In the first part of this mini article series, which highlights excellent resources for online publishers, we looked at forums and social media sites. In this second part, we take it one step further and recommend some of the most useful blogs and websites out there which will educate you with information which is relevant for publishers.

Also included here are five excellent places for finding jobs online, and five tools which will help you analyze the performance of your website with the intention of improving it in order to take one more step towards success!

Blogs / Websites

What is a blog these days? Well that is really just a matter of personal definition, but in this article we are listing ten frequently updated websites which all excel in their fields. These blogs and websites should be in every publisher’s feed reader, simply because they provide you with excellent information that will help you gain attention, earn a reputation, respect and of course money, and the best part is that they do it for free!

21. Daily Blog Tips

If you identify yourself as a blogger, then this blog is most likely in your feedreader already. Daily Blog Tips is an excellent resource for everything blogging, and the straight-to-the-point articles provided generally serve as great suggestions on how you can improve your blog and ultimately become more successful in publishing your content.

22. Copyblogger

For everyone involved with any type of writing, this one truly is a must read. Filled with glowing examples on how to be a better writer, following this blog and picking up on the advice given should pay dividents in the long run.

23. A List Apart

They brand themselves as a magazine for people who make websites, and that is exactly what they are. All the most important aspects, such as design, coding and writing are covered in excellent manner.

24. Search Engine Journal

Everyone involved in online publishing is, or at least should be aware of the benefits of search engine marketing. Search Engine Journal keeps a sharp eye on things surrounding this topic.

25. Dosh Dosh

Overlooking the funny japanese cartoon figures, this is one of the top five blogs on making money online hands down. If you are not already reading it, you need to start doing it as soon as possible!

26. Performancing

Group blog written and maintained by several professional bloggers and publishers. You will find many useful tips on how to better your chances of being successful online here.

27. Quick Sprout

I was not quite sure about which one of Neil Patel’s blogs I should include on this list, Pronet Advertising or Quick Sprout. I ended up with the latter however, as it with help you with something most online publishers struggle with, namely strengthening your own personal brand. Although Neil does not post too often here, it is certainly worth reading when he does!

28. 43 Folders

My favourite blog for everything “life hacking”, and that is certainly something all of us involved in online work need a certain dose of every now and then, am I right?

29. Web Worker Daily

This website covers most all of the topics that concern those of us who spend some, or all of our time working online. Well worth a good read!

30. ProBlogger

What list would be complete without the oh-so-famous ProBlogger? Fact is though, this site is so much more than just blogging. Just breeze through some of the most popular articles, and you will find that there is a lot to be learned about all the various aspects of online publishing from pro blogger Darren Rowse!

Jobs

While the dream for all of us who are working online is to create our own successful business, sometimes it is smart to supplement your earnings with a little something on the side. Here you will find five places to where you can start your hunt for jobs.

31. Freelance Switch Job Boards

These job boards are special in the way that instead of charging advertisers for placing jobs, they charge those looking for jobs for the details needed to apply for a job. Regardless of this, they are a good place to find jobs in the field of blogging and writing.

32. 43 Folders Job Boards

Good place to find jobs related to the various forms of web development.

33. GigaOm Job Boards

The jobs here seem to revolve mainly around engineering and various management and development positions.

34. ProBlogger Job Boards

If you are looking for jobs as a blogger, this is without a doubt one of the best places to start.

35. Freelance Writing Jobs

Not a job board like the other four, but still worth keeping tabs on. Several times a week Deborah does a great job in aggregating available freelancing writing jobs from a multitude of sources and posting them up for all of us to consider at her blog!

Tools

Utilizing some tools of the trade will help make your life easier as an online publisher. These tools aim to help you analyze your own websites in order to spot your strengths and weaknesses.

36. SEO Book Rank Tool

This little gem of a tool will help you see what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong by seeing which of your articles rank well in search engines and which don’t.

37. SEOmoz Page Strength Analyzer

Another SEO tool, this one will give your site a grade based on several different metrics. Although the metrics used are often criticized for being inaccurate and easy to manipulate, all of them combined will give you a fair indication of how your website is currently doing in terms of traffic and visibility.

38. dnScoop Site Valuation

Although less scientific and mostly for novelty, this tool will assign a value to your website by calculating various factors such as Alexa ranking, PageRank and inbound links. Lars-Christian.com is worth a little over $1,000 - any takers? Just kidding, as I said though, this is mostly for novelty.

39. Google Analytics Stats Tracker

This on the other hand, is as scientific as they come. The tracker of choice for many publishers out there, mostly because it provides an amazing amount of detail around your visitors and their behaviour when they access your website.

40. Overture Keyword Selector Tool

Perhaps the most useful of all the tools, this one will let you discover what people are actually searching for, and which keywords you should highlight in your articles in order to try and gain good search engine rankings for things people are actually searching for. Keyword research is really an art on its own, but it is something every online publisher should be familiar with, and it will be covered in-depth in the future here at this very blog.

And that concludes this little series highlighting some of the most useful resources for online publishers out there. If you are missing anything, feel free to leave a comment with your own suggestions. I have already gotten some feedback about resources not included in the list, and if I get a few more I might even do a third bonus part!

Many new publishers out there struggle with finding quality resources that will help them in their journey towards fame and recognition. Honestly there is nothing mystifying about this, because it is easy to suffer from information overload online, simply because the sheer magnitude of disposable resources at your hand can be quite overwhelming.

In order to help all of the up and coming publishers with this conundrum, I have compiled a list of 40 valuable resources that will help you in your quest. For practical reasons the list has been divided into two parts, and today I am posting the first. This one focuses on websites where you can socialize and network, and at the same time find invaluable information.

Forums

Actively participating in forums is an excellent way to expand your horizons and discover new angles for practically everything. The good ones are also filled with knowledge, and just a simple search away from you. This is why we start our list of resources with 10 excellent forums that can help you become a more successful publisher!

1. SitePoint Forums

The SitePoint Forums are one of the oldest and most recognized forums for online publishers. With over 200,000 members who all share a passion for online publishing and money making, it’s one of the largest collectives of knowledge about our field. Although their marketplace isn’t free to use, it’s well worth noting, because it serves as the place to buy and sell high end blogs and websites.

2. Digital Point Forums

Another one of the largest forums around when it comes to all things publishing. It really has all the things you need, including specific sections dedicated to marketing, business, coding, design and everything in between. One great advantage over the SitePoint Forums is that the marketplace at the Digital Point Forums is completely free to use for all registered and contributing members.

3. Webmaster World

Similar to both the SitePoint Forums and the Digital Point Forums in that you can discuss all the different aspects of online publishing such as design and coding, promotion and so forth. It is smaller in size compared to the former two, but still more than large enough to be considered a valuable source of information for most things that concern online publishers.

4. DNForum

Absolutely a must-visit for anything concerning domain names. If you are looking for a suitable domain name for your new venture, just throw out a few pointers, and you will be overwhelmed with the amount of affordable offers of suitable domains you’ll find. Also a great place to sell websites, and I have personally sold several grand-scale websites through DNForum.

5. Web Hosting Talk

We all need a place to host the information we are sharing, right? Not only is Web Hosting Talk the place to go to when it comes to everything that has to do with web hosting, but it is also a great place to find business partners, advertising opportunities and much more.

6. 9rules Notes

9rules is, well, to be honest even after being there for a year I’m not completely sure what it is. What I do know however is that it is, apart from an experience in design and creativity, a gathering place for an exceptionally large amount of successful bloggers and publishers who knows their trade. And such, even though their Notes section isn’t strictly dedicated to relevant discussions, it is still an excellent place to learn and make new, valuable connections.

7. Bloggeries Blog Forum

I don’t have any personal experience with this forum, but it seems to be one of the largest forums dedicated solely to the art of blogging. Although the colour scheme might not ooze of professionality, any forum that focuses strictly on blogging and manages to gather almost 600 active members should be well worth visiting.

8. WickedFire

Forum focusing on marketing and search engine optimization. It has been given a somewhat tarnished reputation due to endorsing various black-hat methods of promotion, but overall its a valuable resource, especially for marketing ideas that do not necessarily fit into the famous box.

9. Personal Development for Smart People Forums

Being an independant publisher online often means struggling to do as much as possible with a very limited amount of time. Apart from the short and catchy name, this forum which was started by the famous Steve Pavlina, will give you all the pointers you need on how to become a more effective and less procrastinating publisher.

10. Authority Blogger Forum

The second forum on our list dedicated specifically to blogging, and also the smallest. It was started by professional blogger Chris Garret. Regardless of the fact that it is still in its infancy, it has already become a considerable source of information regarding blogging, and a great place to connect with fellow publishers.

Social Media

We all know by now that the best way to market your your content is through social media marketing. Everybody already know about the big sites such as Digg and Reddit, but these days there is a social media sharing sites for practically all the popular niches out there. That is why this list includes ten of the lesser know, niche specific social media sites out there. Have fun promoting your and getting targeted traffic from these!

11. Ballhype (sports)

If you typically write about sports such as golf, hockey, basketball or football, Ballhype is where you want to go in order to promote your stories. The site has been quite successful too, so it is safe to safe that you can expect a fair share of traffic if your stories gain momentum here.

12. ShowHype (entertainment)

From the creators of Ballhype I present to you ShowHype (not sure why they are inconsistent with their capitalization of letters), already a somewhat popular social media site with a focus on entertainment.

13. Sphinn (internet marketing)

One of my favourite social media sites, simply because of the sheer quality of the articles that are successful. If you are interested in internet marketing, this is most certainly a place to be. If you manage to get an article you have written to the front page, you will see quite a bit of quality traffic, as it is something I have been fortunate enough to experience myself.

14. AutoSpies (cars)

If you have a habit of writing about cars, this is the place to focus your social media marketing. The site seems to have an active and passionate audience, and such you will be receiving high-quality, targeted traffic if you succeed here.

15. Hugg (environment)

Environmentalists rejoice, because Hugg is here to save the day! It is dedicated specifically towards stories that focus on the environment, and they have managed to gather quite a crowd already.

16. Sk*rt (lifestyle)

Not only beautifully designed, but also quite popular. Sk*rt has a main focus on lifestyle, which can be practically anything these days. Take a look around, and see if your articles would fit in with the stories that are currently popular here.

17. DNHour (domain names)

The people at this social media outlet are concerned about one thing and one thing only, domain names. If you have a habit of writing stories on the subject of domains, this would be a good place to promote them.

18. Pixel Groovy (design / tutorials)

At Pixel Groovy the users decide which graphics tutorials make the cut and which don’t. Just like it should be at a social media site. This is certainly a nice place to promote your work if you frequently write design and graphics tutorials.

19. N4G (video games)

N4G (News for Gamers) is a social media site with a focus on news articles related to video games. Just as all things video games, it has a significant audience, and such it is a nice place for all the aspiring Matt Casamassimas of the internet to promote their stories.

20. Blogging Zoom (blogging)

Although brand new, Blogging Zoom has already established themselves with a core audience. The main focus here seems to be articles that are interesting for bloggers. The best part? Bloggers are encouraged to submit their own stories!

The second part of the article with the last 20 excellent resources for publishers will focus on valuable blogs, tools and places other miscellaneous goodies. To make sure you do not miss it, you should consider subscribing to the Lars-Christian.com RSS Feed!

Yesterday I had an email in my inbox from MyBlogLog, the social network with some extra nifty features created specifically for bloggers, even though I had previously specifically opted out of receiving “Community Messages” as they call them (perhaps my settings got mixed up when they incorporated Yahoo ID ?). The email was a quick reminder that I should remember to sign up for their Problogger Contest (details at their blog).

Exciting as it sounded, I rushed over there to find the details, only to be severely disappointed when I discovered that it was in fact limited to US citizens. The prizes are certainly great, like a one year premium membership at SEOmoz and a complete blog redesign from RS Designs. But what good is it, when I can’t participate?

Personally, I’ve never seen the purpose behind restrictions like these online, where international borders are completely irrelevant. Sure, there might be some legal efforts in play here, but with the backing of Yahoo, you would expect that the guys over at MBL would be able to construct something that was open everyone, regardless of geographical locations.

Another thing I don’t like about the contest is that the object of it all is to have the fastest growing MyBlogLog community within the period of the contest. It’s an invitation to spam and various black-hat techniques if you ask me.

I think I might start a competition myself here at my blog giving away some awesome prizes just to get some attention, and then leave it in the fine print (which hopefully nobody will read) that the winners have to live on the same block as myself so that I can deliever the prices personally without too much effort, simply because I’m too cheap to pay for the expenses of shipping.

Finally I have to excuse my negative attitude towards this, but I simply find this whole ordeal a bit silly, and I’m somewhat grumpy because I have to spend my Saturday doing a termpaper. That’s the curse of procrastination exemplified!

Are you tired of your host because of too much downtime and slow loading times, but one of the many who have not made the switch to the greener grass on the other side because you are afraid of the technical difficulties of moving your blog?

If that is the case, then this quick guide is just what you need. It will show you how you can easily move your blog to a new host with just a few relatively simple steps, and it even includes a short illustrational video which highlights the steps.

The first thing you should do is to make sure that your new host has the required specifications to host a blog. In particular you want to be sure that your host supports MySQL databases, and that you will be given access to phpMyAdmin, which is the interface you will use to export the contents of your database from your old host, and import it to the one you create at your new host.

Step 1: Copy all the files of your blog from your old to your new host.

You will obviously want to include all the files of your blog at your old host. As you can see in the video, the easiest way of doing this is to simply log in to your account through FTP, and directly download all the files to your computer. Once you have successfully downloaded all files, you simply connect to your new host and upload the same files. No need to tamper with any of the files or the directory structure, just upload them just as you downloaded them.

Step 2: Create a new database at your new host.

Now that all the files are in place, the only thing that remains is to get the database ported over to your new host. What you can do is open your wp-config.php file (if you are using WordPress) and see the specifications of your old database. The easiest thing is to simply duplicate the details, and create an identical database and database-user at your new host.

This is not always possible however, because your database name and username might be given a different prefix at your new host. If that is the case, then you need to modify the information in your config file. If you do this, don’t forget to re-upload your config file and overwrite the old one, which should already be in place at your new host after completing the first step.

Step 3: Export your database from your old host.

This is often the most confusing step for those who have no experience with phpMyAdmin, the interface you use to manage your databases. Don’t be afraid however, as shown in the video, you simply login to phpMyAdmin at your old host, select your database, and go straight to the Export tab.

Once there, hit select all in the left menu, and just scroll down to the bottom. Here you will give the export of your database a new, and choose if you want to have it compressed. For no specific reason at all, I like to compress it in a tar.gz format, but it makes no practical difference whether you choose no compression, zip or gz - When importing the database, which is the next step, phpMyAdmin will automatically detect the compression and decompress it.

Step 4: Import your database at your new host.

When you’ve successfully downloaded the contents of your old database, just login to phpMyAdmin at your new host, pick the correct database and go straight to Import. Here you will be prompted to select the file with the contents of your database, which is of course stored locally at your computer. Just pick this file, and don’t worry with the other settings. Execute the import, and you will then get a short message telling you that the import has been successful.

Step 5: Update the your domain’s DNS settings.

This is the final step of the move. We have already moved the blog to your new host, and all that remains is to update the DNS (Domain Name Servers) of your domain. This is done from your control panel at your domain registrar, and not at your old host. Unless of course you registered your domain at your old host.

Once you have updated the DNS, it will take some time before your domain is actually pointing to your new host. It can take as much as up to 48-72 hours for the changes to propagate, but normally it takes no more than 24 hours.

Finally, I have included a short video documenting and showcasing the steps as I recently moved my own blog to a new host. If you have any questions regarding the procedure, don’t hesitate to ask through the comments!

Illustration icon by FastIcon

As I have previously mentioned, I will be looking at ways to monetize this blog in the future. No worries however, I have no plans of making it a full time effort, I simply wish to see if there is any potential income at all in this little piece of internet that I spend some time on.

One thing I have spent some time thinking about in regards to this is paid posts. Earlier I have done a couple of paid posts on this blog, and the question I’ve been pondering is whether or not I should be open to this in the future or not. Generally I have nothing against paid posts, and as long as the readers can be sure that those who buy reviews are paying for a review and not a good / friendly / positive review, there aren’t any problems at all.

What is strikingly obvious when it comes down to it however, is that for this to be the case, it requires a certain amount of trust between the writer and the reader. This would be the kind of trust that is established over months, if not even years of mutual loyalty between a writer and a base of readers. A strong and positive reputation within your target market also helps.

Andy Beard can pull it off, because all the people who read his blog know and believe his intentions and requirements for writing such a post both through his dedication to his blog as well as the community that surrounds it. I myself on the other hand only stand at the starting line when it comes to building this type of credibility, and that is why I with this post want to announce that I will no longer be writing paid posts here at my personal blog.

Like I said above, I have nothing against the idea of paid posts, but this is simply a step I want to take (and a potential source of income I will forsake) because I feel that the possible damages to my own integrity and credibility in the eyes of my readers is far more valuable to me at this point.

Now enough about me, I want to hear from you as well! Do you write paid reviews on your own blog? If so, what is your reasoning behind it? I would love to hear other people’s opinions on this subject, especially to see if I just put too much thought into the whole idea of paid posts versus integrity and perceived credibility.