Category Archive

Well, it’s sure been a busy week here at Today.com. We had what might be considered growing pains between the new forum, the many new bloggers, and a few tech issues. I must say we seem to be going in the right direction though!

First, I would like to thank my team. You see Nichole, John, Blake, and Bryan posting in the forums. Working hard behind the scenes we also have Dan, Sherry, and Shelly. As they say in Rock & Roll, we got the hardest working band in show biz! It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come in a short amount of time. So here’s a shout out to the Today.com team!

Of course, I also can’t forget VIP Bloggers, both the new ones joining daily and the ones who’ve been around for a little while now. The content and the teamwork we see going on in the forums has been great!

We are launching a redesign of the front page of Today.com real soon that well get you more and more traffic. To begin with we will be featuring one VIP blog a day which will get top exposure. We will pick a different blog each day that we think is doing a great job and show them to the world. The home page gets over 150k visits every day and that’s a lot of eyeballs! So make sure you are putting your heart and soul into your posts because the world is watching.

Now on to my tip of the week.

In case you haven’t noticed (and I don’t know how you couldn’t have) there is a little button called “Add This” on your posts. Are you spreading the word? The button has links to many great services around the web that you can easily submit your blog to. They want to know about your blog, so let them know!

Next I suggest getting out there and finding chat boards and forums on your topic. Introduce yourself and your blog to others interested in what you write about. Don’t forget to add your blog link to your signature in any forums you frequent.

That’s it for this week folks. Make sure you stay up and active on the forums. Our main office is closed for the long weekend, so bear with us if we are a little slow responding to questions and requests the next few days.

Have a safe Memorial Day weekend! Dave

This week I have 2 short tips for you.

First, wondering how to change that “Just Another Today.com Weblog” text? This is the default tagline for newly created blogs. Depending on the theme you use it might even show up in your header. But no matter what theme you use you’ll want to have a more descriptive tagline. It helps bother readers and search engines understand what your blog is about.

Changing your tagline is very easy. When logged into your blog control panel go to “Blog options” and save your new, well thought out, and descriptive tagline. You can also edit your blog title there too.

Second tip, get your blog listed in Google’s search engine faster. Simply submit your blog to Google via their Add URL page. This takes the guesswork out of wondering if Google knows about your blog. You only need to submit once. Remember, if they don’t know your blog exists they can’t send you visitors!

Happy Blogging!

Dave

I just got done reading Adsense Secrets 4 by Joel Comm, an e-book on how to make more money with Adsense. I must say that I learned a lot.

Even though this doesn’t directly apply to a lot of you right now I recommend getting it. It will be especially helpful to bloggers who are or will be a part of our revshare program.

For those of you that have other blogs, as we know many of you do, this is great resource to check out now. It teaches you all the tips and tricks. Some of it’s common sense stuff, but I’m sure you’ll find some good info as well.

Best of all, the Adsense Secrets book is only $9.95. Joel is also offering a free issue of his monthly Top 1% Report when you buy the book. I haven’t checked that out yet so can’t comment on it right now, but since the first month is free if might be worth checking out yourself.

Thanks,
Dave

Another great week of blogging here at Today.com! Many new bloggers joined again this week and we are fast becoming a force in the blogging community. We are adding new bloggers so fast that our ears were ringing as chat boards, forums, and blogs across the Internet wondered what the heck is going on here.

Before we get to the tip I wanted to take the time to congratulate Violette for becoming our first Community Leader. You will be able to see her at work more in the coming weeks once we launch our VIP Blogger Forum. Stayed tuned for more info on that and keep up the good work Violette!

Our tip of the week is StumbleUpon.

StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites (and blogs!) The service is best used with their toolbar, which you may or may not like. But either way, it will definitely bring more traffic and readers to your blog. You can read all about how it works by checking out their about page.

Check out these 2 video tutorials we found that are really helpful with explaining how to use StumbleUpon.

How to Stumble Upon the Internet:

How To Use Stumbleupon Properly To Get Long Term Traffic:

Remember that helping to promote your blog is important. We are constantly evaluating traffic to all our blogs. We will continue to invest in and help bloggers whose blogs continue to grow and generate revenue. Unfortunately, those that don’t grow risk being dropped from the VIP program or having payment terms modified.

So my advice is to work hard. Write interesting and compelling posts and help promote them! In the end, you will get out of this what you put into it.

One last thing and it’s VERY IMPORTANT. A number of you have yet to completely fill out your mailing address. We are ready to send checks for April. Log in and click on “My Account”. Click on “Edit Account Information” and fill out any missing information. Double check and then click “Save Changes”

Have a great weekend,
Dave

With so many new bloggers starting in April we decided to start a new award: Editor’s Choice.

Our first monthly winners are The Gossip Queen and Classic Rock!

Let’s show them lots of love by visiting their blogs and giving them a big congrats. Not only do they get a nifty icon to show off on their blogs but they will also receive a $50.00 bonus!

The Gossip Queen updates her blog several times of day with all the latest juicy celebrity gossip and news. Classic Rock focuses on classic rock, vintage rock, rock and roll, and music in general.

If you didn’t win this month, don’t fret! We are going to be giving out 2 awards for May. Better yet, we are upping the stakes and making the bonus $250 each!

You have 2 chances to win. One for Editor’s Choice where will we pick one of our favorite blogs to honor. Your other chance is by being the Most Popular blog of the month.

To be most popular you need to get the most traffic and links. We will determine the winner based on our server logs. It’s up to you how to get the traffic (of course, no spamming please!) For example, you can use word of mouth and tell all your friends and family and you can also check out our previous tips on commenting and Digg for more ideas.

You have a whole month to get creative on making your blog the Most Popular. GOOD LUCK! We will announce the winners the first week of June.

Hello VIP Bloggers!

It’s been another great week of blogging at Today.com. We’ve doubled the number of VIP bloggers and have lots of new faces. We are growing our blogger base fast so if you know anyone who might be interested tell them to apply.

First order of business, there was a little confusion among some new bloggers who received a welcome email saying the rate was $2.50 per post. I am happy to say there are NO $2.50 bloggers in the today.com network. If you received that email consider yourself given a raise to $5! Please help us keep this rate by posting high quality articles so readers will want to continue reading, saving, and sharing Today.com blogs.

This week’s tip is commenting. A great way to get your blog out there is by visiting other blogs and leaving constructive comments for the blogger and the blog’s readers. Most times when you leave a comment you are given the opportunity to link to your blog at the same time.

The more links you have out on the Internet the better chance someone will find one and visit your blog. Commenting is also an opportunity to network with other bloggers and readers that you might not get otherwise.

Overall, it’s is a great way to increase awareness of your blog. Now, test out your commenting skills by leaving one here for us!

Thanks,
Dave

Well, it’s been a very busy week for Today.com! We started lots of new bloggers in our fledgling VIP blogging program. Many of you have already started and are writing lots of interesting posts! Topics run the gamut from cooking, to politics, to technology. It’s been very good reading to say the least. If you haven’t started yet log in as soon as you can and get writing. We want to see what you have to say.

Every time you post something new your blog is featured on the front page of Today.com. Look for your blog and other bloggers there. If you see something interesting introduce yourself (and your blog) to the other bloggers by leaving them a comment so they know you’ve stopped by.

We have lots of exciting projects in the works for Today.com. Our ultimate goal is to have the highest earning bloggers on the net. But it all starts with you! So keep up the good work.

To help you out, each week we will give a tip to make your blog more successful. This week’s tip is DIGG.

Digg is a highly popular community-driven website. By submitting your blog posts to Digg you share your blog with a larger audience. Once something is submitted, other people see it and Digg (vote for!) what they like best. If your post is really interesting and gets lots of Diggs, it can be featured on the front page of Digg for millions of people to see! If you don’t already have a digg account all you have to do is sign up for free. Submit as much as you can, and of course if you see another Today.com blog that you like on Digg don’t forget to help your fellow blogger out by digging their post!

Stayed tuned for future updates, tips, and news. In the meantime, if you have any feedback, questions, or just want to say Hello leave us a comment or use our contact form. We love feedback!

Thanks,
Dave

By popular request we’ve added the AddThis widget to blogs.

This will make it easier for your visitors to bookmark and share your blog posts with other people.

Today.com has undergone a huge transformation and now allows you to submit your blog feed from any site in the world to our free RSS Syndication directory. Each time you update your blog, you will get an automatic link to that post from Today.com

Readers can now comment on your stories directly on Today.com as well as vote for your story. The more votes, the better placement of your blog. Today.com is dedicated to bringing new traffic and fresh readers to your blog.

Signing up for syndication is as easy as entering in your blog homepage. Blogs are usually approved within forty-eight business hours.

So head on over to Today.com’s submission page and share your blog us to make it easier for readers to find you!

If you are not already a blogger, why not create a free blog on Today.com? Using our simple sign-up form you’ll be registered in minutes with your very own unique website URL and blog so you can share your thoughts and stories with the world. All new hosted blogs are automatically set up in our directories and syndication feed, and each new post you make using a Today.com registered blog will get a link published right on Today.com’s homepage.

So, have you blogged Today?

A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a type of website where updates, or posts, are usually made and displayed with the most recent post being at the top of the page.

While many blogs are personal in nature and act as a public online journal they can really be about anything. Often you will find blogs dedicated to a specific topic such as food, politics, or local news. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs and web pages related to its topic. Some blogs are dedicated to a specific media. Video blogs, audio blogs, and photoblogs have all become popular. There are even moblogs (short for mobile blogs) which are blogs written by a cell phone or PDA.

Interestingly, the term “weblog” was coined by Jorn Barger way back in 1997. This was later shortened to “blog” and is accepted as both a noun and verb. So you can say, “I have a blog.” or “I blog about cars.”

A blog entry typically consists of the following:

• Title, the main title, or headline, of the post.
• Body, main content of the post.
• Permalink, the “permanent” URL of the full, individual article.
• Post Date, date and time the post was published.
• Comments
• Categories (or tags) - subjects that the entry discusses
• Trackback and or pingback - links to other sites that refer to the entry

Early weblogs were simply manually updated components of websites. People needed to be web savvy and dedicated in order to start and maintain a web blog back then.

But now, browser-based software and dedicated blog hosting services such as http://www.today.com have made it super easy for everyone to join the blogosphere.