10 Things Bloggers Should NOT Do

1. You Must Not Expect Results Overnight: This is happening everywhere and that is the major reason why a large percentage of bloggers fail. Many bloggers come online unprepared and with the wrong set of expectations. They think blogging is a bed of roses and they only need to write one or two posts and begin to make money right away. Wrong!

2. You Must Not Ignore Your Readers: Some bloggers start gaining traction fast, and after a while they start to make their blogs gravitate around themselves. That is, they start talking exclusively about themselves, about the things they like, about how cool they are and so on. Big mistake. Your blog is about your readers, not about you.

Keep Your Radar On for Emerging Trends

The Internet is changing at a stunning pace. Every day you have new products being launched, new memes spreading, new technologies appearing and so on. For some people this scenario is scary. For others, it is a blessing, because every new and upcoming trend represents a business opportunity.

The strategy of spotting emerging trends early on and launching websites to leverage them is very effective because if your website is among the first to talk about a certain topic, Google will start  seeing it as an authority, and you will be able to attract a lot of search engine traffic.

Secondly, it will be relatively easy to build links with such a site, because when bloggers and site owners start talking about the new trend, there are good chances that they will link to sites that  already have some information on the topic (i.e., you).

Google Getting Rid of Old Version of AdSense for Search

From WebPro News

Google is retiring the old version of AdSense for Search and telling users to switch to the new version powered by Google Custom Search, which has been offered for a while.

If you see "powered by Google" on the logo on the search results page, then you're using the old one. In a post on Google's Inside AdSense blog, Katrina Kurnit writes:

AdSense for search with CSE gives you more control over your search results without changing how you earn money showing AdSense for search ads. For example, with the new version, you'll have access to advanced features likerefinements and promotions. Our team has developed a number of updates and improvements during the past few months, and you can access more advanced features atwww.google.com/cse.

Your existing AdSense for search box will continue to work normally for a few more months, and we'll be sure to update you when we retire this version. To take advantage of the benefits offered by the new version of AdSense for search and ensure you don't miss any revenue during the transition, we encourage you to update your code now.

To upgrade go to AdSense setup and "AdSense for Search" then select the sites you want your users to be able to search across, customize the look and feel and update the code for your site. Google offers more info here.

Technical Support

A funny joke i found on te net.

I worked in technical support at Silicon Graphics about a year ago, and I was part of the group that was first in line to handle problem calls. Oh, joy. Being only eighteen at the time, my experience in the field of technical support was somewhat limited, but I could still handle my own.

Now, as you may or may not know, SGI sells top of the line computers used in many different industries. On average, they're about three times as expensive as personal PCs and are meant to be used by professionals in the industries they're used in.

Anyway, the following call came in:

Facebook Makes Improvements to the Like Button

from webpro news

Facebook announced today that it is releasing some new features for the Like button social plug-in. There is now commenting for the iFrame version, publishing to connected users via the Graph API, and "more robust" analytics.

"Now, when a user adds a comment to the iFrame version of the Like button, a larger, more prominent story will be shared with the user’s friends. In the past, we’ve seen comments result in increased distribution and referral traffic," says Facebook Platform product manager Austin Haugen.