• Acquire more knowledge. You need knowledge to be influential. This is a very important point. Ultimately, you need to be an expert in your field if you want others to acknowledge you. Reading other websites about the subject, or even books and magazines should help you. All influential bloggers have extensive knowledge about the topic they blog about.

• Work on your personal brand. You want people to know who you are. Focus on marketing your brand in different places. Link exchanges and guest blogging are a cost-efficient way to accomplish this. You can also always take advantage out of paid forms of advertisement like Google Adsense or banners. You do not have to spend a lot of money, but it is important to work on your personal brand.

• Blog consistently. Of course, this is easier said than done, but you need to keep blogging, even if you feel you are not making progress. After some time, the blogosphere will notice your dedication to blogging. If you will blog consistently, then you will definitely achieve success.

Reading other bloggers guest posts and writing similar ones is not content stealing in my opinion. However, if one clearly copies and pastes another person’s posts, then this is definitely content stealing. He should worry about somebody finding out about this. It might be a good idea to list all resources that you use to write a post. Did you get inspired after reading a newspaper article? Feel free to indicate that in your post. This way everyone will know that you write your own articles and your articles are also going to look more professional. After all, all of the dissertations being written in universities often indicate various sources where that particular information.

Let us assume that you are visiting a popular online auctions website like eBay, and you bid on an expensive item that you really want to have. Then you notice that the item was not sold because it did not meet the reserve price. Later, you are contacted about a “second chance offer” from the seller, who agrees to sell you the item for the price you were willing to pay. The catch is that he asks for a payment/deposit before he sends the item, and guess what? He never sends the item. There are 2 explanations for this:

• Since you bought the item outside of eBay or any other auction site, you are not protected by the auction site at all. The seller will not receive a negative feedback, and there is probably little you can do.
• Since you bought the item outside of the auction site, there is a big probability that the person who received the money is not even the real seller! He might have used a similar email address as the real seller or some other means to fool you.

Some people look for really attractive offers on eBay, and later plan to resell them for a higher price. If you are considering earning some additional money this way, beware of all of the scammers. On the other hand, if you buy an item from a reputable seller you are being protected pretty well, so don’t start panicking.

I have always liked shiny things and objects. My family know about it and this is why every time I celebrate my birthday, they keep giving me some things that I can add to the growing collection of the items I have at home.

1. At the end of each post try to encourage your readers to leave feedback by asking them a question, or even a few short questions that they will be able to answer in their comments. This only makes sense if you enabled comments and are willing to read what your visitors have to say.
2. To make your posts more attractive, use pictures, graphs, and other visual forms of communication. One picture can mean more than even a thousand words. However, make sure that you do not use too many pictures, because you want your page to load in a reasonable time. Not everyone uses broadband connections yet, so such users will appreciate websites that load fast.
3. Make sure your website does not have a lot of downtime. It simply looks unprofessional and your readers may notice that. If possible, choose web hosting that has a guarantee of 99% uptime.
4. Always try to chose catchy titles for your articles that will attract the attention of your readers. You can see for yourself what I mean by catchy titles by looking at the top submissions at bookmarking sites like Digg.
5. Focus on writing “how to” type of articles. People love them, and they are always willing to read more of those in hope of learning something new. Make sure it is something related to the topic of your blog, and something that is actually interesting and useful. You can always ask your family and friends if you need someones opinion.