Do you really want to start blog monetization?

I know your answer…

You are already imagining yourself earning lots of dollars with your blog!!

Let’s go ahead to know what you can do to monetize your blog. Blogging is an art where bloggers share their ideas with the masses. And as far as blog monetization is concerned I would like to ask you a few questions and afterwards we’ll move ahead to learn the secrets of blog monetization.

For the questions below you just need to answer YES or NO… Are you ready to answer few questions, if yes then go ahead with the questionnaire:

1. Do you have good amount of readers?
2. Do you write for a specific niche?
3. Do you regularly add or update content on your blog?

If your answer to the above questions is YES for more than 2 questions then you are ready to start monetization on your blog by following these tips:

1. Advertisement

   You can start with advertisement. Full time bloggers use advertisement as their primary source of revenue generation. There are various kinds of advertising options to choose from like Google AdSense (with Section Targeting), Tribal Fusion, Yahoo Publisher Network, etc. You can also go with RSS advertisements like Pheedo, Crispads, etc. But most importantly don’t overload your blog with too much advertisement (it may look like another spam site).

2. Affiliate Links

   Another way to generate revenue is to provide Affiliate links on your blog (Affiliate Marketing). Affiliate Marketing is a revenue sharing concept between a merchant and website owner. Blog owner gets a commission or referral fees when any reader/customer clicks that affiliate link and buys any product or service through that link. You can choose from various affiliate programs like Amazon affiliate program, Skimlinks(converts your existing keywords into affiliate links), etc.

3. Freebies

   You can provide apps, small software packages or free reports as free bundle on your blog site. This is a good way to attract visitors and encourage subscriptions. Or you can also offer some premium apps to your readers. This is a pretty good way of killing two birds with one arrow, i.e., generate revenue from your blog and increase traffic; both at the same time.

4. Donations

   Donation can also be a relevant source of income for bloggers. It is a means by which your reader can pay you some amount as a gift or reward for the free service provided to them. As a blogger you can ask for donation in a way like, donate if you like this post or article so that you can help them more in a similar fashion.

5. Premium Content

   Apart from the free content that you write on your blog, you can also provide premium or paid content to your site members. It is a very good way to provide digital services to your premium members. For instance, you can check out Tutsplus network. Along with regular content, they also offer high value premium content in form of online training courses for paid members.

What are you waiting for? Go ahead and start monetizing your blog. The above tips will definitely help you monetize you blog. There can be more resources for monetization, if you want to share feel free to add them in comments.

Happy Blogging!!!

© Binary Turf. Also learn photography tips & get technical support.

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Have you ever wanted to add next and previous links on individual post page? If yes, then you are at the right place. Whenever a visitor opens up a post to read it further, the single post page displays the post along with the comments on that particular post. But, it does not display the next and previous links to other posts.

To engage the visitors and readers of your blog site, adding next and previous post links is a good idea. So to add next and previous links on your website place the following code in functions.php:

function custom_post_navigation()
{
?>
    <div class="prev_next">
        <div class="nav_left">
            <span class="prev">Previous Post</span> <?php previous_post_link('%link', '%title'); ?>
         </div class="nav_right">
        <div>
            <span class="next">Next Post</span> <?php next_post_link('%link', '%title'); ?>
        </div>
    </div>
<?php
}

add_action('genesis_after_comments', 'custom_post_navigation');

This would actually look weird without some style to it. To make it more readable and stylish you can use any of these 3 styling techniques and paste them in style.css. Also, feel free to add your own custom style if you want.

• Style 1

  Here’s the code for this style:

  .prev_next
  {
      text-transform: capitalize;
      letter-spacing: 2px;
      color: #666;
      border-bottom: 1px solid #B6B157;
      border-top: 1px solid #B6B157;
      clear: both;
      margin:10px 0; padding:5px;
  }
  .prev_next .next
  {
      text-align: right;
  }
  .prev_next .nav_left
  {
      float: left;
  }
  .prev_next .nav_right
  {
      text-align: right;
  }
  .prev_next a
  {
      text-decoration: underline;
  }
  .post_nav a
  {
      text-transform: none;
      letter-spacing: normal;
  }
  

• Style 2

  Go ahead if you like this box style:

  .prev_next
  {
      text-transform: capitalize;
      letter-spacing: 2px;
      color: #666;
      border-style: solid;
      border-color: #ddd;
      clear: both;
      margin:10px 0;
      padding:5px;
  }
  .prev_next .next
  {
      text-align: right;
  }
  .prev_next .nav_left
  {
      float: left;
  }
  .prev_next .nav_right
  {
      text-align: right;
  }
  .prev_next a
  {
      text-decoration: none;
  }
  .prev_next a:hover
  {
      text-decoration: underline;
  }
  .post_nav a
  {
      text-transform: none;
      letter-spacing: normal;
  }
  

• Style 3

  Here comes the next and previous links styled in two lines:

  .prev_next
  {
      overflow: auto;
      margin: 10px 0;
      padding: 5px 0;
  }
  .prev_next span.next
  {
      border-bottom: 1px solid #E6E6E6;
      display: block;
      margin-bottom: 5px;
  }
  .prev_next span.prev
  {
      border-bottom: 1px solid #E6E6E6;
      display: block;
      margin-bottom: 5px;
  }
  .prev_next a
  {
      text-decoration: none;
  }
  .prev_next a:hover
  {
      text-decoration: underline;
  }
  .nav_left
  {
      width: 50%;
      float: left;
  }
  .nav_right
  {
      width: 50%;
      float: right;
      text-align: right;
  }

Choose whatever you like from the above 3 styles. Go ahead with modifying the style and see which one works for you.

© Binary Turf. Also learn photography tips & get technical support.

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As a Genesis developer you may want to customize the post information like categories, etc., which comes after the post content. Out of the numerous filters that Genesis framework provides, there is a filter genesis_post_meta which allow you to customize post meta on your website. By default the post meta displays Filed Under, but you can customize it to display custom post meta. For customizing post meta place the following code in functions.php:

function custom_post_meta($post_meta)
{
  $post_meta='[post_categories before="Posted in "] ';
  return $post_meta;
}
add_filter('genesis_post_meta', 'custom_post_meta ');

If you want to remove post information, place the following code in functions.php:

remove_action('genesis_after_post_content', 'genesis_post_meta');

© Binary Turf. Also learn photography tips & get technical support.

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Comments are an integral part of a blog post. The readers of your blog will be glad to see a beautiful & stylized comments link with an awesome background image in your blog. Genesis WordPress theme provides you with the flexibility to customize your website as per your requirement. If you are looking forward to add a background image to comments link in Genesis, add the following code in functions.php:

function custom_post_comments() {
if (!is_single() && !is_page()) {
echo '<p class="custom_comments"><a href="';
the_permalink();
echo '#comments" rel="nofollow">';
comments_number(__('<span>0</span>'), __('<span>1</span>'), __('<span>%</span> '));
echo '</a> </p>';
}
}

add_action('genesis_before_post_content','custom_post_comments');

And here is the code for styling the comments link. Add the following code in style.css:

.custom_comments
{
text-align:center;
background:url(images/c-box.gif) no-repeat top right;
height:67px;
width:76px;
margin-left:558px;
padding-top:8px;
}

Note: Replace the name of the image with your custom background image.This will not only allow you to add a background image to comments link, but this will also work as a link to the comments.

© Binary Turf. Also learn photography tips & get technical support.

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The default login screen for WordPress dashboard shows the WordPress logo and links to WordPress.org. However as a part of WordPress customization you may be interested in having your own customized logo on wp-login.php page. All this can be done very easily. In just three simple steps! Are you ready to follow the steps. Here they go:

1. Customize WordPress Dashboard Logo

   Here’s the code for replacing the default WordPress logo with your own custom designed logo; which speaks for your brand.

   Design a beautiful logo for your brand and get going with the following piece of code (ftp the image & paste the following code in functions.php or custom_functions.php if using thesis)

   function custom_dashboard_logo(){
   echo '<style  type="text/css">
   h1 a {
   background-image:url('.get_bloginfo('template_directory').'/images/custom_logo.png)  !important;
   }
   </style>';
   }
   add_action('login_head',  'custom_dashboard_logo');
   

   Note: Replace the name of the image with your customized image/logo.

2. Customize WordPress Dashboard Logo URL

   The next important thing to do is to link the customized logo to your own website instead. Add the following code in functions.php to link the dashboard logo to your website:

   function custom_dashboard_url( $url ) {
   return get_bloginfo( 'siteurl' );
   }
   
   add_filter( 'login_headerurl', 'custom_dashboard_url' );
   

3. Customize WordPress Dashboard Logo Tagline

   Similarly, you can also modify the default tagline which says Powered by WordPress and replace it with your custom tagline. Check out the following code:

   function custom_dashboard_tagline( $name ) {
   return get_bloginfo( 'description' );
   }
   
   add_filter( 'login_headertitle', 'custom_dashboard_tagline' );
   

© Binary Turf. Also learn photography tips & get technical support.

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Thesis navigation menu provides a lot of customization features. When we add a new post in WordPress it shows up in the blog page automatically. But, sometimes you may want to include the recent blog post to be added to thesis navigation menu as a dropdown menu item.

To add recent posts to thesis navigation menu as a dropdown, you just need to place the following code in functions.php:

function custom_nav() {
echo '<li class="tab tab-recent"><a href="'.get_home_url().'">My Blog</a><ul>';
wp_get_archives('title_li=&type=postbypost&limit=10');
echo '</ul></li>';
}
add_action('thesis_hook_last_nav_item',' custom_nav ');

That’s all required. And you will have your recent blog posts showing under thesis navigation menu.

© Binary Turf. Also learn photography tips & get technical support.

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The wait is finally over and we’re pleased to announce the Blazing Fast Optimized builds of Firefox Aurora 11.0a2 for Windows. The builds are optimized for SSE and SSE2 processors. The Aurora builds are from the latest source of Firefox with all the new features being implemented in the development cycle.

You can download these builds from the blazing fast downloads page. The release builds and the Aurora builds, both are available as installers and standalone zipped builds. If you have issues with any of these builds please use the forums or leave a comment here. If you want to keep notified about the updates or newer versions of these builds please subscribe.

© Binary Turf. Also learn photography tips & get technical support.

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Time and again we come across unique requirements from clients. Like, sometimes a client wants to hide date, time and admin link from specific or a custom post types. If you are using Genesis, you can use the Genesis filter ‘genesis_post_info’ to remove or hide Post Info.

To hide or remove post-info from the desired post you can place the following code in functions.php:

function custom_post_info($post_info)
	{
	global $post;
	if(get_post_type($post->ID) == 'post_type_name' )
		{
		return false;
		}
	else
		{
		return $post_info;
		}
	}
add_filter('genesis_post_info', 'custom_post_info '); 

In the above code you just need to replace ‘post_type_name’ with your post type. That’s all for hiding date, time and admin link.

© Binary Turf. Also learn photography tips & get technical support.

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We just finished building the latest release source of Firefox 9.0.1. The Blazing Fast builds are available from the downloads page. For any issues please head to the forum. Enjoy!

© Binary Turf. Also learn photography tips & get technical support.

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