Name of plugins: Top Commentators Widget
Author: Lorna Timbah (WebGrrrl.net)
Functionality: The Top Commentators Widget a sidebar widget to show the top commentators in your WP site. This widget is easier to manage via the control form (no need to edit the PHP file); additional options are also available to make it more flexible.

The top commentators can also be set to change every month. Like the one in this blog sidebar (see, Top Ten Blogrolls for Being top commentators of the Month).

If you don’t feel like using AdBrite as an alternate to your AdSense ads, Etology could be your other choice to earn more money when Adsense ads is not available. Or you can even put Etology side by side with AdSense without worrying it would be against AdSense TOS (Term of Service). Since the system is different. While Adsense sells contextaul ads, Etology sells targeted ads which oftentimes uncontextual.  As far as I am concerned, Etology pays better than AdBrite. Better even, Etology pays you using Paypal, unlike Adbrite which still stick to pays you with check.

Here are some brief FAQs about Etology for publishers like you:

How do I get started?

The first thing you want to do as a seller/publisher is to register your website by first signing up for our free membership. After creating an account, you can register your website under the “Publisher Dashboard” after logging in the first time. Click on “Add A New Website.” Fill in the required information and our site review team will review your website to make sure it complies with our guidelines. *Note: For site description, it is recommended for sellers/publishers to write as detailed a description of their site as possible. This will provide a quick summary of what your site is about and will allow advertisers to see if your site would be a good fit for them.

How much will I get paid for my traffic?
This depends on the origin of the traffic. At Etology, we currently have a 3 Tiered pricing model, with Tier 1 traffic as the highest paying. The pricing varies per tier depending on demand for viewers from a particular region.

The traffic origin is what counts so if you have users originating from our Tier 1 / Tier 2 / Tier 3 network, publishers will be paid 70% of the price set for the region.The Tiered network pricing is a variable rate and changes as Etology continues to grow and new advertisers participate in our program.

Tier 1 Countries United States, North America, & United Kingdom

Tier 2 Countries European Countries: Germany, France, Italy

Tier 3 Countries Vietnam, Turkey, India

When do I get paid and what are my payment options?
Our minimum payout is set at USD$50 dollars. All publishers are eligible to be paid by check, PayPal, and Epassporte. We also offer Bank Wire as a payment option with a USD$500 dollar minimum payout and an additional service fee of $30. Etology payments are typically sent on the 25th of the month schedule; this means that payments are sent twenty-five (25) days after the last day of the month when you have reached the minimum payout amount.

For your initial payment, a confirmation email will be sent to you once you have exceeded your minimum payout regarding your upcoming payment. US publishers will receive payments by check unless they specify Etology Credit. International publishers are required to respond to that email informing us of their preferred method of payment before payment is sent out.

Once you have received your first payment, you will receive payment on the scheduled pay period according to the payment method listed in your “My Account” page.

We do not have the option to choose payment method using the Etology system at the moment.

What happens if my Banner Ad Space is unsold?
If banner ad spaces do not have a direct ad campaign running, network banner ads will be cycled through the banner space. Network ad clicks will be CPC based on legitimately registered clicks. CPC pricing varies depending on location of the user as well as the ad cycled through the banner space.

Interested? Register here!

CO.CC can be used as your domain for your blogger.com blog instead of blogspot.com. So, you may use example.co.cc instead of example.blogspot.com. This method is called blogger custom domain. Follow these two steps:

STEP 1

1. Login to your CO.CC account, if you already have. If you don’t, create one here first.

Suppose you have created a domain in CZ.CC and you wanted to integrate it with your blogger / blogspot. In another word, you want to keep hosting your blog in blogger.com, but want to use CZ.CC as the domain, instead of blogspot.com. This is called Blogger Custom Domain. This is possible and easy, but if you’re still confused about it here are the simple steps.

1. Login to your CZ.CC account, if you already have. If you don’t, create one here first.

Creating sitemap for self-hosted Wordpress is easy. You just need to install Google Sitemap Plugins which you can download for free.

Make no mistake, creating a sitemap for blogger.com / blogspot is even easier if you only know how. Basically creating sitemap need two steps: (i) Verification, to verify that you own the blog and (ii) Submitting Sitemap, to tell the search engine about your blog and every articles you have written. In return, Google search will tell the world about them (your blog and the contents) after the two procedures are done.

Now, follow these simple steps if you run a blog in blogger.com / blogspot:

First step: Verification

• Login to your blogger.com account.
• Scroll-down and find out  “Webmaster Tools” -> click it. If you coudn’t find it, click here (remeber to click this link after login to your account).
• Now, you have verified your blog. Congrats!

Second step: Submit the sitemap

• You now have entered into Webmaster tools area. Find your blog URL there and click it. Example,  I clcik -> mysite.blogspot.com
• In the Dashboard click “Site Configuration -> Sitemaps -> click “Submit a Sitemap”
• There will be your blog address like http://mysite.blogspot.com/–blankboxhere–
• Copy and paste this code in the blankbox -> atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100
• Click “Submit Sitemaps”. Done.

Congratulations! Now you have told Google search about the first 100 posts of your blog contents.

Important: If you have more than 100 articles, say 200, repeat the second step and submit another Sitemap by changing the number into 101 and 200 like this one: atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=101&max-results=200

Likewise, if you have 300 articles in your blog, you have to submit three sitemaps. The third sitemaps should be like this: atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=201&max-results=300

Repeat the process and submit more sitemaps if you have hundreds of articles or even thousands of postings.

Wish you luck!

The general conventional standard to increase a blog traffic is one and only: good quality content.

But oftentimes we see a very good quality content blog just does not get enough traffic it deserves.

In another words, apart from a good content, we also need a good tips & tricks to make our blog good and crowdy.

Here are the excerptise advices from a few international prominent blogger:

Seth Godin

Seth Godin, the best selling marketing books author and prominent blogger, gives us 56 tips to follow for any blogger who wants to increaste his/her traffic. The most important of which are:

• Learn enough to become the expert in your field
• Be timeless… write posts that will be readable in a year.
• Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
• Write short, pithy posts.
• Write long, definitive posts.
• Be patient.
• Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
• Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
• Write in English.
• Don’t be boring.
• Write stuff that people want to read and share.
• Read more advice from Seth Godin here.

Meanwhile Rand Fish of Seomoz.org offers 21 tips & trick to increase your blog traffics. The excerpt:

• Participate at Related Forums & Blogs

Whatever industry or niche you’re in, there are bloggers, forums and an online community that’s already active.

• Tag Your Content. Technorati is the first place that you should be tagging posts.
• Link Intelligently

… quoting other bloggers or online sources (or even discussing their ideas) without linking to them is considered bad etiquette and can earn you scorn that could cost you links from those sources in the future. It’s almost always better to be over-generous with links than under-generous.

• Invite Guest Bloggers

Asking a well known personality in your niche to contribute a short blog on their subject of expertise is a great way to grow the value and reach of your blog.

• Eschew Advertising (Until You’re Popular)
• Go Beyond Text in Your Posts

Add images, interactive elements, the occasional multimedia content and some clever charts & graphs.

• Build a Brand. Possibly one of the most important aspects of all in blogging is brand-building.
• Read more Rand Fish tips here.

Wish you luck!

Details about Favicon (fav-ai-kon) in general has been mentioned here:
Favicon (pronounced fav-ai-kon) is short for ‘Favorites Icon.’ A Favicon is a multi-resolution image included on nearly all professional developed sites. Within Internet Explorer and Firefox the Favicon is displayed on the Address line and in the Favorites menu. The Favicon allows the webmaster to further promote their site, and to create a more customized appearance within a visitor’s browser. Often, the Favicon reflects the look and feel of the web site or the organization’s logo. See for example the Favicon of this website where I use my own picture.

.. to create Favicon is simple in a self-hosted blog by adding the following two line of codes:
<link rel=”icon” href=”favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
The question is can favicon be installed to blogger.com / blogspot and if yes, how?

We can use the same method as we do to a self-hosted blog / website.

Follow this simple tutorial:

1. Create Favicon first at http://www.iconj.com/ by (a) clicking BROWSE and put the image you want to faviconize; (b) Click Upload Now

2. At “Host it at Iconj.com:(Direct Link)” -> Copy the given code

Example: <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”http://www.iconj.com/ico/l/k/lkssmv0×3a.ico” />

3. Put the following code at the head of blogger template ->
<link rel=”icon” href=”favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
along with the code given by Iconj.com (see sample at no. 2)

So, the two line of code I put below the &lt; head&gt; are:

<link rel=”icon” href=”favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”http://www.iconj.com/ico/l/k/lkssmv0×3a.ico” />

4. Save. Done.

See the LIVE DEMO in a Newborn Baby Blog here (note, You need to use Firefox browser).

NOTE: If it doesn’t work or there’s an error report from blogger.com, change any code < into &lt; and change any code > into &gt; Then SAVE and it’s DONE.

More details on How to create FAVICON see here.

If you’re lazy enough to create your own favicon, don’t worry. I’ve created for you (it’s a red-and-whie Indonesian flag). Just copy/paste the following code into your blogspot header:

<link rel=”icon” href=”favicon.ico” type=”image/x-icon”>
<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”http://www.iconj.com/ico/m/3/m3vo0uc2z5.ico” />

Wish you luck!

Related Posts:

• How to create Favicon
• Creating Favicon for Wordpress.com
• Comprehensive blogger / wordpress Tutorial