How to check real-time Auto Fare using Android App

If you are in Bangalore, India or have plans to visit this place then there are high chances that you might get cheated by auto rickshaw drivers. As they may charge more than the meter or these driver have a tampered auto meter or sometimes they might take you round and round instead of going straight in the shortcut/ direct route. Outsiders or tourists will never know what the minimum fare is or where the location is. Even though there are many strict actions being taken by the local police, these drivers still try to cheat people when they come to know that you are an outsider. I used to avoid going by Auto rickshaws, but there were situations where I had to go and had no other option.

So, if you are in Bangalore next time, then try using an app named - 'Bengaluru Auto Fare' on your Android device. Using this free app which can be downloaded from Google Play store, below is the link. This app is meant for public in Bangalore region who prefer to travel by Auto rickshaw, using which you can calculate Auto Fare in real time.

Here is how it works: This app calculates the travel distance based on GPS locations and charges are applied to this calculated distance by the travel fares as mentioned by the government . Best thing is, this app can track the exact route taken by the auto driver, find pickup and drop address, calculate both day and night fare. 

Image Source: Bengaluru Auto Fare[/caption]

So, the next time you travel around in Bangalore don't forget to use this app. If driver argues then just show this app and the actual amount calculated using this app. Still, If that doesn't work then don't forget to capture the image of auto rickshaw number plate. You can then complain to the local police using other android apps along with the photo that you captured.

Note that you need to have a phone which has GPS in it and also, internet connection enabled. Be careful that this may lead to high data usage and battery consumption as the GPS is on. Give it a try and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Download 'Bengaluru Auto Fare' app here: [Link]

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Funny Google Ads

We all see Google Ads in different websites and Google Ads (Adsense) is considered the best when compared to any other when it comes to monetizing   your website. Also, most of them make the highest profit out of this when compared to any other. This may be true, but there are few things which Google Adsense has to improve.

Also see: How ads can drive traffic away

One is the approval process. There are just too many websites out there which doesn't comply with Google Adsense policies any they all have an Adsense account approved and I just wonder how and why. Let me not discuss about that here. The other thing we all might have noticed is the ads that appear.

People or the product owners pay a lot of money to Google so that their ads (Google Ads) appear in the right place at the right time so that it will convert into product purchase or people buy their product. I agree that Google does the best job in placing ads by looking into users search history and other cookie details, and place the right ads.

I recently searched for a camera lens and it's review and for almost one month the ads on the same lens from different camera stores started appearing on all websites which had nothing to do with the cameras. But if there is no search history then sometimes Google Ads can show you some funny ads as well. Here are few examples.

Also see: How to opt out of Ads in websites

Recently, there was a breaking news on Malaysian Airlines that went missing and the search is still on even after few days after this incident. I have been reading this article online in one of the leading news papers which had an approved adsense account and they were displaying Google Ads. While reading this article, in the right sidebar there appeared an Ad which asked me to book tickets in Malaysian Airlines. :'( Why would anyone want to book a ticket in the same airline company when you know that there was a disaster. Atleast, not till I know what is the cause of this disaster.

Also see: How to monitor Click Fraud in Adsense

Here is another example. Here is an article on a leading news paper - Times of India. RIP for the person who is dead but look at the Google Ad, the timing of this ad.

One more, few months back IBM India had given pink slip to many employees and that was one of the headlines. I went through this article as I had worked for IBM long back. When I opened this article, there was a text ad by a job portal which said 'Hiring at IBM'. :O Why would anyone join this company when they know that there is no job security.

Also see: How to place Ads in a website

Some of these ads will not make sense and as a publisher, when you place ads you will have to be careful. You may not get hits on these ads even though you have high website traffic. In such articles, you may place your own ads instead of Google Ads. Give it a try and let me know what you think by leaving a comment. Also, let us know your experience.

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Why is social media marketing plan important

I recently saw this post that was shared on Facebook by one of the top technology websites - Gizmodo which was totally unexpected. Felt bad initially the way how it was written that too by such reputed technology website, but later on the same day in no time that  post went viral. There is something that we all could learn from this viral post about their social media marketing plan. The same post appeared in different social media websites.

Also see: How to make your old Facebook post popular

Social media is very important these days for a website or an organisation to grow and show their presence to the rest of the world. And, social media marketing plan plays an important role. One way is to advertise every where which is very common but being creative to get more likes and shares can be challenging. Writing a viral post is not that easy, but these major technology websites have mastered that.

Also see: How frequently do I need to write a blog post

As you can see in the image below Gizmodo made a status update saying - "Why can't Russians keep building this insane stuff instead of invading countries and trying to start World War III?". The second half of this status update was enough for it to go viral.

Also see: How Facebook Page Post type can increase traffic to your website

I have no comments to make about the above statement, but just look at the number of shares and likes that they got and the debate that went on in the comments below. The status update that was made was short but powerful. By doing so, Gizmodo did not ask anyone to share, like or comment their post. All that they did was one debatable status update and by doing so viewers are forced to express what they have in their mind.

Also see: Art of sharing video on social media to increase web traffic

Gizmodo is sure to know that they have readers outside US, they might have lost few followers as well, but the way how this post went viral and the new likes that they might have got is far more than the number of followers who might have disliked it.

Also see: How good is ‘auto social media posting’ of articles

This way, their social media marketing plan was really good enough to attract more visitors, hence more traffic to their website and also their income from ads. It's a bit risky, but sometimes it worth trying. It's up to you to decide which  social media marketing plan works best for your website. Leave a comment on what you think about the status update made by Gizmodo.

Also see: How to get more customers by increasing social followers

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How to handle Web Scraping issue

How many times have you been in this trouble of someone copying your content. It really hurts when someone blindly does web scraping of your content and claim that it's theirs and also, worst thing is when they are ranked higher than you in the search results. There are multiple ways to find web scraping using various online tools. Web scraping has become a common problem for most of the publishers and it can be handled in multiple ways.

Once you know that your content has been scraped by these web scraping gurus and if you think that they are being ranked higher than your own website then Google can help you. Just fill up the 'Scraper Report' by Google and let them know that your content has been scraped. You need to include other details like - your content URL, exact URL on the scraper site, search result/ search input that demonstrates the problem and also you need to confirm that you are following web master guidelines and that you are not affected by Google's manual action. Once you submit, Google will definitely find who the real scraper is and investigate on this. Only after this, the scraped content will be penalized.

Also see: Why is it important to add Authorship to your Website

Here are few tips that you may try. These content scrapers use some automated tools to copy content which will blindly copy all the content, links and images from your original content. Some of the best ways would be to include your signature or website name or more like a watermark in your website images. Also, other way would be to leave internal links in between posts pointing to your own website. These automated tools might remove the hyperlink pointing to your site. You may try including or writing about your personal experience by including your name in between the post. The visitors of other website can now easily make out that the content was copied from else where.

You might be interested in reading: How to handle reappearing of fixed crawl errors

Web scraping is illegal and publishers can raise a DMCA complaint against those scrapers. Also, sometimes you as a publisher can take advantage of gaining some traffic. These visitors (on scraped website) will see your name or your website link in the images (watermark) and will visit your website. Give it a try and let me know what you think about content scrapers by leaving a comment.

Submit your request on 'Scraper Report' here: [Link]

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How frequently do I need to write a blog post

Many bloggers think that they need to write a blog post or more every day. And this is true to some extent. It basically depends on the type of traffic that your website or blog gets. The above holds good if your visitors or reader are mainly from your email subscribers who have subscribed to your to get updates via email to their inbox. Also, your every day traffic might also come from the RSS feed that you use in your website, those who have subscribed to your RSS feed. In short, these are returning visitors.

Also see: Understanding your blog traffic better

Same is the case with social media. When you write a blog post and is shared on any of the social media, you get traffic when there is a new blog post published as it will appear in everyone's Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus news feed. If you don't share any post then obviously your website traffic from social media will be low.

Also see: How to auto post on social networking sites

But, even if you don't write any blog posts for few days or weeks, you can still get descent amount of traffic, even though you traffic from email or RSS subscribers may come down. Provided, your blog posts/ web pages are indexed by Google or other search engines. You can continue to get traffic from search engine results. In short, the organic traffic.

Also see: How to get more returning visitors and increase web traffic

Let me give a simple example. I did not write any blog post for the past almost 20 days, but my traffic wasn't very low either. It did not increase, definitely it went down but not that bad. The reason is - most of the traffic that I get is from Google search engine and organic traffic. Which means, the traffic that I got were from my indexed web pages. This wouldn't have been the case if I were to have more traffic from subscribers or from social media. Also, note that this doesn't mean that subscribers and social media is not important.

Also see: How to know your website traffic source

So, in order to gain traffic even when you do not write a blog post is to share some of your old articles on social media, see that your webpages are indexed by Google search results by keeping an eye on Google Analytic report and reply to some of the comments and engage more on social media. Writing a blog post every day may not be possible for all of them as I have heard many complaining that they don't get idea or topic to write. You don't need to write blog post frequently, if you have more traffic from search engine, but if it's more from social media or from your subscribers then you might want to consider writing post everyday. Also, it depends on the topic that you write.

Also see: How Facebook Page Post type can increase traffic to your website

Let me know on how frequently do you write blog post by leaving a comment below. Also, did you find this blog post useful? If so then do us a favor. Share it with your friends on social media. Also, Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest updates.

How to make your old Facebook post popular

There are multiple ways to make your old Facebook post popular. One such method is to reshare your old post. But by doing so all your likes and comments will not appear in the newly shared post. Let me explain the other easy way to make your old Facebook post popular with all your comments and likes intact by giving an example.

Also see: How to manage Facebook news feed

I had uploaded few photos of the convocation day when I got my master's degree back in 2011. I got lot of comments and likes back then and these photos were lying in one of my Facebook photo albums without any likes or comments for few years now. But this morning now in 2014, to my surprise there were many notifications. I got many comments saying 'Congrats Ravindra' and many more along with multiple likes for my degree photo which I had uploaded almost three years back. I was wondering what happened all of a sudden and why my friends were congratulating now after many years without me sharing this old photo of mine.

Also see: How Facebook Page Post type can increase traffic to your website

I went through the first notification alert that I got  for the day and came to know that someone had liked this photo. This person visited my profile and album, liked this old photo of mine. And Facebook algorithm pushed this post high up in it's (all my friend's) news feed update. This Facebook post appeared just like how it would be if I were to share a new post or reshared a new post, but along with all my old likes and comments. Funny Facebook algorithm.

Also see: How to embed Facebook photo to your blog

So, the trick here was I started commenting on some of my very old post by thanking or replying to some of the old comments or liking the comments that were made on my old post. This made my old Facebook post reappear on top on other's news feed without me sharing the old post and also, with all the old likes and comments intact. You can use the same trick to make your old Facebook post popular.

Also see: How to promote your website post on Facebook

So, don't be surprised if someone congratulates you 25 years from now, on your wedding photo (uploaded on Facebook), your kids might get confused :D. And also, if Facebook survives till then. Give it a try and let me know if that worked.

How ads can drive traffic away

I have been experimenting with different kind of ads by different affiliates. If you are using Google Adsense then you cannot have more than three ads in one webpage. Adsense, buysellads or other similar programs have a standard size that you can choose from. There are few other affiliate programs which are mainly used by people who are new to blogging like the Chitika, Infolinks which are very easy to get approvals when compared to Google adsense.

Also see: How to opt out of Ads in websites

The problem with these affiliates is you don't have good control over how the ads appear. In addition to standard size ads they even have List Unit ads, intext, intag, insearch, inframe ads etc. You don't have control on how these ads should appear. Usually Google adsense ads appear as text or display ads which appear in the sidebar or top and in between text as a box.

I have seen ads from Chitika text ads appearing in blogs which will display part of the heading (three to four words) in four different lines. This is shown if there is no display ad to show. This text ad may appear as a text which doesn't make sense or displays text which has no grammar with few words from blog title or the tags that are used.

Also see: Understanding your blog traffic better

If you have a blog post which has too many intext ads and that too from different affiliates then your website/ blog visitors may get irritated with too many pop-up ads. Worst thing is if there are no ads to show then there will be irrelevant ads appearing like the one shown here. The text that is highlighted is 'Link Building' but shows an ad of Facebook which is not related. This can annoy users/ visitors with irrelevant ads, and too many ads can drive traffic away from your website.

I have been experimenting with these ads for a while and thanks to some of my visitors who were honest in giving feedback. Because of which I could easily make out as to what users did not like and what made them leave my website. It is important to consider user feedback else you might drive traffic away. Those who are new to blogging try different methods to make money online and will place ads from different affiliates and will not make money from any of them.

Also see: How to have the right keyword density per post

If you look into some of the popular blogs, you will find few display ads and not other junk ads. They see that content is highlighted more than the ad and this is how they gain more visitors and by doing so will not drive traffic away. Also, I have seen few other websites where there are too many ads and still they are popular. They know that they get traffic and this is the reason why they flood with so many ads. Simple example is - check out 'Times Of India' website - one if the top newpapers in India which has been publishing articles for more than 100 years and they always have breaking news on all topics. So, here flooding their website with too many ads will definitely irritate users. Even then, visitors come back and revisit their website because they have content.

So, here is what I recommend. If you are earning or planning to make money out of Chitika, Infolinks or other similar affiliate programs then see that you minimize the number of ads that are appearing else you might distract users and will drive traffic away from your website. Try to find out which ad unit is performing the best and earning the most and remove all other junk ads which are not worth placing in your website. Experiment it yourself on your blog. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Also see: How to get more returning visitors and increase web traffic

If you like this post then don’t forget to share it with your friends and follow us on Social Media or subscribe to our blog via email and be the first to get latest updates.