Why Submit Blog Posts to 10 of the Top Article Directories?

Writing for the web is great! Good writers are always in demand, because there are lots of websites that need to update and add fresh content for their own survival. Writing online can also get you some money. But more importantly, it builds your credibility and authority. Bloggers are no strangers to online content writing. So for them, it can be far more important and useful. Submitting your articles or blog posts to article directories can be a particularly good way of boosting your stats. It can bring many benefits for bloggers. Today, we'll take a look at the top 10 article directories where you can submit your articles or blog posts and benefit from them.

Why submit your articles?

Submitting articles has lots of benefits. First of all, you can get a backlink via your author box on that particular site. Most of these article directories have a 5+ PR. And if you know anything about blogging, you'll know how important a PR 5+ backlink is. A single high quality backlink is better than multiple low quality ones. It will help increase your own PageRank.

Besides PR, these submissions will also boost your traffic. These directories are frequently visited by millions of people in search of knowledge or articles to research upon. And with your articles, you can divert some of that traffic to your own website.

Another little benefit is, you can get rid of your old, or unnecessary blog posts. A lot of bloggers post on irrelevant stuff at the start just for the sake of something to write about. Many posts end up stalling as well, with no traffic coming to them. Such posts aren't any good to anybody. So deleting them, and submitting them on article directories instead can squeeze some use out of them.

Top 10 Article Directories

Here's a list of the top 10 article directories where you can submit old or new articles of yours and get some backlinks and traffic out of it.

1. The Free Library - PR 7
2. EzineArticles * - PR 6
3. ArticlesBase * - PR 6
4. GoArticles * - PR 5
5. Article Dashboard - PR 5
6. Article City - PR 5
7. Article Alley * - PR 4
8. Article Factory * - PR 4
9. WryteStuff * - PR 4
10. Internet Marketing News Watch - PR 3

You can submit one article to more than one directories above. However, the directories marked with a sterick (*) are listed under the SubmitYourAccount (SYA) Account Manager. This means, that articles submitted to these directories come under the same account manager. Hence, if you signed up for these directories with your SYA account, then you can not submit the same article to more than one of these websites. All the starred websites can be considered as a single article directory. You can, however, sign up without your SYA account, or with another account you might have. That way, you can submit your articles to more than one such directories.

You can sign up for any of these directories for free. It usually is an easy sign-up process. Once signed up, you are ready to start posting articles. Before you submit articles though, make sure your author profile is properly filled, and that it is linking to your website. Most sites give you an HTML box where you can directly add your link and anchor it to some text such as your name.

You can submit a single article to many directories. But keep in mind their copyrights law before submitting. Some directories won't let you post already published content, while others might not allow you to reproduce them. Be sure to check out their ToS before submitting anything.

We'd recommend you sign up for multiple article directories, at least 5. That way, you can be sure of scoring at least backlink to your website. And if more accept your article, well and good! The whole purpose of this exercise is to build quality backlinks, which should be on any blogger's priority list.

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Index Status: Advanced Index Reporting Feature for Webmaster Tools

Google is the largest search engine in the world today. And since it is the industry leader, it is only natural for it to set the standards. All bloggers and webmasters have only one concern in their minds regarding their sites when it comes to Google: whether Google isindexing their site or not? That is understandable, since most of their website traffic comes from Google. So to get un-indexed by Google is like having your legs chopped off - your blog won't be going anywhere, anytime soon. Well, to put some of the concerns regarding indexing at bay, Google has introduced a new Index Status feature in the Google Webmaster Tools. This feature will let webmasters know how many pages of theirs' have been indexed, crawled, and more!

Where can you find this information?

To check out this feature, log into your Google Webmaster Tools account. On the home page, click on the site for which you want to see the index report. Now click on theHealth option on the left side of your dashboard, and select Index Status from the available options. Now, you will see two tabs, Basic and Advanced.

The Basic tab

The basic tab shows a graph which tells you how many pages of your site have been indexed over time.  It shows up to one year of data. And then legend will tell you how many pages are currently being indexed. Google says this information is accurate, and does not include non-canonical URLs. So if there are more than one URLs pointing to the same content, or if there's duplicate content present, then it will be counted just one page instead of multiple pages.

Google also admits that this data lags by around a week. So this isn't a real-time reporting. Rather, it is better suited for monitoring trends. If the graph  has been steadily going up, then there's nothing to worry about. It means that your new content is being recognized by Google, and is being indexed. If the graph remains stationary, or falls down despite your addition of new content, then you might want to look into the Advanced tab.

Advanced

The Advanced tab gives more insights into how Google has been treating your website. In addition to the Total Indexed graph, you can also see the Ever Crawled, Not Selected, and Blocked By Robots graphs.

• Ever Crawled - The total number of pages Google has ever come across on your site. This will show you your maximum total number of pages. So if you had 100 pages which Google crawled, and then you deleted half of them, this will still display a count of 100.
• Blocked By Robots - Number of pages blocked by robots.txt. Google knows about these pages, but wouldn't index them unless you change your robots.txt file
• Not Selected - Total number of pages that Google hasn't seen fit to be included in its search results. This could happen due to a variety of reasons
• It has a redirection to another page
• It has duplicate content also found on another page, and hence the other page was indexed instead
• It has a rel="canonical" tag to other pages.

How this data is useful?

This data could be really useful for debugging purposes to see what's wrong with your website and why you aren't getting traffic. An increase in the number of Total Indexed and Ever Crawled pages of course means that you site is on the right track, and that Google can easily access your content.

However, if there is a sudden drop, then it means Google is having trouble reaching your website. It could be because your web server is down, or that, you added a sitewide "noindex" tag rather than adding it on just one page.

A large number of Not Indexed means there are problems with canonicalization, or there's a lot of duplicate content on your website. You should make efforts to reduce the amount of duplicate content and non-canonical URLs on your website.

The Google Webmaster Tools is your friend. It will notify you of any errors on your site, so you can easily correct them. It is helpful features like this that make Google the best search engine on the planet!

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Facebook Printable Posters Now Available For Download

Facebook is a very powerful social media, not just for networking, but also for marketing. For the success of any business, its presence on social media, especially on Facebook is a must. |This is because according to an estimate, around 75% of the customers (for any product or service) use online streams such as social media to learn more about that particular product before going for it. And since Facebook is the largest social media with more than 900 million users, you can see how much a company would be missing out on if it didn't have a Facebook page. Facebook isn't just for online businesses either. Much like Google Places, local businesses can also utilize Facebook for promotion and to bring in customers. And for such local businesses, there's a good news! Facebook Printable Posters are now available for them to download and use for their business' promotion!

The Facebook Marketing Team has recently released Printable Posters which you can now download, customize, and put up on your stores as posters or on your website as banners and drive audience and customers to your business!

Download Facebook Printable Posters

These posters come print-ready. You can simply customize them to display your Facebook Page URL, such as facebook.com/MyBloggerTricks, just like we have done with the intro image. Once you've changed the URLs, you can download them and send to your printer. Click on the link below for the PDF file.

• Click to Download Facebook Printable Posters

What's the use?

The most obvious use for these posters is advertising and promotion. Small local businesses, such as shops, restaurants, fast food junctions, real estate consultancy, or any other such business can download these posters and send them out for printing. These posters are print ready, and Facebook has even inverted them for printing ease. All they need to do is, edit their Page URL before printing. These posters can be displayed on billboards or front windows, encouraging customers to like the Facebook page for that business, or check in while they are inside the shop/restaurant etc. The only condition, of course, is that, businesses need to have a Facebook page. Otherwise, what use are they, if customers can't 'Like' anything?

These posters can also be used by website owners to divert traffic to their Facebook page. They can link the banners to their Facebook page, and encourage people to follow them and like the page. This way, online businesses can easily retain their customers, and send out updates for their benefit.

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Facebook Introduces New Marketing Features For Brand Pages

Facebook Pages are a great way to promote a brand, and pull traffic to a website. They offer many marketing features, such as targeting a specific audience, learning about insights and analytics, promoting your content, and more. Well now, Facebook has announced in a blog post, that it has introduced some new features to further assist marketers to better promote their content and draw more traffic. These new features include scheduling posts, unpublished page posts, and updated page admin permissions for third-party apps. These new features come as Facebook continues its stream of changes after a survey, that rated Facebook disappointingly low in terms of customer satisfaction.

Facebook got a low customer satisfaction rating due to its controversial updates such as the Ticker, the Timeline, and the every-increasing security concerns. Hence, these new features could be a bid to curb the losses incurred by Facebook as marketers reduced their activity. Now, Facebook is back with new options for such marketers. Options not currently available for Google Plus Pages.

Scheduling posts

Alas, this is a feature much awaited for by page admins. Facebook had no scheduling option for posts before, so admins either had to make do manually, or use a a third party app such as HootSuite. While those apps are perfectly fine, it's nice to have an in-build option on Facebook.

Page admins can now schedule their posts anywhere between 10 minutes to six months from the time of adding a post. They can also reschedule the post if it is more than 3 minutes from its scheduling time. This is a great and easy feature for page admins, who don't have to use any third party apps. Scheduling your posts will bring consistency to your page. In fact, it is a whole marketing strategy, scheduling posts at an optimum time so that maximum of your followers can see them.

Unpublished Posts

Here is another great new feature designed especially for targeted marketing. It is for page admins who sometimes want to send sponsored updates. These posts aren't really published, and don't show up on your timeline. Instead, they are sent to your followers based on their demographics that you choose. For example, you can send out posts only to men, or only to women etc. You can use this feature to run segmented marketing campaigns.

Admin Permissions

This is another great release aimed at restricting permissions to other admins and third party apps. Previously, there were fixed privileges for admins, which means if you needed an app to access your page to manage it, you had to grant it full permissions. But now, you can limit what permissions you give out. For example, a post scheduling app doesn't need to access your insights, not vice versa. Hence, you can restrict permissions to ensure more security.

These new changes look promising. But whether Facebook will be able to redeem its rating in user satisfaction or not, only time will tell. Hope you liked this post. If you run pages on Facebook, then do go ahead and try them out. And share this piece of news with others too :)

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Create A Branded Username For Google Plus URL

Google Plus is a very popular social media, and is especially useful for bloggers and webmasters, who not only have to catch traffic from the social media itself, but also adopt it so easily use and integrate with other Google services, such asBlogger, Google AdSense, Google Webmaster Tools, and so on. Google Plus is great in many respects. But it has one very obvious flaw, something which even newcomers to the network notice as well. Google Plus does not have personalized usernames in profile URLs. For example, for profiles or pages, you can't have a URL like plus.google.com/name, as you can on Facebook and Twitter. What you have instead is plus.google.com/1234567890 etc. There is a workaround for this, and you can create a brand username for your Google Plus Page or Profile URL!

Google Plus Profiles currently contain a long string on numbers, which are not easy to memorize. And so, unlike Facebook or Twitter, if someone asks you for your Google Plus profile link, you can't easily direct them verbally. You first have to open up your Google Plus profile, copy its URL, and then send it to someone via chat or email. This is very time- and effort-consuming. And if you're away and you need to give someone your profile link verbally or via message, the best you can do is tell them to look you up, hope there aren't very many people with the same name as yours, and trust that they'll find you.

All this involves much hassle. But you can get rid of it simply by using a great web app called GPlus!

What is GPlus?

GPlus is basically a URL shortening service for Google Plus. With it, you can get a personalized username for your profile in the form gplus.to/username. Note that this is a URL shortening service, which means it won't change your actual username on Google Plus. It will just provide you a redirect link, so when you enter gplus.to/username in your address bar, it won't directly open your profile. Rather, it will redirect you to your Google Plus profile.

Customizing Google Plus Profile URLs

1. You need to fetch your Google Plus Profile ID first. Log into your Google Plus account, and click on the down arrow next to your profile image in the top-right region of your screen. Now click on View Profile. Now, you can see the ID in your address bar. (See the image below. The highlighted numbers make up the ID). Select your ID and copy it.

2. Take this ID, and go to GPlus. In the Nickname, type in the username you want to use. Now paste your ID in the ID field, and click on Add. Be sure to type in only your ID numbers, and not any slashes (/) or any other part of your profile URL. Usernames can only be between 3-25 characters.

Once you click on Add, GPlus will show you whether all is okay or not. And that's it! Now you can type gplus.to/username into your address bar, and you will arrive at your own Google Plus profile!

Customizing Google Plus Page URLs

The process for customizing page URL is the same as for profiles. But there's a slight difference. Google Plus Page URLs are somewhat different than profiles.

Notice how page URLs are slightly different than profile URLs. But you just have to go for the string of numbers between the slashes.

Claim your username now!

This is a really great service which has been started recently. And already, millions of profiles and pages have been added to it. Claim your own username now before someone else scoops it up!

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Google Plus Overtakes Facebook In Customer Satisfaction

Facebook might now be facing a grim reality after a latest survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), which revealed that Facebook users are not satisfied with the happenings at the social network lately. More worrisome for Facebook is the fact that while its customer satisfaction is plummeting downwards, its rival network,Google Plus, is catching up fast! Not only that, other social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn have overtaken it as well with respect to customer satisfaction. To make matters worse, Facebook hasn't made much of a mark ever since its IPO and its first quarterly earnings as a public company. So what does this mean? Has Google Plus finally found the opening it has been looking for, or has Facebook yet to see the worst?

Survey performances

The ACSI conducts this survey annually, taking into account more than 230 companies across multiple sectors. It accesses how happy a company's customers or users are, and then rates the company accordingly, on a scale of 100. This year, Facebook scored a 61, a record low for the company, and a 7.6% decrease from last year's 66. Before that, Facebook scored 64 in 2010. Hence, this 61 comes as a shock, especially since it is the lowest among all of Facebook's major competitors.

Google+, on the other hand, starred in the survey. This was was a debut for Google+, and it rose to the occasion and scored a whopping 78, the top score which it shares with Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been topping the survey for the last three consecutive years. Now, it shares the lead with Google Plus. The major reasons for Google Plus's strong position is the absence of ads, and integration with other Google services, where it acts as a social glue holding everything together to provide a seamless experience to the users.

Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn were also included the first time ever this year in the survey. And surprisingly, all three fared better than Facebook. They scored 69, 64, and 63 respectively. Hence, Facebook might need to seriously reconsider its tactics. Myspace was not included for a second year in a row.

Why Facebook spiraled downwards?

Facebook might have mis-calculated things when it was introducing new features such as the Timeline. While users had the option to go or not go for the Timeline layout, Facebook pages weren't as lucky. And the layout was enforced on them. This caused a lot of discontent. The Timeline might look great to some people, most others aren't in favor of a dramatic change.

The survey also found out that users have security concerns. They don't entirely trust Facebook, what with all the widespread spam and scam. They are conscious about their privacy as well. The ticker feature saw to that. Now, people can see everything their friends are doing in the Ticker. There are other such features as well that make people rethink about sharing their personal information. Users also don't like the ruthless, "in-the-face" advertising on Facebook.

What this means for Social Networks

Facebook might be the biggest social network of all with over 900 million users, but its rivals are no newbies either. This could very well be their chance to gain the ground lost by Facebook. Such a low rating has hurt Facebook's reputation. Donna Tam at CNET says, "It's got to hurt Mark Zuckerberg's ego to see another low rating, considering the company's mantra is about making users happy over advertisers."

If there's one thing Facebook needs to learn, it's that keeping users happy is the key, and not adding more services. Only satisfied users will use those services. Pleasing over 900 million people isn't easy. And such a large number could be the reason why Facebook got such a low rating. Compare this with Google Plus's 250 million, and Twitter's 500 million. The more people there are, the more critics. But nevertheless, customer satisfaction should be every company's number one priority.

As for Google plus it has to cover a lot of ground. But it has a lot more potential, what with all the integration with other Google services. And if this trend of keeping customers satisfied remains, then we could be looking at the next leader in Social Media in the near future.

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Watch Live Tarawih Prayer Stream From Makkah In This Ramadan Kareem

In this holy and blessed month of Ramadan, Google presents a gift to more than a billion Muslims all around the world by launching a YouTube channel where you can watch and listen to live Tarawih prayers, and see special programs related to Ramadan Kareem. The prayers and other programs are broadcasted live through YouTube, with good audio and video streaming quality. This is indeed a great gift to those who haven't been there, or want to listen to the Imam-e-Kaba recite the Holy Quran during Tarawih Prayers. The Channel was made live on 20th June. During the time when there are no on-going prayers, the channel shows other streams from Masjid-al-Haram and The Kaaba.

The Tarawih prayers are a part of Ramadan (though not obligatory for everyone). They are offered along with the usual Isha prayers (night-time prayers). They are longer than usual prayers, and it is customary for the prayer leaders to complete the Holy Quran at least once in Tarawih prayers throughout the month of Ramadan. Hence, the people offering Tarawih prayers can benefit simply by listening to The Quran. And what better way to listen to the Quran other than in the beautiful voices of Imam-e-Kaaba and Haram?

To view the live Tarawih prayers, you can catch the channel live here, or click on the video below.

Besides this live prayer stream, Google has also set up a channel for people to see live television programs from over 50 channels during the month of Ramadan. Ramadan isn't just about praying. It is about peace as well, and entertainment while learning something useful. These programs are aimed at educating people and teaching them a lesson through the use of dramas and other such programs.

That is not all! Google has also organized 30 Hangouts for the 30 days of Ramadan. Since specially made Iftaar meals are traditional in Ramadan, these Hangouts will feature the best chefs sharing their recipes. Moreover, it will have doctors giving out advice about balanced diets, especially in Ramadan. Other than that, there will be literary and religious discussions as well, through which you can learn a lot!

If you are interested, you can follow the Google Arabia page on Google+, and find out about schedules, agendas, and other such updates. This is a really great venture, and we thank Google for it. Muslims all around the world can take full its full advantage, and learn a lot of things while being entertained! Hope you like this post, and will check these services out. Also spread the word so that other fellows can learn about it too! And if you have any questions regarding what we discussed in this post and previous posts about Ramadan, then feel free to ask. Peace and blessings people :)

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Yup! just a new step. We are releasing today the official business cards of STC NETWORKand declaring blogging as a lifetime profession. STC network now has two employees and successfully operating two blogs under its slogan. The number of co-authors and developers working for us would increase after Ramadan Kareem. We are now managing and working for several blogs and E-commerce websites as part of our premium services and developing both Blogger, PSD, HTML and Wordpress themes. We have added PHP development projects to our list just this year and we would also be offering SMO services very soon. MBT would continue publishing free plugins and tutorials as always and would serve blogosphere with the same zeal.

Buddies I never thought this small home hobby would turn out to be the business I dreamt off. Never even imagined few years back that my little living room where I sit and help thousands of people online daily would turn out to be the little Office I had to take care all my life. Can't thank enough the Supreme Cherisher Allah (SW) and especially all of you for the consistent love, respect and priceless feedback. The credit behind all that we achieved so far goes to you because you all remained a great learning institute some way or the other. I will remain thankful to you till time ends. :)

About the cards

The cards are printed at both sides and matt laminated, approximately the size of a debit card. Its designed by keeping MBT's parent design in mind, utilizing the same blue and black color combination. The idea behind its composition and design took me around a month because its often difficult to choose a flavor for yourself than for others. The front of the card contains details about the network administration, co-authors and some contact details whilst the back contains a quote I often use i.e. "I blog for living"

Note: The cell number given in the cards has been chopped off for privacy reasons.

Front:

Back:


Cards for our co-authors:
All the hard work that these two fellows have been doing in my absence or presence is worth more than what I did for them. To show an appreciation around 500 cards are color printed for both Qasim and Nida in order to help them better promote themselves in online industry.

How important are business cards for a Blogger?

Blogging is still a growing phenomena amongst people you meet in day to day life. Even those who are running blogs as hobby belittle its significance and look at it as a earning resource from advertisements. Earning through blogging is beyond advertisements. Blogging in short is the showcase of all your portfolio that attracts direct sponsors and customers. Advertisements cost for only 30% of all our monthly income whilst services and affiliate sales count for 70%.  It is often difficult  to explain to people you meet in daily life on how you earn a living out of a blog. Verbally dictating your domain address is yet another headache. It looks weird when people ask you "Sorry I forgot your blog address, what was it?" "How can I contact you?" "Do you have a visiting card?" "What's a blog?" "What do you do for living?" Thus instead of standing and answering all these questions verbally, handing your tiny business card saves both time and honor. Its indeed a great marketing strategy to advertise yourself at home amongst targeted customers around you. I really felt the need for an identity and therefore these cards become a necessity.

Business cards amongst bloggers is not very common because such web owners are mostly known online and they keep themselves visible within the parameters of their webpage screen resolution, but we took this step just to promote the trend of business cards amongst small business owners especially blog publishers.

If you have resources and you think your blog has reached a stage where it could attract local clients and market your local identity then I would strongly recommend that your order the prints outs right today.

Your views

If there is anything that gives me more pleasure then it's your honest feedback filled with love and respect and frankly gesture. I love reading all your comments and it hurts when I am not able to reply on time. This is my third year with you all. Shared almost everything with you, whether it may be a family tragedy, yearly achievements or a new business launch, I love sharing it with you all.  Thank you for motivating me to do better each day and each second.  Would love your suggestions on how can we improve this little community together and would appreciate your kind comments on this latest news. Take good care of yourselves always. Peace and blessings buddies. :)

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How can Multiple users Manage a Single Adsense Account?

Google AdSense is the leading and most popular ad service that bloggers make use of. It can be used with any Blogger or self-hosted blog or website, and is indeed a major source of income for most bloggers. Previously, Google AdSense could only be accessed by one account, which cause problems for blogs that are run by more than one person, because revenue-sharing is a critical issue. To achieve that end, Google has just released multiple accounts integration with Google AdSense. Now, you can share your AdSense account with your friends, family, or business partners. You can use access levels to control who gets what sort of authority in your AdSense account. In this post, we'll talk about how you can send invites, and give multiple access levels to people.

What can others access in your account?

You will have to send an invite to someone if you want to grant them access to your account. You can grant users with either of the two access levels, Standard or Administrator. Both these users can view, edit, or manage any part of that account. But here are the differences.

• Standard users can't see a list of users who have access to that account while Administrators can.
• Administrators can give out account access and change a user's access level, but standard users can not.

Invite others to your account

To invite a user to your account, simply sign into your AdSense account and then under your Home tab, open up Account Settings from the left panel.

Go to Access and authorization, and fill in email addresses in the Users with sign in accesssection. Now simply click on Invite. The user will be added with status pending until they accept your invite.

This Users with sign in access section will list all the users that have access to your account.

Remember: For someone to to able to access your account, they need to have a Google Account. Furthermore, people who already have Google AdSense accounts of their own can't access other accounts.

Change or revoke access to your account

To stop someone from accessing your account, simply go to Access and authorization in your Account Settings. In the Users with sign in access section, you will see a cross (x) button next to each user. Clicking on this cross will result in the user's removal. That user will be notified of this change via email, so no secret here :)

Also from the same section, you can change access level for any user. By default, all users are Standard, with the Administrator box unchecked. Checking this box for a user will provide them Administrator privileges, while unchecking this box will reduce their privileges.

Why we needed this feature?

Not every blog or website is run by a single person. This created a problem for all the share holders. Either one of them had to sign up for Google AdSense through his own Google Account, or they'd have to create a new universal Google Account. In the first case, the person with the AdSense account compromises his privacy, while in the other case, the account loses integration to other Google services that the blog owners might have previously signed up for (such as Google Plus). This new feature solves the problems I am sure many co-founders must have been facing.

Google has been pretty active recently. It recently introduced features for merging two Google+ accounts together, and also connecting Blogger accounts with Google+. And now, there's this. It is good to see Google busy. And hopefully, we'll soon see more such integration options for other services. So stay tuned for more such updates! Good day! :)

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How to Automatically Share Blog Updates on Google Plus?

Social Media promotion is every blogger's need. If a blog is an engine, then social media acts like a lubricant, without which a blog would stall. This is why bloggers need toshare their awesome content so that people around the world can know about it. To that effect, Google is trying to help out bloggers by ruffling quite some feathers. Recently, Google released the Google Takeout service that lets you merge two Google Plus accounts together. Now, you can connect your Google Plusaccount with Blogger to easily share your posts and also gain recognition for your work on social media. A share box will automatically appear when you publish a post, with which you can instantly share your content with the world! We'll look at how we can do this in this post.

Please note: This service is for Blogger blog only. It isn't available for WordPress or TypePad or any other publishing platform blogs. Also, Google makes it pretty clear that this feature is not available for you if you have adult content on your blog. This is Google's way to keep its social channel clean, which is a good thing.

Connecting Blogger With Google Plus

This trick will work only if you have your Google+ and Blogger profiles under the same Google Account with a common name. If both your profiles are under one account, then you are in luck. Simply log in to your blogger account, and go to your blog dashboard.In the top-right region of your screen, you will see a cog icon.

Clicking on the cog,  you will see an option to Connect to Google+. Click on that, and you will see a confirmation screen.

You are ready to make the switch. Just check the "I've read...." box and click switch.

If in the future, you want to disconnect the two accounts and revert to your Blogger profile, you can simply use the cog icon again, and there'll be an option to disconnect the two accounts.

Sharing posts

Once your posts are linked, you will see an option to share your posts right from your Blogger dashboard. This will also let you share your posts whenever you want, without having to deal with auto pop-ups.

Besides this, whenever you publish a post, you will see a pop-up box appear that has sharing options. It is pre-filled for your ease, and you can add a comment as you like. You can also choose which circles you want to share the post with. By default, the option will be set to Public.

If you don't like this sharing box, and if it's annoying you, you can simply disable it by going into Settings >> Posts and Comments.

That's about it. You can take advantage from this feature to easily share your content without having to manually go to your published pages and then using the available sharing widgets. If you want automation, you can use an app such as HootSuite. If you have question regarding this post, feel free to ask :)

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How to Automatically Share Blog Updates on Google Plus?

Social Media promotion is every blogger's need. If a blog is an engine, then social media acts like a lubricant, without which a blog would stall. This is why bloggers need toshare their awesome content so that people around the world can know about it. To that effect, Google is trying to help out bloggers by ruffling quite some feathers. Recently, Google released the Google Takeout service that lets you merge two Google Plus accounts together. Now, you can connect your Google Plusaccount with Blogger to easily share your posts and also gain recognition for your work on social media. A share box will automatically appear when you publish a post, with which you can instantly share your content with the world! We'll look at how we can do this in this post.

Please note: This service is for Blogger blog only. It isn't available for WordPress or TypePad or any other publishing platform blogs. Also, Google makes it pretty clear that this feature is not available for you if you have adult content on your blog. This is Google's way to keep its social channel clean, which is a good thing.

Connecting Blogger With Google Plus

This trick will work only if you have your Google+ and Blogger profiles under the same Google Account with a common name. If both your profiles are under one account, then you are in luck. Simply log in to your blogger account, and go to your blog dashboard.In the top-right region of your screen, you will see a cog icon.

Clicking on the cog,  you will see an option to Connect to Google+. Click on that, and you will see a confirmation screen.

You are ready to make the switch. Just check the "I've read...." box and click switch.

If in the future, you want to disconnect the two accounts and revert to your Blogger profile, you can simply use the cog icon again, and there'll be an option to disconnect the two accounts.

Sharing posts

Once your posts are linked, you will see an option to share your posts right from your Blogger dashboard. This will also let you share your posts whenever you want, without having to deal with auto pop-ups.

Besides this, whenever you publish a post, you will see a pop-up box appear that has sharing options. It is pre-filled for your ease, and you can add a comment as you like. You can also choose which circles you want to share the post with. By default, the option will be set to Public.

If you don't like this sharing box, and if it's annoying you, you can simply disable it by going into Settings >> Posts and Comments.

That's about it. You can take advantage from this feature to easily share your content without having to manually go to your published pages and then using the available sharing widgets. If you want automation, you can use an app such as HootSuite. If you have question regarding this post, feel free to ask :)

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Why You Are Lucky That You Started Blogging In 2012?

No, we aren't going to talk about doomsday predictions here, nothing of the sort. But we are gonna talk about how you can start a new life in the world of blogging (ironic huh?). Blogging is becoming more and more common these days. There's a blog about virtually everything. And not without reason.Blogging is a great way to express and share your thoughts with the world. Most use a blog to earn money. In fact, a blog is one of the best ways you can earn money online. And businesses use blogs to promote their products and services, and grow a customer/audience base. A blog is a major tool for promoting a brand. Hence, there are lots of benefits of blogging, especially in this era. If you don't already have a blog, now would be the best time to start!

There are so many blogs out there that some people think they are just adding to the noise. And we totally agree. There are literally tonnes of blogs that are low quality, poorly written, not very actively maintained, or worst of all, are spammy. But just because there are cheap blogs out there doesn't mean it is a reason not to start blogging. Which brings us to the question of the day; Why should you start blogging? Why now, and not later?

The competition is growing!

Don't let that hinder you! Blogging is on the rise! If you don't go along with the wave, you will get left behind! It is estimated that hundreds of blogs are published every minute! You should create one too before it is so late that you are unable to surface. Also, domains are being scooped up really fast. Who knows, the domain you want to register today might be gone tomorrow? Start blogging now!

Internet services have increased

There are tonnes of services out there that will help you instantly create a website or blog. Free publishing platforms such as Blogger, WordPress etc are the most widely used. Other than that, you can easily buy hosting and domain from services such as HostGator, which also provide free site builder tools for you to get your site up and running. There are other such internet services which makes life easier for bloggers. So why hesitate when you can get job done as easily as ever?

Google policy changes, now means business

This is the most important point I want to discuss about. Google changes its algorithm almost each year.  This year, it was the Penguin while last year, it was the Panda. Both these updates wrecked havoc among many websites and blogs. Before Penguin, people didn't know what to do, and how to recover. But now, after Penguin, Google has made it pretty clear that low quality websites or sites with cheap or fake backlinks are going to be punished. This impacted a lot of bloggers, who now have to work very hard to increase quality throughout their sites.

But for those wanting to start now, this could prove to be beneficial. They now know what Google wants. They won't be penalized. And so, they can start with a fresh, clean record. Old bloggers will need to fish out their old, low quality posts while new bloggers will have no such problem! :)

Start today, earn tomorrow!

If you're into this stuff, then there's really no reason to hold back. If you start today, you will start earning tomorrow. Little by little, you can build your blog into a brand and start making money. Don't hesitate about the time it'll take, because it will always take a lot of time, and effort. That's the secret to blogging actually. Time, and effort. Put in both, and over time, you'll see vivid results.

Always remember that everyone has to start from zero. Even pro-bloggers started from zero, years and years ago. Some blogs are as old as 6 years old. And their efforts have finally paid off. Now, they are earning thousands of dollars monthly! Who knows, you could be the pro-blogger everyone looks up to in four year's time? :)

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How To Merge & Manage Two Google Plus accounts Together?

When Google Plus originally started out more than an year ago, it was somewhat exclusive to Gmail accounts. most people signed up using their Gmail accounts, which might not have been their primary accounts. So they ended up with their Google+ operating on one Google account, and other serviceson another. In such a scenario, managing multiple Google+ accounts can be a headache, especially since you need to log out of one to use the other (unless you're comfortable with changing your browser). An any case, you might end up having two Google+ profiles, with similar friends, or more followers on the account you do not want. Well now, there's a solution for you. You can merge your Google+ accounts together into one, so you can easily manage your circles, posts, photos, and more!

Google didn't offer this kind of functionality before. But now, you have a good option. Using Google Takeout, you can merge any two accounts together. You just need to figure out your Source and Destination accounts. Google Takeout will take all the information from your Takeout account, and merge it into the Destination account. Hence, the Source account will be removed, and the Destination account will remain, an amalgam of the two profiles.

What will be transferred?

The Source account will be gone. But its circles will stay, and will be merged with the Destination account. Anyone you have blocked or ignored will also be blocked or ignored in the Destination account. Circles with same names will be merged. Your contacts, +1s, docs etc will also be transferred. This service, however, will not transfer profile information, posts, and comments. Unfortunately, it will also not transfer your Google+ pages, although you will be able to set up multiple admins for a page in the near future.

How to merge accounts?

First, log into Google Takeout using your Source account. Once you log in, you will see a screen similar to the one below.

Click on Transfer your Google+ connection to another account. Then, you'll be prompted to sign into your Destination account. Once you sign in, you'll just need to verify your information for both accounts. After that, you can begin the transfer.

That's all there is to it! Just sit back and wait for Google to merge your accounts!

Some things to remember

As said earlier, your Google+ pages won't be transferred, so you might lose them. And as far as the waiting period is concerned, it will take around a week for Google to merge your accounts. During this time, if you decide to pull out of the deal, you can simply cancel the process if it hasn't already been started by Google. You will know by going into your Source account, where you will see a button to Cancel Transfer.

Make sure you get the Source an Destination right, and not the other way around. Otherwise, you can rectify your mistake only after six months. This is a relatively new service, and we are hoping Google will improve it soon and reduce the waiting period. And we'd also very much like to see improvements in Google+ page structures. However, in the meantime, you enjoy socializing and stay tuned for more updates on Google Plus. Cheers :)

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