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If you’d ask us, we’d say that roughly 85% of you guys have a blog. And 80% of those that do, use wordpress. We use it and we love it. So here’s a free tip for you; switch over to wordpress if you’re still with blogspot or some other limiting service. Take matters into you own hands and start working your way up to the top of the blogosphere!

Yesterday we wrote about how you need to brand your blog and one of the things that does just that is the way your blog looks like. There’s a large amount of templates out there and even still loads of people use the same themes! Even we aren’t original with the theme we run on. Unfortunately it’s a necessary evil if we want to get our copycow point across.

The friendly folk over at Bloginon asked us what we thought about the new and free worpress theme they are currently offering in our two favorite flavours. Chocolate and vanilla! We had a look and we must say, we like it! Elegant and smooth.

The themes have been approved for bloggers of all ages since there are no sharp edges to be found. Adsense intergration and replacing the default logo with your own is made very easy and straight forward. It’s seems to have done a great job with the ad placement. Not too intrusive, yet clickable. One tip I’d give the author of the themes is to include the tips as a readme.txt in the zip file so the bloggers can use it to it’s fullest potential.

What do we specifically like and don’t like about the theme?

• We are a sucker for round corners!
• The design is elegant and doesn’t distract us from the most important thing on a blog; the content.
• The integration of ad codes is made pretty easy and explained well.
• The featured and recent posts on the top is clever. This might have first time visitors browse around a bit longer.
• It’s free! Seriously, do you need another reason?

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• It could use a little kick. Perhaps some different bullets for the listings.
• It doesn’t have any cow pictures anywhere.

Sweet Corners is a great free wordpress theme which can easily be adapted for any blog, no matter what your niche is. It’s still a version 1.0 so we’re probably going to see some updates. Tells us what you think about the theme and leave some constructive criticism in the comments. We’re sure the good folk at Blogion will be reading this sponsored review and take your suggestions into consideration. We’ve been told that there’s probably more free themes to come from these guys, so if this one isn’t quite what you’re looking for, bookmark them anyway to see if any future releases will suit your style!

37 Moos » ~ ~ Random Post

Well boys and girls, it’s been a month since we announced the coolest cowpetition ever. Our hosting provider Micfo.com agreed to fork out $500 so we could give away something extremely cool like a PS3, Xbox360, Wii or iPhone! Competition is officially closed and we’re are happy to announce a winner today!

If you didn’t win, cheer up. You can always use the “JohnCowRocks” promo coupon to claim a nice 15% discount on anything you order with Micfo!

Has this blog contest been good for us too? With over 200 entries we’re pretty pleased! We’re currently ranked in the top 5k on Technorati. Alexa placed us in the 35k and Google shows us in third place if you look for “win a ps3″. Seems we’re actually also ranking in the first spot if you’re looking for “John Chow” They still didn’t give us pagerank yet, so we’re hoping all those links will get taken into consideration when they finally do update the PR. Obviously these numbers did not all come from this contest but it sure gave us a nice boost.

Now, without further adoo, the lucky blogger who’s number we picked with a blindfold is: JulieAnneBonner with this pingback! Cowgratulations Julie! Please get back to us asap so we can handover the $500 so you can go out shopping!

Oh, we nearly forgot that there was another competition running. CmanLong won $100, a link in our sidebar and a full site review worth $200! Congratulations to you too! If you read this, please leave a comment or drop us an email so we can hand you over some more money!

Last but not least, we’d like to congratulate Angand The Great from se-games.blogspot.com with winning the most annoying commentator on the blog award! It only took you about 10 comments and one really stupid guest blogger post which we accidentaly deleted. You just got yourself banned for the rest of the year at no charge. Hooray for us you!

54 Moos » ~ ~ Random Post

Post by Becky @ PreBlogging.com. Becky takes the simple approach to explain blogging topics with a no nonsense approach to things.

What is StumbleUpon ?

StumbleUpon.com is a unique website, which allows users to jump from random website to random website. It’s great for idling the evening away. It comes in the form of a tool bar add-on for Internet Explorer, and via this you can rate sites and submit new sites. The more positive stumbles a site receives, the more likely StumbleUpon will send users your way.

What can StumbleUpon do for me ?

Here is a link to my StumbleUpon page for preblogging.com/blog. It was submitted here sometime last week, and has received 11 positive votes, which has resulted in almost 800 unique visitors. StumbleUpon also offers users to pay for views too. Prices run at about 5 cents per visitor. With getting in essence free visitors to your site, you can be sure that the numbers of commentators and the numbers of people subscribing to your blog will increase.

Will StumbleUpon make me rich ?

Sadly, the answer to this is no. StumbleUpon users aren’t known for being great ad clickers (like digg.com traffic), but it can be a good way to increase your traffic and to get some people to start to read your blog or websute.

How to get traffic via StumbleUpon

Some of the more interesting things I’ve noticed in the past is that the more friends you have and the more reviews of the pages you have the better the traffic will be. I’ve also found that contacting the top stumblers and getting them to review your site doesn’t hurt either. You can find the list of top stumblers here.
For More you can go to PreBlogging.com and read my 5 Step Guide to start Blogging

Edit: let’s all stumble this article to see what exactly Stumble Upon can do!

28 Moos » ~ ~ Random Post

Hi, remember us? Just squeezing our furry cow butts in between the guest post stampede!

Being new to the whole blogging scene ourselves we were amazed how easy it is to become a self proclaimed blogging expert. If you know how to tell an interesting story, people will most likely buy whatever it is you’re saying. It doesn’t have to be new and refreshing. Entertaining is good enough. It’s amazing if you look how many new blogs pop up all around us each day with the same posts over and over again.
Just because blogger A tells the same story funnier than blogger B doesn’t make A right or B wrong.
Being in a blogging niche like making money online means one thing; It will get harder and harder to bring relevant and new information to your readers every single day. Most -if not all- topics have been written, read, and digested thousands of times already. It’s how you gift wrap it.

1) Distinguish yourself by branding. -This isn’t just what theme you slap onto your blog. It’s about how you let your personality shine through in your writing. People will quickly recognize a particular blogger’s writing style and learn to love it. Be patient with them though. Appreciation is not something that grows overnight.

2) Select an underlying theme to your niche. -If you really want to blog about making all that money online every day, be sure you add an angle to the mix. You could for example pretend to be a cow and throw in some bovine puns every now and then. It’ll not only give you more options to play with, it’s again another part of branding your blog.

3) Do your homework. -Or look back on your own experience before you blatantly start repeating the same stuff the rest of the blogosphere seems to be writing about. Just because loads of people say something doesn’t make it the absolute truth. Besides, what are the odds people will come to read your story when they can get the same crap on another 1001 blogs too?

4) Work Hard! - If people see that you’re a hard worker who updates his or her blog frequently, they will assume you do your homework and you know what you’re talking about. Just don’t put all your time in research and writing, reserve some of it for interaction with your readers. Be honest with yourself; would you be more inclined to go back to the blogger who never replies to your comments or the one that always wants to have the last word?

What it all boils down to is a bit of common sense, some social skills and a lot of patience. If you don’t have these, you’re not going anywhere. We of course don’t practice what we preach. We just needed something to write about. Cows are the next step in the blogolution, we’re already at the top of the blogging foodchain! (and whoever dares to make hamburger puns in the comments will be severely frowned upon!)

33 Moos » ~ ~ Random Post

This post is part of the guest blogger experiment.

The following is a guest post by cooliojones, the owner of My New Hustle | Make Money Online, a blog that chronicles conventional and unconventional methods of making money on the internet and in the ‘real world.’

Guest blogging. Commenting. Link exchanges.

There are so many ways to get your name out there these days, but yet only a select few will maximize their resources to join the growing list of A-List bloggers. Although it’s a tragedy – and more opportunity for those who seek it out – this isn’t the topic of my article for today.

Even before you get to the point of advertising your site and your brand, you need to have something worth advertising. You need to learn how to “milk your own cow,” so to speak.

What exactly is milking your own cow? More than anything, you have to get your ‘weight up’ before you go mooing at the neighbor’s door asking them to buy some of your cookies. Everyone knows that ‘content is king,’ but hardly anyone stresses the importance of quantity. When someone goes to your site, how many quality articles do they see? Is your archives more than just a few months old? If not, do you have a month or two filled to the brim with things that a visitor can spend time browsing through?

If you build it, they may come, but how long will they stay? You’ve got the right idea to publicize your blog the Malcolm X way – ‘By any means necessary” – but if I arrive at the pasture and only see a few cows, I’ll assume that the owner doesn’t care about his herd. Here are 7 reasons why quantity is 2^nd only to content when building your site:

1. I need something to do while I’m at your site, and if you only have a few choices in your blog ‘vending machine,’ I’m leaving for greener pastures.
2. Having numerous posts makes your site seem like a fully grown Bessie, and not a malnourished calf, even if your posts are nothing more than unorganized cow dung (but people will see through your dung so make sure your posts are quality).
3. Readers can get a sense of the type of posting schedule you have with a ‘full’ blog. Do you post weekly, daily, or multiple times per day? What time do you usually post? This gives your readers something to look forward to.
4. Having more posts allows you to take part in more money making opportunities. A lot of programs, such as PayPerPost will not allow you to join unless you have a certain number of posts in your blog.
5. You can give back. There’s strength in numbers, and having more posts gives you more topics to choose from, thus more ways you can add to other blogs in terms of experience and knowledge. In comments, you can pull from your writing reservoir and support another author – or debate their point-of-view – while simultaneously adding a link to one of your articles for reference.
6. More posts gives the search engines more work to do. The more work they do indexing your site, the more likely you will appear in the search results for keywords related to your main topic. A higher place in the listing means more visitors, and more visitors means more money.
7. Establish your authority and assert your knowledge with quantity. Most people simply will not trust your experience if you have few posts for proof.
8. It just makes sense.  AdSense that is!   Having more posts gives you more chances to make money off of your work, using any or all of the various advertising networks.  Who doesn’t want more moo-la!

A cow with reinforcements stands a much better chance of living than a naked cow. Make sure your cow is fully milked before you leave your pasture, and you’ll enjoy more days grazing in the land of milk and honey.

7 Moos » ~ ~ Random Post