Yahoo! Buys Tumblr for $1 Billion

Yahoo! Inc. has purchased the micro blogging site Tumblr for $1 billion. The deal finalized on Sunday May 19, 2013. Tumblr's founder David Carp has become America's next tech tycoon. Experts consider $1 billion a high price for Tumblr as Tumblr generated just 13$ million in 2012. Yahoo's new CEO Marissa Mayer believes that this deal will proved to be profitable for her company.

Tumblr was founded by David Carp in back 2007. The site provides blogging platform for more than 100 million users from all over the world. Tumblr stands among top blogging platforms of the world and provides free powerful blog hosting for bloggers. Now it will be interesting to see how Yahoo manages the services in upcoming days.

26 years old David Carp, the founder of Tumblr, is happy that he has earned a lot of money quickly. He became the next Tech tycoon of US when Yahoo's board of directors agreed to buy Tumblr on May 19, 2013. 

License: CreativeCommons Author: davidville Source: Flickr

Tumblr is loved by bloggers for its simple and clean interface and easy customizations. The platform allows bloggers with basic computer operating skills to create and run a blog in minutes. The current stats at Tumblr show that 108.5 million blogs are hosted with 50.9 billion posts.

Are you among those bloggers who are using Tumblr for their blogging passion? If yes, then how you are seeing the future of Tumblr and your blog? What do you expect from Yahoo? How can the service grow? Don't forget to leave your response as Tumblr's owners are changing and its future may also change.

High PR RSS Directories to Sumbit Blogs for Backlinks

RSS submission can boost your blog's ranking considerably if the directory, to which you are submitting your blog, is of high PR and high authority. When you submit your blog to any RSS directory, your recent posts are fetched automatically and backlinks are created from those directories whenever you post something new on your blog. So you don't need to do a lot of work for building backlinks for each and individual posts when you submit your blog to some reputable RSS directories.

I have compiled a list of 25 high PR RSS directories which accept free RSS submission. Furthermore, many of these directories even don't ask to register or verify your details, so they don't waste your time and you can submit your blog in no time.

License: Freeware Image Source: IconArchive

Here is the list of these RSS directories. I hope that these sites will surely help you in boosting your blog's ranking in SERPs, as well as will refer some visitors also.

http://www.blogdigger.com/add.jsp PR7
http://www.rss-network.com/submitrss.php PR6
http://www.icerocket.com/c?p=addblog&url=  PR6
http://www.blog-directory.org/add-blog.php PR5
http://www.getapodcast.com/AddFeed.aspx PR5
http://www.rssmotron.com/feed_submission.php PR5
http://rsslounge.com/submit PR4
http://www.feedplex.com/add-url.php PR3
http://rssfeedurl.co.cc/submit.php PR3
http://rssfeedurl.co.cc/submit.php PR3
http://anse.de/rdfticker/addchannel.php PR3
http://www.ian-tn.org/submit.php PR2
http://www.allenre.com/submit.php PR2
http://rss.buymyscripts.net/submit.php PR2
http://www.feedmyrss.org/submit.php PR0
http://www.rsslinks.in/submit.php PR0
http://www.rssfeednews.in/submit.php PR0
http://www.whatisrssfeed.com/submit.php PR0
http://www.rssnewsdirectory.com/submit.php PR0
http://submitrss.info/submit.php PR0
http://www.readablog.com/AddFeed.aspx PR0
http://www.rssfeedslinks.com/submit.php PR0
http://www.goldenfeed.com/AddFeed.aspx PR0
http://www.flchili.com/submit.php PR0
http://www.rssaggregator.org/submit.php PR0

So go there and submit your blog URL to each of these directories. As second PR update of 2013 is near, so these directories can help you in getting a better PR. Good luck!

Wake up! Google's Second (2nd) PR Update of 2013 is Near

It is just a wake up call for webmasters including bloggers and website owners that Google's 2nd PR update of 2013 is coming near and nearer. The first PR update was released on February 4, 2013. Google releases the toolbar update 4 times a year and these four occasions are the most crucial moments for all webmasters.

Image by: Jason.IT

Although Google keeps updating the PR for all websites and blogs regularly and this change takes place on daily basis, but the public update or toolbar update is something for what all webmasters get anxious. Now the next (2nd) PR update of 2013 is being expected to happen between June 27 and July 7, so it is time to wake up and work a little more to make your stats pretty. A good PR in next update can take your blog or website to heights of success. 

A good PR in next update can bring you several benefits. i.e it will bring more advertisers and your earnings will grow considerably, you will be able to find quality guest writers and much more. Below, I am going to share some tips which might contribute your efforts in getting a solid PR in next PR update.

Do Some Guest Posting on Niche Related Blogs

It doesn't matter either you are running a blog or website, find some blogs accepting guest posts under your niche and then write a few posts there. A single highly relevant backlink from an authority blog can boost your PR considerably. It isn't too late. Start it today. 

Invest a Little to Hire an SEO Expert

If you don't know well about SEO, then it isn't a bad idea to hire someone to do SEO for you. There are several SEO agencies who offer quality services. Before selecting any service, ensure that it has a good reputation and will succeed you in long run. Beware of fake agencies which rank you temporarily. 

Blog Commenting is Still Alive

Blog commenting is still alive. Find some dofollow blogs and leave comments there. This will help you in getting backlinks. Consider the quality and relevancy of blogs while commenting, otherwise this may waste your precious time. Find blogs with IntenseDebate as CommentLuv blogs don't keep it in long run. Utilize upcoming few days properly to get maximum out of them.

These three practices are most productive, so I shared. There are several other methods of building backlinks through which you can get backlinks to boost your blog or website's PR.

My blog's PR is 4 at the moment and I expect further boost in next. So what is your blog or website's current PR? What you are expecting in next update and what strategies you have adapted to boost it? Don't forget to share.

HostGator 30% Discount Coupon Code 2013

HostGator is among the most reputable website hosting providers of the world. It is also known for introducing different coupon codes periodically which offer discounts for website hosting. Recently, HostGator has introduced a coupon code on arrival of spring 2013 which offers 30% discount on all hosting packages.

Why HostGator?
HostGator and BlueHost are two most popular web hosting providers of the world which offer reliable website hosting on affordable price.

Webmasters, particularly bloggers, always search for quality on lower prices but mostly, they fail to get quality services on low investment. HostGator’s reliable services are known among webmasters and it makes it a perfect host for blogs and websites.

You may find several hosts for your blog or website on low prices but the reliability of the hosting will hit you hard later. Most website hosts offer their services on low prices but their hosting doesn’t compete the needs. i.e. your blog or website will exposed to downtime, it will load slowly, your blog/website will exposed to high risks of hacking and so on. But when you will choose HostGator as host for your blog, it will grow your blog and website effectively. You will experience maximum uptime (almost 100%), on powerful servers of HostGator, your blog/website will load swiftly even with high traffic and your blog/website will stay safe against hackers with the help of great precautionary measures of HostGator.

The hosting packages are affordable. The burden of investment further decreases when you use a coupon code. The coupon code, which I have brought you, brings you a charming discount of 30%. This is one of the best discounts in 2013 from HostGator.

Support of the host is necessary to ensure that you deal with the technical challenges effectively. HostGator’s brilliant support (including 24/7/365 live chat and phone support + instant email support) ensures that your website or blog will never face downtime or other faults due to any technical issue.

Your Blog or Website Need a Good Host to Flourish
If your blog or website finds a good host, then the growth maximizes. HostGator should be your first choice. It doesn’t matter either you are going to host your WordPress blog, any other CMS or static website, HostGator will do the best for you.

Ready to Go with HostGator?
Ready to get a brilliant hosting for your blog or website? Below is the coupon code which will bring you a decent 30% discount. I would like to request signing up through my provided link. It will earn me a commission. You will get a brilliant host on a discounted price and I’ll earn a few dollars.

Coupon Code: SPRING30  Signup Link

On signup page, use above coupon code and click on validate. You will be given a 30% discount. Enjoy!!!

Need any help in purchasing hosting or setting up your blog on HostGator? Just leave a comment with your problem. We will help you.

How to Use Your Own / Custom Domain Email with Gmail

If you are using your custom domain for your blog or website but don’t have an email hosting, then you don’t need to get worry for this. You can use Gmail’s mailing service for free to manage your emails on your blog or website’s professional email addresses.

A custom email on your domain like you@yourdomain.com gives your mails a professional look and every webmaster including bloggers love professionalism. Sometimes, bloggers and website owners can’t afford to purchase email hosting separately when their website hosting package doesn’t provide them email hosting. Similarly, Blogger users, who use their custom domain on Blogger, also need an email hosting. They can purchase one but here in this tutorial, we will learn how to use Gmail’s free service to send and receive emails on your professional addresses without investing even a penny.

Step 1: Setup Mail Forwarding
Almost all domain registrars provide free email forwarding and it is very easy to configure. To use Gmail for sending and receiving emails on your professional addresses, first create and forward email address (es) to your Gmail ID.

For example if your Gmail ID is you@gmail.com and your domain name is yourdomain.com, then go to control panel of your domain and then navigate to email forwarding section. After that, create a desired email address on your domain like you@yourdomain.com and forward it to your Gmail ID.

What if Your Domain Control Panel Doesn’t Support Email Forwarding
(Read and follow only if your domain registrar hasn't provided the feature of email forwarding in your domain panel. If you are able to forward emails from your domain panel, then skip to Step 2 of this tutorial.)
 
If your domain registrar has provided you with limited features and you aren’t able to forward emails under your domain, then there is yet another solution. Namecheap.com provides free DNS service along with email forwarding.

To go with the free DNS management and email forwarding of NameCheap, signup for a free account at https://www.namecheap.com/myaccount/signup.aspx and add your domain. After that, change the Nameservers from your previous domain panel to below provided Nameservers. This will point your domain to NameCheap servers and once the domain is redirected, configure DNS there to point your domain to your blog / website again and then create and forward email IDs to your Gmail account.

Nameservers for NameCheap
freedns1.registrar-servers.com 
freedns2.registrar-servers.com
freedns3.registrar-servers.com
freedns4.registrar-servers.com 

Step 2: Add Newly Created Email Addresses to Your Gmail Account

After forwarding the email address to your Gmail ID, now add the email to your Gmail account. To do it, follow below steps:

1. Sign in to your Gmail account

2. Click on 'Settings' icon from near right top of screen and choose "Settings" from drop down list

3. In "Settings" screen, select "Accounts" tab and then click on "Add another email address you own"

4. Once you will click "Add another email address you own" link, a popup window will appear. In the appeared window, fill in necessary details as below:

-In the "Name" field, type in the name which you want to assign to the email ID. Whenever you will send email, this name will appear as "From" name.

-In "Email address" field, type in the email address which you have created under your domain and have forwarded to Gmail in first step

5. After adding your email, click on "Next Step" button to proceed

6. In next window, choose the option "Send through Gmail (easier to set up) option and proceed

7. In appeared window, click on "Send Verification". Gmail will send you a verification code on the email address which you have chosen to use with Gmail account. You will receive the code in your Gmail inbox as you have set the forward before. Open your Gmail inbox in a separate window, copy the code and paste it in appeared windows' concerned box to verify your email address.

8. Now in last step, again go to "Settings" of your Gmail account. You will see an option saying "Send email as". In front of "Send email as" option, your added email addresses will be listed. Make the email address default which you have added recently. Now all emails will be sent from this email and you will receive the replies in same Gmail account.

Congratulations! Now you have set up your own email address for Gmail. You might ask either you will be able to receive emails on your original Gmail ID or not. The answer is yes, you will receive emails on your original Gmail ID also.

Need any help in setting up your custom email for Gmail? Just leave a comment below by stating your problem. We will help you out.

How to Increase Facebook Page Likes Quickly

Increasing the number of likes on your Facebook fan page benefits you in several ways. In blogging success, social involvement plays vital role and as being the largest social network, Facebook can contribute you greatly in growing your blog.

Image Source: IconArchive

Every blogger and website owner has a Facebook fan page to share his/her blog posts and other online content with Facebook users. If the fan page has more likes, then Facebook can send a good traffic to the concerned blog. Today we will learn how to increase the number of Facebook likes for your blog or website's fan page.

Facebook Like Widgets

There are a lot of widgets available for websites and blogs which can deliver brilliant results when used properly. Facebook provides you a code to embed a simple Facebook like box anywhere on your blog or website and this simple box helps you in increasing Facebook likes.

Apart from this traditional Like Box, there is yet another very effective widget available that is the Facebook Like Popup Box. This box popups and compels the visitor to like your Facebook page. Although unnecessary popups are not recommended to be used on blogs and websites but this One Time Facebook Like Popup Box appears for the first visit of your visitors and it doesn't appear again for the same browser. Thus this widget works effectively in increasing the number of likes for your Facebook fan page without annoying your visitors.

Exchanging Facebook Likes

This is yet another tactic used by several bloggers and website owners to increase the number of their Facebook page fans. This practice is most popular at bloggers.com where bloggers exchange Facebook likes. 

Buying Facebook Likes

Many services sell Facebook likes at low cost. swagsocials.com is one of the most used websites for this purpose. If your budget plan allows, a little investment can get you a lot of Facebook likes which will return your investment with a good profit in form of traffic from Facebook.

Some people believe that several services sell fake Facebook fans and page likes, so while choosing any service for buying Facebook likes, ensure that you are going to get real fans, not fake ones. This can be confirmed by reading user reviews about the service.

Promoting Your Page on Facebook

Facebook itself promotes your page when you pay a little money. While browsing Facebook, you might have noticed that several pages are recommended to be liked. These recommendations promote fan pages of bloggers, website owners and companies who pay Facebook for getting more fans and page likes. You can also invest some money to get more likes. The more you invest, the more your page will be promoted.  

Keep Your Fan Page Updated

When you keep your Facebook page updated with useful information and links, it builds a circle of target fans and the circle keeps expanding. To ensure that your Facebook page likes are growing, share each new post on your blog's fan page. 

Initial Likes are Hard to Get

Initial page likes are hard to get and once you have enough fans on your Facebook page, the likes start growing quickly. When your fans like any link or status update on your Facebook page, their all friends are informed thus the friends also most likely visit and like your page. This maximizes the exposure of your Facebook page to the Facebook community. So if you have gotten tired from failure in getting initial likes, don't give up! You will soon notice a sudden grow in your Facebook page's likes.

So these were some tips for getting Facebook likes. I also need likes for my page and I hope that you will like my blog's Facebook fan page. Here is the link: https://facebook.com/itcongress. Just drop your Facebook page's URL below in comments, other bloggers, including me, will surely like your page and it will help you increasing Facebook page likes. Good luck!!

Three Top (Free) Visitor Counters for Blogs

Visitor counters are among the important widgets and plugins for blogs and websites. They provide you and your visitors with details about the traffic. Bloggers love to add visitor counters to their blogs, so I have brought three top visitor counter widgets which not only provide details about visitors but two of these services provide detailed reports about your blog's traffic.

Analytic services greatly help you in understanding your visitors. After analyzing details about your blog's traffic, you can figure out what is doing good on your blog and what needs to be improved. Thus you can work on the weaknesses of your blog to improve its performance effectively.

Histats Counters and Analytics

Histats is the most widely analytic service which is loved by several bloggers and website owners due to its brilliant features and free of cost reliable service. You can create various kinds of visitor counters for your blog. These visitor counters are available in both Flash and GIF platform.

Histats' service not only provides you visitor counters, it analyzes your each and every visitor also. From your counter's dashboard in Histats' website, you can keep yourself informed about online visitors, their path and much more. You can also get information about most visited posts and pages. Additionally, the bounce rate and time spent by visitors on your blog can be analyzed also.

When it comes to analyze the SERP rankings of your blog, Histats do good in this sector also. You will be provided with details of number of visitors from search engines, searched keyword, SERP position of your blog's URL and much more. This makes Histats a complete set of analytic tools for blogs and websites.

Sometimes, bloggers don't want to display any visitor counter on their blog and they want to track the traffic details privately. For this purpose, Histats provides you a hidden code which tracks the visitors without displaying any visitor counter on your blog.

Google Analytics is the most reliable analytic tools for websites and blogs which is being used by almost all webmasters, but beginner bloggers face difficulties while using Google Analytics features. In such a situation, Histats is a very good alternative which provides all necessary stats displayed in an easy to understand layout.

Clicky Real Time Web Analytics

Clicky is yet another feature rich and free analytic service for blogs and websites. Like Histats, Clicky also provides you with detailed stats of your traffic. You can embed the code from Clicky on your blog to track each and every visitor.

The counter code from Clicky embeds a floating/sticky visitor counter on bottom of your blog which displays the number of visitors browsing your blog at a particular time. Additional sensitive reports are also embedded on your blog which are visible only to you.

The real time reports in your account dashboard keep you updated with online visitors. You can view how many visitors are browsing your blog, from where they have come, what they are doing on your blog right now and much more.

99 Counters

99 Counters embed a good looking Flash visitor counter on your blog. In beginning, the 99 Counters' embed code was clean but now the code looks strange and contains some strange links in it. Still many webmasters use 99 Counters for displaying visitor count numbers on their blogs and websites. It ensures that the counter's code is safe. This widget displays number of online visitors from different countries, number of visitors for the current day and all time visitors.

Traffic stats are also provided when you embed the counter on your blog. The stats provide details about your visitor location, OS of your visitor's machine, visited path and much more.

These were three best visitor counters which aren't free only, they are feature rich also. Choose any of these widgets and start tracking your visitors. This will help you in improving your blog's performance greatly. Good luck!