Blogging Tune

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Every time WordPress releases an update, I see few people struggling to update it for their blog. I hear it in forums. People always ask for a way to update to the newer version of WordPress. I have also seen few bloggers paying money to update to the latest version. If you are one among them, keep reading the post.

Most of you, by this time, would have heard about the WordPress automatic update plugin. If not, I’m going to talk about it in this post. That is the solution for your problem. WordPress automatic upgrade plugin does the job for you in updating to the latest version of WordPress.

Here are the steps involved in handling the plugin:

1. Download the plugin (Note: Also read the information given on that page. This is very iportant.)

2. Upload it to /wp-content/plugins/

3. Activate the plugin from your admin page

4. Backup your blog before doing anything (This is also very important)

5. Now, go to Manage->Automatic Upgrade and then select the option for automatic upgrade

6. It will take you through the process and will tell you to do few things

7. Tada! You have upgraded to the newer version of WordPress

Note: I have tried this and it worked for me. But it does not re-activate all my plugins which I had to do manually. If someone of you knows why I’m getting that problem, please tell me.

Hope you won’t have any trouble from now on. Do tell me how it worked for you.

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Have you ever wanted to cloak your affiliate links and struggled to find a way to do it? Then, here’s 3 ways you can use to cloak your affiliate links. Affiliate marketers and also bloggers tend to cloak affiliate links so that more people will tend to signup or buy whatever you are offering. Though there are bloggers who don’t link to cloak affiliate links, many of them cloak their affiliate links.

For those who think for why you should cloak links, take a look at the below two urls.

http://www.productdomain.com/cbi-ref=1203847&aaskdj

http://www.yourdomainname.com/productname.php

Which one looks good? Which one will you click first?

Here’s 3 ways to cloak your affiliate links:

1. Link Cloaking WordPress Plugin

WordPress is a platform that has plugins for almost everything. There is a plugin which can cloak your affiliate links. What you have to do is:

• Download the plugin
• Upload The Plugin to “/wp-content/plugins/”
• Activate it
• Go to Options->Link Cloaking
• Update Permalinks

You can check this post for more information.

2. Use A Free Service

There are websites which gives you a short url when you enter a long url. Tinyurl is one of the famous link cloaking services. Though it shortens the url, the final link still looks like an affiliate link. There are few other websites that offer shortening of urls making it look like a sub-domain. The main advantage here is that you can also choose the name you want. Your affiliate url will look like http://www.thenameyouchoose.servicedomain.com

There are few websites that offer this kind of service. One such website which I use is Notlong.Com.

Here’s how my affiliate url looked at first:

http://www.ondemandprofits.com/?cb=ramkarthik

Here’s how it looked after link cloaking using this kind of service:

http://ondemandprofits.notlong.com/

3. Buy A Software Product

Though there are many ways to clock affiliate links, the professional softwares are the best. If you don’t have a WordPress blog or if you want to be a professional affiliate marketer, then the professional products designed to cloak affiliate links is the best option for you. There are many products in the net, and one such product which is really good is Affiliate Link Cloaker (aff).

Do you cloak links? What method do you use to cloak affiliate links? Share it in the comments.

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StumbleUpon is a big social site and it has many people who have interest in various topics. There are people who stumble pages about blogging, there are people who stumble pages about soccer, about personality development and many more. Getting friends who are interested in the same topic as yours matters a lot. They will be helpful to you solving your problems or answering your questions when needed. So StumbleUpon is a great site where you can make many friends. But before any reading, I suggest you not to add anyone in the SU unless you have a common interest. Don’t always try to add the top stumblers. Here are a few steps to get new friends in StumbleUpon:

1. Pick The Topic

Pick the topic in which you have most knowledge and you are most interested. There are many topics to choose and you can see a big list here. Find the topic of interest.

2. Choose The User:

Once you have chosen the topic of interest, you will be leaded to a page where you will see a few stumblers who have stumbled some articles recently. There will be 10 stumblers for any particular topic and you can choose a stumbler from it.

3. Add Them As A Friend

Be careful while doing this. You should not add all the users and send messages to them. Add one or two a day. Go to their profile page and click on “Add Him/Her As A Friend”.

4. Send Them A Message

This is the most important thing in getting friends. The message you send matters a lot. This message will determine whether the person will be your friend or not. Send a message like this:

Hi, I’m [Your Name] and I’m a [Your Profession]. I visited your profile and found that both of us have the same interests. I just added you now. How are you? Have a great time.

Cheers,

[Your Name]

This message will be good enough and the person you add will most probably add you.

5. Tell Them More About You

The next step will be to tell more about you and how much you liked their blog or website (many stumblers have a blog/website). Send them critiques about their latest post. Tell them about their blog design and how well it looks. Stumble a few of their pages.

That’s all you need to do to get a new friend through StumbleUpon. But maintaining the friendship is equally hard. Don’t send requests often to stumble your post unless you have written something of good value. Talk to them often. If you want to add someone right now, then feel free to add me. Also don’t forget to Subscribe to my blog for more posts on StumbleUpon.

P.S:Don’t spam the StumbleUpon community.

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When you are thinking whether to write a content or not, or when you are sitting idle with no idea for a content, then think you are in one of the following positions and you will surely get a blog post idea: Continue Reading ->

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If you have been blogging and making very less money from it, you should try to get sponsors to your blog. It is not very easy to get an advertiser for your blog. Problogger Darren Rowse, once wrote on how to get advertisers for your blog. You should have good content, good traffic and also targeted readers. If you have all the things stated by Darren, then you should be having a couple of advertisers by now. If you still don’t have it, then the following might be the reasons why you are not getting them (My guess). Continue Reading ->

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