Knowing when to take a rest was a really hard lesson for me to learn.

Knowing when and how often to post is also a hard lesson.

The good and bad of blogging is that the more you do it the more and better results you get for your efforts. Read = you get more traffic.

Of course, that means you can fall into the temptation of more, more, more!

I did.

The Blogger's Sabbath Day

At one point I was writing 15-20 articles a day, every day. Every every day. Day after day after day. Month after month after month. While also teaching a double full-time load online and teaching in the physical classroom as well.

And I noticed, that the more I wrote, the more and better results I got. So, I wrote more and more. Addictive to say the least. Compelling. Not to mention physically exhausting. But still I did it.

When I was desperate for a day off – to attend a swim meet, or a concert by my sons, I wrote double the day before or after but still got online to do the social bookmarking thing as necessary. It was hard.

Then one day while attending worship services (I am a Christian so you will ALWAYS find me in a worship service on Sundays – then working before or after), the preacher said something in his sermon that hit me hard.

“You know. You can do more work in 6 days than you can in 7. Give God his due.”

Ouch! But from the very next week, I resolved to take 24 consecutive hours off at least one day each week. And I did. And, and … things got even better!

Sure as shooting, spending less time, I could get more done. What do you know?

So, here’s my question – When is your day off from blogging? And how do you spend that time?

Want to make money online? Start by reading this series – How to Blog for Money and Traffic.

This guest post is by Ranchy Price

Bloggers looking around for the best social sharing plugins for their blog have to understand the nature of the beast first. After search engines, social media is the second most prolific source of traffic for websites. But which network is important?

Any blogger would be forgiven for thinking that Facebook and Twitter are the most important ones, followed by Youtube, Flickr, Digg and then the rest.

However, the reality is that Stumbleupon sends the largest amount of traffic to websites, accounting for a full 50.27 percent of all traffic coming from social networks. Facebook is next with 38.9 percent, while Twitter and Youtube both send less than 4 percent.

Simple translation is that as a blogger looking for a better synergy between your blog and social media accounts, you need to focus almost entirely on Facebook and Stumbleupon, and then also add one of the general plugins or widgets that allow readers to share on a variety of social networks.

Facebook Like Button: Add a simple “Like” button to your blog, with a lot of customization options available. Here’s the one for WordPress, and this is how to use it for Blogger (Blogspot) blogs.

Stumbleupon Badges: Just copy-paste a few lines of code into your blog template and millions of Stumbleupon users will be able to “stumble” your blog posts and send you tons of viral traffic.

Apart from these two, you could add a tweet this button and a Google+1 button separately. It could also be included as a part of a single plugin or widget for all the networks, as shown below.

Addthis: Put this widget into the template and a huge list of social sites appears on each page. It can be customized so that the buttons only show up on a mouse-over, and it supports over 50 languages. All a user has to do to share it is click on the preferred network button.

Sharethis:  Another popular widget that does pretty much the same thing as Addthis. It has additional features like a sharing bar and bookmarking via SMS.

Lockerz: You can allow visitors to share, bookmark and subscribe to your content with Lockerz Share.

The best way to provide social sharing options for visitors on your blog will be to use a combination of all this. You have to provide separate (as in individual) buttons for Stumbleupon, Facebook, Google+1 and Twitter.

Then, you also put one of the three (Addthis, Sharethis and Lockerz) general sharing tools listed above, so that people using other networks can also instantly share your post with their own circle.

This guest post is by Ackley clarke

I’ve been asked to write about the six social media blogs that will dominate in 2012.

While it’s going to be well high impossible to satisfy everyone, I have tried to be objective about it by separating the choices into different categories and then choosing the blog or blogger with the most influence in each lot.

Mashable: Started as a one-man blog by Pete Cashmore, Mashable is now a giant blogging machine that looms over all things social media.

They break news faster than anyone else, and being covered by Mashable is a big deal for startups. Mashable is still very much relevant and if anything, is likely to be an even bigger influencer in 2012.

Brian Solis: It’s hard to overstate the importance of following Brian Solis and his “thoughts” on social media, convergence and blogging. One look at his flickr picture sets will explain why this man has so much influence. The Social Media Examiner’s annual listing of the top social media blogs this year described Solis as the “Grand Master” of social media.

Scobleizer: Robert Scoble is good at a lot of things, but what he does best is stir up the pot. He doesn’t hold back in his reviews and any company or startup at the wrong end of a Scobleizer  post finds it hard to put out the fires, so to speak. Strong opinions and a tech background make his blog posts a must read for anyone in the same sphere.

The Anti-Social Media: Jay Dolan is the Onion of social media. His satirical posts on social media trends and news is getting an increasingly large following. The blog was launched only in 2010, but it already among the most popular social media blogs on the net, and the trend looks likely enough to continue in 2012.

Social Media Examiner: This is somewhat of a mainstream media blog that has managed to break out of the clutter. Their posts are pretty useful and solid, if not trail blazing, and they cover the news comprehensively. Their annual listing of the year’s top social media blogs is getting quite famous.

Soshable: Any blog which is No.1 on Google for “social media blog” deserves to be on this list. Apart from extraordinary optimization, JD Rucker’s blog is a lot more useful for businesses than any of the above listed blogs. Soshable is invaluable reading for a business trying to get a handle on what they should be doing on the social networks.

This guest post is by Mary Leonardo

Mind what you say in Facebook henceforth as Google is coming up with plans to index your comments. After indexing these comments, Google will publish as part of its standardized search results. Google’s all seeing and all knowing search robots will help to decipher the comments even posted on a secret or private pages and make it available for public use.

These grand plans of Google are not only for Facebook but for any content that is accessible through HTTP post, but also for commenting systems like Disqus and other Java Script based forms and sites.

Earlier this year, search engine Blekko has started displaying Facebook comments in it’s search results.

For the readers, it means that their drunken stupor, embarrassing comments and most private discussions will be made public when their names are searched on Google. What worries most developers and the general public is that Google is no more of a passive crawler that snoops for data.

Google can now execute AJAX and Javascript for Indexing

It is coming out with bold and new techniques to enhance the search results. Many developers are also worried that this new plan of Google will ignore technical specifications of HTML and fears are rife that this will change the entire web architecture.

Before jumping to any conclusion, one has to understand a few basic concerns with the new changes to search engine.  GET and POST are two search initiatives a developer can access on the internet.

Bill in one of his previous post has also mentioned that how important the comments are when you are blogging for money and blog traffic.

A GET initiative will only read the data whereas POST initiative can not only Edit but also modify the content. Google currently allows only editing and opts for GET only. However, Google is now accessing POST pages as well and can modify the contents of the page.

However, such a scenario is highly unlikely as recently released press release from Google Web master says “Googlebot will perform POST requests when we think it is safe and appropriate”. There are some legal implications as well which needs to be addressed.

Further implications can be known when Google provides more information on the same.

In this 35-minute video I address why blogging is still the King of Social Media. And Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and that other one, oh, Google+ are just princes.

I also cover:

4 items that all writers/web owners want.

4 problems a blog can solve

and the

4 next steps all bloggers and web site owners should take if they want to get more web traffic.

The Traffic Professor knows.

Wilby applying for free tickets to Japan via the Tourism Agency

I have driven Jaguars, flown across country, interviewed…. all because I am blogger.

Here’s another perk for an influential blogger – a free round-trip ticket to Japan.

The Japan Tourism Agency is trying to pump some life back into an industry that has been devastated by a very strong yen, earthquakes, tsunamis, melt-downs and 20,000+ deaths.

Yup, sounds like Japan needs some help.

Bloggers who have reach in the search engines as well as a presence in other social media types are encouraged to apply.

I was in Japan earlier this year and if I went back….I’d stay with friends and eat out less.

Successful applicants must take care of their own accommodations and meals. Not much chance for me.

Here’s the link to apply – Japan Tourism Agency.

Let me know if you get picked…and I can tell you where to go eat and what to bring me back as a souvenir.

The Traffic Professor will be speaking at the High Desert Branch of the California Writers Club (scroll down) on October 8th, 2011.

If you live in/near the area, please come out to meet me, ask questions, learn more about blogging, platform building or to just chill.

Traffic Professor at High Desert Valley

My topic is

Blogging as a platform for writers, still the king of Social Media

In this one hour presentation, including 15 mins for Q&A I will cover the following topics:

1. Four reasons why a blog is the social media platform of choice for writers.

2. Four biggest obstacles to getting a blog started.

3. Four key ingredients to attracting significant traffic to a blog/web site.

4. Four next steps every writer must take to bring attention to their work.

I have taken 10 different and unrelated blog topics to more than 1 million unique visitors each, and well over 50 million views overall.  I have two published books, and have addressed Mexico’s largest Writers’ Conference, Asia’s Largest Publishing Convention, and have spoken in Thailand, New York City, as well as to many of the California Writers Club branches.

The event will be held at the Apple Valley Branch Library at 10 a.m. on Saturday, October 8, 2011.

Call Carol Warren at (760)242-3367) or email to califcarol@verizon.net

President Bob Isbill at  (760)242-4148) or email to risbill@aol.com

20258 Hwy 18 Ste 430-PMB 281

Apple Valley, CA 92307