Performancing just announced their first ever blog awards. They’ve picked some great blogs. I’ve added a bunch of them on my RSS reader.

Check out the over 160 blogs from 28 categories. Don’t forget to vote. Also, if your favorite blog wasn’t nominated, you can still enter it in the “write-in” option box on the ballots.

Performancing, a popular blog about blogging for bucks, is accepting nominations for their first ever Blog Awards. Here are the categories:

1. The Best Overall Blog
2. The Most Influential Blogger
3. The Best Blog Design
4. The Best Blog Typography
5. The Best Blog Name
6. The Best New Blog
7. The Best Blog Community
8. The Most Improved Blog of 2007
9. The Best Blogs You’ve Never Heard Of
10. The Best Blog Podcast
11. The Best Use of a Corporate Blog
12. The Best Video Blog
13. The Best Writing/Blogging Blog
14. The Best Science/Technology Blog
15. The Most Controversial Blog
16. The Best SEO Blog
17. The Best Celeb/Style Blog
18. The Best Business/Money Blogs
19. The Best Photo Blog
20. The Best Sports Blog
21. The Best Blog WebHost
22. The Best Family and Parenting Blog
23. The Best Political Blog
24. The Best Food/Health Blog
25. The Funniest Blog
26. The Best Travel Blog
27. The Best Education Blog
28. The Best Entertainment Blog (Music, TV, Movies)

Go to this post and leave a comment if you’d like to submit nominations.

These are my nominations:

The Most Influential Blogger - johnchow.com
The Best Blog Design - problogger.net
The Best New Blog - freelanceswitch.com
The Best Blogs You’ve Never Heard Of - jergames.blogspot.com | basketbawful.blogspot.com | techsavvymarketer.com
The Best Blog Podcast - thebasketballjones.net/podcast (warning: explicit language)
The Best Use of a Corporate Blog - blog.prosper.com
The Best Video Blog - tvsquad.com/category/tv-squad-daily
The Best Writing/Blogging Blog - copyblogger.com
The Best SEO Blog - seobook.com/blog
The Best Celeb/Style Blog - celebritycowboy.com
The Best Business/Money Blogs - entrepreneurs-journey.com
The Best Sports Blog - truehoop.com
The Best Blog WebHost - asmallorange.com
The Best Food/Health Blog - candyaddict.com

As a search marketer, I find keyword trends interesting.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that Google Trends is a great way to keep track of hot keywords. Right now the big story is Jamie Lynn Spears getting pregnant. As you can see, many people are searching for jamie lynn spears pregnant.

And it’s also interesting that her boyfriend, Casey Aldridge, the one who got her pregnant, is currently the #2 hottest keyword on Google Trends. There is not much info about this guy, but I’m sure he’ll be a lot more famous in the next couple of days.

Having been participating in Performancing for the last couple of weeks, I’m glad to see that we’ve launched 3 new services that will be helpful for webmasters.

Authority Builder Service is a holistic view at building authority and promotion. Not only will your site get better rankings and traffic from Google, but we’ll promote your site to social voting sites and improve your site design.

Social Media Marketing Service is all about leveraging social media sites like blogs and social voting to get your site in front of a huge audience. We’ll create content for your site that is targeted to social media users. This leads to traffic and oftentimes many organic backlinks from reputable, quality sites.

Blog Management Service is for those looking to join the conversation in their niche. Blogs are perfect for communicating with your niche audience in a non-selling way. Oftentimes this approach is needed before people will trust you and buy your products. Whether you’re starting a new blog, need a blog reboot, or want a team to maintain your blog, Performancing can help.

I’m part of the Performancing team and I’ll be helping with link building, keyword research, and social media marketing. The guys I’m working with are really good at what they do so if you need help with your website, check out Performancing Services.

Men and women like to keep track of time. In today’s busy world, who has the time to be late for an appointment or business meeting. People adorn themselves with beautiful watches of many styles, colors, and values. But hether you buy a Breitling, a Rolex, a Cartier, or a Timex, there may come a time when you will need to repair that beautiful timepiece.

If you don’t want to part with your watch and send it away for repair, there are watch repair tools that can help even the novice watchmaker feel like a professional. These tools can help you fix everything from a broken clasp to repairing a watch bracelet, to simply changing a battery.

Do you have questions about the type of watch repair tools you need? Are you looking for information about a certain type of tool such as the Burgeon spring bar tool? Try doing a search online. You can visit informational sites and even a watch tool blog. You may be surprised about how much watch repair you can learn to do yourself.

I used to be into hip-hop awhile back - like over 10 years back. I’m old :-0

I would keep up with the clothes, the lingo, the hip-hop news, and especially the music. Well, I guess my tastes for culture and music have changed since then. However, I’m starting to crave a little bit of hip-hop again. Hip-hop today has changed a lot. You got rappers like Kanye West who came from middle class instead of the ghetto. You got MCs like 50 Cent with lucrative endorsements with vitamin water. The rappers today seem to be much more entrepreneurial.

Also, I’ve been listening to some pretty cool Christian rappers like Shai Linne and Trip Lee. I forgot how much I liked rap. There’s something about using words to create rhythm :)

Have any of you seen beatboxing? That stuff is pretty cool too.

Are you finally ready to make a life changing decision of bringing a new dog into your life? Are you contemplating on purchasing a new puppy or adopting a dog in search of a good home? Which ever option you choose, make certain to do your homework and gather plenty of information. Getting dog is a big decision and one that should not be entered into lightly.

There are numerous breeds of dogs to choose from. You should decide if you want a small or large dog. Also you need to decide whether you want a dog with short or long hair. Keep in mind that larger dogs need more room. If you have limited space you should stick to a smaller breed.

All dogs need plenty of exercise. Whether you decide on a large or small dog, you need to have a place to walk your dog. If you live in a high traffic area, most local parks offer an area where you can walk your dog.

Most everyone has heard of dog breeds such as the Great Dane, Golden Retriever, and German Shepherd. Some people don’t realize that many other breeds of dog are available. If you’re interested in choosing a breed that most people have never heard of, check out these five rare dog breeds.

There are a large number of dogs and puppies available for adoption. Since most people are looking for a dog that suits there lifestyle and personality, adopting a dog may be the way to go. Dogs or puppies that are available for adoption live in shelters. The people that run the shelters get a chance to closely observe the dog’s traits and personalities. Most of the times these people can help match you with your perfect pet. Check out this dog adoption guide for more information.

When you bring you new dog home, you should make an appointment with your local veterinarian to have the dog checked and to establish an ongoing relationship. Dogs have to have shots yearly and puppies have to have a series of shots each month after they are six weeks old. Establishing a relationship with a vet will help if an emergency ever arises. Dogs can become ill the same way a human can. In case you notice anything about your new dog that seems abnormal, you want to have your vet check them out. Here are 28 dog facts you should know about.

The school I graduated from, Southwestern Adventist University, attracts a lot of international students. I tutored in ESL (English as a Second Language) so I got to know a lot of them. Many of them came from South American countries. And being South American, they loved soccer, or as they would call it, football.

We would have debates about the real football. Was it the football with first downs and touchdowns or the football with penalty kicks and offsides?

Anyways, these guys loved football. They probably followed the latest football news like I follow the latest basketball news.

Maybe one day I’ll understand what soccer is all about. First I need to get in shape :)

1) Get more traffic.

I know, I know. Simple but vague advice. It works though. The more traffic you get, the more people will subscribe to your blog. Since I took the easy way out with this tip, I’ll give you an actionable way to get more traffic.

Find some high traffic blogs in your niche (use Alexa to compare traffic stats) and consistently leave quality comments on those blogs. Try to be one of the first 5 commenters on the post. You’ll get some traffic and hopefully some of them will subscribe to your blog.

2) Write unique, quality content.

Even if you get a lot of traffic, you won’t get much more subscribers unless you write unique, quality content.

Are you writing content that can’t be found anywhere else in your niche? Does your content meet a need in your niche? Is your content useful and/or entertaining?

Find a blogger in your niche that you look up to and ask their opinion on the uniqueness and quality of your content.

3) Make a call to action in your posts.

Many people ignore the sidebar, so even if you have a big RSS button there, you may not get the reader’s attention.

Encourage people to subscribe in your posts. Let’s say your a travel blog. Leave calls to action at the end of your posts that say something like “If you want more travel tips, please subscribe to [insert link to RSS feed].” Also, make sure to vary your calls to action because if they’re always the same, people will ignore them.

4) For certain niches, deliver your feed through email instead of an RSS reader.

In many niches, the audience doesn’t know what an RSS feed is. In these niches, it’s better to write about getting updates through email rather than through an RSS reader. Feedburner has a free service that allows you to deliver your feed through email.

I’ve learned a lot about blogging and making money online from Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com. And now he’s has an new paid membership site where he shows us how to create our own interactive paid membership sites.

In his site found at TeachingSells.com, Brian Clark teaches wannabes like me how to market our sites and also how to use multimedia to increase the site’s value. Did you know that most people don’t read? They would rather listen to audio or watch a video. Also, they learn better through those formats.

I haven’t had time to browse through most of the lessons. I’ve been busy. But from what I’ve seen, there’s a lot of great information. Also, I think the most valuable thing is the forums. In the forums, you can network and find people to work with. Collaboration will become more important in online marketing because when you work with others, you can create higher quality sites and products.

If you’re interested in teaching online to make money, check out TeachingSells.com.