This guest post is by Sean Platt of outstandingSETUP. The Internet is flooded with too many blogs. It probably doesn’t need yours. It’s not that you don’t have anything to say, you probably do. And it’s not that you couldn’t develop an audience, or eventually monetize that audience—you probably could. It’s definitely not that you’re not smart enough. There are plenty of people less intelligent than you already killing it online.

This guest post is by Sunil of extramoneyblog.com. Many business owners leave or start their businesses thinking they can achieve more freedom only to find themselves toiling away in their businesses and thus having bought or created themselves another job. Blogging is no different for most bloggers. Many bloggers who enter the blogosphere with the intention of making money online and someday freeing themselves up from time commitments such as a 9 to 5 job often end up getting tied up to their blogs and

As a father of three boys aged five and under, there’s a word I hear a lot in my house. I’m sure other parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, child care workers, and people with kids in their lives will know what it is. “Why?” The questions come fast and while there are a few “what,” “when,” “where,” and “how” questions mixed in, “why” questions seem to dominate—at least at our place. Of course why questions are a normal

The last couple of weeks have turned up some valuable blogging advice for those who are working to hone their craft and become better blog post writers. Not everyone falls into this category—some bloggers are happy with the way they write. Others publish videos or sound files instead of text. And that’s fine. But for the rest of us, I wanted to put together a little roundup of advice on each of the parts of a text-based blog post. Have you seen a great article on crafting quality blog posts recently?

This guest post is by Ali Luke of Aliventures. You know your title has to hook readers. You know your first line needs to keep them reading. The start of your blog post matters. But so does the end. In fact, without a powerful end to your post, all the work that you put into the title and paragraph one is wasted. Because the end of your post is what keeps your readers coming back for more.

Over at the FM blog, I just posted the draft agenda for the first of five conferences I’ll be chairing as part of my day job at Federated Media. Signal San Francisco is a one-day event (March 21) focused on the theme of  integrating digital marketing across large platforms (what I’ve called “dependent web” properties) and the Independent Web. The two are deeply connected, as I’ve written here. As we explore that “interdependency,” we’ll also be talking about

This guest post is by Amy Harrison of Harrisonamy.com. To the public, not all experts are created equal. What’s more, this division exists in all industries, and in every blogging niche. And it’s not just about working harder, or longer than other people. It’s about knowing how to rise through the ranks of the expert “hierarchy.” To illustrate, consider for a moment the difference between a chef in a restaurant, a head chef in a five-star restaurant, and then Gordon Ramsay.

This guest post is by Carol Tice of Make a Living Writing. If you’re looking for a way to grab attention for your blog and grow your income, I’ve had great success with this one: I pay writers. Since May 2011, I’ve been paying $50 for guest posts on my blog. I started paying because my mission is to help writers earn more, and I needed to walk my talk. I usually buy two or three posts a month.

Yesterday we were talking about how benchmarking your blog and your performance against those of others only goes so far to give ou an idea of “how your blog’s going.” As I said then, looking at others—other people, other blogs—even subconsciously for an indication of where you and your blog sit isn’t usually very helpful. I said then that today I’d give you some examples of areas where I think my blogging’s doing okay—things that have less to do with stats and revenues

This guest post is by Neil Patel of Quick Sprout. We’ve all been taught to create high-quality content to attract links. This argument is usually stated in the context of a blog that basically becomes an authority where you start to build a following around consistent, fresh content—think big sites like Problogger or Boing Boing. This is not the technique I’m talking about.