If you’ve followed this blog at all for the past coulple of months, you know that I am in love with Market Leverage. (It’s kind of sick, actually.) In this short time, I have found a few offers that generate enough profit that I could realistically quit my day job and be a full-time affiliate. (Not quite ready to do that yet though.) However, one thing that I haven’t really done anything with is Market Leverage’s referral program.

According to Market Leverage they have “The Industry’s Best Paying Lifetime Referral Program.” They will pay 5% of the commissions earned by each Publisher that you refer. That ads up to some scratch if you can get a nice referral base under you.

Here’s the deal…

I’m holding my own mini-Market Leverage contest. I want to see who can earn the most over the next 30 days. Winner gets $100. Easy Peasy.

Sign up with Market Leverage!

Bonus Entries

In addition to signing up above, if you blog about and link to this contest, I’ll increase your eligible earnings by 25% That means that if you make $2,000, your contest entry will be for $2,500.

Once you have signed up, post below so that your entry will be counted.

Also, feel free to join in with the contest discussion going on over at the DigitalPoint Forums. I’ve Made $15,535.20 in the last 30 days – I’ll Pay You To Do The Same!

Sign up with Market Leverage!

Website flipping is an interesting gig. You create some site – blog, affiliate site, forum, directory, etc. – from scratch, then turn around and sell it.

Simple in concept, not necessarily simple in practice.

Jason at The University Kid is well experienced in site flipping. He’s in the process now of doing a live site flip in which at the end of the month he will be walking through building a site from scratch and selling it less than 30 days later for $500+.

Jason is getting ready to start up a group site flipping project in which we all will build our own sites from the ground up and (hopefully) turn them for a profit at the end of next month. It’s possible that these sites could sell for more than $1,000! If you’d like to enter the project with me – Enter Here.

Bonus Prize

If the extra cash weren’t enough, I’m throwing in a 30 day 125×125 banner spot on WallerBlog.com if the winner is from this blog. If you enter through this blog – send me a message so I can keep track of everything.

Welcome to the June 23, 2008 edition of blogging tips carnival. A whopping 83 articles were submitted for this edition! With this many articles I ran out of time to review them all. This will be a self-policing edition. If there’s an article here that shouldn’t be, let me know.

To make things easier, I’ve split ‘em up into 4 categories for you – Driving Traffic, Writing Content, Making Money and Everything Else. Check a few out, spread the link love and discover some new blogs!

Driving Traffic

1. Riggie Freyer presents How to Increase Your Targeted Website Traffic For Free posted at Internet Business for Beginners | Internet Home Based Business.

2. BlogMeTheMoney presents 10 Blog Traffic Tips posted at Blog Me The Money.

3. Jose DeJesus MD presents How to Send Emails that get Delivered and Read posted at Physician Entrepreneur.

4. George Tzenos presents Use Your Website Traffic Statistics To Improve Your Results posted at Traffic2MyPage Blog.

5. Jocelyn @ A Pondering Heart presents Why Are You So Popular? posted at A Pondering Heart.

6. Amanda Moore presents Reader Question: Are Blog Carnivals Worth Your Time? posted at AMVA – Amanda Moore Virtual Assistant, saying, “Blog Carnivals can be a great way to drive traffic, but traffic is just a small part in a larger picture. Make sure you know all the benefits of participating in Carnivals.”

7. George Tzenos presents Article Marketing – get targetted traffic to your site posted at Traffic2MyPage Blog, saying, “how to use article marketing to generate traffic and how to write them”

8. Mathew Needleman presents Advice for New Bloggers posted at Open Court Resources.com Blog.

9. Michel Fortin presents Apply The Law of Contrast to Build Desire posted at The Michel Fortin Blog.

10. Kevin Brink presents Blogging Tips for Beginners posted at The Red Stapler Chronicles, saying, “Learn from my mistakes!!”

11. Carl Ringwall presents Split Test Your AdWords posted at Data SystemsPlus.

12. Danogo presents Get Visitor Traffic for Your Music Site or Blog Using Music Directories posted at DanoSongs.com – Dan-O’s Music Blog, saying, “Learn how to get your blog ranked higher in the search engines and get more visitor traffic”

13. Traffic2mypage presents Youtubing your Web Traffic posted at Traffic2MyPage Blog, saying, “How to redirect traffic to your page by using youtube. This blog will teach you how to create a point of difference”

14. Traffic2mypage presents Youtube Web Traffic System – Video Review posted at Traffic2MyPage Blog, saying, “bring more web traffic to your site using youtube marketing. Gives compelling reasons why to use youtube and also highlights two key steps for getting more people to view your video and then visit your site”

15. Kurt Schmitt presents The 7 Bad Habits of Highly Defective Article Marketers posted at Free Website Traffic Tips, saying, “The 7 biggest article marketing mistakes. Avoid these and you’ll greatly improve your ability to drive traffic to your website.”

16. old-wizard presents Top 10 Ways to Promote a Gaming Blog posted at Old-Wizard.com.

Writing Content

1. Cindy King presents How To Use Online Translation Tools posted at Cindy King, saying, “I think free online translation tools are great… for certain tasks. Never use them to write any sales content or sales materials. And think twice about relying on them for any other translations. There probably is no ‘best way’ to use an online translation tool, but I have a method that works for me. I use this when translating into a language that I can not read at all. Need a name for the process? I think of it as the translate back and forth process.”

2. Kathleen Gage presents I know I need to blog, but where do I find the time and fresh ideas? posted at Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions, saying, “The more I delve into the Blogosphere, the more I realize how important blogging is to any solid Internet Marketing plan. Anyone who has been paying attention knows they need to get on the Blogosphere bandwagon sooner than later.
   I work with speakers, authors, coaches and consultants who are always on the lookout for effective ways to reach their market, gain visibility and establish credibility. One would be hard pressed to find something as easy and simple as blogging to achieve these outcomes.
   Blogging can be fun or it can be a tedious process. Most people start off with a bang and then the sparkle will quickly sizzle as they get caught up in other activities.”

3. Alik Levin presents Make Your Message Sticky And You Might Tip posted at Practice This.

4. John Lenaghan presents Do You Find It Hard To Write? posted at Internet Marketing Chaos.

5. Jonathan Deamer presents The 10 secrets of writing reviews that will keep readers coming back posted at Jonathan Deamer.

6. Anna Farmery presents What’s Love Got To Do With Social Media? posted at The Engaging Brand.

7. axel presents Amazing Blogging Skills posted at axel g.

8. Mert Erkal presents iGoogle – Your Blogging Command Center posted at www.searchforblogging.com, saying, “I discovered iGoogle last year when I was playing with my Gmail account. From the first moment I had the feeling that iGoogle could be my blogging command center, a center where I could reach everywhere related to my blogging topic.”

9. Chris Truman presents What will you write about? posted at PowerBlogging, saying, “The only thing you need to know about writing content!”

10. Raivyn presents What Every Blogger Should Know About Quality Content, and How to Create It posted at Idiot’s Guide to Blogging.

Making Money

1. BlogMeTheMoney presents Adsense Alternatives: Part 1 of 4 posted at Blog Me The Money, saying, “Adsense is a great way to monetize a website but it should not be your only way. Some of these programs pay a flat rate which might be a great way for a smaller publisher to make money.”

2. Brian Terry presents From a Sale to An Experience posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.

3. Ian Richardson presents Growing Your Internet Business One Day At A Time posted at Make Everything EzyAs123, saying, “An article on how to grow your internet business”

4. Lode presents Tutorial: Basic Installation OIO Publisher posted at Scraping Pennies, saying, “OIO Publisher is a self hosted blog monetization plugin for WordPress. It has a lot of features and can be difficult to understand when just starting out. This article is the first in a series of tutorials on how to set it up on your blog.”

5. Patrick Schwerdtfeger presents 7 Steps to High-Conversion Sales Copy posted at Tactical Execution, saying, “Leverage this 7-step motivating sales sequence to dramatically improve your sales copy and increase conversion.”

6. Bryan presents Will You Remember Your Next Big Idea? posted at The Capitalist Guide Blog.

Everything Else

1. Kathleen Gage presents Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions: Get the most out of your blogging efforts! FREE report tells you how posted at Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions, saying, “What used to be viewed by many as a passing fad has now become a necessary aspect of doing business on the Internet. Blogging has become a necessary aspect of any solid online marketing strategy. However, even though millions of people are blogging, the majority don’t know how to optimize their blogging efforts.
   Although some people view blogging as a novelty or a “someday I’ll get around to it” smart entrepreneurs understand they have to get into the game of blogging sooner than later. When done correctly, blogging can have an incredible impact on your market position.”

2. Cindy King presents Write A Better International Website posted at Cindy King, saying, “One of the the things you need to do when communicating with any prospects or clients is to think about what they want and need to hear from you. You need to look at your business offer, communication or message from their point of view.”

3. Riggie Freyer presents Online List Building Tools to Build Your List posted at Internet Business for Beginners | Internet Home Based Business.

4. Sarah Paine presents Emotional Intelligence & Internet Business posted at Sarah Paine.

5. Riggie Freyer presents “Do Follow” Links with High Pagerank & KeywordLuv Plug-in Bloglist posted at Internet Business for Beginners | Internet Home Based Business.

6. Raivyn presents Do You Have What it Takes to be a Professional Blogger? posted at Idiot’s Guide to Blogging.

7. Michael. presents WordPress Free Blogging Platform Software Review posted at Review Hookup.

8. Technology Editor presents Create Productive Advertisements posted at Physician Entrepreneur.

9. Adrian Savage presents How to Cope with More of Those Pesky Distractions – Stepcase Lifehack posted at Lifehack.org.

10. Kenton Newby presents First-Class Blogging: 12 Perfect Upgrades to Power Your WordPress Site posted at KentonNewby.com.

11. Mark presents The fine line between personal and business posted at Business is Personal.

12. Jim Kaizen presents A Big List For Improving Article Marketing posted at The Kaizen Business.

13. Steve Oliphant presents Free Backlinks! Woo Hoo! posted at Steve Oliphant’s Musings.

14. James D. Brausch presents Don’t Do Business With Mail Boxes, Etc.! posted at Costa Rica HQ.

15. James Lee presents Subconscious Grocery Store Conspiracy? posted at Online Business Freedom.

16. Robert Phillips presents How to Create an Audio Product Practically for Free posted at CYBERCA$HOLOGY.

17. Diego Norto presents Internet Business 101 posted at Internet Business 101.

18. Michel Fortin presents This Plugin Increases Membership Conversions posted at The Michel Fortin Blog.

19. Diego Norto presents Glyphius 2008 Lens posted at Internet Business.

20. James Lee presents The Awesome Power of Face to Face Networking posted at Online Business Freedom.

21. The Money Moose presents Promote Your Blog By Marketing With Homeless Hobos and Bums! | BLOG BADLY posted at Blog Badly, saying, “A bit of humour.”

22. BlogMeTheMoney presents Blog Me The Money: Translate Your Websites Or Blog For Money posted at Blog Me The Money, saying, “Having a website or blog only readable in one language may make you lose out on more than just visitors. You could be missing out on money as well. It does not have to be that way.”

23. Don Morrison presents For Income Success Develop A Prime Online e-Book Marketing Company Model posted at dondmorrison.com, saying, “Download 300+ new & original eBooks at http://dondmorrison.com”

24. Riggie Freyer presents How to Set Up a Blog with WordPress posted at Internet Business for Beginners | Internet Home Based Business.

25. Kathleen Gage presents Internet Marketing – An often overlooked opportunity posted at Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions, saying, “Internet marketing can yield great opportunities for virtually any type of business. Unfortunately, many companies miss opportunities by making a few common mistakes. Learn how to avoid these mistakes and have strategies to continually build your business.

    Learn how really simple Internet Marketing can be.”

26. Amanda Moore presents Down and Dirty Blog Carnival Submission Technique posted at AMVA – Amanda Moore Virtual Assistant, saying, “Submitting your posts to a blog carnival doesn’t have to take all day. This process will make it quick and painless.”

27. J presents Online Bookmarking Tools|Blog Bookmarking Tools| | Tech News Beats posted at TechNewsBeats, saying, “The online bookmarking space is bursting at the seems and to put all the buttons for all services will make you page cluttered. So here is help, use the single button multiple ability bookmarking tools.”

28. Nesher presents Embed Documents in your Blog with DocsToc posted at Blogging for Good in the Modern World, saying, “Easy and interesting solution for the blog owners to share documents in several popular formats (.doc, .pdf, .xls, .ppt) with the blog readers.”

29. JHSEsq presents Your Online Writing Life: Protect Your Reputation — and Future (Part One) | Colloquium posted at Colloquium, saying, “A five-part series discussing prudent online practices that designed to protect bloggers’ personal lives, reputations — and careers.”

30. Kevin Brink presents Bloggers Bill of Rights posted at The Red Stapler Chronicles.

31. John W. Furst presents Take Action: Save The Internet – We Cannot Afford To Lose It posted at E-Biz Booster Blog, saying, “Your Internet based business might be in great danger. You must support net neutrality… Show that democracy works!”

32. Everything Finance presents Free: Website Magazine posted at Everything Finance.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of blogging tips carnivalusing our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

The May edition of the Blogging Tips Blog Carnival is here! Here’s the way this works – You, the blogger, have submitted your top blogging tips. I’ve gone though, weeded out the off-topic rants and spam and put them in a pretty little package for you. This Blog Carnival covers money making tips, writing tips, traffic/SEO tips and a few other oddities that didn’t cleanly fit into a category.

Use this to gain a few tips, improve your blogging and discover some new sites!

Money Making Tips

1. Marcus Hochstadt gives a great post on how he’s banking by blogging. I Made $13,692.59 In Profits Last Month, So What?, saying, “Find out how Marcus Hochstadt makes thousands of dollars online.”
2. Wilma Janszen shares 9 ways to make money as a blogger Make Money Blogging: Make Money Blogging.
3. Zork Brauk has written a creative post on generating extra cash on the side… UFO Recession Tip 73 – Top 10 Blogger Recession Tips to Make Money, saying, “Competition is stiff. There are over 112 million blogs listed on Technorati at the end of 2007! We see you and we know that not every blogger is making money.”

Writing Tips

1. Shamelle has written a really cool post called 6 Things Simon Cowell (Of American Idol) Would Say About Your Blog!
2. Steve Osborne, a freelance writer and writing instructor with over 20 years of experience tells how Short Paragraphs Attract. Long Paragraphs Intimidate.
3. Jason shares a few tips on how to use your writing to draw readers in and keep their attention: Be a Blogger – How to Write for the Web
4. Colleen M. Johnson gives a quick list on Blogger Brainstorming, saying, “Got blogger block? Ten tips to get you blogging.”
5. The Whited Sepulchre offers tips for when you’re out of time and motivation and need to get a post out: Things To Write About
6. Cindy King shares a Book Review – Letting Go Of The Words – Writing Web Content That Works By Janice Redish, saying, “Letting Go Of The Words is a must read for anyone involved with a website or blog. This is not about the tools you need or anything technical. This book is about web content and information strategies. It’s about “planning, selecting, organizing, writing, illustrating, reviewing, and testing content”…that gives readers a successful and satisfying web experience.”

Traffic and SEO Tips

1. Riggie Freyer gives some excellent tips for getting backlinks from high Pagerank sites: How to Get Do Follow Links with High Pagerank.
2. Raivyn has written an great post on How to Drive Traffic to Your Blog Through Word of Mouth Marketing.
3. Bryan presents a video case study on a blog looking to bring in more traffic Case Study: Make Money Online Blog Wants More Traffic.
4. Mert Erkal has submitted an old post, but he still has some good tips: How I Quadrupled My Blog’s Traffic In 3 Months.
5. Praveen shares a Simple Trading System: Using Long Tail Keywords to Help Create Blog Posts and Articles that Attract Search Engine Traffic.
6. George Tzenos gives a basic overview of generating traffic via viral marketing Spread Your Word The Viral Way And Boost Your Traffic.
7. Aaron Anderson talks about how Entrecard has increased his traffic, comments and RSS subscribers: Traffic Experiment Results: 308 Visitors In 6 Days
8. Brian Terry’s article: Become a Listbuilding Genius is focused on collecting e-mail addresses. This may be more useful for affiliate marketers, but, if done right, could be beneficial for your blog.
9. Ian Richardson gives some tips on getting better search rankings. Get Good Search Ranking
10. Craig Andrews offers his viewpoint on using direct e-mail to market your blog Proper Direct Email Marketing For An Internet Business (Don’t Kill Off Your Email List!).

Other Tips

1. SpiKe Introduces A New Way Of Prioritizing to make your blogging more productive.
2. Tim Gary tells of how positive thinking has affected his life: “six-pack” follow up – dang if it doesn’t work like it should!.
3. Cindy King presents Website Design – How To Hire The Right Website Designer For Your International Audience.
4. Rebecca shares some basic tips on on starting a blog: Instant Readership with a Travel Blog
5. Woman Tribune presents how they are Addicted to Entrecard.

If you liked any of these sites, leave some comments share some link love. If you want your post to appear in the next edition submit your article here.

When I resurrected this blog at the beginning of this month, I decided to redesign the whole site from the ground up. One, I wanted a fresh start. It feels good to have a new design. If you don’t like the way your blog looks why would you want to put your efforts into it? I also wanted to ensure that this new theme would be better from a monetization standpoint also. Who doesn’t like more money?

In my search for a new template, there were a few key things that I was looking for. If you decide to change your theme too, make sure the following is true if you want to grow your blog and make more money!

Make sure your RSS button is visible

Until you have thousands of pages indexed by Google (and even when you do), your best bet for having an active organic blog is by having an active community of subscribers. The best way to grow this is by consistently promoting your RSS feed. Throw it in people’s face…

Subscribe to my feed!

…you can also accomplish this by having a subscription button in a prominent place. On WallerBlog dot Com you can see it proudly displayed on the top right. My RSS subscribers have increased 50% in the last 15 days that this template has been live. Make sure your RSS button is in a visible place.

Make sure the majority of your advertising is above the fold

Whether you’re monetizing your blog with Adsense, affiliate programs or private ads, all will earn you more when they’re above the fold. These ads will have greater click through rates. This obviously earns you more money on CPC advertisers like Adsense and gives you a better chance at making some cash on an affiliate sale. It will also earn you more on private ad sales. Advertisers that get good traffic from an ad are happy advertisers. Happy advertisers are more likely to renew the ad on your blog. Keep your ads above the fold.

Make sure your new theme is sticky

Let’s face it, the majority of us live and die by the traffic sent via search engines (read Google) and this group is a fickle bunch. When searching for something, 75% of people will spend no more than a few seconds glancing at your site to see if it has whatever they were searching for. What they see in those few seconds has to grab their attention. This does not mean to blind them with your amazing color scheme. (Here’s another incredible use of html.) Make sure that your site loads quickly, is easily navigable and, most importantly, is readable. This keeps people on your site longer which increases the odds of you either gaining a new subscriber or making more money! (That’s the whole point, right?) Make sure your theme is sticky.

If you’re just starting a blog or you’re thinking about remodeling, be sure that you pick a theme that will help and not hinder your blogging. The design you choose has a tremendous impact on your ability to gain new subscribers and generate revenue.