How would you like to win a Kindle! I love my Kindle. It makes it so convenient to carry many different books with me wherever I go. To enter, just fill out the Rafflecopter form below!

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I received a copy of a new e-book by author Sadie Lankford entitled Don’t Clog The Blog: The Do’s and Don’ts of Blogging.  This e-book is basically a list of important things that every first time blogger (and even us more experienced bloggers) should know.  The information presented in this e-book is based upon Sadie’s personal blogging experience.  She has been blogging since 2001 and has learned the ins and outs of the blogging world.  Most of these helpful tips are based on questions that Sadie had when she started blogging.

The first section of the e-book is the Do’s section.  One of the tips that I found most helpful is “Make it Easy to Share Your Posts.”  When I first started my blogs I didn’t belong to any social media sites and I didn’t really share my posts at all.  I didn’t realize that it was much harder to get your posts recognized without social media interaction.

The second section of the e-book is the Don’ts section.  I love the tip “Don’t Spend All Day Online!”  How true.  Blogging is so addictive and if you are a perfectionist, you will be tempted to constantly tweak your blog.  Setting a schedule that includes family, exercise, hobby, reading, house cleaning, etc., will make your life more enjoyable and less stressful.

In the last section of the e-book, Sadie gives you 10 ideas for posts to help you get started.  These will also help with mental blocks when you can’t decide what to write about.

My favorite thing about this e-book is that Sadie includes links to posts that she has written on her blog SadieLankford.com.  These articles provide a wealth of information about blogging.

Click here to visit Sadie Lankford and get this e-book!

This infographic was featured on ProBlogger.net yesterday and I thought I would share it with you. Infolinks created this fun infographic to reveal what really goes on inside the mind of a blogger. I love that this deals with all the issues that I have come across in a humorous way. Enjoy!

Welcome to Follow Frenzy!

Coordinated by ShePromotes

Follow Frenzy is a fun monthly giveaway where a group of bloggers get together, pool our money, and offer our amazing readers the chance at a cash prize via Paypal or an Amazon gift code. It’s our way of saying thank you and a great way to introduce you to other blogs you may not have known about!  This month’s giveaway will be open 12:01am est February 24, 2012, through 11:59pm est February 26, 2012. There are three different giveaways: Twitter, Facebook and Google +.  You can enter one, two or all three!  The giveaway is open WW; 18+ Prizes: (Paypal cash OR Amazon GC)  Yes, you could win all 3! Only the host is ineligible to enter. Participating bloggers may enter, but cannot claim their own entries (even if you DO follow yourself!).

How to enter

It’s easy to enter the Follow Frenzy giveaways!

1. Enter the Follow Frenzy here by using the Rafflecopter forms below.
2. Enter each of the giveaways and you also earn extra entries in this giveaway!

Interested in joining in next month’s giveaway? Keep an eye out for the sign up announcement on ShePromotes.com around the beginning of each month!

Twitter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Facebook:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Google+:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I have seen all different kinds of permalink structures, but which one is the best for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes? The default Permalink structure in WordPress is:

http://www.yourdomain.com/?p=123

Where p=123 is numerical value that stands for the post number. I have also seen quite a few blogs use this structure:

http://www.yourdomain.com/2012/02/sample-post/

This structure utilize the name of the post with the year and the month proceeding the post. However, the best permalink structure to use for your blog is a customized structure which utilizes the category name and post name. The reason that this structure is better is that it allows more keywords to be loaded into the URL of your post. For example, I write a post entitled “The Best Chicken Divan Recipe.” I choose the category food. When my post is published the URL will read:

http://www.yourdomain.com/food/the-best-chicken-divan-recipe/

Notice that my URL includes the keywords chicken and recipe and also the word food. While in the past, WordPress warned that this type of structure could cause performance issues, these issues have been resolved with WordPress 3.3 and above.

Of course, if your blog has been established for a while (over 6 months or with many backlinks), it is NOT recommended that you change your existing permalink structure. This is due to the face that there are probably other sites linking to you which drive traffic to your site. Changing your permalink structure can break those inbound links.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for entering! Be sure to check out the other giveaways and if you have a little time, check out some of the great blogs sponsoring this fun event!
Formula Mom
Tales From the Nursery
Long Wait for Isabella
Mama Does It All
The WiC Project
Mommies Point of View
Retail Therapy Lounge
Saving More Than Me
Blog Zenith
Everyday Ramblings of My Life
Giveaway Blogdom
Mam Goes BAM
Oh My Heartsie
MamaNYC
Tethered Mommy
How Was Your Day?
Nap Time is My Time
Generations of Savings
Sweeping the USA
Handmade Reviews
Valerie’s Reviews
Going Crazy!!Wanna Go??
My 3 Little Kittens
Way 2 Good Life

Facebook expert Mari Smith is giving an encore of her Facebook Marketing 2012 Webinar.  The last webinar filled up quickly, so you will want to sign up now.  The is a free webinar and includes a half-hour live.  The event will take place on Saturday, February 4th at noon Pacific Time.

After registering, you will be able to download Mari’s 2012 Facebook Fan Page Checklist. This guide is useful for starting a new fan page or just improving the one you already have. Included is a 7-step formula for Facebook success.

If you really want to expand your Facebook fan base, you will be interested in Mari’s new course: EXTREME FANBASE GROWTH(tm) – 21 Insanely Effective Ways to Expand Your Facebook Impact. It starts on February 14th, and promises to take you step-by-step through creating a foolproof Facebook growth strategy for 2012 so you can build a solid fanbase of 5,000 GENUINE fans in 30 days or less! This product will be available at 60% off the regular price for the weekend.

Extreme Fanbase Growth Information

Welcome to Follow Frenzy January! Here you have the chance to win $100 cash via Paypal or a $100 Amazon GC. The Sweepstakes is open worldwide and runs from January 27 to January 29. What a great way to start off the new year!

Please note that you only need to enter on one participating blog. All blogs are using the same Rafflcopter form!

You are only required to complete 1 entry (any one you desire) to be entered to win. The more you complete, the more chances you have to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

There is nothing more frustrating to a reader than to find a great post only to find that the links in the posts are broken – they do not provide the additional information that the reader is looking for. It is impossible for you, as the blogger, to manually check each of your links to determine if they are still valid. Instead, if you are using WordPress, install the Broken Link Checker Plugin.

click on image to see full size image

Customize Broken Link Checker is set to check links every 72 hours. This number can be customized to your preference. For larger blogs, you may want to check your links less often as the process could take some time. You can also choose where to look for links (such as pages, comments, posts), what to check (html links, youtube, etc.), and set how long the link should load before being marked as broken.

The Broken Links Tab displays a list of detected broken links. You can choose to view all links, redirected links, or even create a link filter to show only certain links like those in the comment section. Once a broken link is found, you can complete several actions by moving your mouse over one of the links. You can choose to:

• Edit URL – lets you change the URL of the particular link. All occurrences of the URL will be changed.
• Unlink – lets you remove the link leaving the link text intact.
• Not Broken – lets you mark the link as working. This is useful if you know that the link should be working, but there may be a internet or other glitch causing the link not to work at the time it was checked.

Broken Link Checker is a useful tool that will help you keep broken and dead links off of your blog. I have been using this plugin for over two weeks now and I was able to clean up all the broken links on my site!