General Health blogs

Every blogger is looking to get more readership and traffic. Sometimes it can seem so difficult to build up your readership and to get to the point where you are getting natural growth from people sharing your articles. Here are some simple and free strategies to help you get more traffic to your blog. A side effect of these strategies will also be increased search engine rankingsfor your blog

1. Targeted Twitter messages

Twitter is an online social networkwith over 500 million active users. As Google and other major search engines are starting to factor social activity and the links shared on sites like Twitter, having a good social media presence here is a great way to attract new users. With this breadth of users, it also makes sense to harness the service as another way of connecting to potential customers.

Here is one way of doing this. Using specific keywords, you can search on twitter for people that might need your product or service, and you are to help them in any way that you can. For example, let’s say you have a blog on gardening. You can find the audience you are looking for by searching on twitter using keyword phrases related to gardening. Perhaps phrases like “starting garden”. Of course, the key here is finding the right phrases on twitter that are relevant to your topic area and that are used on twitter.

Then, you simply reach out and build relationship to these people. Remember, with social sites like Twitter, the best strategy is to build a large network of friends. The more helpful you are to people the more likely they are to want to visit your site and to help you in exchange..

Also, you don’t want to sell directly to them. Just offer advice and suggestions freely. Do not hesitate to recommend competing blogs or products. Everyone appreciates honesty and goodwill and if they see that you are genuinely offering helpful advice they will be interested in reading your blog.

You can also reach out to twitter users who have a large following in related areas and see if they are interested in some kind of joint venture. For example there might be someone with a large following of gardeners. Develop a relationship with them over Twitter and later you might end up getting access to their audience. Again don’t get straight to a business proposition, instead try to help them get what they are looking for and then later you may be able to write something for your audience for example.

2. Informational and instructional videos

With the implementation of Google’s universal search and blended results, you can make quality video contents that can get your content to rank on the first page of search engine results page. In other words it makes sense to develop not just written content but also video content for your blog.

“Blended search”, by the way, is a new approach of displaying results which has become increasingly common on major search engines. In a blended search, videos, images, maps, news, calendars and other types of results are displayed alongside the standard search results.

You should be aware that a video content designed to take advantage of blended search is one of the best methods to get a first page organic ranking on Google. According to a study, video content is 50 times more likely to get first page rankingson a of blended search results page than standard text.

To do this, create a video targeted to your intended audience, using keywords that your customers are searching for. For example, let’s say your blog is about project management. You can create a video review on The Top 10 Project Management Software Programs. You can use Google’s adwords keyword tool to know the best keywords to use (search on Google for “google adword keyword tool”)

After that, you will want to work on getting the video indexed by search engines so that it will end up on the results page whenever people query for related terms. One way is through creation of links that point towards the video on other websites. For example, you can participate on related blogs, topics or forums and put links there that point to the video (or other resources) you created. Link to the video content from these related blogs and forums. Also link to the video from your blog. Make sure that your video has branding for your blog so that readers will go to your blog after watching the video.

3. Answering questions from potential reader

Community driven Q&A sites and knowledge markets are another great tools that you can use to increase traffic to your blog. Yahoo! Answers, Answers.com, Answerbag.com, Quora and allexperts.com—these are the leading sites that receive around 62 million visits each month. If you can connect to potential customers using well crafted answers to popular, frequently asked questions in community driven sites (even forums), you will have no trouble gaining thousands of visits to your blog.

It’s important to never rush your answers for the sake of posting links to your site. Make sure your answer is informative and well researched.

4. Create a LinkedIn group

Another great tool that you can use to improve the visibility of your blog is LinkedIn. Similar to Twitter, LinkedIn is also a social networking website with over 161 million users as of February 2012. It allows users to build communities wherein members can participate and share content with each other.

When you create a LinkedIn group, it means that you can share your content to everyone in the whole community who may in turn share it, like it, bookmark it, repost it, link to it, etc. Your LinkedIn profile will also be featured to thousands of people on LinkedIn.

Of course, building a LinkedIn group from scratch is not always easy, because it will require a certain amount of time to get enough people to join the community, to build interest, before it can start to gather its own momentum.

That means you may need to hustle to get the membership up to at least 500, even if this means an “I’ll add you, you add me” approach. Even more important is making sure that that the contents you are sharing are something that your community is interested in.

5. Well structured offers of writing content for other blogs

Just like answering questions in community driven Q&A sites, posting content on highly visited blogs is a surefire approach of getting more traffic into your own blog. For one, guest blogging is a good way of exposing your brand to new audiences who have never seen or heard of your brand before. It is also useful in building early links and references back to your site.

To do this, first you need to know which blogs are likely to be read by your intended audiences. For example, Technorati is a good place to blog for time management software like Time Doctor, since it has an active software developer community, and is among the most visited blogs, with over 112.8 million entries and 250 million pieces of tagged social media.

Look for contents that you can write, and then craft an email offering 2 or 4 articles that you can contribute on these blogs. Of course, it goes without saying that you must have unique, quality content appropriate to your target audience, or it can be tough convincing other bloggers to allow you to post on their sites..

Also, try to target sites that have a relevant audience, or you will be wasting your time writing a good piece only to see it fizzle because the audience were not interested.

Don’t have the time to do ANY of these strategies? So actually I designed these strategies so that you can hire a virtual assistant for as little as $4 an hour to do this work for you. So if you’re already a successful blogger this is something you can consider. Or if you have the time to do it, then it’s also something you can work on yourself.

This guest post was written by Robert Rawson, who is the “Chief of Staff” for a company Staff.comthat provides outsourced Staff to companies and even to bloggers that are looking for help with their business.

Given that it’s loaded with beef drippings (read fat) or butter, or both, Yorkshire pudding is probably not the thing you want to eat regularly if you are watching your waistline. But for a once a year indulgence, served alongside a beef roast? Yummmmm.

Yorkshire pudding is traditionally made in one pan (even more traditionally in the pan catching the drippings from the roast above). You can also make a popover version with the same batter and drippings in a muffin tin or popover pan.

Yorkshire Pudding Recipe

Yield: Serves 6.

Ingredients 1 cup flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk 2 Tbsp melted butter 2 eggs, beaten* 2-4 Tbsp of roast drippings

* If you double the recipe, add an extra egg to the batter.

Method

1 Sift together the flour and salt in a large bowl. Form a well in the center. Add the milk, melted butter, and eggs and beat until the batter is completely smooth (no lumps), the consistency of whipping cream. Let sit for an hour.

2 Heat oven to 450°F. Add roast drippings to a 9×12-inch pyrex or ceramic casserole dish, coating the bottom of the dish. Heat the dish in the oven for 10 minutes.

For a popover version you can use a popover pan or a muffin pan, putting at least a teaspoon of drippings in the bottom of each well, and place in oven for just a couple minutes.

3 Carefully pour the batter into the pan (or the wells of muffin/popover pans, filling just 1/3 full), once the pan is hot. Cook for 15 minutes at 450°F, then reduce the heat to 350°F and cook for 15 to 20 more minutes, until puffy and golden brown.

Cut into squares to serve.

Hello! All photos and content are copyright protected. Please do not use our photos without prior written permission. If you wish to republish this recipe, please rewrite the recipe in your own unique words and link back to the source recipe here on Simply Recipes. Thank you!

Links:
A little on the history of Yorkshire puddingfrom our favorite food historian, the Old Foodie

The following recipe is modified slightly. I found we didn’t need as many strawberries as the magazine’s recipe suggested. Also, we served the mousse with some remaining strawberry purée on top. The purée is not sweetened and adds a lovely mildly tart balance to the rich mousse.

Strawberry White Chocolate Mousse Recipe

Yield:

Ingredients 1 ½ pounds of strawberries 2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice, divided 8 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped 1 ¼ teaspoon unflavored gelatin (about half a small envelope) 2 cups heavy cream 2 Tbsp powdered (confectioner’s) sugar

Method

1 Clean and hull the strawberries. Starting with about half of the strawberries (3/4 pound), quarter them and purée them in either a blender or food processor. Then press the purée mixture through a mesh sieve with the back of a spoon into a bowl. You want to end up with 1 cup of purée. Stir in 1 Tbsp of the lemon juice and set aside. With the remaining 3/4 pound or so of berries, slice as many as to fill up 2 cups, and set aside.

2 Melt white chocolate in a double boiler, or a stainless steel bowl set over simmering water (make sure the simmering water doesn’t actually touch the bottom of the bowl.) Stir until smooth, set aside.

3 Put 1/4 cup of cold water into a small bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin powder over the water and let sit for 5 minutes.

4 Put 1/4 cup of the cream into a small saucepan on medium heat. Whisk in 2 tablespoons of the powdered sugar and bring to a simmer. Stir in the water gelatin mixture until dissolved. Pour this mixture into the bowl with the melted white chocolate and whisk until smooth. Stir in 3/4 cup of the puréed strawberries, reserving the remaining 1/4 cup.

5 Using an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the remaining 1 3/4 cup of cream on medium-high speed until medium peaks form. (It helps if your cream is very cold.) Stir a  third of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture. Using a large rubber spatula, gently fold the remaining whipped cream into the mixture. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

6 Stir the remaining 1 Tbsp of lemon juice into the reserved sliced berries. Fold the sliced berries into the mousse. Spoon mousse into serving cups and refrigerate for at least another hour, preferably several hours, or even over night (cover with plastic wrap).

7 When you are read to serve the mousse, pour a dollop of the reserved strawberry purée onto each serving. Add a few slices of strawberries as garnish.

Hello! All photos and content are copyright protected. Please do not use our photos without prior written permission. If you wish to republish this recipe, please rewrite the recipe in your own unique words and link back to the source recipe here on Simply Recipes. Thank you!

Added by Hike Bike Travelon May 16, 2012
Saved under Green travel
Tags: driving, driving tips, gas mileage, green tips

In Canada the long weekend is just a few days away (yeah!!) – and the unofficial start of the summer driving season.

With gas prices near record highs in parts of the country – 145.8/L in Vancouver, 129.5/L in Halifax, 133.4/L in St. John’s, and 124.9/L in Toronto as examples – it pays to discover ways to decrease your gas usage and increase your car’s gas mileage. It’s good for your wallet and the environment.

So what can you do to maximize your car’s gas mileage??

Lose the bike rack, storage box or canoe (sometimes hard to do) on the roof of your car. Any of these additions to the roof changes the shape of the car and make it less aerodynamic. In a gas powered car, fuel efficiency can be reduced by between 10 and 30% depending on what you’re carrying. An empty roof rack can reduce efficiency by 12% while carrying a bicycle on top can reduce your fuel efficiency by a whopping 30% .

Driving an electric car with a load on top can severely. As a test, a 2011 Nissan Leaf, outfitted with a roof rack, was driven just 10 miles to a store on a battery that was ¾ charged. The predicted range without a rack was between 50 to 60 miles and with an empty roof rack just 35 miles. The reality was that a quarter of the charge was consumed in just 10 miles. Then with the addition of a 95 pound shelving unit to the top of the car, the 10 mile return trip consumed the bulk of the charge . If you drive an electric car and don’t want to be charging every 30 miles, then realistically you won’t be able to carry anything on the top.

Don’t idle. This seems like a no brainer to me but for those of you that need convincing consider this – a quarter to half a gallon of gasoline is used per hour depending on the engine size and air conditioner use.

Leave the heavy items behind. Fuel consumption is increased by 1-2% for every extra 100 pounds you carry. This factor is particularly important in cities with so much stop and go driving. Once you hit the highways – assuming no slowdowns because of construction, traffic or accidents, it becomes less of a problem.

Slow down. Fuel economy decreases rapidly above 100 km/h (60mph).

Increasing fuel consumption

Use cruise control. You reduce fuel consumption by maintaining a constant speed.

Properly inflated tires can reduce fuel consumption by 3%. When was the last time you got your tires checked? Winter driving – aka cold driving – reduces PSI (pounds per square inch) by about 1 PSI per month.

A dirty engine air filter will decrease fuel efficiency. If you drive on dusty, dirty roads a lot you’ll need to change it more frequently.

Avoid braking whenever possible – but use a little common sense here. Accelerating after braking consumes more energy than driving at a constant speed. Coast to those red lights if you can.

Break for bison!

Have you any tips you’d like to add on how to maximize your car’s gas mileage??

Related posts you might like:

Leigh McAdam

Photo credit: Roof rack, Odometer, Bison

Vote for my article on WorldTravelist.com, sharing the best travel content on the web.

About Hike Bike Travel
Avid world traveler. Craves adventure – & the odd wildly epic day. Gardener. Reader. Wine lover. Next big project – a book on 100 Canadian outdoor adventures.
View all posts by Hike Bike Travel →

1. They turn out to be thrilling evenings of lust and intellectual discovery spent with someone who just might be your soul mate, or
2. They are colossal wastes of time.

We’re generalizing, of course.

But since life is like a box of chocolates, and some of them are really good walnut caramels and others are turtle dung, it pays to choose a first-date restaurant destination that will let love flourish.

Below are the top five factors to consider when selecting a first-date restaurant. Think of a few restaurants that fit these criteria in your neighborhood, and keep them written on a piece of paper in your wallet or tattoo them on your forearm to avoid that pre-date “I don’t care, where do YOU want to go?” banter.

Perhaps the most crucial element of a first-date dinner is making sure that everyone looks their most attractive. Are there candles on the table? Does the restaurant owner understand how dimmer and dinner go hand in hand? With soft light glinting off stemware, it barely matters what you’re eating.

When it doubt, go upper-middle. Chances are one of you will insist on paying while the other politely demurs, but to suggest a Michelin four-star penthouse restaurant that just opened last month seems a little high-maintenance. That being said, if you suggest hitting the Kenny Rogers Roasters near the airport, your date may question your critical-thinking skills and taste. Aim for a new, interesting place with good buzz and entrees that cost about $12-16. And if they allow BYOB with no corkage, do it, you crazy lovesick animals.

Unless you’ve already covered the topic of vegans vs. carnivores in your pre-date flirting, it’s always good to prepare for the possibility that your date doesn’t want to go to an all-meat schwarma palace. Check ahead and ask if he/she has any “dietary considerations” (use that term instead of “weird screwed-up food neurosis”). At least one or two veggie options on the menu will mean avoiding the chance of one of you picking hungrily at a plate of lettuce.

IS THERE ANYTHING MORE IMPORTANT THAN ACOUSTICS ON A FIRST DATE? WHAT? We think you said no. But we couldn’t hear you over the blistering ’90s metal lams the waiter is playing. Other conversation killer? Restaurants with crazy-high ceilings or marble floors. The clatter from dishes and the din of other diners can strangle even the most well intentioned getting-to-know-eachotherness. If you’re not sure about ambiance, case the joint the night before to see if you’ll be “mingleshouting” through a meal with someone you might love — if only you could hear them.

Maybe this is just an L.A. thing, but valeting on a date can be worth the extra few bucks. Here’s a super secret from one of our girlfriends (OK, one of us): If you’re not too excited about the date, valet your car so that at the end of the night, there won’t be an awkward smooch. I mean, all the valet guys are watching and the whole restaurant can see you. Clean getaway! But if there are already sparks, park down the street; you’ll HAVE to use the buddy system, which leaves plenty of time and space for that end-of-the-evening peck (read: make out).

Tags:

In my (9-5 job) industry, Medical Software, there is a huge focus on the concept of Interoperability. Interoperability is the ability to have diverse systems talk to each other and work together. The main reason why interoperability is being talked about like crazy is that the government has approved a stimulus package for the health care system. Hospitals need to get on board with an electronic health record in order to get the money that is available. The problem is that each hospital across the country has a different software system and those systems don’t talk to each other without interfaces to make the disparate systems inter operate.

Being in this industry I can see where the problems occurred. Medical software is so specialized and very competitive. For years these software companies have not worked together in any way. The platforms have all been built independently with no common ground. Also, because the software is specialized it is really expensive and it is hard for hospitals to make changes to their systems. Basically the health care industry has some major trouble ahead until the disparate systems work together. Even Windows and Mac can work together pretty well while still selling their systems. Sure there is competition but being able to work together only makes these systems stronger and we as consumers benefit. Maybe the medical software community will take a lesson here and work together to actually benefit the consumer.

What’s the point?

Okay, so that was a really long opening to talk to about what interoperability might mean for your blog. When I think of interoperability for blogging I go straight to what Chris Brogan has termed “ Giving Your Ideas ‘Handles’“. Collaboration with other people is a great way for you as a blogger to grow. You might think that you need to keep all your best work on your own blog, but if no one is reading your blog then they won’t see and read that great work of yours. Finding ways to give your ideas away can help draw a larger audience to those ideas.

Are your blogs open to the prospect of working together with other bloggers?

In my years of blogging I have worked with so many other bloggers I can’t even count the number. I’m very open to working with other bloggers all the time. I look for ways to collaborate, either with guest posts, interviews or appearing on podcasts. The one thing that I don’t have right now on my blog is a “Collaborate with me” page on my blog. That is something I could set up with links to where I’ve done guest posts, guest appearances on podcasts and other collaborative ventures. I will correct that very soon.

Do you have a system in place to let others submit guest blog posts?

Building on the ‘collaborate with me’ page; a section all about Guest Posting would also be very useful. My friend Jim Kukralasked one time for guest bloggers. He got a pretty good response and some fantastic posts, content and connections from that asking. The one thing I would suggest is that if you are hosting guest bloggers it would be beneficial to both parties to give them additional value in exchange for the post. Have an easy way for the guest bloggers to submit a photo of themselves and add a couple of links to the blogger’s blog like this site does. So, when you are thinking of opening the floodgates to guest posting make sure you work in how can you make guest posting for you more beneficial to the guest blogger.

Do you have a page up that shows that you are available to do guest posts for other blogs?

When you are looking to do guest posts on other blogs remember a few key things. Learn about the host blogger’s audience Write your best stuff, hold nothing back Link to other bloggers who have relevant content and also ones that you’d like to guest post for as well. Do not link back to your own blog except for the links that the host will provide, you are not there to sell your own stuff.

When you set up your page about being open to guest blogging make sure that you link out to those guest posts that you have already written. If you haven’t written any guest posts yet make sure that you write up a page about yourself that highlights your strengths and what you can bring to the hosts blog. Link to examples of your best posts as examples, too.

How do you define giving your ideas ‘handles’?

For the most part I think that interoperability and “give your ideas ‘handles’” are mostly buzzwords until you actually put them into practice. So, can you tell me how you can find ways to create interoperability for your blog and give your own ideas ‘handles’?

With Halloween just around the corner, we thought it was a fitting time to share our experience visiting the legendary Dracula Castle in Romania.

We had visions of a tall, thin castle perched on a lone cliff, hundreds of metres above a deep, rocky canyon. Add a few oversized bats, an intense lightening storm and a full moon, just to set the right mood. Okay, so perhaps we’ve watched too many Tim Burton movies, but we are talking about the king of all vampires here!

The famous castle is actually called Bran Castle and is located in the town of Bran, situated on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia. There’s not much to Bran, aside from the castle and a few tourist shops, so most visitors stay in nearby Brasov.

Built in the late 1300’s, the former fortress and palace is a national monument and historical landmark in Romania, making it well worth a visit even without the possibility of an encounter with the mythical vampire.

The castle has now been converted into a museum, complete with original furniture, antiques and artwork. It’s fun to let your imagination run wild as you wander through the tight, windy stairwells and secret passages.

We overheard a tour guide tell his group that the thin corridors were deliberately made to fit only one person at time. The idea was that this prevented intruders from group attacks because only one person can pass through, thereby making it easier to defend. Smart.

More importantly, why is Bran Castle considered to be Dracula’s Castle? Well, it all starts with Bram Stoker’s best selling Gothic horror novel ‘ Dracula ’.

Legend has it that Bram Stoker’s lead character was loosely inspired by Vlad the Impaler, the 15th century Romanian general and son of Vlad Dracul. He received the nickname “ the Impaler ” because of his ruthless practice of impaling and beheading his enemies. He was a war hero that had a reputation for excessive cruelty, sadistic torture and violent murder, characteristics often associated with vampires.

Having never actually read Bram Stoker’s novel, we relied on the information shared at the modern day museum. To our surprise, Bran Castle is one of several locations linked to the Dracula myth. In fact, Vlad the Impaler spent very little time in Bran Castle and never actually “ lived” there.

So, aside from a few historical references to Bram Stoker’s celebrated novel, there’s very little to suggest that Bran Castle is the real home of Count Dracula.

But don’t tell that to Romanian tourism. Vampires are big business these days and Bran Castle attracts a lot of tourism dollars.

You can even purchase real Dracula’s blood!

It may not be the spooky, haunted castle that vampire fans are hoping for, but it is a magnificent piece of architecture and an important part of Romania’s history.

Have you traveled to Romania? Did you visit Bran Castle?
Share your experiences in the comments section below, we’d love to read about it!

See map below to find out where this photo taken.

Related posts: