Titles Are Not My Strong Point

Guest Post - Our host is Rob James, in this 'Tongue in cheek' titled post Rob has sone great tips on improving your blog post titles.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

One of the main problems of writing a regular blog is being able to come with good titles on a consistent basis; a good title can make your blog more appealing, and can help to build a strong, loyal audience. There’s no exact science, however, when it comes to what makes a good title; instead, there are a series of approaches that can help to boost your results, and can lead you towards creating a greater degree of consistency across your blog as a whole.

Use Keywords

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Touching Your Audience With Compelling Blog Posts

Guest Post - Our host is Chris Nosal, in this post Chris take an interesting look at writing compelling blog posts.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Blogging is about a lot more than just writing some information, sharing a press release, or a “how to”.Truly captivating blogging is an art form; it’s storytelling, theater, and education all rolled into one… it’s a science and an art form all rolled into one.

This means that you can write the most brilliant, intellectually stimulating, informative blog posts in the world, but if they can’t capture people’s imagination, and hold their attention, they’re pretty much worthless.

As an example of this, try reading a 500 page data book… then try reading a biography or fiction novel filled with images, plot twists, vivid image descriptions, emotional connections, and all the elements of the human experience.
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10 Top Techniques And Tips In Persuasive Writing

Guest Post - Our host is Alfred Smith, in this post Alfred talks about an often overlooked form of writing.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Want to persuade your blog visitors to buy your product or service? Or looking for ways to convince your readers to agree with your point of view? The answer is simple. All you need to do is to create persuasive pieces of text that can motivate your visitors to believe in your product or service or anything that you offer.

Persuasive Writing

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6 Essential Tips For Bloggers To Increase Your Email CTR

Guest Post - Our host is Jasmine, Many bloggers now run Email newsletters connected to their blogs so we thought it was time to give you some tips to make those Emails more effective.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

When it comes to email marketing, there are two crucial numbers to keep track of - your open rate and your CTR or click-through rate. While your first task is to get people to actually open your email, your CTR is what really determines your results. It doesn't help you if people read your email only to delete it. If you want people to take action on your offers, you must find ways to increase your CTR.

Tip 1: Create Urgency or Scarcity

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How To Use Google + Ripples To Find Influential Bloggers In Your Niche

Guest Post - Our host is David Ingram, here David gives you some ideas on how you can use the Ripples featureon Google plus to your advantage.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Well, the first thing we should probably do is explain what Google+ Ripples are. For those of you who have not come across this useful tool before, it’s essentially an interactive graph of those who have publically shared one of your Google+ posts.

This visual representation of your publically shared posts by others provides fantastic insights into the natural flow of viral content within your niche, and can help you to identify and connect with industry influencers.

Of course, other social media sites provide this sort of data, but it’s usually only available via third party plug-ins. Ripples is Google’s own effort at conveying this sort of info, and it does so in visually friendly and intuitive way.

Using Ripples

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7 Best Tools For Your Next Blog Giveaway

Guest Post - Our host is Charles Dearing, Giveaways and competitions are now very popular for bloggers, in this post Charles guides you to some free tools to help you with your giveaways.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Promotions and giveaways are effective means to attract more visitors to your site, and a way to give thanks to your loyal readers. Here are seven of the best tools that you can use for your next blog giveaway:
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A Matter Of Style: Why Design Matters More Than Content

Guest Post - Our host is Mara Fuchs, here Mara makes a case on just how important your blog design can be.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Picture the following: you have two plates of food in front of you, both containing cheeseburgers. One plate contains a large but rather greasy fast-food chain burger and a side of stale fries. The second contains a micro-burger: a small, pesto and truffle oil infused patty in a small brioche bun with a side of four thick cut appetizing Belgian fries and a small decorative carrot carving. Which one would you choose?

Odds are you said the latter (unless you were really, really hungry…). That’s because while content is one of the most important things to take into account when trying to attract traffic to your site and rank better it is not the most important thing. The design, layout and ease of use are far more important.

Think of it this way: you might have Pulitzer-worthy content on your page but if the layout is awkward or simply unappealing, very few people will actually make it to your content. Good can help you get potential customers or readers to your page but their efforts will be squandered if the customers just click back after taking a look at your site design.
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The Art (And Science) Of Building A Link Profile

Guest Post - Our host is Matt Foden, Matt explains new link building as an art and science.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

With the myriad of recent changes to Google's algorithm it can seem very difficult to navigate yourself through the stormy waters of Search Marketing nowadays. Recent Penguin and Panda updates have turned previously accepted SEO practices on their head.

For example, the once widely accepted technique of using exact match domains to target specific keywords has now been targeted and devalued by the search engine. It has to be said, though, that this particular change has been on the cards for some time, and actually does make a lot of sense. It's another fairly recent update that I want to focus on in this post, however, an update that penalised sites that were too reliant on keyword anchor text links. I’ll explore our real life experiences in this area and offer some practical advice that you can apply to your own sites.
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DIY or Die: Good Blogging Based on Punk Rock Ethics

Guest Post - Our host is Dustin Verburg, in this post Dustin make some very interesting comparisons between Punk and Blogging...Really...See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Before the late 1970s, it was nearly impossible for independent musicians to tour and release albums without major label backing. Punk came along and changed all of that in a few different ways. Kids saw that they could, in fact, play music without looking like rock stars or playing like virtuosos. Punk bands also set up concrete DIY models for releasing their own records and setting up their own tours that anyone could follow. The major labels were cut out entirely, and it actually became a case of “you can do this if they put the work in.”

The Internet, in that way, is in those exciting golden years. The infrastructure has been set up and there are several credible models available for reference. There are a staggering amount of resources available to independent bloggers so they can, in fact, do it themselves. That might seem obvious, but it also becomes a valuable thinking point when you start to incorporate the ethics of DIY, independent music into blogging.
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3 Ways To NOT Build Links For Your Blog In The Penguin Era – And 3 Ways To Do It Better

Guest Post - Our host is Harvey Pearce, In this post Harvey looks at the new age of link building.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

By now if you have a blog you’ve no doubt heard all about Google’s Penguin update. If you haven’t, here’s a quick recap from an earlier post on Spice Up Your Blog, How Google Penguin Update Will Affect Your Blog ? .It’s been many months now since the hammer fell on some webmasters and it always takes a while to adjust and learn how to go forward. Of course every major update has its casualties and you rarely hear about people having Panda issues any more. Strategies change and every new update strikes even worse fear in the hearts of some webmasters. If it wasn’t clear before it’s pretty obvious now that if you want to succeed on the web, then you need to be ‘doing it right’. So without further ado I’m going to explain what strategies you shouldn’t be doing and explaining how to ‘do it right’.
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10 Writing Tips of Famous Authors You Can Use Now for Blogging

Guest Post - Our host is Steve Aedy, here Steve takes a look at some advice from famous authors us Bloggers can use.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

With nearly a hundred literary masterpieces between them, Kurt Vonnegut, John Steinbeck, and C.S. Lewis could be considered experts on the writing process. Fortunately for those who chose to take up the career in their wake, these famous authors left behind valuable tips and tricks to make the process easier.

While the blog’s conception was decades after their time, their knowledge is still applicable to the trade. Check out these 10 writing tips of the famous authors. See how relevant they are to your blog today.
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10 Writing Tips All Bloggers Must Adhere To

Guest Post - Our host is Ken Myers, In this post Ken lists 10 writing tips or rules that have come to be expected to be followed by Bloggers.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Look, there are a lot of people out there that are going to tell you how to write. Some will give your ideas on topics, some will give your ideas on how to create title, and some will just tell you to use proper grammar. While all those things are important, I grant you, what are most important in blog writing are two things: passion and consistency. Unlike any other type of writing, with blog writing you get an audience based not only on WHAT you write but on HOW OFTEN you write it. No one will follow a blog that is only updated every few months. With that in mind, here are some writing tips for you:
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The Blogging Game: When Blogging Resembles Hunting

Guest Post - Our host is Sarah Villaflor, in this post Sarah makes the strange yet interesting connection between blogging and hunting.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

The Hunt

Getting Internet users to visit your blog is like sitting at the edge of a clearing in the woods, waiting for the arrival of your target.He comes eventually, stepping on the twigs, shifting, bowing his head for a drink on a little pool of water.

When you finally have a clear view on the target, you quietly and patiently aim your gun, lowering it in an angle, not breathing, careful not to produce even the littlest sound that might startle the creature.

And bam! You missed the deer just near the ear.

Off he runs out of the clearing and beyond the thick woods. He leaves behind not even a cloud of dust, gone as if he had never been in the clearing at the first place.You just stand there, your chest hurting from the recoil.

You are the huntsman, the web developer. The clearing is your site. The gun, your web host provider. The bullet your SEO schemes.The deer, the Internet user.

What happened? How did the deer escape ?
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10 Steps To Targeting Your Blog Readership

Guest Post - Our host is Kimberly Harrison, One wa to build a following for your blog is to research your target audience and write with them in mind, here Kimberly has some tips to do just that.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

You want your readership to grow, and seeing numbers increase is a great sign. That doesn't mean your readership is "everyone." Your content writing needs to be targeted to a specific niche, and these 10 steps will help you find the right readers for your great content.

1. Who would want to read your content?

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Dollar’s in the Details : Creating Quality Content

Guest Post - Our host is Jeriann Watkins, in this post Jeriann takes a deep look at the connection between quality content and SEO.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

The infrastructure of the search engine optimization (SEO) industry is one that is natural predisposed to constant change. This stems from the fact that people are always finding new ways to exploit technology, which is always being updated to battle these exploitations, which continues in an eternal cycle of innovation and technological advances.

This is by no means a negative thing; it just means that working in SEO is not an easy job. There is a continuous string of changes happening and challenges to face. This means that SEO personnel need to stay on their feet and be prepared to meet any unexpected changes that arise.

The all-powerful answer to every question in the SEO field is “create quality content.” Whether it comes to on-site SEO or off-site methods such as link building, we are constantly being assured that if we provide relevant, quality content, we will be safe from being penalized in the search engine results.

The Challenge

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An Easy Way To Find Blog Post Ideas In Your Niche

Guest Post - Our host is Nathalie Sanderson, in this post Nathalie has some ideas on how to get ideas for blog posts in your niche.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Many bloggers stick with a single method of coming up with blog post ideas – simply writing about whatever is on their mind that day. Although some bloggers may find it easy to come up with an endless stream of interesting, relevant topics this way, almost every bloggers has faced the experience of sitting down at their keyboard and simply drawing a blank.

Rather than simply sitting at your computer trying to conjure up new blog post ideas, an easy way to find relevant topics in your niche is to actively seek out questions, issues, and news that are already being discussed. By finding topics that are already in the discourse, you can not only identify new blog post ideas, but you’ll identify blog post ideas that are relevant and interesting to your readers.

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Things That Go Bump On Your Blog - What Bloggers Can Learn From Horror Films

Guest Post - Our host is Rachel O’Riordan, just in time for Halloween Rachel looks at the how you can use horror films as inspiration for your blog.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

It’s the season of ghosts and general spookfulness. The time of year for us all to check for monsters under the bed and wonder what’s out there in the woodshed. But whilst we’re wondering whether or not to go and check what that noise is down in the dark cellar (it’s just a mouse - don’t go down there) is there anything bloggers can learn from the season of the witch?

I’m going to look at some horror films to see what inspiration we can take from their perennial popularity.
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Create A Killer Content Calendar For Your Blog

Guest Post - Our host is Melissa Woodson, here Mellisa has some good pointers on using a content calendar to determine how your posts are published.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

Writing is tiring. Pulitzer Prize winner and 2012 MacArthur Grant recipient Junot Diaz recently shared his struggles with writing short stories in The New York Times, saying that he never wants to write a book of short stories again. While many people will be quick to point out that the writing struggles a food blogger faces pale in comparison to the one a celebrated author faces writing a series of vignettes about love, the point remains that writing can often be an uphill battle. For bloggers, the need to generate interesting, informative, engaging, well-written content on a regular basis can be very stressful and stifling, and failing to do so can have negative ramifications for your blog, particularly for traffic. If the struggle to create content that establishes your blog as a captivating go-to resource is overwhelming you, creating a content calendar can give you the peace of mind you so desperately crave.
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17 Very Interesting Blog Post Ideas For Bloggers

Guest Post - Our host is Jack Meyer, in this post Jack has listed 17 inspirational ideas for blog post topics.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

After you have written a few hundred blog posts, you start to come up empty on ideas. In fact, your ideas seem to be the same ones over and over again. Why not spice things up? Here are some new, fresh ideas for your next blog post:

1) At Home – Did you know that rubber bands last longer when you refrigerate them? Things for around the house get a lot of traffic. That is because everyone needs help keeping their home clean and in order. Use that to bring new readers to your blog.
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5 Content Curation Tools To Help You Build Content

Guest Post - Our host is Marcela De Vivo, here Marcela looks at content curation and some useful tools you can use for it.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

In a world where content is King, it might be said that content curation is God. This is the hottest trend to come out in the years in the marketing and search engine optimization field. At its most simple, content curation simply means collecting the best content on a particular topic and publishing it with edits, additions, and specific advice.

It is an amazing tactic for gaining traffic, backlinks, and a targeted audience. The best part? You don’t have to do a lot of the writing! Now, that is not to say that it is an easy task that can be done by anyone. You need the right tools and the right attitude in order to make a piece of curated content that delivers massive value to your intended audience.
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