I love blogs. In fact my job IS blogs. So not only do I enjoy spending time each day finding and reading new blogs and helping businesses utilize them for advertising,  I use blogs for information, encouragement, and entertainment.Yes, I also blog…

A blog is often rather unique to the writer. This is important and it justifies our ‘creative design displays’.

However if you in any way want your blog to earn you revenue or be treated as ‘professional’ in the online advertising industry you need to learn some basics. ( I didn’t say professional ‘to other bloggers’ because they aren’t usually the ones who will PAY YOU.)

Now if you don’t want to earn any money or offers from reputable Pr companies, media buyers (who have any idea of how the Internet as a marketing tools works), or advertisers then skip this series of posts because you may not like what I have to say.

Yes, cross promotion is an important way to get traffic and visitors to your blog. (Let’s face it without traffic, you have no readers, with no readers, is it really a blog?) However, NOT AT THE EXPENSE of your image as a professional blogger.

Lets take a look at your main page. How many outgoing links are on your page ? How many buttons, text links, mini buttons, banners?

If you have more then 20 outgoing links on your page template (sidebars, header, footer)  it tells me that your blog is cluttered. You know those boot camps people sign up for to get their house decluttered.

Well my blogger friends you need a blog DECLUTTER boot camp.

So lets get started. Today’s topic is Blog awards.

They give you a  warm fuzzy. But you know what? That award provides THEM with traffic to their site at the expense of you keeping a visitor on YOUR SITE.

So by all means when you receive an award, write a blog post about it – but keep them off your blog template areas. Unless it’s a blog  award from a REALLY reputable and long established group such as BlogHer or a large Internet site with thousands of daily visitors it does NOT belong in your side bar.

Today’s TASK:

1) Create a page titled Blog Awards. Move EVERY blog award you have received to this page. Display no more then ONE award at a time on your side bar or within your template.

Remember, it’s not good to create a page that just contains outgoing links. So consider your keywords wisely and write some content on the page as well.

There you are one step closer to having room to monetize your blog AND I bet your blog looks better.

Until Tomorrow,