Posts Tagged ‘Blog Tips’

How to Add Related Posts to Your Blogger or Blogspot Posts?

Dec 3, 2008 Blogging Tips, Layout/Design

I am running several blogs using Blogger or Blogspot as my platform. From the very beginning, I always thought that the inability to add widgets to the main entry area, has been a disadvantage of Blogger. Well, except maybe if you know a little CSS and HTML. But for basic bloggers who usually rely on downloadable widgets and codes through the internet, this can be a disadvantage.

One of the most used plugins of WordPress blogs is the related or similar posts plugins, which Blogger users can only envy of. But who says similar posts have its only place in WordPress blogs?

Realtrix relates a detailed steps on how to add similar posts to Blogger blogs by adding some codes to your XML template. This hack shows a list of related posts (under similar category) below an exsisting post.

One way of showing similar posts is by adding your blog feed as page element under the main blog entry.  You can do this by modifying your layout.  However, this will only give an effect of showing the related posts of a certain entry because this only lists the recent posts made to your blog.  Nonetheless, it can also be a way of “gluing” your visitors and adding traffic to your website.

Popularity: 6% [?]

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Search Engine Optimization Basics

Nov 4, 2008 Search Engine Optimization

Have you ever paid attention when you see a group of people standing in line, waiting to see a superstar? Have you paid any attention to the crowd’s behavior? Do you wonder why whenever you see prominent public figures they are always being mobbed by photographers and news reporters? DO you see the common denominator of all of the above scenarios?

In all of the above scenarios, massive crowds of people fight to get in front where they could be seen or heard by the person of their concern. Although most people would rather avoid the melee of the chaotic environment with all the pushing, shoving and yelling – some people do not because it is their job to compete for the attention of the movie star, the prominent politician or the public figure. Those who get in front have the most chance of getting heard, they are the ones who will get their efforts rewarded – with an interview, the perfect picture or an answer to their question.

The situation is no different to what internet marketers call Search Engine Optimization – it’s all about competition, trying to get ahead of the competition in order to get in first. In any undertaking, competition is not only a struggle for survival but also dominance and control. Although there may be a few who would be contented to just get by, there are always those people who want to be the best at what they do and who are willing to do everything they can to succeed. This is the concept of SEO, its very heart and soul.

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Popularity: 64% [?]

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Make Money Blogging With Fresh Dynamic Web Content That Keeps Users Happy

Oct 29, 2008 Blogging Tips, Blogs, RSS and Podcasting, WordPress

Webmasters planning to make money blogging and preparing to launch their new blog should always bare in mind that it is extremely important to keep the design as simple as possible as this helps the site visitors to focus on your site. These days, most website visitors are most interested in being able to quickly and easily find the dynamic web content that interests them without getting bogged down with fancy bells and whistles.

Dynamic content has proven to be one of the most important elements in not only attracting targeted traffic to a website, but also in encouraging them back to the site again and again. Webmasters across all over the internet agree that it is much better to provide the things that web visitors crave so that they come back rather than constantly trying to attract new visitors. It is much easier to make money blogging when your blog attracts repeat visitors as most experts agree a site visitor often needs to see your message up to seven times before making a purchase.

Dynamic web content is not only of great importance to site visitors, but it is also a key element in how the search engines value the content and place the page in the search engine ranking pages, or SERPs. The major search engines all place a lot of value on content that is not only fresh and relevant, but also on content that is user generated as well.

Because of these factors, having dynamic content throughout a blog or site can weigh heavily in favor of a site that is diligently trying to make the most of search engine marketing. Good search engine optimization, combined with great web content that is regularly updated, is a powerful combination that can improve your potential to make money blogging dramatically.

Ranking high in the search engines for specific keywords that are directly related to the topic and purpose of a website is an essential internet marketing strategy and one of the cheapest ways to assure a regular stream of visitors, without having to go to the expense of advertising your blog or site. At the same time, once visitors arrive at a site that is filled with dynamic content that provides the kind of information they are after, they are more likely to bookmark the site, subscribe to your rss feed, or subscribe to your email auto responders that promises additional free web information on the topic they are interested in.

One key to generating dynamic content that visitors enjoy and benefit from and that the search engines are attracted to is to provide a way for visitors to interact and add to the content. Allowing visitors to submit comments about your posts will encourage open discussion and debate amongst your visitors. This encourages repeat visits plus the search engines love the fact that your pages are constantly changing and growing with more content.

WordPress is a popular blogging platform and it is a website development tool that can also be used as a dynamic web content type of management system. WordPress is free and easy to use, and it is widely used so there is a great deal of support, training and enhancements for the platform. With a WordPress blog even a person who has never built a website can quickly become a webmaster and start to make money blogging.

Popularity: 91% [?]

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Exposed Blog Traffic Secrets Of 200k Unique Visitors Per Day

Oct 22, 2008 Blog Traffic, Blogging Tips

Full time professional blogger Darren Rowse from Problogger.net has almost 400,000 visitors per day! Hong Kiat from hongkiat.com and John Chow from JohnChow.com has closed to 200,000 unique visitors per day! How do they do it? You won’t believe me if I told you how they get their traffic!

The secret behind blog traffic…

Just sit tight and be prepared, what I am going to tell you is huge, if you take this lightly, I guarantee you will fail! Without this step, you are just another blogger, no more no less.

Secret #1 - Join the BLOG Communities and build relationship with other bloggers.
You need a lot of friends to be successful on the blog business, each of them including yourself is the “salesman” for other bloggers! When I tell you those professional bloggers are sharing the **SAME** traffic, don’t be surprise, this is very true. Other people help you to promote your blog, and you will do the same for them.

Secret #2 - You must get the basic traffic - at least 100 visitors per day to start!
Don’t think for a moment 200,000 visitors will flood your blog in few months, you need time to reach those numbers, especially when you first start…After first blog succeed, you can start multiple blogs and build your traffic a lot faster with your first blog’s resources - Your communities’ help and experience from your fist blog.

Build up your basic traffic with consistent quality post, the very basic traffic will come from these Blog Traffic Strategies:

1. Forum
2. Articles
3. Blog directories
4. Bookmarking sites
5. And many more…

Secret #3 - Make Good Content Frequently.
You must put a lot of effort and passion into your blog, when your reader feels your passion, they will follow you from the start of your blog! This is extremely important to grow your blog traffic, do it CONSISTENTLY!

Secret #4 - Just Do It Until You see Results!
You may not see much result fro first few months, but if you are not giving up, you can expect some great result after 3 months! Your blog traffic will start to jump fast! All you have to do now is build up your traffic momentum, the momentum to make the snow ball roll, don’t gave up easily, work until you see some result and then scale out your result…

Just be patient, you can blogging for money very soon, just do it and IMPROVE what you are doing from experience, as long as you see a bit of progress, don’t give up… We all will be there for you!

Popularity: 97% [?]

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How To Get More Readers For Your Blog And Keep Them Coming Back?

Sep 26, 2008 Blog Traffic, Blogging Tips

Whether you have a business blog or a personal one you no doubt want as many people to view it and hopefully interact with it, and you, as possible. There are a few key things to remember when both primarily creating your blog and then promoting it to others.

1. Keep your readers in mind.  Make it easy to read and understand. Keep your writing clear and concise, while it doesn’t need to be grammatically ideal (at least for a personal blog) it should at least make sense.

2. Provide useful and important information for your readers.  In the first place, readers are seeking for information when they arrived at your blog.  Provide the most accurate and helpful information as much as possible to gain the trust of your readers.

3. Avoid unnecessary blog add-ons. Avoid using scripts that may cause slower loading time for your blog.  I’ve come across blogs with annoying music background on it. Believe me, it’s one way of driving away your readers.

4. Comment on blogs that are relevant to yours.  Somehow, commenting to other blogs help you gain friendship with other blogs. It will be a give-and-take relationship. You can also make a track back with your blog postings to comment on your own blog. This will give someone else the urge to track back to your blog.

4. Make your blog as interactive as possible; give your readers the chance to leave comments or feedback, the more reason you can give them to interact with you the more often they will come back; on that note you can also give your viewers the chance to subscribe to your blog so they receive emails when your blog has been updated etc.

5. Finally, where possible, keep your individual posts in related categories and provide an archive page that will help the reader easily find the information they were looking for.

Popularity: 63% [?]

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How to get visitors read your posts?

Sep 23, 2008 Blogging Tips

Content is king, this has been a common phrase in the blogosphere. However, readership also plays a major part in establishing your blog and getting good traffic. One of the ways to build readership is writing good posts, of course, and getting visitors read them. However, readers do not find all articles interesting. Only the few good written ones strikes attention.

So how do you make your blog posts and articles get read and enjoyed? Here are six good tips that will make your posts and articles readable and interesting.

  1. Use short paragraphs. Rd work to read. Not everyone is fond of reading. Lengthy paragraphs will just make a post boring and dragging. When the paragraphs are very long, the words get jumbled in the mind of the reader just looking at it. It can get confusing and too much of a h It’s always advised to be brief and concise on every paragraph.
  2. Use numbers or bullets. Bullets and numbers help stress out a point quickly. It makes the thought remembered and digested easily.
  3. Use sub-headings. It will be easy for the reader to move from one point to another.
  4. Use an attention-grabbing title or header. It’s always the role of the title – to grab attention. It the first thing read by the reader. Use statements and questions that utilize keywords that people are looking for. This is why “how to” and “top 10 tips” kind of title grabs the attention of the readers most.
  5. Use real life situations that can be adopted by the reader. Readers always love to read articles to which they could very much relate to. Personalizing your articles by stating real life situations and personal experiences can be one way of connecting with your readers.
  6. Use good descriptions and metaphors to drive in your point. Just don’t overdo it. Driving your examples with metaphorical situations and similes would make it easy for them to imagine what you are talking about, making the experience pleasurable and enjoyable for them.
  7. Use pictures and figures. This puts “life” to your articles. Pictures always speak a thousand words, and that includes what you are trying to stress out to your readers.

Popularity: 66% [?]

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Design Elements of a Blog

Sep 17, 2008 Blogging for Beginners

A blog may be essentially an online journal displayed in reverse chronological order but it is also a website which requires the same attention to detail any other website requires. It also requires the same design elements as a regular website which does not also function as a blog. Bloggers have decisions to make regarding design elements of the blog such as colors and layout, fonts and the inclusion of advertisements. Although many blog software programs provide a variety of templates which make designing a blog rather simple, blogs can also be highly customized by bloggers who possess some programming skills. This article will discuss some of the basic design considerations bloggers encounter.

Colors and Layouts of a Blog

The colors and layout of a blog is one of the most obvious design considerations bloggers must consider when starting or re-designing their blog. Bloggers may use a solid color background, blocks of different colors in the background or pictures or textures in the background. These background elements can be any color imaginable. However, bloggers who are considering the colors to use in their blog should consider using colors which will be aesthetically appealing to most blog visitors. This is important because the use of garish colors which are harsh on the eye can result in diminished blog traffic.

The layout of the blog should also carefully be considered by the blogger. The blog should be arranged in a fashion which is appealing to blog visitors, suits the subject of the blog and is presented in a logical manner which is easy for visitors to follow. Again, this is important because failure to use a layout which meets these criteria may result in blog visitors choosing not to visit the blog anymore because the layout is confusing or unappealing.

Fonts Used in a Blog

Bloggers have a number of options available to them when selecting fonts to use in their blog. These options include the font chosen, the text size and the color of the text. Bloggers should consider choosing a font which works well with the overall design of the layout of the blog and suits the subject matter of the blog but also is a font which common. This is important because blog visitors may have trouble viewing the font if the blogger selects a unique font which is not common. The text size and colors of the text should also be carefully considered. These elements are primarily important for readability. Text size should be set so members of the target audience can easily read the text. For example a blogger with senior citizens as the target audience may opt to use a text size slightly larger than usual. The colors used for the text should also be selected to enhance readability. One way to do this is to select colors which are appealing to the eye but also contrast with the background color.

Inclusion of Advertisements in a Blog

Bloggers must also consider the inclusion of advertisements when they are designing their blogs. This includes determining whether or not to include blogs. Once this decision is made, bloggers who opt to include advertisements must carefully consider how and where they wish to display these advertisements. Advertisements can be displayed in various locations throughout the blog and can be designed to be discrete or obvious depending on the preferences of the blogger. Advertisements can also be a variety of sizes and shapes and are highly customizable in a number of different ways.

Popularity: 33% [?]

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Creating a Popular Blog

Sep 10, 2008 Blog Traffic, Blogging Tips

If you want to make money through blogging, creating a popular blog is the key to success. If your blog receives very little traffic, you will not have much success monetizing it. No matter which method you use to make money from your blog, you will find the most success if you have a large readership. Because of this, making your blog popular and growing readership should be one of your primary concerns.

There are many ways to make your blog more popular. The first thing you should consider is who your audience is and who you are writing for. You should always write about something that interests you, and that will interest others. You may think that your new kitten is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but there are probably not very many other people who want to read a blog about it. It is best to find a niche audience that is large enough to support a wide readership but not to vague.

Blog readers are looking for interesting, relevant topics to read, not the next work of Shakespeare. Make sure what you write is interesting, edgy, or even controversial. Popular blogs are never boring and add value to reader’s lives either through information or entertainment. Make sure your blog adds something of value to your reader’s life otherwise you will not develop a large fan base.

Making your blog popular is a lot like driving traffic to a website. You can use many of the same techniques to drive traffic to your blog. Finding places to link back to your blog is a good way to drive traffic. Social sites such as Myspace, Facebook, and You tube provide lots of opportunities for this. You can also use social book marking sites such as Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg to promote your blog. Blogging on a popular blog site such as Wordpress and Blogger are also good ways to make your blog more popular as these blogging sites help to bring in traffic for your blog.

Whether you blog on a blogging network or you have an independently hosted blog, you need to make sure your blog is designed well. It is true that content is king and if a blog has great content is may receive lots of traffic even though it is ugly, having a well designed blog that is not ugly or annoying will help to drive repeat traffic. You want your blog to look unique, but not too unique. Keep with internet formalities such as blue links and use large font for headings.

You should break your post up into small paragraphs each with a headline if possible as internet readers tend to scan the screen looking for relevant information rather than reading everything word for word. Make sure your colors do not contrast too harshly and that the text is easy to read. Using good design will make your blog aesthetically pleasing and make readers more likely to come back and remain on your page.

No matter where your blog is hosted, you should try to get it indexed by all the major search engines. Some forms of blog monetization require that your blog be indexed by search engines before they will allow you to participate in your program. The higher ranked your blog is, the more visitors you will receive and the more popular your blog will become.

All forms of monetization for your blog require readers to work successfully. Before you try to implement your monetization strategies, make sure your blog has enough readers to make your efforts work. If there is no one to click your ads, visit your affiliate sites, or read your reviews, you do not stand much of a chance of making money.

Popularity: 40% [?]

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Five Most Important Things You Must Do for Your New Blog

Sep 7, 2008 Blogging Tips, Blogging for Beginners

Now that you have decided what topic fits in for your blog, and have chosen which blogging software to use, it should not end there. There are a couple of ‘must do’ steps before finally launching your new blog.

  1. Make sure you’ve configured everything. There’s nothing worse than having done 99% of the work, only to be let down by the final 1%. Get done with your profile settings like your About Me page, or any blog addons such as plugins (in the case of WordPress-powered blogs). Many plugins and themes require some work to make them usable.
  2. Pick a theme and stick with it. There are many available themes that you can use – either for free or paid ones, but make sure your blog will stand out from the rest with that theme., it is one of the major steps in retaining traffic and building readership. Adding a theme also makes you appear less like a spammer – most spammers don’t personalize their blogs and just stick to the default themes. Moreover, they don’t add personal information on the splogs.
  3. Provide good content. When you’re ready to upload the content, you should set it up to create a great archive. Make sure you categorize your posts accordingly.
  4. Promote your blog. Once you’ve got a nice stock of content up, start promoting your blog. Practice article marketing, exchange link with other related blogs, add your site to bookmarking sites and encourage your readers to do so, too.
  5. Enjoy your new blog. Blogging is just like any other hobby. You enjoy it and the best thing about it is you may earn from it. Blogging is about connecting with other people of similar interests and creates a reader base to discuss your work with. It also allows you to express yourself, make friends, and spread your expertise over the web. All in all, blogging is being social and having fun! readers and will give you a reader base to discuss your work with – but it will also allow you to express yourself, make friends, and spread your expertise over the web. But most of all, blogging is enjoyable, so always keep it that way, and have fun!

Popularity: 41% [?]

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Helpful Tips for Corporate Blogging

Aug 17, 2008 Blogging Tips, Corporate Blogging

Blogs are massive resources of information from both inside and outside companies. Businessmen survive the world of blogging because they know how and where to dig information while protecting their own secrets. Although blogging can be risky world for businesses, there are several helpful tips that can help bring success to corporate blogging.

The Importance of Training

It is important to make sure the members of the communications team. In the past, this team was composed of a small group. However, with the advent of blogging, everyone who blogs at the company is spreading a specific message about the company. People who handle the blogging for the company must be trained to avoid any spill of unnecessary information.

If by accident, important information regarding the company has been disclosed, this can put the company under the watchful eyes of the regulators. More so, inappropriate leaks can provide competitors with leverage and may lead to embarrassing revelations about the inner workings of the company and its staff.

Although the usual action to be taken is to restrict employees from blogging, this can be a shortsighted
decision. Bloggers from within the company can easily relate and make contact with potential clients and even enhance the brand of the company.

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Popularity: 39% [?]

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