One of the best ways to keep people from leaving your blog is by giving them what they are looking for on your site. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a tool that made your site more dynamic and gave your visitors a set of additional tools to explore and share content with others. That’s exactly what Apture is all about. It’s a fun social bar that sits on the top of your blog and gives your visitors the tools they need to submit your pages to Facebook/Twitter or search across the Internet without leaving your website.

As you can see in the above screen-shot, Apture bar sits at the very top with links to Twitter and Facebook. The Javascript content explore on the right side makes it so easy for your visitors to search for content without leaving your website. Setting up Apture on your website is not that hard. All you have to do is customize the look and feel of your bar. You can even upload your logo if you wish.

So why does Apture matter? For starters, it adds a whole new layer to your website, providing your readers with much more value. They can easily search on your website, so you do not lose traffic to those search engines. The fact that the bar is not intrusive is a big plus too. It is well worth testing to see how your readers react to it.

Every blogger wants more traffic. The more people visit your website and read your content, the better chance you have of getting the recognition you deserve from your work. Of course, when you start a new blog, it is going to take time for you to get ranked in the search engines and for people to find out about your website. My philosophy is, every little thing that you do is going to help you over the long run. That’s why new bloggers need to focus on building links and creating outposts for their blog. Now here is the tricky part. You are going to have only 24 hours a day, so you won’t have the time to be involved on too many sites. That’s why you should pick and choose your spot.

All bloggers need to be involved on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz. That goes without saying. But in order to further increase your traffic, you need to go beyond those 3 services. Here are 5 ways to get started:

Keep Building Those Hubpages

Hubpages is one of the most underrated web services around. I still get traffic from a hubpage I wrote a couple of years ago. Of course, you need to play the game and be involved in that community. Commenting on other people’s pages can help. You shouldn’t cut corners as people will call you out. Whatever you do, do not forget to link back to your blog.

Don’t Forget Squidoo

Squidoo is another one of those websites that can bring you lots of traffic or nothing at all. It really depends how much effort you put into your Squidoo lenses. The more comprehensive they are, and the more involved in that community, the better chance you have of gaining a decent amount of traffic from that site.

Get Involved on Posterous

Posterous does require you to dedicate a decent amount of time to keep your account up to date. But it’s a great community to be involved in if you are a social media pro or just a newbie blogger.

Build Your Presence on Tumblr

Tumblr was considered by some experts to be the “next Twitter.” While it may not be there at this point, it can still offer you another chance to connect with potential visitors and show them why they should check your main blog.

Take Advantage of Article Directories

Article Directories are not as powerful as they used to be, but they can still drive traffic to your website. You can build some backlinks to your blog and bring in a decent amount of traffic if your articles are shared or voted up on the site.

The above methods will not drive millions of people to your website. But they will help you increase your traffic gradually. Every little thing counts.

I have always been a slow reader. Whether I am reading an English book or one in a foreign language, it does take me quite a while to get it finished. It’s partly due to the fact that I stop and analyze what I have read over and over again before moving on to new chapters. But my reading speed did make it difficult to keep up with things. That’s why I picked up eyeQ solution a while back. It was a software application that taught me how to read faster. Nowadays, you don’t really need a PC software to learn speed reading. As long as you have a decent smart-phone, there is a good chance you can pick up a decent speed reading app to go with it. QuickReader is such an app for iPhone. It can not only open up your e-books, it can teach you how to read them faster.

A lot of people seem too lazy to try speed reading or just don’t believe it works. It really does as long as you are patient about it. QuickReader gives you access to thousands of free eb00ks on your iPhone and lets you import articles and web pages as well. This application is pretty easy to use. Just set the pace that you can handle and follow the guide as long as you can. If you choose a faster speed than you can handle, you are going to find it very difficult to follow the guide. You want to go step by step here, so there is no reason not to start with the speed that you are comfortable with.

Once you have practiced with this app long enough, you can take advantage of its quiz functionality to figure out how much you have progressed. QuickReader has a very easy to use interface and does make it very easy to get some practice in speed reading on the road. It does work fine on an iPad as well. Best of all, you can just use it as a document reader if you are not into speed reading (no reason not to be).

To sum things up, QuickReader can help increase your productivity if your follow its instructions and practice hard.

What’s your reading speed?

In order to become a successful blogger, bloggers need to focus more on providing value to their readers. People come to a blog to learn new things, stay on the top of the latest news, and communicate with their blog community members. As a blogger, you may not be able to track every single piece of news, but it never hurts to create a news aggregator on your site to give your visitors an easy way to keep track of the latest developments in your niche without leaving your website. Thanks to OneNews for Wordpress you can do just that in a matter of minutes.

OneNews for WordPress is a very easy to use theme that transforms your blog into your very own news aggregator, similar to what AllTop offers. You can use the theme to add your favorite blogs, Twitter searches, and Google news feeds. That way your visitors can stay on the top of the latest developments in your niche all from one place. This theme can handle Flickr photos and YouTube videos too.

You have 4 ways to add your feeds to this theme. The easiest way is to grab your favorite RSS feed and add it to a text RSS widget on your theme. PhotoRSS and VideoRSS widgets enable you to add your Flickr stream or YouTube videos to your topic tracking website. Those of you who know HTML can add HTML code to your theme (ad code or anything else you desire).

You do want to watch the number of feeds that you add to your theme as it can put some heavy load on your servers. So this theme is not to create a huge RSS feed tracker unless you have your own dedicated server. It can handle a reasonable number of feeds well (especially if you use a decent cache plugin for WordPress). Another easy way to improve your blog.

Whether you are a part-time blogger or a pro-blogger who makes a full-time living online from your blog, you want to take time on a daily basis to keep up with the latest developments in your niche and other industries. You certainly don’t want to talk about things without being on the top of things in your market. Not knowing what you are talking about is the best way to lose your credibility and damage your blog’s reputation. Finding blogs to read in your niche is not that difficult. There are plenty of lists out there that show you what the top blogs are in each niche. There are plenty of bloggers that create posts about top blogs in different niches. So there is no excuse in finding a handful of blogs to read on a daily basis. Things get a bit more dicey when you are greedy like me. There was a time that I had over 1000 feeds in my “must read” folder. I was never able to catch up with everything in that folder, but it was a nice way to challenge myself.

I realized after a while that one just can’t keep up with that many feeds. Not without sacrificing some other things. As a business owner, I owed it to myself to organize my feeds in a way that would help me get the information I need on a daily basis without forgetting about my core business processes. If you suffer from information and feed overload, you may want to consider switching your feed reader and use one that lets you organize your feeds and get more out of them. Bloglines and Google Reader are both very powerful and worth using if you are a feed junkie. I personally stopped using Bloglines a while ago as Google Reader provided me with more social features, but either solutions works great. How you organize your feeds is going to be the most important part of the process. There are plenty of ways to organize feeds and gather information through your feed reader. I personally classify my feeds under these 6 categories:

• Must Read: these are feeds that have proven themselves over the past when it comes to quality and depth of analysis. These are feeds that I wouldn’t want to miss no matter how busy I am.
• Must Skim: there are some feeds that are not really worth going through all the time. Sometimes they have great articles that you want to read but not all the time. I would skim through these feeds to see if there is anything interesting available. But I wouldn’t spend too much time on them.
• Idea feeds: feeds that inspire me and give me ideas about future products/services and even future blog posts. I usually catch these once every other day.
• Forums: I have added my favorite forums’ RSS feeds to Google Reader as well. That allows me to get people’s questions when they happen. Besides, forums are great places to mine for ideas.
• Alert Feeds: these are the alerts I have setup through Google Alerts. Instead of sending the alerts to my e-mail, I just grab the feed and add it to my reader. It’s easier to manage and doesn’t fill up my inbox. Great for tracking brands, breaking news, and more.
• Wild blogs: these are blogs that have nothing to do with my niche. They are usually out there. We are talking about highly sophisticated tech, programming, psychology, and analytics blogs. I don’t read everything there is here, but they do help me get new ideas once in a while.

When it comes to keeping up with your feeds, you want to focus on quality instead of quantity. You are not going to have time to read blogs all day. That’s not how you run a blog or business. So pick and choose the blogs you read carefully and remove those that usually have similar posts on the same topics. Keeping up with 100s of blogs a day is always nice, but that shouldn’t be your only focus. Not if you are running a serious business.

When it comes to taking your blog to the next level, there is so much content you can write. There are plenty of other ways to beef up your blog that go beyond writing new stories. The key is providing value to your readers. Something they can’t get anywhere else. Whether it is giving your readers new ways to consume your content or provide them with tools to get things done easier, there are ways that you can go viral and solidify your blog community at the same time.

You do want to think about what your audience is into before developing an action plan. For that, you need to figure out whom you are targeting on your blog and what are their needs and wants that you can address. That way, when you do create a service or product for your readers, it’s going to be something that they appreciate.

With that in mind, here are 10 ways to improve your blog and solidify your community:

• iPhone Apps: developing an iPhone app around your blog is the best way to get your community together and keep it growing. You do want your iPhone app to be more than just your blog posts. You obviously want to get some branding time. But don’t hesitate to go beyond your blog posts and develop an app that provides a unique value to your readers.
• Blog Themes: there are many new bloggers who have no idea how to design a theme for their blogs and don’t want to spend money on custom blog designs. The best way to help those people out is by offering them a free theme or two. You can always ask them to link back to your blog from theirs.
• Wordpress Plugins: lots of people use Wordpress as their blogging platform. Developing a useful Wordpress plugin can also help you get the word out about your blog and drive lots of traffic to your community. You don’t have to develop the plugin yourself. Use a service such as Rent a Coder to hire someone to do it for you. The temptation is always there to charge for your plugin. But offering it for free will have a more viral effect. Think of it as a form of promotion for your blog. If your plugin is any good, you are going to get a persistent stream of traffic for a long period of time.
• Facebook Apps: you can always create Facebook apps and pages for you blog. But don’t limit yourself to that. Develop something useful for your audience and reap the rewards as they keep coming back to you and your blog for more.
• Twitter Apps: Twitter API is a blogger’s best friend. There are plenty of ways to develop a Twitter app that helps your community and drives traffic to your website. If you have a big budget, you can develop a unique Twitter client. If not, use your creative side. Here is a good example.
• Mashups: there is more to web than Facebook and Twitter. If you hire a programmer who is familiar with other web 2.0 services, you should have no problem developing aggregators and cool mashups for your audience.
• Simple Tools: some people assume that you need to develop a killer, highly complex tool for your audience to appreciate your efforts. In reality, simple tools can have the same effect. Take calorie counters and calculators. They are not very complicated, but at the same time very popular.
• Free e-Books/Reports: lets say you write a blog about blogging. Not every one of your readers is going to be an expert blogger. By writing a short book or report for beginner bloggers, you can not only expand your community but also solidify your existing one. Your report may go viral as well, depending on how much time and effort your spend to develop it.
• Widgets: wouldn’t it be nice if your readers could embed your content on their blogs. How about your tools? That would not only help your audience, but it can also drive lots of traffic to your blog as well.
• Portals/Wikis: developing a comprehensive portal or wiki around your niche can prove useful for your audience as well. Let’s say you write about PlayStation games. Having a comprehensive game wiki could prove useful for your audience. At the same time, it could keep your community together and drive traffic to your website as well. Don’t forget that search engines love Wikis too.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to do all this work by yourself. You can always outsource the process. Just know your audience and its needs and wants before spending money on your project. The last thing you want to do is create a tool for the sake of doing it.

What’s your take? Please feel free to add your thoughts and suggestions below.

Search engine optimization seems to get more popular by the hour. As the state of economy stays dire, as it has been in the past few months, many bloggers are cutting their monthly budgets and spending more time researching on free ways to drive traffic to their blogs. Search engine optimization is one of those ways. Many bloggers just assume that you have to be some technical genius to optimize your website for the search engines. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact is as a blogger there are simple steps you can take to increase your traffic from the search engines and take your blog to the next level.

How to Get Started with Blogging SEO

In order to optimize your blog for search engines, you need to focus both on on-page and off-page factors. The on-page factors are those that involve you making changes on your site, to your code. Off-page pages involve incoming links and your social media efforts. With that in mind, here are a few simple steps you can take to optimize your blog for SEO:

1. Content: since you are not trying to be one of those folks who optimize splogs for SEO, you want to make sure you provide real value to your readers in your blog posts. That’s not just good practice. It’s really the only way you can sustain a high level of traffic over a long period of time.

2. Title Tag: using your core keyword phrase in your title goes a long way towards helping you getting ranked for that term. It’s one of the most important on page factors.

3. URL: having your keyword phrase in your URL also helps you get a push on the search engine results pages. It’s very simple to do if you are using a content management system such as Wordpress.

4. Special tags: using special tags such as h1 and B tags can help you even more with your rankings. These tags give engines a better indication on what’s important to you on each and every page.

5. Keywords: the most important part of your SEO strategy. There are plenty of tools that you can use to do your keyword research and find those that people are searching for. Services such as WordTracker and Wordze come in very handy. You can also use Google Adwords Keyword Tool to do some basic keyword research done.

6. Links: linking to your own content should be a big part of your strategy. Your internal links do matter and can help search engines find and index more of your pages. Don’t forget about the text you use in your links! Use the keyword you want that page to get ranked for, and you’ll be off in the long run. You should also take time to link to authority sites from your site. Being associated with top authority sites never hurts, and while you may not get a link back from them, your readers will appreciate those links.

7. Long-tail: a guerrilla marketing tactic that I have been using for a few years now. You may ask, why would I want to get ranked for a term that only 100 people are searching for per month. Those terms are less competitive, easier to rank for, and your traffic adds up as long as you optimize for enough of them.

8. Inbound Links: don’t forget to submit your blog to directories such as E-zine Articles, Isnare, and more. You should also consider blog directories such as AllTop. All these links count one way or another (though you want to focus on the Yes Follow ones).

9. Social Media: using the social media to get links back to your site is a great way to push your content and get more traffic. Make sure to take advantage of Twitter, Facebook, and other sites to increase your traffic for free. Don’t forget to ask your readers to help you out.

10. Plugins: not a SEO tip, but you are always better off using blog enhancements to get the above steps down. There are plenty of plugins for Wordpress and other systems that help you optimize your titles, create a sitemap, and modify your URLs easily. It just doesn’t make sense to spend time doing all these steps by hand.

There you have it. 10 steps to help you get started with SEO on your blog. There are plenty of other tactics you can employ to climb the search engine rankings, which is why you should come back for the second part of this post.

The job market is tough. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that. It’s not that jobs are not out there. It’s just that you have more people going for less positions. To put it in economic terms, you have a lot of demand but not that much supply. A lot of job searchers have been discouraged by the conditions in the job market, and some even stop searching. I know a lot of these people, and it’s heart breaking to see people struggle to make a living these days. But the question that I usually ask this folk is whether they blog. It’s really simple. If you don’t have a job and searching for a job, you are still going to have some time to blog on a daily basis. It’s never too late to start blogging, and who knows where it’s going to take you.

Many people are afraid of starting a blog. They feel blogging is done only by geeks and nerds. That attitude has started to change in the recent month as more people are realizing how easy it is to start a blog and start building business. Becoming a blogging superstar is not that easy. It does take a while, and a lot of work. But that doesn’t mean you should start. If you don’t get into the game, you are never going to succeed. Blogging can open a lot of doors for you. You may get consulting offers from your visitors. You can even write a book (a lot of bloggers have). Here are just a few things you can achieve with blogging:

• Find a job.
• Build up your resume (blogging looks good on your resume).
• Gain more on the job experience.
• Find consulting/short-term projects.
• Create an in-demand product.
• Make money from your blog.
• Sell your blog for profit.
• Set yourself up as a guru in your industry..
• Increase your marketability.
• Network with other bloggers and expand your network.
• Find new passions and enter new industries.
• …

Whether you are looking for a job or you already have one, there is still no reason not to start a blog. The sooner you start blogging, the better off you will be in the long run. Your blog will gain value over time and open doors for you in the future. It’s not just about money, but rather about building assets. One day you are going to be thankful you started your blog when you did.

Your take: what has stopped you from starting your own blog?

Recently, I had a chance to write about how I drive traffic to my websites with Squidoo. Squidoo is powerful service that lets you create all kinds of websites fast. And it does help that it ranks fairly well on Google and other major search engines. In order to demonstrate how you can put up a useful Squidoo page that can provide value to your visitors, I decided to create Twitter Hacks. Twitter Hacks is a Squidoo lens that is put together to help those new to the world of Twitter master everything there is to Twitter and get their social media game to the next level.

Twitter Hacks not only provides you with Twitter training, but it also contains a comprehensive list of Twitter tools that you can use to get more done on Twitter with less. If you are an advanced Twitter user, you can also learn how to start and write your own Twitter application using Twitter API.

Twitter Hacks is just a simple example of how you can put up a Squidoo page together fast. It did take me a while to do the research and test all the different applications, but putting together the page didn’t take that long. Your Squidoo pages don’t have to be as comprehensive as Twitter Hacks, but you want to make sure you give your visitors something that’s worth their time.

P.S. don’t forget to rate Twitter Hacks if you like it.

Controversy sells. If you have writing your blog for a while, you have probably used controversial posts to engage your users and gain more traction in the blogging world. Just take a look at Fox News. Those guys have some of the worst reporting I have seen in the media. They are so biased and crude. At the same time, they are dominating the world of cable television. Guys such as Bill Oreilly and Sean Hannity call President Obama all the names in the book, and people keep watching them (and I am not talking about the conservatives). It’s really the oldest trick in the book. Create controversy and reap the rewards for a long time. If you don’t believe me, ask Rush Limbaugh.

There are many ways to create controversy, some of which even I am not comfortable with. Not everyone can pull off a Rush Limbaugh. It’s an art, and that’s why Rush is so good at what he does. But if you are looking to create a little bit of controversy to gain some exposure on the Web, here are a few ideas to consider:

1. Take on other top bloggers.
2. Make bold predictions.
3. Make off the wall predictions.
4. Talk about the difference between men and women.
5. Pick one gender over the other (know your audience first).
6. Talk about why Web 2.0 is overrated.
7. Bash Twitter!
8. Talk about the death of blogging.
9. defend Scientology and Tom Cruise on your blog.
10. Pull a Hannity on President Obama
11. Talk about who shouldn’t have touched the Queen
12. Pick Microsoft over Apple.
13. Bash the iPhone!
14. Talk about UFOs.
15. Tackle Illegal Immigration.
16. Defend or oppose abortion.
17. Post a controversial video.
18. Create response videos to top bloggers.
19. Talk about how our economy is doing great.
20. Defend Jim Cramer and the Wall Street.
21. Defend Facebook’s latest redesign.
22. Better yet pick Facebook over Twitter.
23. Or Twitter over Facebook.
24. Discuss how Zune was great.
25. Repeat Glenn Beck’s claims on your blog.
26. Talk about how Kindle will never make it.
27. Discuss Cash 4 Gold on your blog.
28. Leave Twitter and talk about the reasons.
29. Bash Digg and its new toolbar.
30. Attack Net Neutrality.
31. Argue why Wikipedia is overrated.
32. Talk about why Twitter and Facebook should be paid services.
33. Talk about dubious ways to gain followers on Twitter.
34. Discuss the pros of behavioral tracking.
35. Talk about who you wouldn’t date.

There are many more ways to create controversy on your blog. I strongly recommend everyone to look at FoxNews. These guys have turned this concept into an art. I am personally no fan of controversies. But there is no question this tactic works. Just make sure you know where that line is and don’t cross it. Remember, you want to expand your blog not kill it!

Your take: did I miss anything? What would you add here?