Owner: Lead Inspectors URL:http://leadinspectors.blogspot.com Join Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:58:20 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Providing Leads for Good Deals, Great Content and Free Blogging Resources. This site is a great resource for consumers, bloggers, work-from-home individuals and Internet entrepreneurs. If you've heard of interesting deals or valuable resources, please sub Site statistics:Click here
Four Key Learnings for Bloggers from Fortune's Most Admired List 2008-03-03 21:52:31 Fortune Magazine released its list of Top 20 Most Admired Companies 2008. The list is based on a survey of more than 3,700 "experts" from a variety of industries, who were asked to select the companies they admired most. In looking through the list, there are some key learnings that can be applied to professional blogging.1. Innovation or Creativity - generating customer buzz is a tricky thing, but many people are attracted to companies that consistently release new and exciting products or services. In the blogging world, this means regularly creating fresh and engaging content or leads; it doesn't mean reinventing yourself every few months. You may be providing content in a large niche, like SEO, marketing, social media, or gadgets, but readers will be attracted to your blog if you can p Read more:Fortune
Amazing New Ecofriendly Products of the Near Future 2008-03-02 01:10:13 Globalization combined with an increasing population has sparked a huge rise in the consumption of our natural resources. As time goes on, the need for businesses and manufacturers around the world to invent, create and produce more ecofriendly products is becoming more and more imperative.The world population as of February 2008 was estimated to be 6.65 billion. By comparison, the world population in 1950 was believed to be 2.52 billion. Assuming the population continues to grow at a rate slightly higher than 1% per year, then the world population will exceed 9 billion by 2050.If the way and manner in which essential products are produced does not seriously change in the coming years, then consumers will be faced with a dilemma of scarcity, huge price increases and potential economic inst Read more:Amazing
, Products
, Future
Carnival of Leads to Making Money Online, March 08 Issue 2008-02-28 07:23:54 Welcome to the March
2008 edition of Carnival
of Leads
to Making Money
Online.The Carnival of Leads to Making Money Online is a monthly blog carnival consisting of posts about leads to making money online. The primary focus of this carnival is to help blog publishers learn about new and effective ways to monetize their site(s). It also includes posts about related items, like SEO, Copywriting and marketing programs.This issue of Carnival of Leads to Making Money Online received 214 total entries. Congratulations to the 30 authors selected to be featured in this issue. Blog authors are encouraged to submit their best posts for consideration, as only the most relevant, unique and useful entries will be selected each month.Enjoy this issue of Carnival of Leads to Making Money Online:Charles E
Will Blogged be More Than a Typical Blog Directory? 2008-02-25 11:55:39 Blogged.com is a new interactive blog directory that officially launched today. On the surface, it seems to look similar to Blog Catalog or Bloghub; however, once you begin to explore the site, it reveals the potential to be something more than a typical blog directory.One key difference is that most of the blogs have been reviewed and rated by "professional editors." These editors apparently use specific criteria to help filter out spam (or scam) blogs and provide readers with some good leads. The ratings are based on "Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style."The About Us page says that the site is primarily designed for blog readers, as opposed to blog authors. I'm not sure if this is a realistic assertion, as the majority of blog readers that I've met Read more:Directory
Is Using Google Alerts a Waste of Time for Bloggers? 2008-02-22 11:28:55 Google
Alerts is a service that provides e-mail updates on Google results for a specific set of search terms. Over the past few weeks, I've been using this Beta service to track keywords that I want to use in upcoming blog posts.In addition, I have tracked the titles of my blogs to see what came through on the alerts. My hope was that this service would provide me with good leads and valuable insights as to how my blogs were tracked by Google. Overall, I'd say that the value of information provided compared to the amount of time needed to analyze the information is not worth it.Here's the good thing about the alerts - it validates whether or not recent posts from your blog are found somewhere within the Google network. When you are creating alerts, it allows you to choose where you want G
POPURLS Aggregator Saves You Time 2008-02-20 01:46:59 Popurls helps you find out what's popular on the web in a hurry. As one of the leading web aggregators, this site allows you to customize a display of popular content on leading social media, photo and video sharing sites and news feeds. Popurls allows you to create a customizable one-stop shop for daily buzz, chatter and more.If you are currently a regular visitor to sites like Digg, del.icio.us, reddit, flickr, newsvine, metafilter, truemors, YouTube, Slashdot, Mixx and other social media, news or blog networks, then Popurls can save you a significant amount of time each day. It shows you the current top posts with summaries, links to source pages and the ability to search all aggregated "buzz" posts by topic.So, what's the benefit of this site to bloggers? First, it is an excellent way Read more:Aggregator
, Saves
FotoFlexer Offers Incredible Online Photo Editing 2008-02-19 22:14:50 If you're looking for a photo editing program that is easy to use and convenient to access, then check out FotoFlexer. It is billed as the most advanced online photo editing site available, and it offers services for FREE. You don't even have to register to upload a photo, edit it and save it to your computer or a variety of social networking sites. If you do register, then you can create albums and save photos directly to your FotoFlexer account.A variety of editing features are offered, including many that are typical of desktop editing programs. Once you upload a picture you can click through the editing tabs and apply the desired effects to the image. There is an Auto Fix option to help get you started, and for those who are editing whiz kids, FotoFlexer even has a "Geek" tab and advan Read more:Offers
, Incredible
, Photo
Be A Better Blogger - Five Sites that Build Skills 2008-02-15 11:04:20 There are tons of blogging resource sites, including this one. So, why bother reading them? Hopefully, good sites filter information for you and provide you with valuable leads or tips to improve your skills, knowledge or understanding of a particular subject. When it comes to the topic of blogging itself, here are the five sites that I read regularly to help build-up my blogging toolbox:1. ProBlogger
- this is an excellent site to learn more about what it takes to be a "pro" blogger, or someone who makes a living at blogging. Darren Rowse is the driving force behind this site, and he adds lots of personal and identifiable touches to the information he provides, which makes it easier and more interesting to read. Darren regularly includes posts by guest bloggers, and he addresses themes in Read more:Sites
, Build
, Skills
Find Out What Your Blog is Potentially Worth 2008-02-13 15:24:18 Whether you're striving to make a living at blogging, or you simply enjoy the medium as a way to communicate with family and friends about your personal life, I'm sure that you're a little curious about what your blog might be worth. One way to get an idea about the value of your blog is to visit Dane Carlson's Business Opportunities Weblog.Dane is the creator of that nifty looking widget with George Washington's face from the dollar bill on it that says "My blog is worth..." fill in the blank. Now, this is certainly not an exact science based on extensive statistical analysis that you're going to get in return for simply entering your blog URL and clicking submit. Rather, it is a set value based on how your blog ranks on the Technorati site "using the same link to dollar ratio as the A Read more:Worth
Dealipedia is a Business Deal Information Depot 2008-02-11 11:27:00 Finding breaking news about Yahoo, Google and Microsoft deals is not that difficult, but what about all the other deals happening in the rest of the business world? If you're not a subscriber to the Wall Street Journal or Business
Week, then you probably aren't even aware of ten percent of the deals happening in the marketplace. Dealipedia is a great resource to get you clued in to all of the hottest new deals in business.Dealipedia's founder Michael Robinson says that he created this resource site because "I couldn't find historic data on business deals or easily keep track of new deals without reading a dozen different publications." I can relate! Keeping up with mergers, acquisitions, venture investments, IPOs and all other major deals is extremely time-consuming.The cool thing abou Read more:Depot
Odiogo Literally Gives Bloggers a Voice 2008-02-08 11:29:56 Looking for a way to expand the reach of your blog? Odiogo offers a way for you to convert written blog text into audible MP3 files that can be broadcast on your blog and shared through RSS feeds for FREE!Odiogo claims to be able to help you reach millions of new potential readers by being able to provide a way for them to listen to your blog posts on iPods, MP3 players and mobile phones. All you have to do is subscribe to the site, and they will create the files and host them on their servers so as to not clog up the amount of space your hosting plan allots.When you listen to the audio file, it does sound a little bit like a robot reading what you wrote, but hey, it's FREE and they say that they're constantly working on improving voice quality. Also, it saves you from having to make th Read more:Voice
StockXCHNG Offers Free Stock Photos 2008-02-06 16:07:53 Stock.XCHNG is an awesome site to find FREE stock photos to use in your blog. This photo exchange site boasts more than 250,000 photos shared and over a million registered users. All of the photos are FREE for personal use, and it is a great alternative to pay sites or free clip-art sites.Stock.XCHNG also offers a variety of other resources to its community members, including forums, blogs, tutorials and statistics on the most popular downloads. You can network and connect with users, but the social aspect of the site is secondary to the value of the abundance of high quality FREE photos. A good photo is an important part of many blog posts and designs, but if you're using the photo for redistribution, you must get permission from the photographer who submitted it.The site allows you t Read more:Offers
, Stock
, Free Stock
Get Campaign Contribution Information at FundRace 2008 2008-02-05 12:35:27 The Huffington Post has created a great way for you to find out more about campaign contributions for the 2008 Presidential election. FundRace 2008 allows you to search by zip code, city, name, occupation or employer. You can find out which candidates people you know (or think you know) are backing, as well as figure out which way certain companies, communities or occupational fields are leaning.If you have a political oriented blog, then this site is a must-use resource. If you're interested in politics in general, this site is a good way to get more information about how your candidate is doing. If you're just a nosey person who wants to get some dirt on your neighbor or in-laws, then this site is good for you too.The Huffington Post is providing the FundRace 2008 information for FRE Read more:Campaign
, Contribution
Forums Can Help Generate Traffic to Your Blog 2008-02-04 11:57:42 Traffic is the key to effectively monetizing any blog. The more people you get to view your pages or subscribe to your feed, the better opportunity you have for someone to click through an ad or buy something from one of your affiliates. There are many important ways to generate traffic, including Search Engine Optimization, Social Media networking and even advertising. Forums
are another way to get people to check out your blog, and you will probably have a better chance of getting these visitors to subscribe. These people come because they feel they have something in common with you from a forum post and want to learn more about you.Forums have become extremely popular, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding one or two to join in an area of interest. When participating in a forum
Rating Burner Ranks Feeds 2008-02-02 11:44:50 Rating Burner
is a FREE feed ranking service that shows you how many Feedburner subscriptions currently served from popular blogs. Bloggers can submit their own Feedburner feeds to be ranked as well, but it seems to take a few days before it recognizes new submissions. It only accepts Feedburner feed URLs. The most valuable thing about this site is that it provides any easily accessible list of some of the top blog sites out there, so you can click through to them and get some ideas. As your own subscription base grows, the list will likely help to drive a little more traffic to your site as well. It was interesting to see the disparity in number of subscriptions the Top 10 blogs listed had versus the remainder of blogs listed. These blogs dominate the blogosphere, so it would be goo Read more:Rating
, Ranks
PingMyBlog Offers FREE Ping Service 2008-02-01 11:23:21 PingMyBlog.com by Splashpress Media offers a great FREE service to bloggers who want to make sure that more than 80 blog directories and search engines are updated on your most recent posts. If you currently have a feed service, like Feedburner or Feedblitz, then they allow you to pick a handful of sites to be updated daily. PingMyBlog.com does the rest of the work for you. All you have to do is go to their site, enter your blog name and URL, and submit. It takes a few minutes for the service to work, and not all sites that it submits to are successfully updated, but it sure does beat trying to do it all yourself through manual submissions. The site also offers links to other Splashpress Media sites, which include several free resources to bloggers. If you want to get the word out to Read more:Service
, Offers
Blog Carnivals - Good Content, Great Exposure 2008-01-29 14:15:43 Blog Carnivals
are an excellent way for avid bloggers to promote their content to a new audience for FREE. Essentially, a carnival is a collection of blog posts related to a specific topic. Publishers post these collections on their blogs or websites, and, then, in an ideal world, everyone who contributes helps to promote the carnival to all of their readers.Carnivals also serve an important function of providing leads to readers or viewers to many blogs within their subject of interest. For example, if you're a freelance writer looking for new ways to make money, a blog carnival regarding tips to generating income online could connect you with several writers or bloggers who have found a way to earn extra cash through various online networks.The best place I've found to seek out a directo Read more:Great
, Content
, Exposure
, Blog Carnivals
Upromise Helps Fill Your 529 College Fund Bucket 2008-01-27 22:30:35 Real life example: My family and I were able to earn around $600 last year through Upromise to help with contributions to my children's 529 College
Savings Plans.Upromise is an outstanding program that helps you save money for your children's education. Essentially, it is a company that partners with businesses that have frequent shoppers programs, or those that sell goods and services online. The company allows these businesses to market themselves to members by promoting a certain amount of each purchase for you to invest in a qualifying 529 College Savings Plan. In addition to retail partnerships, Upromise has arrangements with credit card companies and other service providers, such as hotels, online travel companies, rental cars, cruise lines and more. There are many ways for you to ea
PRLog Offers Useful Press Release Distribution Service 2008-01-24 10:25:38 PRLog is a free online press release service. It offers web publishers the ability to distribute press releases to a wide variety of media, as well as search engines and RSS feed syndicates. All you have to do is register with the site, and within minutes, you are able to submit your press release for distribution. PRLog distributes to Google News, search engines, feed sites and more, and they also create a link and PDF file for you to use to further promote or distribute your releases to your own contacts or subscribers. In addition to the distribution services, PRLog offers you several resources to assist in creating effective press releases, as well as a forum section to connect you with a larger community of publishers and public relations professionals.While a free distribution servic Read more:Service
, Offers
, Useful
, Press
, Release
Widgetbox Adds Free Bling to Your Blog 2008-01-22 00:27:40 When I was a kid, I used to get so excited when my grandmother would walk me down to the five-and-dime store to pick out a cheap toy or novelty item. I used to love to get pea shooters, wax lips and pop rocks, as well as baseball cards and other inexpensive collectibles. These items brought instant gratification and hours of amusement. In the blogging world, widgets are the equivalent of those cheap toys, novelty items and collectibles, and the best place that I've come across to find them is Widgetbox
.Like the aisles of the old five-and-dime, Widgetbox's Gallery is packed full of fun and exciting "toys" to add to your blog. Categories include everything from "Fun & Games" to "Media" to "News." You can add Super Mario, Tetris or Bowling widgets; weather, stock quotes or current price of ga Read more:Bling
My Experience with Fuel My Blog 2008-01-20 23:53:34 Fuel My Blog is essentially a social directory of blogs. Unlike a generic categorized list directory, though, it does something really valuable for members and users visiting the site - it ranks blogs in each category by popularity through a voting system. Members place voting widgets on their blog pages, and readers vote for blogs with content that they like. This is like a FREE referall service for people interested in exploring the blog universe. Think of it in terms of going to a restaurant - you would be much more willing to try a place recommended by a friend or positively reviewed in the newspaper, right? Same concept at Fuel My Blog. In addition to the valuable voting feature, the site also recognizes individual blogs with the Blog of the Day award. This not only gives added
Free Resources for Original Content Bloggers 2008-01-20 13:29:37 You hear it all of the time, "Content
is king," especially in the blogging world. Some bloggers gather and collect information from their personal lives or current events, and then post interesting commentary; while other bloggers prefer to publish original content, creative works or content which they alone create. No matter what kind of blogger you are there are many free resources to help inspire, complement or spruce-up your content.Here are a few FREE resources for your benefit:1. Wikipedia - search any person or topic of interest by keyword, and you'll find an abundance of background and historical information.2. Wikimedia Commons - tons of photos available for you to use in your posts with varying degrees of copyright restrictions. If you're looking for historical images, though, th Read more:Resources
, Original
, Free Resources
Contact Lead Inspectors 2008-03-25 11:36:08 Lead Inspectors shares blogging information and resources, tips to publicize and monetize sites and leads to cool stuff that I find online.For General Inquiries, please contact me via e-mail at jnbammer@aol.com.You can also add me as a friend or link to my profiles at the following sites:MyBlogLog - jeremynealZimbio - jnbammerBlogcatalog - jnbammerLinkedIn - jeremybiserFriendFeed - jnbammer (display Jeremy Neal)Twitter - jnbammerStumbleUpon - jnbammerMixx - jnbammerDigg - jnbammerredditt - jnbammerPropeller - jnbammerdel.icio.us - jnbammerTechnorati - jnbammercre8Buzz - jnbammerTo submit an entry for the Carnival of Leads to Making Money Online, click here.To be a guest blogger and share your thoughts or leads, send me an e-mail at jnbammer@aol.com.For Advertising Inquiries, send me a prop
10 Things I've Learned about Professional Blogging 2008-03-29 22:10:21 I started blogging about a year ago. In the beginning, I thought it was a cool way to chronicle my daily or weekly experiences, kind of like an online journal. For some, this is the extent to which they use the medium. For me, though, I quickly realized the blog format had much more potential. As such, I decided to begin a journey toward becoming a professional blogger.Here's 10 Things I've Learned
about Professional Blogging
:1. Quality content must be your #1 priority. The determining factor for me when deciding to publish a post is quality. If you read popular sites about blogging, such as ProBlogger or Daily Blog Tips, you have probably heard that it is important to post quality content often, in order to maximize traffic and keep readers engaged. I agree with this theory, in mo
Carnival of Leads to Making Money Online, April 2008 2008-04-01 13:42:56 Welcome to the April
2008 edition of Carnival
of Leads
to Making Money
Online.The Carnival of Leads to Making Money Online is a monthly blog carnival consisting of posts about leads to making money online. The primary focus of this carnival is to help blog publishers learn about new and effective ways to monetize their site(s). It also includes posts about related items, like SEO, copywriting sales opportunities, entrepreneurial spirit and marketing programs.This issue of Carnival of Leads to Making Money Online received 197 total entries. Congratulations to the 25 authors selected to be featured in this issue.Blog authors are encouraged to submit their best posts for consideration, as only the most relevant, unique and useful entries will be selected each month.Enjoy this issue of Carniv
New to Social Media? Check Out Mixx.com 2008-04-06 22:11:01 *Note: This post is meant for people who are new to social media sites, such as Digg, Reddit, Propeller and Mixx.Background: My name is Jeremy Biser, and I am a writer who first made the move to blogging about a year ago. Since then, I've also become active in social media communities. I am designated a "SuperMixxer" on Mixx.com, but I'm not one of the top 20 users of the site.I mostly incorporate the use of social media into my research activities. When I find an interesting news article or blog post, I share it. I also enjoy talking with new people about subjects of interest that I submit or share on the social sites. Over the past year, I've had a variety of positive and negative experiences with the various communities, and I've joined just about every one of them to try and figur Read more:Social
, Check
, Social Media
RSS - Learn More About Real Simple Syndication 2008-04-14 00:33:14 May 1, 2008, is RSS Awareness Day. For those of you who may not know, RSS stands for Real SimpleSyndication
, and it is the means by which readers can subscribe to feeds to stay better connected and informed by blogs.I will be posting in more detail about this topic on May 1st, but I wanted to share a few links with you in advance, in case you wanted to read-up on the technology.Visit RSSDay.org to see a video and read more about the subject.Wikipedia information on RSS.What is RSS? RSS Explained.Visit Daily Blog Tips article on the origination of RSS Awareness Day.Also, if you're not already a subscriber to Lead Inspectors, subscribe to my RSS feed.
5 More Reasons Why Mixx Rocks Social Media 2008-04-15 13:04:28 Mixx.com is an up-and-coming community that is quickly establishing itself as a standout in the social media world. I recently wrote an article about it being a perfect place for newcomers to social media to get started: New to Social
Media? Check Out Mixx.com.The more I delve into the site, and interact with people from the Mixx team, the more impressed I become. I still use other sites, like Digg and Propeller, but the majority of my quality time budgeted for this activity is being spent at Mixx.In addition to the benefits described in my earlier post, here's5 More Reasons
Why Mixx Rocks
Social Media1. Responsiveness to Feedback - I use Mixx in two primary ways - voting and submissions. I vote for quality articles that spark my interest, and I try to apply the same standards when cho
20 Twitter Services to Enhance Your Experience 2008-04-18 23:42:00 If you're a blogger and haven't joined Twitter
, then you're missing out on a great opportunity to network, expand your brand and increase blog traffic.The best way to see what it's all about is to sign-up and see for yourself. Personally, I would recommend using a desktop air application, rather than the web stream. I use Twhirl. Pick 20-30 users to follow, and start reading and sharing. Feel free to follow me @jnbammer.Once you get the gist of how it works, then you will quickly see that Twitter has inspired a ton of applications and services to enhance your experience. Most of them are best used strategically or sporadically, as the biggest value comes from tweeting and interacting with fellow users.Here's 20 Cool Twitter Apps or Services
that I would recommend checking out:1. Twub
Alltop Benefits Publishers, Readers and Social Media Nuts 2008-04-22 15:47:42 Alltop.com has been described by many as an online magazine rack. It is a place where average Internet users can find hundreds of blogs, view the 5 most recent posts and preview the first 2 paragraphs of articles. I'd like to thank Alltop founder Guy Kawasaki for including this blog in the Social
Media section of the site - Thanks Guy!Most of us who are active bloggers or social media participants use a feedreader to stay updated and informed. The average Joe/Jane Doe doesn't understand or utilize this technology though - only 5.4% of Internet users take advantage of RSS, according to Daily Blog Tips.Alltop uses feeds to populate the site, and caching to optimize load time (otherwise, the gargantuan number of feeds would make loading it insane on any computer). It refreshes itself every Read more:Benefits
, Publishers
, Social Media
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