When we decided to write a post about plugins we were just going to pick ten and leave it at that. We quickly learned that ten wasn’t going to be enough. There were just too many good plugins that we use and it didn’t seem fair to leave out all of the other great plugins that need some attention. So in the next few posts, you should see a list of plugins recommended for review sites, monetization, and social networking. This post is dedicated to new bloggers and unlike the other posts you will find, this list will have ten plugins rather than five.

Without further ado, here are the top ten plugins that could help new bloggers to succeed in the blogosphere. Don’t see an important or useful plugin listed? Feel free to leave a comment and let us know what we missed or forgot!

Adsense-Deluxe
Why it’s important: Whether you’re using it as your sole means of monetization or not (I’d hope not) Adsense is used by the majority of blogs and bloggers in the sphere. Adsense Deluxe makes it easy to pop an adsense ad into your post or sidebar. You can set up different sizes with channels in your admin panel and then use a small code wherever you want the adsense banner/link to appear. It doesn’t get easier than this.

All in One SEO Pack
Why it’s important: If you’re writing a new blog and want it to succeed then having some readers (any readers) would be a good thing. SEO is important if you want on search engines such as Google. Unfortunately, most blogs aren’t set up for individual SEO on every post/article you write. All in One SEO allows you to write specific titles, descriptions, and keywords (among other things) for each blog post. This can help you to get indexed on the search engines faster and gives you a competitive edge over the blogs in your niche not using this method of SEO enhancement.

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I received a Twitter a few days ago, from a woman who needed help making her URLs SEO friendly. She was making a plea to those on her list to help her figure out how to do this. After giving her step by step instructions, I was able to help her figure out the process.

This woman was sent a few different websites with tutorials on how to change her URL, but none of them were complete, concise and comprehensive. None of them had full instructions on how to accomplish what she wanted. This is why I decided to make this tutorial.

First, I should probably explain why this tutorial is not only necessary, but why it is also important. When Search Engines crawl a website, they don’t just crawl for content. They also identify terms in the title, description, other meta tags and in the URL. When you first set up a Wordpress blog, each article/post you write is assigned a numerical value. This is to separate one post from another.

So, let’s say you have a post. The URL for that post might be: http://www.YourUrl.com/?p=12345

That URL isn’t going to help you when it comes to the Search Engines. If your article/post is on making money online, and someone uses the phrase ‘making money online’ in a search on Google or Yahoo, you might be noticed because your article title and meta tags include the term, making money online. However, the more examples you have of said term in your search entry, can help to determine where and/or how you rank on the search engines. You can slip the phrase into your listing once more by making it a part of your URL.

A Search Engine friendly version of:
http://www.YourUrl.com/?p=12345

would be:
http://www.YourUrl.com/making-money-online

You can’t just change your URL though. You have to set up your Wordpress blog to allow you to make the end of your article’s/post’s URL whatever you want. This is where this tutorial comes in. I’m going to explain step by step, how to make your URLs more SEO friendly.

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I have spent the majority of my time on the Internet working as a freelancer. Just a few years ago, I was a freelance writer and editor primarily, but I also worked in the fields of freelance web design and graphic design occasionally. It took time to build up my portfolio, get a steady stream of jobs, and prove myself as a freelancer, but in time those things became a reality. This also made sure that I was successful monetarily. If you get the jobs, you’re going to make the money. It’s as simple as that.

Starting out as a freelancer isn’t easy. You won’t see instant results. You won’t be making a lot of money to start. Many have to keep traditional jobs until they start making an active, productive living by freelancing. This is difficult merely because freelancing is time consuming. In those early months, you’ll need to be doing all you can to build up your portfolio and that sometimes means making sacrifices monetarily.

I’ve worked with and competed for jobs with a wide variety of freelancers. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t work for them. I also know what has worked and hasn’t worked in my own situation. From there, I’ve compiled a list of five mistakes I’ve seen many freelancers make.

1. Not Taking Low Pay/No Pay Jobs to start

If you’ve never written or designed anything for anyone other than yourself, you’re going to need to start getting a portfolio ready. One of the easiest ways for you to start out your business and bulk up your portfolio is to accept jobs. There are a variety of freelance websites, where you can bid on jobs and make money if you’re chosen for said job. This is the ideal type of place for a new freelancer to start out. However, you won’t be able to charge excessive amounts of money for your work. In fact, you might even have to take low paying jobs, in an attempt to stuff you portfolio. Of course, the positive thing about this is that you can almost always get a recommendation/testimonial from the clients you work with on these jobs.

I don’t often recommend taking no pay jobs. I do believe that, on rare occasions, no pay jobs have benefits. In these situations, they really aren’t no pay jobs. You can work with clients and even other freelancers. If you’re a writer, for your writing services, you can get links back to your website, credit for your work, or other services to promote yourself and your own freelance services. If you work with another freelancer, such as a website designer, consider having them design your website, in exchange for writing their web copy. There are many creative ways to get your name out there and fill your portfolio at the same time.

That being said, once you’ve become successful, you should raise your rates to reflect your experience. It doesn’t help anyone out if you’re offering services for less than they’re worth. While some companies choose to go with lower paying services, no matter what you charge, if your work is good then you’re going to find clients. I often had those same clients come back to me, having wasted money on a freelancer working for a nickel. Those freelancers did a poor job. I had to fix their mistakes and these clients were more than willing to pay my rates. Essentially, it just goes to show that you get what you pay for when hiring a freelancer.

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I’m going to be writing a regular series specifically targeting bloggers, freelancers, professionals and entrepreneurs with disabilities. With over 43 million Americans with disabilities/impairments (that’s nearly 1 out of 5 Americans) this series is a necessity. Of course, able-bodied individuals can take something from every article I write, as well, since the themes I cover will be (in some ways) universal to those who aspire to become self-sufficient through use of the Internet.

I make it no secret that I am in a wheelchair. For just a brief snapshot of who I am, let me tell you that I have a progressive muscle disease, Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type III. I walked until I was 16, when I went into a wheelchair, full time. I was in college for Theatre (I was quite the performer and singer back in the day) with a minor in Political Science when tragedy struck. During a routine transfer from wheelchair to shower chair, I fell and fractured my tibia. My life was changed in an instant.

I moved, with my girlfriend and our son, from our apartment at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio to a house she owned with her mother in mid-Michigan. This served two purposes. Her mother had been recently laid off by a company now stationed in Mexico. For the first time in her life, she was unemployed. For us, this gave us time for my leg to heal, which took more than a year. In the meantime, we had to find a way to put food on the table. The only thing we had luxury wise was the Internet and this gave Ashtyn (said girlfriend) the idea to find a job online.

We made a list of our skills. Ashtyn has always been a prolific writer. I wrote excellent, well written papers in college. I also can be anal retentive when it comes to grammar. So, writing and editing were at the top of our list. Add in slightly above basic HTML skills on my part, and a desire to teach myself graphic design. You have our basic plan to finding a job. While it wasn’t an easy road, within a year, we were on our way to becoming successful freelance writers. It was our hard work, perseverance, and ability to work our way up to high paying freelance jobs that made us successful.

Now that you know a little bit more about me and where I am coming from, let me throw another statistic out at you. A year ago, I read a study by the government that said 77% of disabled Americans are unemployed. I’d wager to say that due to the job and financial crisis’, that number has risen to somewhere around 85%. This means all disabilities, ranging from physical to mental or emotional disabilities such as Autism, Downs Syndrome and even Bi-Polar Disorder. For some, they simply can’t work. Others have faced workplace discrimination.

What’s surprising is that over half of those who have disabilities and also college degrees, are still unemployed. This is absolutely staggering! The issue is so big that disability rights organizations have turned to lawmakers/politicians for help. This includes finding out proposed plans for the disability unemployment rate by presidential contenders John McCain and Barack Obama. While Obama has outlined his plan, as of recently, McCain hasn’t had a thing to say on the issue. This issue isn’t going to be easily solved nor is it going to go away. That is unless we, as disabled individuals, take it upon ourselves to better our lives!

I’m 27 years old. This was not the career path I had in mind when I went to college, but I’ve made it work. I love what I do and I love all of the people I’ve met through blogging, writing and designing online. Along the way, I’ve met many other disabled entrepreneurs. Many of them had similar disabilities to my own.

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Motivation can be a funny thing when you work on the internet. There are a million things waiting to distract you. From casual games to that television show you missed, you have a number of ways to distract yourself from whatever your goals are when you come online.

Blogging can be especially tough because it’s easy to get lost in Stumble Upon or to spend hours networking on other sites. While these things are equally as important, if you don’t spend time writing blog posts your blog will only get so far.

Some days, I stay on task incredibly well. Other days, I convince myself that being a reviewer means I can spend the day playing games. It is true I can do that, but in reality I need to do more than that to make any of the sites I write on successful.

Staying on task sounds easy, but with so many ways to lose your concentration what do you do to keep it?

Keep a Blog Schedule
As much as I hate schedules (and I seriously hate schedules), I find that they do offer a huge benefit. If you run multiple blogs, scheduling time for post writing, networking, and research can be a huge help to you. This will stop you from spending too much time on one blog and not enough on another. It will also make you try harder to stay on track. Having a structured day gives you a reason to get done whatever you need to do.

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Why do I need a website? I’m a freelance writer. There’s plenty of places on the web to post my portfolio of writing credits!

If you have ever said this before then you are probably also dealing with less business than a competitor freelancer with a website. It’s true that a website can make all the difference in finding and keeping happy clients when you freelance on the web. Professionals have websites. If you want to be taken seriously as a freelancer then you should have a website, too.

I mentioned in one of my last articles, the one on why freelancers are turning to Wordpress for their website needs, that I would soon be writing an article on this very topic. I’ve worked successfully (for years!) as a freelance writer, editor, and all around web guru, so I know what I’m talking about. Without my website, I wouldn’t have been given half the jobs I was given during my freelancing days. It’s as simple as that!

This is, hands down, one of the biggest mistakes I saw less successful freelancers make over and over during my tenure in the freelancing world. I never understood why freelancers never bothered to purchase their own website. I don’t get it now, especially with new web design options (such as Wordpress) being available for free with minimal effort on the part of the freelancer.

But Why do I Need a Website?

It’s simple marketing. If you have a website, you can get listed on search engines. This means that prospective clients can find you. My freelance website opened up a whole new list of clientele for my business. Instead of having to find all of my clients, some of them found me through my website. When clients use to recommend me to friends or business associates, they just passed on my website URL and it was easy for them to contact me.

Your website is a one-stop destination for clients to find your contact information, view samples of your work, and allow prospective clients to get to know more about you before hiring you. You might not always be able to list a who’s who on your skills and history as a freelancer if you’re bidding on jobs or using a job search site to find clients. Most places like this also don’t allow you to list personal information like your private email or phone number. They can lose business (money!) if you choose to work with a client off their site, so this is done in their best interest, not yours.

You can list accomplishments, any programs you use (i.e. a graphic designer who works with Adobe Illustrator), and a variety of other information you may not be able to list on job boards or freelance work sites. If someone looking for a graphic designer needs a designer who uses Adobe Illustrator, they already know you’re qualified. It says so on your page. By the same token, if they need someone who uses Microsoft Powerpoint and you list that you don’t use that program then they won’t have to waste their time or yours!

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As a business professional of any kind there are certain things that you need to function in business both efficiently and comfortably. Productivity software is usually high on that list. As a blogger, I could never do my job without using software that makes my job faster, easier, and more organized. Many of the necessary programs on my list are Microsoft Office programs. The most common of those include Word, Outlook, and Excel. These are the programs that I absolutely cannot live without. While these programs are expensive, if you can afford them, they offer much bigger benefits than your average word processing software.

Word is one of those programs that are just universal in business and academics. In colleges across the country, the .doc format is the basis for all papers handed in for grading. Likewise, in business this is a format that is used with the assumption that most other business people will be using that program, too. In fact, at least in some form, it tends to be one of the first programs that people learn to use when they are learning the computer.

So, as you can imagine, when we were given the chance to review the 2007 version of Microsoft software, we jumped at the chance. I had heard of all of the great things that would be coming out in the 2007 version of Microsoft Office, but I tried to ignore the excitement value because I was just going on hype at that point. I had checked out a few screenshots and knew the basic specs, but I had not tested it out and that’s what is really important.

Before testing it out I did know that at least eight specific versions of the software would be available for purchase. These bundles include Microsoft Office Basic, Home & Student, Standard, Small Business, Professional, Ultimate, Professional Plus, and Professional Enterprise. This review is on Microsoft Office Professional. Professional includes Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. After using them for a bit to test everything out, I can honestly say that it would be hard to live without these programs, especially for business, and they are worth the few hundred dollars that Microsoft is charging for them.

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In the past few months, perhaps even as far back as the past year, I’ve noticed something about freelancers. More and more of them are turning to Wordpress when it comes to making a website. There are many benefits to using Wordpress in lieu of constructing a regular, html/css based website. I’m assuming that all of these benefits are the cause of the shift to a Wordpress based website.

When I started out as a freelance writer, editor and web designer several years ago, one of the biggest mistakes I saw other freelancers making was not having a website. I plan to touch on the importance of having a website (and the type of website to have) in a future article, so I’m going to avoid getting ahead of myself on this topic and just say, a website is vitally important to becoming a successful freelancer. I digress.

The benefits of Wordpress that make Wordpress so attractive to freelancers far outweigh any negative features. Here is why I believe there are so many freelancers turning towards using Wordpress.

It’s Easy to Setup and Use

Installation of Wordpress includes uploading files and folders and clicking a few buttons. You can use a pre-made template that looks nice. It’s as simple as it can get. Whenever you want to create pages, you just go to the page editor in Wordpress, create the page, and voila! You have exactly what you want in one easy to install package.

When you create a regular website, you have to worry about designing the website, creating links by hand, accommodating cross-browser problems that Wordpress already attempts to cover, and the list goes on. If you don’t know anything about design, you might just have to hire a designer or buy a template in order to have a professional looking website.

It’s Free!

What’s better than free? I started out freelancing because I was bedridden due to an injury. I had no job or money. All I had were the skills to weave words and basic web design/graphic design skills. Over the years, these skills have developed into what they are today, but when I started out, I couldn’t afford to pay to make money. I had to make money first and improve my website design the more I learned about designing websites. Eventually, my clients saw how good I was at designing my own site, so I was offered multiple web and graphic design projects along with SEO, marketing, a freelance writing and editing projects. Unfortunately, most freelancers who aren’t web designers aren’t able to use web design skills they don’t have. I was a rarity.

What’s better is the fact that you can get many free Wordpress templates to customize your site. It sure beats spending hundreds of dollars on high quality website design.

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