Want to add social bookmarking links to your web pages? Want to help your visitors easily share your content on popular social media sites such as StumbleUpon, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, or Twitter? What about adding a few social sharing buttons such as Facebook Share or Twitter Retweet button? If yes, you may need a good WordPress plugin. Find below, some of the most popular and free social bookmarking plugins for WordPress. Pick one for yourself and start displaying beautiful & useful social media buttons on your web pages.

List of Social Bookmarking Plugins for WordPress:

Socialize:

Socialize provides an easy way to selectively add actionable social bookmarks to your post content or below the post in a ‘Call To Action’ box. It is one of the most popular social bookmarking plugins for WordPress. You can choose to display bookmarks in the content on all pages or just on single pages. You can also choose to hide the box that displays beneath the posts by default.

Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/socialize/

AddToAny:

A WordPress plugin that will help your blog visitors share, bookmark, and email your posts and pages using any service, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, Digg, Delicious, and well over 100 more sharing and social bookmarking sites.

Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/add-to-any/

SexyBookmarks:

Another popular WordPress plugin, which adds an attractive social bookmarking menu to your posts, pages, index, or any combination of the three.

Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sexybookmarks/

Sociable for WordPress 3.0:

The updated version of famous Sociable social bookmarking plugin. Add social bookmarks to posts, pages and RSS feeds. Choose from more than 100 different social bookmarking sites like Digg, Facebook, and del.icio.us, or add your own sites.

Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sociable-30/

WP Socializer:

Another powerful plugin for adding social bookmarking links, retweet buttons, Google buzz buttons, Digg buttons, Addthis buttons, Facebook buttons. It uses template system for placing the social buttons in the posts and excerpts. Theme functions are also available, which allows to place the buttons anywhere in the site.

Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-socializer/

Simple Social – Sharing Widgets & Icons:

This plugin adds a set of cool icons and widgets at the end of your post for your readers to share. Widgets are Twitter and Facebook. It supports large icons and small icons.

Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-social-sharing-widgets-icons/

GetSocial:

GetSocial adds a lightweight and intelligent floating social media sharing box on your blog posts. Out-of-the-box functionality like Twitter Tweet Button, Facebook Share button, Tweetmeme Retweet button, Google Buzz button etc. The floating box always remain visible and accessible even if the user scrolls down the page. Lightweight plugin with minimal settings.

Linl: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/getsocial/

Share Post:

Adds social bookmarking buttons to your WordPress blog. Fully customizable and cross-browser compatible. Includes Facebook’s Like button, Twitter’s Tweet button, Digg’s Digg button, Reddit’s Reddit button, StumbleUpon’s Stumble button, Delicious’s Save button, LinkedIn’s Share button, and many many more!

Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-post/

Share and Follow:

Add Share Icons, Follow Links, Facebook Like, Twitter Tweet and other buttons on your site in the way you want. Simple & adapatable social network

Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-and-follow/

Bookmark Me:

The Bookmark Me plugin will add buttons that let your visitors share your content on social media sites such as Buzz Up!, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Mixx, Reddit and StumbleUpon. Share by Email and Print buttons are also added when the plugin is called within the loop.

Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sem-bookmark-me/

Just These?

There are many WordPress plugins for social bookmarking. Here, I have listed only a few of them. Which one is your favorite? Do you want to recommend any other plugin? If yes, leave a comment below. Soon I will update this list with some more related plugins.

Have you ever wanted to start a Question and Answer section on your blog? Are you looking for a Question and Answer Software? If yes, get Answerbase, a powerful Q&A system or Answers Software that can help you start your own Yahoo Answers style social Q&A site in less than 2 minutes!

Answerbase powers some of the world’s most popular Q&A communities such as Business.com Answers. It is now available as a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution. It has all the features and functionality of enterprise solution. But the costs are much lower than enterprise solutions. So, individual bloggers like you and me can also afford it. This Q&A system can be easily integrated into your existing website or blog. You can also use it to run your own Question & Answer site with all the benefits of an enterprise level Q&A platform.

Search Engine Optimized

This Q&A Software has been designed to bring in organic search engine traffic. It generates a new web page for each question asked. Pages are automatically optimized with SEO page titles, descriptions and search engine friendly URLs. So, you can expect to rank well for various long tail keywords present on those user generated pages. The beauty of this system is that visitors can also contribute to your site by asking and answering questions. More question and answer means more user generated content. And with increasing content, your organic traffic will also grow.

Easy To Use

Answerbase is a web platform. No installation or maintenance required from your side. You can have your Q&A site up and running within 2 minutes. Even a person without any technical knowledge can use it! They will provide everything from necessary staff to technology and support.

Easy Integration

You can use this system to create a standalone Q&A site. Customization is easily. You can customize the look and feel of your site. You can also integrate it to any existing web site or blog and support single sign-on authentication.

Useful Tools

This Answers Software supports social bookmarking and sharing. Users can easily post and share their questions or answers via various social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also supports widgets. Your users will be able to access widget builder to create beautiful widgets to display questions or to show off their expertise. Those widgets can be used on any website or blog. This will help in bringing more traffic to your site. Answerbase has an Android mobile application. You users can utilize it to ask questions and receive answers right from their mobile phone.

Different Plans

Answerbase is available as a monthly subscription service. There are four different plans: Basic, Professional, Business and Enterprise. Pricing starts from $15 per month with Basic plan (includes Q&A platform, template customization, moderation tools, Video/Image responses, advertising, Google Analytics integration and more). A 30 day free trial offer is available on Basic, Professional and Business plans.

So, why a Question & Answer Site? Recently I was doing some research online and found that a Question & Answer section on your site may help in bringing more organic search engine traffic. Why? Because, people search answers to their questions by using phrases, not one or two keywords. And in a Q&A site, content is generated by users and those phrases (long tail keywords) are included within questions and answers. Got the point? So, if you want to expand your website or you want to get more traffic to your site, you should go for your own Q&A site. To start with, try Answerbase!

New Google AdSense publisher? Just started displaying ads on your web pages? If you are not careful enough, you may soon end up getting your AdSense account disabled or banned. Have your read their terms and conditions? Are you aware of their program policies? If you are really serious about making money online, you must read them. Because, I’m sure you don’t want to get banned from this amazing program. Read the following points (or tips) carefully to learn what to do, specially what not to do, in order to save your AdSense publisher account.

How to avoid getting banned from Google AdSense publisher program?

1. Never click your own AdSense ads.
2. Never ask friends and family members to click your Ads.
3. Never use robots to generate clicks or impressions.
4. Never generate clicks by compensating users.
5. Never try to get click by using phrases such as “click the links”, “visit these links” etc.
6. Never use misleading labels for ads. For example: “Favorite Sites” or “Today’s Special Offers”.
7. Never use graphics directing users to click Google ads.
8. Never post misleading images alongside ads.
9. Never alter any portion of the generated ad codes.
10. Never disclose your exact earning information (CTR, eCPM, earnings etc).
11. Never use some techniques to open ad links in a new window.
12. Never place more than three ad units on a web page.
13. Never place more than three link units on a web page.
14. Never place more than two search boxes on a web page.
15. Never link directly to AdSense for Search results pages.
16. Never try to modify or automate search queries on AdSense for search boxes.
17. Never use AdSense with other ads networks,  specially when their ad formats looks same.
18. Don’t create different publisher accounts for different websites. One account is enough.
19. Don’t format your site content to make it completely indistinguishable from ads.
20. Don’t use any automated ad impression generation programs.
21. Don’t display ads in web pages without content.
22. Don’t display ads on copyrighted content. Never steal and publish others’ content.
23. Don’t display ads in a floating box script.
24. Don’t post your ad codes with emails.
25. Don’t include your ads in software applications or toolbars.
26. Don’t include AdSense for Search code in any software application.
27. Avoid paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf and click-exchange programs.
28. Avoid programs or packages that provide “guaranteed” page views.
29. Avoid unsolicited mass emails for promotion of your site.
30. Avoid topics that violates content guidelines. For example: adult, violent or other illegal stuffs.
31. Avoid linking to adult, violent and illegal websites.
32. Avoid using excessive, repetitive or irrelevant keywords on your web pages.
33. Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines.
34. Avoid hidden text or hidden links on your web pages.
35. If you are using online advertising for traffic, make sure you comply with Google’s Landing Page quality guidelines.
36. Respect Google trademarks. Never try to mimic any Google page. Never display any Google brand feature (trademarks, logos etc) in any manner that implies a relationship or affiliation with Google.
37. Add disclosure about Google Advertising Cookies in your Privacy Policy.
38. Adhere to the Google webmaster quality guidelines.
39. Always respond to emails sent by AdSense team.
40. Create quality content. Last, but the most important point. Mind it!

As a publisher, you must follow the AdSense Program Policies and Terms & Conditions. If you don’t, Google reserves the right to disable ad serving on your web pages and/or disable your publisher account at any time. Beware! Better, try to avoid the above mistakes that most people commit before getting their account disabled or banned. Happy earning with Google AdSense!

*** This article is for beginners.

Want to use WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System)? If yes, the first thing you’d like to do is get a static front page, instead of latest blog posts on your blog. Right? So, you want to display a static page on your WordPress blog front page? Don’t worry, it’s not that hard. Just follow the steps below and get a cool static home page on your WordPress-powered site. (Tip: Blogger.com users may read my earlier post on how to create static home page for a Blogger blog.)

Steps to add static home page on WordPress:

1. Login to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to “Pages” section and create a new page. This one will be your static home page. So, add the content that you’d like to display on your front page.
3. Save the page as “Home” (or any other name).
4. Once your page is ready, go to “Reading” options under “Settings” section in your blog dashboard.
5. Under “Reading Settings” there is “Front page displays” options. Default is “Your latest posts”. Select the second options: A static page (select below). Then define your static page for Front page by using “Home” from the drop down menu.
6. There is another option for “Posts page“. This one is required if you want to make an extra page for your latest blog items. Create a new page and save it as “Blog”, “News” or anything you like. Don’t add any content. Then select that page from the drop down menu for “Posts page”. If you don’t want a blog section, skip this step.
7. Click the “Save Changes” button.

That’s it. Open your blog and see how the static front page appears. Make the necessary changes by editing your  “Home” page.

Note: If your theme navigation bar or sidebar automatically lists pages, don’t forget to modify your theme code to exclude the “Home” page from the links generated by the wp_list_pages template tag. You can also add navigation links manually without using the template tag. If there is no blog page, don’t forget to add links to your blog posts/archives from the navigation menu or from the sidebar. This will ensure that your front page visitors will never miss a chance to browse through your blog articles.

Blogger is one of the most popular and easy-to-use blogging platforms out there. Even a novice user can use it without any problem. Mail-to-Blogger is one of the many useful features that makes blogging more enjoyable on this blogging platform. This feature lets you blog via email. All you need to do is create an email with your blog post content and send it to a special email address. In simple words, Mail to Blogger feature turns any email account into a blog posting application. This is a cool feature and you can use it to update your blog on the go!

To post to your blog via email, you need to configure an email address first. Follow these steps to create your Mail-to-Blogger email address:

1. Login to your Blogger account.
2. Go to the ‘Settings‘ section of your blog.
3. Open the ‘Email & Mobile‘ tab inside the ‘Settings’ section.
4. You’ll see Email Notifications and Posting Options. Under Posting Options, Create an email address by entering a secret word before @blogger.com.
5. Write down the address. It will be used to send posts via email to your blog.
6. Under the email address, there are three options: Publish emails immediately, Save emails as draft posts and Disabled. Choose the right option (preferably Save emails as draft posts).
7. Press ‘Save Settings‘ button to update your posting options.

Once you have saved your Settings, you can start sending email to your blog. Create an email with whatever you want to post to your blog and send it to the email address (created in the 4th step above). The subjects of your emails will be the titles of your posts, and the body of the emails will be your blog posts. You can post both text and images (up to 10MB in size). To add an image with your blog post, simply attach an image to you your email. For better formatting, use HTML mode (if available) while writing your email. In plain  text mode, never insert any HTML tags in your post. Sometimes email clients automatically insert text or ads to the bottom of each sent message. To make sure such unwanted stuff doesn’t get posted to your blog, put #end  at the end of your post.

Note: Keep the posting email address secret. Never share it with others. Because, anyone who knows that address will be able to post to your blog.

Google AdSense Competitive Ad Filter is a handy tool if you want to block some ads, such ad competitor’s ads or ads from MFA sites. To block an ad, you need to enter either the display URL or the destination URL of the ad into your preview tool filter. Display URL is easy to find, as (if available) it is shown within the text ad. But in case there are no display URLs, you need to use the destination URL to block such ads. But, how to find the destination URL of a Google AdSense ad? Read on to know more.

There are two ways to find the destination URL of an ad. Either you use the AdSense Preview Tool or extract the link by viewing the link Properties in your web browser. In my view, using AdSense Preview Tool is the right option. Because, impressions and clicks are not counted for ads displayed within preview tool. So, there is no risk of invalid clicks or impressions.

Find ad URL using AdSense Preview Tool:

1. Install AdSense Preview Tool. Read this article to learn how to install preview tool.
2. Open Internet Explorer and browse to the web page where you’d like to block ads.
3. Right-click anywhere on the page and select Google AdSense Preview Tool from the menu that appears.
4. The Preview tool will open in a new window with a set of sample ads.
5. Select the checkbox adjacent to each ad that you’d like to block.
6. Click Show Selected URLs. The destination URL of the selected ads will appear.
7. Copy the URLs and paste them into the competitive ad filter text box in your AdSense publisher account.

Using AdSense to monetize your web pages? Want to preview the ads that may appear on your web pages? Try Google AdSense Preview Tool, a simple addition to the right-click menu of Internet Explorer that offers the ability to view the ads that would appear on a web page. With just a few clicks, you can see the ads that may appear on your web page, check the destination URLs of ads, view sample ad formats and colors, review colors on your page and view geo-targeted ads for different locations.

AdSense Preview Tool is perfect for testing ads. All the ads displayed in the preview tool are in a test state. So, clicks and impressions generated by those ads are not counted. You can easily check the destination of ads without the risk of invalid clicks. In fact, Google recommends it.

Bad news is that Preview tool is only available for Windows versions of Internet Explorer version 6.x. Still, it is a good piece of tool and you must not miss it. Installation is extremely easy. All you need to do is add a registry file to your Windows system.

How to install Preview Tool?

1. Save this registry file to your desktop: http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/preview/en/reg/preview.reg
2. Double-click the file from your desktop.
3. A confirmation window will appear. Click Yes to continue.
4. Registry will be automatically updated with the new information..
5. Restart Internet Explorer.

How to uninstall preview tool?

1. Save this registry file to your desktop: http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/preview/en/reg/remove.reg
2. Double-click the file from your desktop.
3. A confirmation window will appear. Click Yes to continue.
4. All preview tool files will be deleted from your computer.
5. Restart Internet Explorer.

How to use preview tool?

To launch this preview tool, simply right-click on any webpage and select Google AdSense Preview Tool from the menu. A new window will appear with a sample set of AdSense ads. The Choose Options menu will let you select different ad formats. With the Choose Colors menu, you can easily preview new colors on your page. AdSense preview tool also gives you the ability to preview the ads that would show on any web page, from a number of different locations. Click the Choose Options link to display the Geo-target menu.