One of the most incredible strategies ever to be incorporated with online advertising is article marketing. It has proven to be the most cost-efficient and most effective of them.

By the term itself, you probably would know what this kind of marketing is about. By writing articles that are content-rich, you will be able to reach more people online. Not only that, you will be able to project a credible image to those who may have chanced upon your articles.

With the internet now reaching world-wide market, there is a higher possibility of you getting the attention and interest of potential customers. This is what article marketing can do. If you have not been using this in your business, you are missing more than you know.

How does article marketing work?

Here is a guided tour on the step-by-step process of article marketing that will guide you on your way to achieving the kind of articles needed for your kind of business.

To start with, you need to premium a quality, informative and 300 minimum word article about a certain topic related to your business.

For example, if your business is about family living, you can write an article that delves on how to spend more quality time with families. Never write about something that is not even closely related to your niche.

After you have the content written, you can now include a resource box at the end of the article. The resource box is basically a brief summary about you, your business and with a link that goes right to your website.

Putting a link to your site in the resource box would is making it possible for many people who would get to read your article. This could essentially result to a large amount of new traffic to your site.

Then it is time to submit your articles to as many article directories you can find. Over the Internet, you can find various article directory sites. There are paid and free sites.

If you are on a budget, you may opt for the free submissions being offered. But if you have money set aside for your article marketing, paying for the submission sites is also a wise move.

Whenever somebody reads your article displayed on directories, the link that leads to your site is prominent enough for the readers to be able to check them out once they find your article interesting. This way, there is a big probability of you gaining more customers whenever find what they are looking for in your site.

There is also a chance that your article would get picked up by a printed publication, and the readership of the same would get to know the products or services which your business offers.

You should know that article directories are being displayed on various websites. They are seen by millions of people all over the world. This apparent visibility also makes it easier for search engines to index them.

The technique behind article marketing is back linking. Back links are links to your websites that you have somehow displayed on sites with higher page ranks. To put it simply, your site is basically sharing instant success with the sites you are linking to.

Getting indeed by search engines can be a long and trying process. Oftentimes, the result takes days or months before being acknowledged. There are even cases where, after waiting for a long time, the result you will be getting is not the one you expected. This is the main reason why Internet marketers have resorted to back linking. You cannot get this instant online recognition in the shortest of time and without too much effort anywhere else.

You can always hire a ghostwriter to write your articles for you if you cannot write your own articles or do not have the time for them. The price rate for writing articles is from 3 to 10 dollars.

With all the advantages being presented by article writing, there is no doubt why this has become one of the most often used Internet marketing strategy.

Try to do some article marketing for your site and see the positive results it will bring to your site.

A signature file on the tail end of your emails is a must. This is a great way of marketing your business. Even if forwarding jokes to friends who might forward them on to their friends and then they forward them on to their friends and so on. A good email could be forwarded on for a very long time and to many thousands of people. So why wouldn’t you want your business advertised on the email.

Signature files are also good to use in forums as they direct people to your website and you can hyperlink your major keywords to your website. This in turn creates links back to your site from every post that you do.

Take time to come up with a good signature file if you are using it for advertising. Don’t forget to put your website and contact information in your signature file. Add information that makes the person who receives the email care about your site or product. For example, if you are marketing a site that is designed to make money for others, add a line about the money they could be making now.

Use your signature file to promote and market your internet business. Try and come up with a slogan or theme to make people want to click through and look at your site. The main thing is to drive targeted traffic to your website.

If you’ve been focusing solely on the market you could reach online, then you’re missing some big profit.

The World Wide Web can be a very big place, but let’s face it. More people are actually not interested with the Internet compared to the people who are regular web users. You may be servicing a bustling segment of the online market today, but how long would it take before that segment of the market becomes saturated? And even if new people are logging online on a daily basis, you will have to compete with other internet marketers for their valuable attention.

So, how do you increase your market base? How can you ensure a more profitable business for your online enterprise?

One approach which has yet to be fully exploited is organizing local internet marketing seminars. These are workshops, symposiums, conventions and even boot camps that aim to teach people, live and in person, the real possibility of earning a living online, and the fundamental steps that should be taken to ensure the same.

Conducting internet marketing seminars would be very beneficial in so many levels.

* You’d be able to tap into the offline market and bring them online.
* Your audience would find you even more credible, as they won’t have to rely on written words alone. They will see and hear you, live and in the flesh, and this could effectively eliminate the hesitations usually caused by the anonymity provided by the internet.
* You’d be able to build your brand as an expert for being able to organize an event like an internet marketing seminar.
* You’d be able to promote your own products, more effectively at that because you’d be able to tell your audience about it in person.
* You’d be able to build a battalion of committed affiliates since you’ll be able to interact with your prospects.
* You’d be able to build great relationships, which could result in faithful customers as well as future joint venture partners.

Before you start thinking that organizing an internet marketing seminar is a difficult task, think again. With a little planning and solid logistical support, you’ll be able to conduct an event like this quite easily. Here are the steps you should take.

1. Choose a subject you wish to focus on. This subject should be particular enough for discussion. Basic lessons, techniques, tips and overviews are good topics for internet marketing seminars.

2. Try to determine if you could discuss the subject yourself. Be honest. Do you have the requisite public speaking skills for the job? If not, you should invite speakers from the internet marketing industry to discuss the topic before your audience. Some of your speakers would require a profit sharing scheme, others would do it for free for the chance to promote their brands. In any event, it is but proper that you provide for their accommodations and travel expenses.

3. Determine where you want to hold your event. A densely populated locality would be a great option. But the place where most of your mailing list’s subscribers are located would be an excellent option as well, to guarantee you the audience you need.

4. Find a suitable venue in the place where you have decided to hold your seminar. This could be a ballroom of a hotel, a university’s conference hall, or even a convention center if you’re planning to invite more than 500 people. You have to reserve the venue at least 3 months in advance.

5. Prepare the program of your event. If you will have several speakers, make sure that there will be an open forum after each segment to give your audience the chance to ask their questions.

6. Determine if you want to charge an entrance fee for the event. You could choose to earn from the gate receipts, of course. The price would be dependent on your overhead expenses as well as how renowned your speakers are. However, it is also a good idea to offer your seminar for free, especially if your expenses aren’t that big. This way, you’d be able to attract more people to whom you could efficiently promote your products.

7. Market your event as you would a digital product.

The logistical difficulty would depend on the magnitude of the event you will be organizing. For starters, you should keep things small, to help you gain the necessary experience. Once your efforts prove successful, you could start organizing bigger events involving bigger personalities in the online marketing scene.

Internet marketing seminars are excellent marketing options that would leave your audience fully satisfied, and your business fully invigorated with newfound vigor.

Marketing through auto responder series is a popular strategy to increase repeat website visits and sales. Here is a popular strategy.

EZINE EBOOK

Instead of trying to publish a small daily or weekly eZines, try publishing one large monthly eZine (similar to a monthly magazine) as an e-book format delivered via auto responder, preferably an Adobe .pdf file.

You could have it made up of a large number of articles per issue and insert regularly featured areas throughout like inspirational quotes, industry tips, favorite sites and advice from the pros. You could also insert full-color graphics, multimedia components like audio / video file links and ads. Then you can charge a monthly rate, with an annual discounted package purchase, and sell advertising spots to sprinkle in your auto responder announcements for each issue and with an informational series to announce your monthly eZine to new prospects.

In summary, by using customized marketing techniques like an eZine eBook, tailored to fit your own products and services, you can reach out and increase your website traffic and sales opportunities. Internet marketing can mean more ways to grow your business.

Also known as the “name squeeze page” or “lead capture page”, you can build your mailing list by funneling all of your would-be subscribers through the creation of a landing page. Not only do you do the work just once, your traffic driving efforts can be focused onto just one effective method.

The following are tips in creating a successful landing page that converts visitors into subscribers on a very huge percentage.

Success Tip 1: Offer a freebie in exchange for your visitor’s email address. I very much endorse this method of building your mailing list. You can offer a special report or a sample of your paid product to your visitor in exchange for their details such as name and email address.

Success Tip 2: The landing page must be written professionally. When writing your page, treat it as if you are writing a sales letter. While you are not necessarily making a hard sale or try to get someone to buy your product upfront, being able to entice your visitors to give their details to you is just as important as selling.

Success Tip 3: Other than your opt-in form and perhaps important disclaimers and terms, there shouldn’t be any other links on your landing page.

Success Tip 4: Rub in the benefits of the freebie you are offering more than a mere subscription to your newsletter. You should focus most of the attention of the letter on encouraging your prospective visitor to download your free offer. Later, you gently remind your prospect that he or she has nothing to pay but just merely subscribe to your newsletter in exchange for the freebie.

As a final reminder and conclusion, in order to build trust, you can include your hand-written signature or a photo of yourself explaining where you are coming from and how you can help your visitor through your free report on offer.

Viral marketing has matured a bit over the years. There seems to have been a shift to the web not just being seen by agencies and brands as another tick box for any ad campaign, which is significant enough, but now being the medium where a campaign is launched to create a buzz before it hits TV and print. Even before a movie is released which used to be seen as the pre-launch buzz-generation activity. Big business “gets it”.

Buzz works! It can work for small and start-up businesses, as well. The planning stage of a viral campaign will set out objectives and develop the viral theme for a buzz. There are three core components to any viral campaign and businesses of any size can use them. They are:

1. The creative material: the viral agent that embodies the message you want to spread in a digital format (image, video, text, etc). The trick is to put together material that people will be eager to share with their family and friends and people are much more eager to share “advertainment” and advertisement.

2. Seeding: distributing and placing the agent online in places that provide the greatest potential spread. Direct viral material downloads or links on specialist viral third-party web sites in order to create awareness and spread before users get to the campaign destination site.

3. Tracking: Measuring the spread of the campaign to provide accountability and prove success. It is absolutely vital that you know what is or is not working. The only way to get that information is to track the results of your seeding.

Lessons have been learned, trends have been developed and there is definitely some science involved in creating a buzz successfully. The buzz technique is here to stay and, if used strategically, it can make a difference to the success of your e-business.

Sometimes, advertising can be quite expensive. Though it is true that in the Internet, there are a lot of marketing channels you could avail of for free, often, you’d be competing with countless ventures in the said venues. This would result in difficulties with regards to having your business message stand out among the rest.

Hence, quite a number of Internet marketers have tried paid options. One of these is paid solo ads in electronic magazines, or eZines. It is widely believed that having a certain space in a popularly distributed eZine would be a very effective way of sending out your business message. Let’s analyze further.

The Power Of Ezines

People subscribe to eZines because they want to avail of the information that would be shared by the said publication. Basically, they DECIDE to receive the eZine issues. This points to a desire on their part to be able to read about the subject catered to by the said eZine. This is why an eZine’s subscriber base is usually called an opt-in list, because users opted to subscribe to the service.

How could this benefit you?

Well, since eZines have a dedicated base of subscribers, you’re sure to tap into a highly targeted market. Often, the failure of most marketing strategies is that they target a general market. The people who would receive their business message may not necessarily have the minutest interest on their products.

With eZines, you’re sure to have a subscriber base that would be perfect targets for your marketing campaign? And why not? They, after all, are subscribed to the eZine because they are involved with its subject. There is no reason why they won’t show the same fascination your what you will advertise.

Choosing The Right Ezine For Your Solo Ad

There is one rule in choosing the right eZine for your solo ad: it’s not the number of subscribers that matter, it’s how responsive they will be. You may find more success with an eZine that has 5,000 readers rather than one with 100,000 subscribers. Ezines with a smaller subscriber base usually mean a more focused audience. These are subscribers who opted for the service because they really want to, not because they were swayed by a sweeping promotional campaign that would reward them with a freebie in exchange for their subscription.

To know whether a particular eZine is responsive enough or your needs, ask the editor the following questions:

* What is the average number of subscribers that decide to make some purchases per offer, vis a vis the total number of subscribers the eZine has?
* What is the conversion rate exhibited in the mailing list, per offer?
* How many repeat advertisements has the editor gathered in the past months?

Writing Your Solo Ad

Once you have chosen the eZine that you know would serve you well, it’s time to write your solo ad. Keep in mind the guidelines below in composing your promotional piece.

* Decide on a format. Should it be a straight advertisement or an article that would promote your business? I would recommend the latter.

* Craft an attention getting headline. The headline is your chance to capture the interests of your readers. This should be fascinating enough to compel them to read the entirety of your piece.

* Your ad is not a sales page. It would serve you well to treat your ad as a means of capturing leads for future offers instead of directly selling your readers a particular product. People would want to read an informative piece, and they generally dislike being told what to do. Suggest your business if they have relevant needs in the future, instead.

* Make your ad concise. It doesn’t have to be long. The longer your ad, the harder it will be to sustain your readers’ interest. Go straight to the point.

* Enumerate the benefits. This should be the focus of your ad. What’s in it for them? Why should they choose your business? Why should they spend their hard earned money for what you are offering, and what you will offer in the future?

* Impress upon them a sense of urgency. This would be what people label as a call to action. Tell them why they should act as quickly as they could. For this purpose, you could afford them a discount or free bonuses if they would decide to buy your goods within a stated period of time.

These guidelines would assure that you will be investing on a solo ad that would be worthy of the money your will spend.

There are several advantages publishing your own eZine can offer to you. Thus if the pros appeal to you, then publishing your own paperless newsletter can be ideal for you.

The most obvious reason publishing an eZine can be the most ideal business to you is that it is so easy to start that any individual can do. There is no need to invest in starting a brick and mortar business or even staff and heavy machines for that matter.

In fact, you can do this from the comfort of your home as the most important thing you will need is an auto responder equipped with broadcast feature. Auto responders such as GetResponse.com and aWeber.com are highly recommended when it comes to publishing your own eZine.

In spite of the low start up cost and monthly fees, you can make money from several profit centers within the spaces of your eZine issues. You can make money from selling advertising space, just to name one.

Most importantly, you get to build your own personal media and spread your marketing influence, making you more valuable to product and service owners thus do not be surprised if you receive Joint Venture proposals every so often.

Given some of the best reasons in the world of Internet Marketing, publishing your own periodical eZine can one of the best money vehicles you will ever acquire or even build.

We all know that content is king on the internet.  The maxim has been cited so many times that it has already become a cliché.  Well, it has become a cliché because it’s true.  The internet IS the information superhighway.  The processes in the World Wide Web are fueled by information.  Users search for it.  Web publishers provide it.  And when you could give the information that people want, then you’re in business.  Whether your online endeavor is based on Pay Per Click (PPC) programs or the sale of digital products, quality content will drive people to your pages.

 

Indeed, content is your best investment for your online enterprise.  But preparing unique, premium content is often not enough.  You must strive to regularly update your content so that the search engine spiders would constantly crawl through your pages and fetch them for every relevant query.  This is the key to good search engine placement.  It is very effective…

 

… but it is also very demanding.

 

Writing good content is taxing enough.  Having to write the same on a regular basis could be difficult.  Having to write the same on a regular basis for several websites could be hellish.  Surely, there must be an alternative or two which could spare you from having to write your own content to update your website and win the favor of the search engine spiders, right?

 

Well, here are five fantastic alternatives that not a lot of people are employing.  Knowing them alone could give you the edge over your competitors in the race for good search engine positioning.

 

1. Try RSS.  RSS, which stands for Real Simple Syndication, is a technology that was first used by news wire services online.  RSS allows users to display specific files every time they are uploaded on a source website.  If website A, for example, generates RSS feeds to announce new articles uploaded to its server, and websites B, C, D and E are subscribed to website A’s RSS feeds, they could display the said feeds on their desktop via an RSS aggregator.  For online marketing purposes, these RSS feeds can also be displayed on your web pages.  All you need is to download some programs that would enable you to do this.  Make sure that you get an RSS-to-HTML reader, so that the RSS feeds you will display on your pages can be readable for the search engine spiders.  Afterwards, all you have to do is to subscribe to an appropriate RSS feed, and every time the source website would post new content, you’ll be able to display the same on your own website.

 

1. Create your own forum.  Online users normally gravitate towards forums that are dedicated to their own passions.  If your website has an attached forum, you’d be able to invite your visitors to sign up with the same.  They’ll be left to their own devices.  They’ll create threads about matters they are interested with.  They will pots messages to their hearts’ liking.  And you will have a virtual well of constantly updating content, without having to type a single word!

 

1. Integrate a feedback manager.  If you’re posting articles as content, then you might want to include a feedback system for the same.  This would enable your readers to leave their comments below the said article.  Basically, your article would serve as the catalyst for content that will continuously be added by interested readers who want to share their piece of mind on what you have posted.

 

1. Run a contest.  Offering a prize for the visitor who submits the most engaging article relevant to the subject of your website, for example, would encourage a lot of people to submit entries that you could use as your own content.  Just remember that your contest rules should include a term which states that submitted entries can be published on your website as a condition to their inclusion in the contest proper.

 

1. Run a mini-article directory.  Try to visit www.ezinearticles.com or www.goarticles.com .  See how these websites ensure for themselves an abundant supply of great content?  Simply follow their model, and implement the same on your website, even if it would be on a downgraded level.  You’d be able to guarantee for yourself a good flow of new content!

Lyn

Hi Everyone,

It is a cold winters day here in Adelaide, Australia.

I just thought id touch a bit on Adsense and the fact that you can really make good money with it or can you?…..

The answer ofcourse is yes you can make some great money online with google adsense. What is good adsense well it is a peice of code you put on your website or blog and google will post ads to your site that coinside with your content as long as your content is keyword rich it will target these keywords and display relevent text ads to suit. When these text ads are clicked upon by your website visitors you then earn a commission from google for every click.

You must never click yourself as this will lead to click fraud and google will terminate your account. Google pay you when your clicks equal $100.00 and believe me it doesnt take very long to earn that kind of money. In fact if you focus on just making money through adsense revenue then you can do this.

Creating an article directory is a great way of increasing your adsense revenue as this will give you lods of free content and the search engines will pick them up as pages on your site once your site has been indexed. As long as you keep your article directory clean and up to date you and do not allow any gambling or illicit type content then you can place your google adsense code on your article post script and each time an article is shown it will have the relevant ad shown as per the keyword of each article.

There are many niches that have high paying google adsense dollars. If you have an article directory then you will certainly contain content relevent to most niches. Like weightloss, making money online etc.

I personally have found google adsense to be a great source of revenue infact I make as much now from google adsense as I do with IMCÂ (The Internet Marketing Center= a free to join affiliate program. I make money by sending out monthly promoting there products and building my list).

Have a great day and remember when creating website pages to add to your site to build content always make each page keyword rich. Meaning build each page targeting a certain keyword so that relevent ads will be displayed. It is a lot easier to get someone to click on an adsense ad when thead is relevent to what they were looking for in the first place then just an ad that has nothing to do with what they were looking for in the first place.

Always remain focused if you decide that adsense is the way you want to make money online then go for it. Start building your site and make sure your site has hundreds if not thousands of pages the more the better. My article directory has over 17,000 articles by over 4,500 authors and is pulled up by the search engines about 5000-6000 times a day.

If you like this article then please leave me a comment id love to here from you!

Lyn

It used to be that people went to the library when they needed information.  Now they turn to the internet.  Even with all the information already out there, selling information still provides an opportunity for anybody looking for a product that is easy to create and quick to bring to market.

Selling information can be done in a variety of ways.  Often e-books come to mind when people think of selling information.  These are books produced online that are designed to be downloaded immediately after the customer orders them.  Newsletters offer another opportunity for selling information online. These are generally offered though a website.

Websites are also a source of selling information online.  Through websites, selling information can be done in a variety of ways.  Some websites offer subscription-only sites, where paid members gain full access to the site.  Others give information about products they are selling and then provide a link to the product.  Writers sell information to website owners when they produce website content.  Adding affiliate programs is one more option for selling information.

Selling information online has several advantages over selling other items.  Websites can be set up in a matter of hours.  There is no inventory when selling information.  If you are selling information in the form of e-books, there is no shipping involved.  The ordering and delivery process is completely automated, and you can even sell products while you are asleep.

Search the internet for ideas.  You will find a many people selling information on the web.  Maybe it’s time for you to join them.

Sources
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,316820,00.html
Lyn

The internet was originally designed for information.  It is still the place people turn to first when they need to know something.  Despite the years and the amoung of knowledge on the internet, there is room for more.  Information is a hot commodity.

Selling information has a lot of advantages over selling other products.  One of the more obvious advantages to selling information is that the same piece can be sold over and over again.  It is even better than selling a book because you don’t have to print anything.  Your costs to write a piece of information is the same, whether you are selling it to one person or to millions.

E-books are a popular way to sell information online.  You can send your manuscript to several publishers, risking rejection letters with every one, or you can sell an ebook and never receive a rejection.  There is very little cost involved, certainly a lot less than selling a product.  Your biggest investment is your time.

Information sells in other formats, too.  Many sites offer both free newsletters and subscription newsletters.  The free newsletters are designed to hook the reader until he wants more and subscribes to the paid newletter.  Often job sites will do this. Those who subscribe receive more job listings.

Information is the biggest seller on the internet.  There are many ways to take advantage of this.  Do some research to find the method that works best for you, and you may find you have and enjoyable way to make money.

Lyn

I have added some wordpress comments plugins to help make it easier for people to leave comments and for me to respond to them. I have also started a list of top commentators in the sidebar so the more comments you post here the likelihood that you will remain one of the top 10.

The comments plugins I have just installed and activated are the following:

Brian’s Latest Comments

Comment Relish

Rate Comments

Show Top Commentators

Im having a little trouble with the rate comments one as the insertion of code in the comments.php doesnt seem to work and I cant quite figure out where it goes so if anyone knows then comment and let me know.

I cant really tell if these plugins are successful until you comment so comment away and lets see where this takes us…

 

Lyn

The world wide web just keeps growing. Business realize the benefits of being on the web, but don’t always know how to design a good site. If you have some creativity and know basics about web design, you might be interested in starting a web design business.

Starting a web design business is not much different from starting other businesses. Just knowing how to design a website is not enough. You need to do some research to be certain you have all the tools you need. A computer and printer are essential. You’ll need graphics software and HTML editing software.  Remember that you are working for businesses, so you some knowledge of what makes a business site effective.

It helps to target a niche market. Find a field you’ve always had a passion for and develop ideas for that particular market. In this way you will stand out as one of the best in that particular field.

If you are just starting your web design business, you can learn some of the ropes by volunteering to help somebody put up a site or improve their site. Look at sites from local businesses and call them to offer your services. Often the smaller businesses have put up their own site with no professional help. They may welcome your skills, and will later serve as a valuable reference.

When starting your web design business, don’t forget that it is a business. Learn how to set your rates and keep good records for tax purposes.

As you consider starting your web design business, make sure you know what you need to know before offering your services. If you have creativity and an interest in building websites, this could be a business for you.

Sources
http://www.en-parent.com/Articles/art-frost.htm
http://www.powerhomebiz.com/vol37/webdesign.htm

Lyn

Hi everyone, I’ve decided to list some of the best free wordpress plugins and their links, they have taken me ages to find so I hope they are as useful to you as they have been for me. Ok here goes.
Akismet - Is a spam filter that checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they are spam or not, also checks the trackbacks for spam.

All in One SEO Pack - Out-of-the-box SEO for your Wordpress blog.

Ultimate Tag Warrior - Best Tag system for WordPress. You can use categories and tag system on one website.

Buy Me a Beer -Allow your blog visitors to buy you a beer by sending you money through PayPal.

Exec-PHP - Execute PHP code in posts or static pages. When this plugin is on you can add php code to static pages or even posts.

Google Sitemaps - This generator will create a Google compliant sitemap of your WordPress blog.

No Ping Wait - Speeds up posting by moving generic pings to execute-pings.php.

WordPress.com Stats - Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks. Requires a WordPress.com API key.

PXS Mail Form - Creates a mail form with multipart verification, various messages and an auto redirect on successful send. It is much easier to contact with website author.

Super Archive - Implements a dynamic archive, the best archives system I know.

SRG Clean Archives - Super clean archive. Very simple and useful.

Social Bookmarking RELOADED - Social Bookmarking RELOADED - Add the social bookmarks service’s icons to your articles in your blogs in order to submit them easily.

WP light box 2 - Overlay images on the current page for WordPress. You can turn it on and all images are now working with it.

fQuick - Side notes, short notes for WordPress. You can place it for example in sidebar.

CG-FlashyTitles - Implementation of sIFR 2.0 Flash-based - Nice graphical flash titles for WP. Very easy to install.

SimpleTags- Allows you to create a list of Technorati tags at the bottom of your post by providing a comma separated list of tags between the [tags] tags. You can use it with any blogging tool/method, not just when posting from WordPress itself (doesn’t use custom fields). Supports multiple words within tags. Also allows in-post tagging of words by enclosing them in [tag] tags. Works with the WYSIWYG editor.

flickrRSS - Integrate the photos from a flickr rss feed into your site. Show flickr photos on your website.

Feedburner Feed Replacement - Forwards all feed traffic to Feedburner while creating a randomized feed for Feedburner to pull from.

Gravatars - Adds a nice looking graphic next to the person’s comments.

Get Recent Comments - Display the most recent comments or trackbacks with your own formatting in the sidebar or where you want.

WP Paginate - Create pagination for pages. It is the best plugin for that makes navigation easy with many static pages.

wp-notable - Add social bookmark links such as digg or del.icio.us to each blog entry.

Adsense-Deluxe - Support for AdSense ads and allows you to add ads to posts.

WP-ContactForm - A way for people to contact you without actually emailing you, saves time, and great way to avoid spam.

Ultimate Tag Warrior - Single file(ish) version of Ultimate Tag Warrior. Good if you have include issues; Bad if you are programming.

PodPress - Got a podcast? PodPress makes it really easy to post podcasts, also includes an inline media player.

Related Posts - Link to related posts on your blog, which is based on the content of the post.

WP-Cache - An extremely efficient WordPress page caching system to make your site much faster and responsive. It works by caching Worpress pages and storing them in a static file for serving future requests.

There are some amazing free wordpress plugins available to use within your wordpress blog. In an effort to customize your wordpress blog you should maybe look at adding in and activating some of these plugins.
Lyn