Planning your posts helps to keep them on track from start to end. A good plan doesn’t take long – but it saves you a lot of time in rewriting and editing.

Here’s how to plan your posts in just four simple steps:

Step #1: Choose Your Topic

A great post starts with a clear idea. Select one topic to write about.

You might find it helps to write a whole list of ideas before choosing your topic. If you just go with the first idea that you come up with, you’ll probably find that it doesn’t make a very good post.

Step #2: Draw a Mindmap

Mindmapping is a great way to brainstorm, because it actively encourages new ideas.

Put your topic or title in the center of the page, and then write down sub-topics as they occur to you. Don’t worry whether they fit well or not – just write them all down. Draw lines to connect any related ideas.

(This is also a great way to come up with multiple posts, perhaps for a linked series.)

Step #3: Select Your Key Points

A mindmap is a great start, but it’s not a whole plan.

Take a look at the ideas on your mindmap and ask yourself:

• Are there any points that don’t belong in this post?
• Are there any points that should be merged together?

Once you’ve decided what to keep, what to cut and what to merge, you can move on.

Step #4: Order Your Sections

A finished plan includes the order of your key points.

Decide which point you should tackle first, and write (1) next to it. Then do (2), (3) and so on. If you’re struggling, try working backwards from your final point.

For a step-by-step post, the order is usually obvious! If you’re writing a list post, try ordering your points with the easier ideas at the start and the harder ones at the end.

You should now have a complete plan in the form of a mindmap. It might look a bit messy, with some crossed-out ideas and numbers dotted all over the place – but it’ll help you construct a clear, useful blog post.

Related Posts Plugins for your WordPress Blog

1. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site.

Download

2. Related Posts Thumbnails

This plugin will add related posts thumbnails after the post. Plugin allows to customize thumbnail sizes, display settings and type of relation.

Download

3. Related Posts by Category

Related Posts by Category lists similar posts within any post. As a search string the plugin does not use the title of the article nor weighs the content.

Download

4. LinkWithin

LinkWithin is a blog widget that appears under each post, linking to related stories from your blog archive.

Download

5. Microkids Related Posts

Display related posts automatically, using shortcodes, using widgets or use one of the available API functions to add them to your theme

Download

6. WP Thumbie

Display a list of related posts along with thumbnail images of those posts for the current post.

Download 

7. upPrev Previous Post

When a reader scrolls to the bottom of a single post, a button animates in the page’s bottom right corner, allowing the reader to select the next available post in the single post’s category

Download

8. Related Posts Slider

Related posts slider creates a very attractive slider of the related posts or/and pages for a WordPress post or page.

Download

9. OutBrain

The widget is free, simple to install and will automatically inherit the look and feel of your site. Set your preferences below and in less than 60 seconds, your readers will begin seeing thumbnail images linking to great content.

Download

10. NRelate

The best way to display related content: Thumbnails or Text, on all your pages.

Download

If you are in that same situation, here is a simple strategy that will certainly increase your blog traffic and make you break the 1,000 daily page views mark. In fact, the strategy could be used even if your are already over that number but have reached a traffic plateau lately.

Just make sure to execute the 4 steps as planned and to spend the two hours and a half every day (obviously if you have more time available you can expand the time spent on each of the four steps proportionally).

First Step: Killer Articles (1 hour per day)

Spend one hour brainstorming, researching and writing killer articles (also called linkbaits, pillar articles and so on).

Notice that your goal is to release one killer article every week. If that is not possible aim for one every 15 days. So the one hour that you will spend every day will be dedicated to the same piece. In other words, expect killers articles to take from 5 up to 10 hours of work.

If you are not familiar with the term, a killer article is nothing more than a long and structured article that has the goal of delivering a huge amount of value to potential visitors. If you have a web design blog, for example, you could write an article with “100 Free Resources for Designers”. Here are some ideas for killer articles:

• create a giant list of resources,
• write a detailed tutorial teaching people how to do something,
• find a solution for a common problem in your niche and write about it, or
• write a deep analysis on a topic where people have only talked superficially

When visitors come across your killer article, you want them to have the following reaction: “Holy crap! This is awesome. I better bookmark it. Heck, I better even mention this on my site and on my Twitter account, to let my readers and friends know about it.”

Second Step: Networking (30 minutes per day)

Networking is essential, especially when you are just getting started. The 30 minutes that you will dedicate to it every day could be split among:

• commenting on other blogs in your niche,
• linking to the posts of bloggers in your niche, and
• interacting with the bloggers in your niche via email, IM or Twitter.

Remember that your goal is to build genuine relationships, so don’t approach people just because you think they can help to promote your blog. Approach them because you respect their work and because you think the two of you could grow together.

Third Step: Promotion (30 minutes per day)

The first activity here is the promotion of your killer articles. Whenever you publish one of them, you should push it in any way you can. Examples include:

• letting the people in your network know about it (don’t beg for a link though),
• letting bloggers and webmasters in relevant niches know about it,
• getting some friends to submit the article to social bookmarking sites,
• getting some friends to Twitter the article, and
• posting about the article in online forums and/or newsgroups.

If there is time left, spend it with search engine optimization, social media marketing and activities to promote your blog as whole. Those can range from keyword research to promoting your blog on Facebook and guest blogging.

Fourth Step: Normal Posts (30 minutes per day)

Just like a man does not live by bread alone, a blog does not live by killer articles alone. Normal posts are the ones that you will publish routinely in your blog, between the killer articles. For example, you could publish a killer article every Monday and normal posts from Tuesday through Friday. Here are some ideas for normal posts:

• a post linking to an article on another blog and containing your opinion about it
• a post informing your readers about a news in your niche
• a post asking a question to your readers and aiming to initiate a discussion
• a post highlighting a new resource or trick that you discovered and that would be useful to your readers

While killers articles are essential to promote your blog and bring new readers aboard, normal posts are the ones that will create diversity in your content and keep your readers engaged.

Extra Tips:

Submit and Ping your blog
This method is not going to guarantee you will get massive readers or visitors. But at least it gives you the much needed exposure. You can submit your blogs to hundreds of blog or article directories out there such as   Digg, StumbleUpon, BlogMalaysia, just to name a few. Besides that you should also ping your blog. What is a ping? Hmm…simply put when you ping your blog, updates from your blog will be informed to a lot other sites which aggregate content. The ping services that I usually use are Ping-o-Matic! and Blogged.My.

There are those that believe that any image available on the Net is theirs for the taking. They go to Google image search, find a picture they like and add it to their blog or site.

The fact is that nearly all images found on the web is the property of the photographer. You are not allowed to use them without his or her permission, unless the images are very old or there is a licence that allows for this kind of use.

Creative Commons (CC) provides the most popular way of tagging images for public use.

Flickr advanced search

You may use Flickr’s advanced search to find CC images, but now the major search engines are adding this search functionality as well.

Yahoo! Image Search

Yahoo! added a “Creator allows reuse” filter last month. Go to Yahoo! Image Search, search for a motive — let’s say Golden Gate Bridge , then click on “More filters”.

Next tick off “Creator allows reuse” and select either “Commercial use” and/or “Remix, tweak, build upon”.

If you click on any of the images found in the new search results , Yahoo! will add information regarding to what extent the photographer allows for commercial and other types of reuse.

It seems this function is limited to images from Flickr, probably because Flickr is the only sizable service that allows for this kind of systematic tagging.

Google image search

Google has also added this search function to their image search engine, although they do not make it easy for you to find it.

As a matter of fact, there are no filters directly available, neither in the regular search interface nor in the advanced one.

Search Engine Land, however, has presented a few parameters you may add to the search string URL to filter out images in the public domain:

• Public Domain Images: Add &as_rights=cc_publicdomain to the URL
• Creative Commons Attribution Images: Add &as_rights=cc_attribute to the URL
• Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike Images: Add &as_rights=cc_sharealike to the URL

This feature is obviously being tested and Google is proably going to add it to their advanced search options when the testing is done.

We can’t see that Bing provides filters like these.

See also: 3 great ways to find free images
Find free images with visual Flickr search

By the way, the image used in this article is a Creative Commons licenced photo. We use a WordPress plug-in that lets us search Flickr directly from the blog publishing tool for such images.

We can’t see that Bing provides filters like these.

Nothing can fully replace having your own photographer at your side, but there are many photographers who use the web as their digital portfolios and allow writers and website owners to use their images royalty-free. Just because an image is on the web does not mean it’s a free image and you have the right to use it, and if you start making money off your blog while illegally using copyrighted images, you could be in for a world of hurt.

There are several types of royalty-free photo sites out there. Some have their own licenses, and others use copyleft licenses like Creative Commons or GNU Free Documentation License. Still others allow the users to specify the terms such as notification and crediting. The following are several sites you can use to find free images for your writing.

Where to Find Free Images?

stock.xchng – One of the most well-established free stock photo sites, stock.xchng showcases an amazingly large number of photographers. Licenses include the standard restrictions, which do not require attribution, as well as an attribution, permission, and/or notification requirement. All of the images are high-quality, and all are free of charge.

Flickr – Since Flickr itself is a photo sharing site, there are plenty photos with “all rights reserved” that are off-limits to you unless you gain the photographer’s permission. With the “advanced search” feature, however, you can locate usable photos by scrolling to the bottom of the page and checking: “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content”. If you need to use the images for commercial promotion, also be sure to check “Find to use commercially”.

A word of caution: Flickr uses the Creative Commons feature trusting that the person who uploads it will honor its terms. Unfortunately, some are prone to later change the license or upload images that they do not have permission to license in the first place. Therefore, always use your best judgment.

Wikimedia Commons – Created by the same non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia, this free image site has a plethora of usable photos and art. Because of stricter requirements for submission, Wikimedia Commons photos are all reusable under Creative Commons. Most require attribution, so be sure to credit your sources.

OpenClipArt – Although clipart may be the last type of image you want to include in your writing, OpenClipArt has some quality vector SVG artwork that may cause you to reconsider. All of the images on this site are released to the Public Domain and do not require attribution.

Google Advanced Search – Rather than an image hosting site, Google image search is a meta search tool that you can use to find reusable images. Simply click on “Advanced Search” and for “Usage rights” select “free to use or share”. Most of the images will come from Flickr, but it may also find additional ones, and best of all, it relies on Google’s speedy search interface.

everystockphoto – Another meta search tool, everystockphoto searches many of the sites mentioned above, such as Flickr and stock.xchng. Each entries clearly defines the license type, resolution, image source, and more.

morgueFile – An interesting concept, morgueFile is designed specifically for creative people looking for free images to use. The site license does not require attribution, and the collection of photos is quite impressive and high quality.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog – The Library of Congress has tons of digital images, and it would make this article unduly long to list all of the categories. If you are looking for art, historical photos, or things you might not be able to find elsewhere, LOC probably has it. Most of the old photos and art are in the public domain, but be sure to check the restrictions for each collection you use.

Now you have no excuse not to include beautiful free photos and art in your writing. Like you, a writer who shares your creations with the world, there are plenty of photographers and artists who do the same. Enjoy their work, and be sure to give them credit when they request it.

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Some bloggers and users of social media are satisfied to hammer out a post or send a tweet whenever they can. Others stay up late editing the next day’s blog post and setting it to auto-post at 4 AM. Is there really any advantage?

In a word, yes. In two words: definitely maybe.

Online marketers and community managers want to know one simple thing: when can they put their information, products, and special offers in front of the greatest number of people at one time. By learning about the timing of blog posts and social media updates, they’ll be able to maximize their exposure relative to the time they invest and even capture audiences that online marketers have neglected.

When to Use Social Media

Many businesses focus their blog posts and social media efforts on the work week, assuming that their audiences are most attentive during week days. However, consider this statistic from a 2009 Wired Magazine survey: 54% of companies block Facebook and Twitter. That means a ton of readers will be looking for something to read in the evenings and on the weekend. With that in mind, let’s look at some advice on when to use social media and to post blog content.

Two years of research by Dan Zarella of the marketing firm Hubspot found that the morning isn’t necessarily the best time to use social media.

• All Social Media: Interaction levels remain fairly steady on the weekends in comparison to the week.
• Twitter: Click-through rates for links shared are highest between 11 am and 5 pm EST.
• Twitter: The most retweets occur between 2 pm and 5 pm. In order to monitor the effectiveness of your retweets, check out the website Tweet When.
• Facebook: Linking to your blog or website more than once a day will not bring significant benefits. In fact, posting too frequently on Facebook will back-fire.
• Facebook: Weekends and off-peak times are also effective for click-throughs since there are fewer links shared and many readers are still looking for good content in their off hours.
• E-mail Campaigns:  The highest open and click-through rates happen on Saturday mornings. If you send an e-mail newsletter or a digest of your blog posts, schedule it for 4 or 5 am on Saturday. Publishing professionals Jane Friedman and Michael Hyatt send their newsletters at that time and offer many tips valuable tips to her readers.

Whatever you do, you need to test the response of readers to your blog posts and social media updates. Different industries and users may respond in their own ways. For example, if you’re blogging in order to receive links from experts, Zarella recommends aiming for early in the morning.

One of the most important things to keep in mind for blogs targeting readers in the United States, the majority of the population is located on the East Coast.

If you want to dramatically increase your page views, you need to also focus on your post frequency. However, if you can’t keep up with one, two, or three posts a day, post timing will become far more important. In addition, entrepreneur and blogger Tim Ferris suggests that a lousy blog post can be far more harmful to your influence than no blog post.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger wrote back in 2008 that his weekend posts are typically lost in the shuffle compared to weekday posts.  When he hosted Daniel Zarella to share his findings about blog viewing trends, his findings continued to hold true.  Weekday mornings EST are when blogs have the most readers.

This means that marketers can still reach a lot of readers on social networks on the weekends and in the afternoons. However, when it comes to attracting links and more blog readers, the majority of readers are looking for content on week day mornings. Though the audience on weekends may be smaller for a blog post, social media tools and a lack of competition and a companion e-mail campaign may make weekends a highly effective time to find readers and customers.

What is it? Retargeting is the process of serving ads to past visitors of your website. As a website owner, you can put a little snippet of Javascript on your website that anonymously drops a tag in each visitor’s browser. Within an ad network, you can then bid to show ads to all of your past visitors.

For example, if you sell shoes online, you can tag everyone that visited your website, as well as everyone that has purchased shoes. You can then choose to only show ads to people who have visited your site in the last 7-days and who haven’t yet made a purchase.

As an advertiser, this one of the most targeted forms of advertising. You know that all of these people are in-market for shoes. Because these ads are hyper targeted, advertisers often bid two or three times more per click to serve ads to these people than they would via contextual ads.

So How Do You Make Money with Retargeting as a Blogger?

If you are running ad network placements on your blog, chances are, your site is already filled with retargeting ads. In almost all cases, this is a good thing. Ad networks are experts at optimizing your effective CPMs. If a retargeting ad is generating higher clickthrough rates than contextually targeted ads, then the ad network will automatically show more retargeting ads. This will bring up your effective CPM.

If you want to boost your revenue from retargeting, make sure to include both text and image ads are enabled on your site. Most retargeting advertisers will run both text and image ads, so you want to be prepared to be able to show more retargeting ads in the event that these types of ads generate the highest clickthrough rates.

Secondly, consider attracting more US traffic. Retargeting is particularly popular in the US, and many advertisers in the US are trying to increase their retargeting spend, and the only way to do this is to bid more per click, which increases the retargeting ad revenue per click even higher.

Other Ways to Use Retargeting

There are all kinds of nifty tricks you can use to build blog awareness while paying next to nothing.

For starters, with retargeting on AdWords, you only pay per click, so even if you’re paying for one or two clicks per day, you can still generate thousands of free banner impressions in the process.

While building blog awareness, consider highlighting your Twitter account, Facebook fan page, or newsletter. Often, people won’t click on your ad, but instead, navigate directly to your presence on another site.

You can also do cool stuff like promote your advertising opportunities only to people who have visited your advertising information page. Similarly, you can promote eBooks or other paid product to your past visitors.

When retargeting your own traffic, clickthrough rates tend to be abnormally high, keeping your cost per click down, making these campaigns highly likely to generate a positive ROI.