website, and you should see both an increase in web traffic as well as a monetary return for all your hard work. I’ve already addressed the importance of Inbound links (backlinks) and increasing your exposure to popular media outlets through BlogBurst (which has now been taken over by Demand Media Studios). Now I would like to introduce you to inLinks.

I have a question for you. Do you want to make “easy money?” If you’re like me, whenever you hear those television infomercials mention “easy money,” you naturally start to question what they are pitching. They throw out the pitch like “Buy my special book to learn how to become rich,” all the while the person is becoming rich by you buying his book. With inLinks, there is nothing to buy, and you don’t need to change the way you approach your blog

In this case, when I say easy money, I mean you do not have to embed a set of specific links into your article that looks out of place. Nor do you have to take up a sponsored article that require you to force unique key words into a sentence (where there is no grammatically correct way to do) for only $1.00. What InLinks does is it searches the text of all of your articles – no matter how old – and matches them up with keywords their customers want to pay for. When a match occurs, inLinks automatically updates your article by inserting the link for you. In short, they do all the work for you (and for more money).

For example, let’s say you are writing an article about iPods or a special program that is giving away free Sony PSPs. InLinks has a customer who wants to link their website to the keyword “iPod giveaway.” When inLinks finds the existence of “iPod giveaway” in your article, they will automatically create a special hyperlink for you.

This link is automatically placed within your article and looks like any other link (rather than some that places two lines under the key words). In exchange you will receive payment for that link for every month the customer wishes to pay for it. When their time is over, the keyword becomes available for their next customer to purchase. The same holds true on a topic you might have written 3 years ago.

With reoccurring payments, and the possibility of having more than one advertiser purchasing links in the same article, you can quickly start earning some decent cash without any extra effort. In fact, inLinks accounted for 55% of my revenue last year.

Give it a try for a few months and see how much you can earn. Click here and fill out their brief registration page to get started. After that, all you will need to do is add a simply code somewhere on your site (it could even be in the sidebar). InLinks will do the rest.

I’m going to step out on a limb here and guessing that you are not a professional blogger. Don’t worry, you are not alone. Like with most bloggers, you probably have a full-time job and a family, leaving you with little time to sit down and put together an 800-word article for your website every night. Here are six helpful tips that might help you keep your blogging goals.

Plan ahead: Even though you are not at your computer doesn’t mean you can’t work on your next article. If you already have a topic in mind, you can structure it and identify your key points in your head. That way, when you finally reach your computer, you are ready to start typing.

Blank canvas: Sometimes the biggest waste of time when it comes to blogging is trying to figure out what to write. I always recommend choosing something that interests you or you are an “expert” in. Writing about what you know or what interests you usually leads to faster typing. There is less to research since you’ve already read about it in the past or it is common knowledge to you. Additionally, your interest and passion on the topic will echo in your writing, leading to the readers to be more interested as they read the article.

Reduce interruptions: This is your biggest hurdle. After a long day at work, you come home to your “second job” as a member of a family. Once you find your time to be alone to work on your writing, turn off your television, log out of your Facebook page, and get to work. This is your time to express yourself without being overwhelmed by the lives and writings of others.

Write a response: Sometimes you don’t have to lay the foundation for a new topic or reframe an existing argument, especially if someone has already done that for you. If you see a news item or a blog article by someone that interests you, post a quote from that article and then write a simple response. Your readers will view the entry as a complete article, even though you didn’t write all of it. SeededBuzz is a perfect reference source for this type of writing.

Focus on the bones: As a human body cannot stand without the skeleton, your website won’t last without a quality articles. If you spend more time trying to add pictures or videos to your new blog post while writing, you will end up with a “body with no bones.” Complete your article first, and if you have time left over, then go back and add in the extra content.

Take a break: What is more important: writing an article every night, or writing two or three quality articles a week? I lean towards the latter. Trying to write every night can lead to blogging fatigue. You end up spending all your free time behind the computer, taking away from time to rest your eyes and recharge your batteries. Additionally, writing fewer articles gives you additional time to work your site while giving your readers a more-finished product in the end.

These are points that help me in my online efforts. What do you use in your own blogging practices?

Two months ago I talked about BlogBurst – an online syndication service that links your site with that of many major media outlets. While it is still a “new” article, there has been a major change with the service. It was taken over by Demand Media Studios last week, and therefore the BlogBurst site itself is no longer accepting applications. From what I have read on the Demand Media Studios site so far, it will continue to provide a syndication service. So, if you are still interested in this type of exposure, click here to visit their site to learn more.

One of the goals of SeededBuzz is to help you make your articles work for you.  SeededBuzz is a fantastic way to increase the web traffic to your site by allowing you to promote your own articles. The more articles you Seed and Buzz, the more likely the community will discover your site and Buzz your work. Another way that SeededBuzz helps is by providing you tools for you to use to increase your exposure (and revenue).  So I want to introduce you to  a service called BlogBurst.

As stated on their website, “BlogBurst [is] a syndication service that places blogs on top-tier online destinations.” What BlogBurst does is it uses your RSS feed to pool your articles with articles written by other users for professional media organizations to reference. If the media likes the article written, they can take the article and run it on their website, giving you greater exposure. But exposure isn’t the only benefit.

BlogBurst keeps track of how many times your article headlines are displayed on the media outlets websites, which they use to rank your activity against others. At the end of each quarter, those authors who rank in the top 100 of headlines displayed will earn a cash award. The minimum payout is $50.00 USD, and the maximum is $1,200.00 USD.

In 2009, I was fortunate to be in the top 100 with my website U.S. Common Sense. During the Second Quarter (April 1st through June 30th), my articles received over 800,000 headline impressions through the BlogBurst service, with my articles being read over 870 times during that period. During that period, my work was picked up by many media outlets including:

• Chicago Sun-Times (Chicago Sun-Times, Post-Tribune, Lake County News-Sun, SouthTown Star)
• Cox Ohio (Dayton Daily News)
• FoxNews (Fox Business)
• Houston Chronicle
• Palm Beach Post
• Reuters
• Time Warner (Road Runner)
• USA Today
• Wall Street Journal
• Ziff Davis Enterprise (eWeek Microsoft Watch)

I finished in 93rd place (I peaked at 80th) at the end of the quarter, earning me $50.00. Not a bad result for simply writing articles that were an interest to me. The following is a chart of the activity of the site during that period:

As you work on the articles you plan to Seed, or on Seeds that you are Buzzing for fellow community members, why not let those articles go to work for you behind the scenes?  Quality work will always draw attention and lead to increases in audience.  Put SeededBuzz and BlogBurst work together for you.

NOTE:  BlogBurst is a free service, though there are certain requirements that your site must meet before being approved (much like with SeededBuzz).

It’s a common question that I hear all the time, and the truth is there isn’t one simple reason people aren’t linking to you. Your link building efforts could be failing for any number of reasons. Thankfully, I’ve worked on enough blogs to know the most common link building mistakes bloggers make, and I’m going to share them with you today. If you can identify with any of these mistakes, start correcting them now so you can turn your blog into a link magnet.

• You’re a “me too” blogger—There are hundreds of millions of blogs online. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you have to be different. This means sharing your unique insight, and creating an easily identifiable voice readers can connect with. You can do this by writing like you talk. Above all else, be authentic.
• You’re ignoring proven linkbait formats—Did you know there are certain ways you can format your blog posts to give them a better chance of attracting links? That’s right: You need to stick to the proven linkbait templates that get results. List-style posts (e.g. 10 Funny Pictures of Cats) and how-to posts (e.g. How to be a better blogger) are two examples of proven linkbait formats. One way to come up with good ideas is to use the Linkbait Generator tool. Simply enter your subject, and generate dozens of linkbait ideas. It’s a great way to get the creative juices flowing.
• Your social media marketing skills are limited—Just because you write great content doesn’t mean you’ll automatically gets tons of traffic and a lot of back links. If you build it, they won’t come. You need to promote it as well. The best way to promote your blog is through the various social media outlets available at your disposal. This includes everything from Twitter to Digg. The key to being successful is to connect with power users on the different social networks who can help you push your content further. To do this, you have to actually spend time on these sites getting to know people, building relationships with top influencers, and doing favors for them before you ask for your own favors.
• You aren’t linking out—You’ve heard the saying “You have to give if you want to receive”, right? Same concept applies to link building. By linking out, you catch the attention of other bloggers with trackbacks. This helps you build name recognition, and it increases the chances of earning more links in the future.

What are some other reasons bloggers have trouble getting more links? Share your best tips by leaving a comment.

One of the great benefits of writing and communicating with the world is the endless opportunity it brings and the thousands of things you can do to get better and better. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you’re blogging that will help you be a great blogger and help you and your readers get the most out of your blogging experience.

1. Choose a niche

One of the most important things you can do for yourself as a blogger is to choose a niche. Many beginner bloggers, and even many who fancy themselves intermediate or advanced ones but wonder why they don’t get the results they want, try to appeal to everyone and fail. They end up with a watered down, non-authoritative, hodgepodge of randomness. Effectively, what will be achieved is the opposite of what is intended – not wanting to alienate any potential readers.

If a person is interested in technology and comes to your blog for a great article, but then the next article is about gardening, and the next is about cars…no matter how great your technology article was, the reader isn’t going to be back.

People only stick around for what applies to and interests them. There is enough information out on the web that they can easily go elsewhere for what they’re looking for – and you’d better believe, they’ll be going to someone who has established themselevs in their niche. And they’ll keep going back, again and again.

You will, by nature, have to exclude some people who have different interests or priorities when you blog. This can be hard to do. But there are billions of people out there, many of whom want to read your stuff about the topic both you and they are most interested in. Let the others go. It will be ok.

2. Be an expert

This naturally follows suit with choosing a niche. When you choose one area to focus on, you can teach everything there is to know about it – or at least as much as you can learn about it. Do this with quality and consistency, and you will eventually emerge as an expert in that field. If you genuinely seek to educate yourself and your readers, you will gain credibility and authority. Building your name, reputation, and voice online has begun.

3. Find your voice

Once you’ve got the ball rolling, you can probably expect some bumps and bruises along the way to figuring out how you want to be heard and what you want to sound like. A new blogger can expect unexpected and random criticisms to come out of the blue occasionally, which can be very discouraging when you are trying your best to do well. Use these moments to test your passions and your character.

Take well-meaning and well-said feedback into consideration. Try to be forgiving and understanding of lesser well-said feedback, even if the poster didn’t necessarily mean well. Some people can just be jerks online. Try to remember that they’re still real people (even if they didn’t extend you the same courtesy) and that you would probably talk nicer to them in response than you might at first be inclined to when put on the defensive online. This is all part of finding your voice in the online community and on your own blog. You have a voice in both these things; use it well to do well.

4. Provide great content

There’s a shift occurring in blogging. People have become so adept at manipulating search engine results, search engines are constantly updating and altering their algorithms to keep the results as relevant as possible. Bloggers are starting to realize they have a choice for what they should dedicate their time to: figuring out how to game the system, or create quality content and build a community of genuine followers.

With the rise of social media becoming increasingly more prevalent in contributing to a blog getting noticed and appreciated, which do you think is more important: trying to figure out how to beat Google’s algorithms to arm wrestle millions of other websites for a spot on Page 1 for that week, or writing something really knock-out good that people will be clamoring to plaster all over their Facebook statuses, Twitter feeds, and Stumble, Digg, or otherwise happily promote for you to thousands of other people who are keen to read good material?

How do you employ these ideas when you blog? What are some of your tips to have a successful blogging experience?

Today it seems everyone has a blog, from your son’s best friend to your old high school gym teacher. While the growth is great for the blogosphere it makes it more important than ever for a serious blogger to stand out. Having a blog that is meaningful to your readers will help you to grow and your posts to be more memorable. This is the key to keeping readers coming.

Unfortunately this may be difficult for some bloggers who aren’t quite sure how to elevate their blogs above the scope of simply posting their day to day activities as if they are updating their Facebook status.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

Post 1: The “I made the best tacos tonight!” after dinner post

Unless you are a food blogger or are only blogging to keep Na Na and Paw Paw updated on the goings on of your life you should never do a whole blog post about your dinner menu.

The reason is that as a serious blogger your posts are your working resume. For anyone who may be interested in offering you an opportunity or who is a potential advertiser they can tell what you are about as well as what your potential is by your posts.

The solution: Have a consistent subject to blog about and stick to it.

Post 2: The “I really don’t have anything to blog about” post

These types of posts are the equivalent of wearing sweat pants to a dinner party. You have obviously given up and are now blogging because “you have to”. Not many want to read a just because post. It means you have no topic or focus so readers don’t know what to expect when they visit your blog.

The solution: Plan your posts ahead. Every blogger has days when they have nothing to write about and no ideas. So be prepared for when that day comes by having a couple of backup posts. This will save you from just posting something out of necessity. If you don’t have a backup just don’t post at all that day.

Post 3: The Title and picture with no explanation post

I see so many of these types of posts that consist of the abstract title above an even more abstract image. I always scroll down the page to see if there is some explanation for how the two are connected. Unless the theme of your blog is abstract titles with abstract images a serious blogger should never do this.

Solution: If you like to use images on your blog then make them interactive with your audience by having a regular caption contest. That way your post is more engaging.

Here are three things that you should do:

• Blog about what you are truly passionate about. That passion will ignite your readers.
• Be consistent and remember why you are blogging in the first place. If blogging has become a chore your posts will reflect that.
• Consider your audience and other potential readers to create more dynamic posts. If you are a serious blogger you have to consistently write for your audience.

Blogging affords you the ability to reach millions of people so apply these steps to take your blog from mundane to meaningful.

You can read more posts from me, Toya, at  my blog, Tales of a Literary Nobody.