If you are into Instant Gratification when you build a blog or site, I can pretty much guarantee that won’t happen. But do not fear! Blogging takes time and effort. The odds that I have seen show that it takes a couple of months before you see any return on your hard work.

Once you start your blog and start networking, you will begin to find like-minded people you didn’t know existed. These people will now become your contacts.

Now here is where the excitement comes in: One day you will get an opportunity the comes up via your blog in a way you didn’t see coming. This happens to everyone who blogs out there.

Here are a few Strategies to Help you build a better Blog:

Offline Promotion~Use your existing newsletter. Do you have in-store signage? Within your industry is there a publication that you can place a small ad in? If you let people know you have a Blog they will check it out.

Contributions~Do a google search for “Blog Carnival” and you will find a lot of info. Submit your stories/articles to something along these lines or Ezine Articles. The more you get your name out there, the more people will see that you are a serious person with great advice and content to offer. These are great tools for finding new readers (and new writers to follow).

Collaborations~Collaborate with someone you know on a story. What do they say about two minds being better than one? If you both are advertising the same article, it can only lead to twice as much traffic.

Existing Site~Do you have an existing site? Add a link on the home page to your new blog.

Guest Writing~Offer to fill in for a Vacationing Blogger. You will be exposed to a whole new audience.

Comments~Post comments at other sites. Do this a LOT! Make sure that they are intelligent, relevant comments. You can leave your site’s address or URL. This will link back to your own site. People will click your name to find out more about you.

Forums~Post a note in a forum (search in Google for your industry~i.e. Gardening Forums) and tell everyone about your new blog. Don’t abuse their rules, though.

E-mail~Best way to promote yourself: include a link to your blog in your signature. Send an email to bloggers you like when you write something relevant. Do NOT spam them with every single post you make. No one likes this! They may even link back to you if they like your content well enough. Be sure to go back and thank anyone who links back to your site.

Link, Link and more Links~Ask politely to exchange links. The more relevant inbound links to your site, the more you get noticed by the Search Engines. You get traffic from the links and increase your search engine status.

Join Networks~Join blog networks. You get your name out there, others see that you have value-added content and this will result in people seeking out out. Do a search to find networks to join.

Social Bookmarking Sites~There are so many that you can join but here are a few: www.digg.com, www.reddit.com, www.del.ico.us.com. They will send massive amount of traffic your way. Be sure to study the “submitting” rules before joining.

Everyone is looking for quality content that they can trust. Submit this type of content and you will be followed. Submit “crappy” content and nothing in this world will save you Internet career.

Hope this helps!

Also filed at: www.betternetworker.com/diannehumphries

This post was written by Kevin Rose , the founder of Digg and the cofounder of Revision3 and Pownce. Kevin, who has over 88,000 followers on Twitter (making him the second most followed after President Obama), also “bloggs” at kevinrose.com . He is an investor in Twitter.

This post was written by Kevin Rose , the founder of Digg and the cofounder of Revision3 and Pownce. Kevin, who has over 88,000 followers on Twitter (making him the second most followed after President Obama), also “bloggs” at kevinrose.com . He is an investor in Twitter.

1. Explain to your followers what retweeting is and encourage them to retweet your links. Retweeting pushes your @username into foreign social graphs, resulting in clicks back to your profile. Track your retweets using retweetist.

2. Fill out your bio. Your latest tweets and @replies don’t mean much to someone that doesn’t know you. Your bio is the only place you have to tell people who you are. Also, your bio is displayed on Twitter’s Suggested Users page. Leaving it blank or non-descriptive doesn’t encourage people to add you.

3. As @garyvee says, “link it up.” Put links to your Twitter profile everywhere. Link it on your Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, blog, email signature, and everywhere else you live online. Also, check out the great feedburner-like badges from TwitterCounter for your blog.

4. Tweet about your passions in life and #hash tag them. Quality content coupled with an easy way to find it never fails. If others enjoy your content, they’ll add you. Learn more about #hash tagging here .

5. Bring your twitter account into the physical world. Every time I give a talk, speak on a panel, shoot a podcast, present slides, or hand out business cards, I figure out a way to broadcast or display my twitter account.

6. Take pictures. Pictures are heavily retweeted/spread around. This one from US Airways Flight 1549 has been viewed 350,000+ times. For mobile pics use iPhone apps such as Tweetie or Twitterific , both which support on the go uploading.

7. Start a contest. @jasoncalacanis offered a jasoncalacanis “>free macbook air if he reached the #1 most followed spot. That never happened, but Jason added thousands of followers…brilliant.

8. Follow the top twitter users and watch what they tweet. Pay attention to the type of content they sent out and how they address their audiences.

9. Reply to/get involved in #hash tag memes. search.twitter.com lists the hot ‘trending topics. Look for the #hash topics and jump in on the conversation (see #4 for links to #hash instructions).

10. Track your results. TwitterCounter will show you how many new users you’re adding per day and Qwitter will email you when someone unfollows you after a tweet.

Most of the time when you purchase a computer, Internet Explorer is the browser you are expected to use. It is right there, already on your computer; just click and start browsing.

But, there are other choices! Really! Firefox, Opera and Safari are choices…real choices.

Internet Explorer is slow, clunky, behind-the-times and because of that it takes up so much of your valuable time. Add up in a day how much time you spend waiting, waiting, waiting for IE to load something. And then, when you are right in the middle of an important item….uh oh…IE needs to shut down for the millionth time for an internet error! AAAGGGHHHH!

The competitors: Firefox (mozilla.com), Opera (opera.com) and Safari (apple.com/safari) really make your work day much more enjoyable. Tabbed browsing is one of the features that these innovators added to their browsers before IE. It is not just about the features, though, it about their overall execution.

Safari 3.1, which just migrate to Windows, is about twice as fast as IE7–even faster than Firefox. Speed depends on many factors so you may experience different results. Because these browsers are not bogged down by the OS like IE7, the systems operate much quicker.

Firefox 3.1 and Opera 9.51 come in Mac versions too. Both download and install effortlessly. To configure to one of these new platforms, just import your exxisting bookmarks and set your homepage. Also, download plug-ins like Foxmarks to sync your Firefox bookmarks across all devices on a network.

Safari’s look and feel (operation, menus and toolbar placement) are very similar to Firefox. Safari’s private browsing mode does not leave tracks in your history or autofill menu. Safari is less customizable than Firefox. Some of the better qualities are: security and multimedia.

Firefox now has tagging, a search library and other ways to build a browsing history so its new location bar can pop up sites more quickly. Firefox’s best features are: it’s overall responsive browser with a great set of features for daily use.

Opera has page management which is unbeatable and in-browser widgets. But, its default look probably devotes more screen space to icons, pull-downs and panes that the average user wants to look at every day. This browser and a lot of its features really seems more geared to the web page builder than the web page viewer. There is also Opera Mobile 9.5 if you are on the go! Opera’s better qualities are: cutting-edge activities.

All three are worth taking a look at as an alternative to Internet Explorer. I don’t know about you but I am pretty fed up with IE shutting down right in the middle of my activity. I believe IE is overworked and used by far too many people in the world for it to be the best choice any more.

What is your opinion? Which Browser do you prefer and why?