Category: Blogging

Provided by another excellent ProBlogger case study. You’ll have to read the post “15 Blogging Tips and Tools – Blog Case Study” to see all the information, as the author also lists their favourite tools for blogging productivity.

But here’s a summary of the tips:

1. Post FREQUENTLY…
2. Think of your readers…
3. Love your visitors…
4. Be different…
5. PERSERVERE…
6. Never stop learning…
7. Go out of your way to selflessly help people, and you will be amazed what rewards you will receive.

A lot of new bloggers might notice that, after a while, they start to receive quite a few comments on their posts. All exceited, they rush to see who’s said what, and, noticing that someone has said “I like your blog, come check out mine” MIGHT realise they’ve been hit by blog spam.

I’ve been through this stage. I was excited when I was told that, while doing some research, so-and-so landed on my blog and really enjoyed reading it. I realised it was spam when I got the same comment over and over. Oh, and the fact that I could get my breasts enlarged if I visited their site.

There is a good article called “How to Spam with Blogs: A Tutorial for Every Wanna-be SEO” outlining a few of these spamming methods. Here’s a quote:

The problem with all blog spam is that it relies on SEO “tactics” that the search engines hate. Sometimes a nuisance, sometimes illegal and almost always results in more garbage on the Internet. There is nothing worse than having to wade through someone’s garbage to find good quality information. But one thing is for sure, for as long as blog spam works, one man’s garbage will continue to be a spammer’s goldmine.

On my blogs, because I’m using WordPress, there is a neat little plugin I’ve installed called “Akismet“, which, in the words of it’s creators:

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web serivce to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use this service. You can review the spam it catches under “Manage” and it automatically deletes old spam after 15 days.

Using this plugin, I’ve caught about 100 comments that are actually spam comments. This is nothing compared to what some blogs actually get. But it definitely helps.

If you’re planning on blogging for money, take a look at an article on ProBlogger called “Is Your Niche Nichy Enough? A Tale of Two Adsense Blogs“. This gives a very quick overview on how creating a site that targets a smaller market is possibly better than a site a very broad topic.

By now, you probably know pro-blogging success (AKA making money) depends on finding the right niche. Focus on a specific topic, and you draw readers interested in researching and potentially buying something related to that topic. Whether you’re into affiliate programs or pay-per-click advertising, it’s easy to capitalize on a niche audience.

Finding a niche can be really simple, and yet, why don’t we all find one?
One tip I can offer when trying to come up with a Niche: Think about something you enjoy doing, or even just researching, take it down to a granular level, and talk about that.

As the writer of the ProBlogger article shows, instead of writing about “warmth in the home”, which could mean fireplaces, as well as heaters, blankets, slippers, etc., they took ONE of these topics and focused on that.

Increasing the number of visitors to your blog is a topic that EVERY blogger needs to know about. There is a helpful post over at Performancing titled “10 Tips for More Blog Traffic” that gives a list of things that even an inexperienced blogger can do to increase visitors. Here are a few that I really recommend:

1. Claim your blog at services like Technorati

This is an easy option that has a few benefits, though in my opinion, 2 important ones:
People will more easily find your blog using the topic/keyword searches
You will be able to see how many blogs are linking to you

2. Use Ping services like PinGoat or Ping-O-Matic

If you are using WordPress, this is most likely already happening. (Ever notice how long it can take to publish your post??) Check out the settings at the bottom of “Options->Writing” in the Admin Console for your blog.

3. Use FeedBurner for your RSS publishing

I mention this when talking about my preferred WordPress plugins in this post: “WordPress Plugins – What and Why”

For the rest of the list, go take a look at the blog. Like I said, it’s very helpful…

Ok, so, put up your hands all those who are only here for this topic? 😉

Anyway, there are MANY ways to earn money from blogging. We can all see I’m using Google AdSense here, but here’s a very quick rundown:

• Per-Click Advertising – Probably the most famous of these is Google’s AdSense. This is a very simple way of earning money as it involves putting some code into your web pages, and Google’s system does the rest. It scans your text and finds ads it feels are most relevant.
• Affiliate Programs – This is where you put adverts on your page for specific products and you get a small commission if any items are sold via these adverts. A good example of a company that does this is Amazon.com.
• Selling Ad Space on your blog – This mainly happens when you have a large readership. You can then approach suppliers, (they could even approach you), and offer to sell them space on your blog to put relevant adverts on. They would then pay you a pre-arranged amount.

So, depending on what you’re looking for, there are many ways to earn money blogging. In future posts I will be highlighting a lot of them, but my focus will be mainly on Google AdSense. To give you some sort of optimism, there are people out there earning MUCH more than $10,000 A MONTH from AdSense. There are even videos that people have outlining how to earn money from AdSense. I won’t be showing any videos for AdSense any time soon, though. I like the idea of keeping things simple.

Here is a list of some things that you should try and do to make your blog easier to read, more appealing, and easier to scan. It seems to be a well know fact that, if you’re landing on a blog for the first time (which most visitors do on a new blog), they will scan the page, rather than reading word for word. So, you will need to use the following tips to make a page more attractive and enticing.

Use Headings:

This is something that is very effective. Using headings that stick out from the rest of the text will enable a reader who is scanning the page to see if the information on the page is actually relevant.

Use images in your posts:

Using images in your post helps relieve some of the strain caused by too much text. When you were small, did you ever enjoy reading books with no pictures? Pictures that help tell a story can enhance the story as well. And, of coures, a lot of text looks like a lot of BOOORRINNG!

You don’t have to be a top class photographer to put photos on your blog. You could also get some photos from free image and photo stock websites. There are a few subscription based, royalty free stock photos available, as well as completely free stock photos available. On some sites, the only requirement is that you notify the owner of the image that you will be using their photo. I will discuss some of these sites in a later post.

Make your blog visually appealing:

Whichever platform you have decided to use to blog, you will most probably be able to change the template of your posts. This means you will be able to change the look and feel of your blog. If you browse the internet you should be able to find quite a few free blog templates for your platform.

This has 2 benefits:

1. – Your blog looks more appealing and professional
2. – You can give your blog an original look and feel to it

Following these simple tips can really make your reader’s visit an enjoyable one.

Well, now that you are up and running (you are, right?), you’ll want to be able to get a few readers to your site in the hope that they will become hooked. Well, there are a number of ways to do this. Here are just a few of them:

Get your blog high in the SERP‘s:

This will be discussed in a lot more detail later on as there are a LOT of things that need to be done to faciliate this. Some of them are:

• Put a few relevant keywords in your post – You shouldn’t write about dogs without actually mentioning the word “dogs”, right?
• Name your posts properly – This is generally because the names of your posts become the title of the post’s page, and the Page Title plays a big role for Search Engines
• Become a blog that people link to – This probably won’t really apply so early on the life of a blog, but the more relevant sites that link to your blog, the better

Join Relevant Discussion Forums:

This will help quite a bit, because it might also give you some information to help you with your blog. There are a TON of forums out there on the internet, so it shouldn’t be TOO hard to find a few that are relevant to your blog’s topic. When you join a forum you will generally learn a bit from the other members (assuming it is an active forum). Not only that but you can ask people to visit your site if it’s appropriate. Just be careful, as joining a forum just to ask people to view your site is considered spam and can get you into trouble.

Visit similar blogs and comment on them:

This will also be beneficial because, a lot of the time, when you comment on other blogs you can leave a link to your blog’s site when you fill in your details. If you start leaving some useful comments on other blogger’s sites, they tend to come to your blog to see what you have to say. And, other visitors to the other blog follow your “comments” to your blog as well.

There are a number of options when it comes to hosting a blog. Some of them are:

• MSN’s “mySpace.com” – Quite a good looking blogging platform hosted by Microsoft. VERY popular, though not yet income friendly
• Yahoo’s “Yahoo! 360°” – Still in beta but getting quite popular I believe
• Google’s “Blogger” – A very popular and eary to use blogging platform hosted by Google.
• WordPress.com – Another popular blogging host. Also the creators of WordPress, which is a very popular blogging platform
• TypePad – A blogging platform hosted by “6 Apart”, using their MovableType blogging platform.

There is another, preferred way to blog, and that is to sign up for a hosting plan, and host your own blog. This way you will have FULL control over what can and can’t be done on your blog. If you browse for website hosting plans, you can see a few of the prices and options available from the different hosting companies for your hosting solution. Once you have found a company that offers web hosting, and you have signed up, you can then install your own choice of blogging platform, such as WordPress or MovableType. Then you are free to configure it as you please. There are web hosting companies that offer installation of WordPress or MovableType for you, and then, once again, you can configure as you please.

Choosing your blog content is key to the success of your blog. I mentioned before (in “Blogging Content”) that content is king. In this post I will try and outline a few points that will help you choose your blog’s content.

1 – Choose something you know something about.

This might sound obvious, but so many people out there don’t follow this. Of course, sometimes, the thing you know most about is yourself. It could also be about your profession, your hobbies, or your interests.

2 – Choose something unique.

You could struggle to find readers (well, readers will struggle to find you) if what you write about is not unique. Once again, everybody knows that “you are unique, just like everybody else”. Remember, web pages are generally found using Internet Search Engines like Yahoo, MSN and Google. If there are 25 Million other blogs about your topic, unless you’re pretty high in the search results, readers won’t know about you. For example, how about blogging about Digital Cameras? Take a look at how many results there are when searching Google for that…

But whatever it is you choose to write about, it could be the WAY you write it that makes it unique.

3 – Choose something interesting.

This might negate a couple of things I’ve mentioned above, namely, if you’re writing about yourself, will it be interesting? Not many people enjoy reading about what you had for breakfast. But there are a lot of people out there that would love to learn something new. Could you teach people something???

Here is a line that you might or might not be familiar with:

“Content is King”

In the world of blogging, this is the rule of thumb. There is nothing more BORING than a blog with no content, or, with content but it’s POINTLESS!!! It’s quite easy to see a blog with a “writer” that has not heard of the “CIK” theory. They generally have posts that say:

“I promise to write next week, I’ve been busy for a while”

“Yahoo, my grass has started to grow”

Some tips for writing good content:

• Keep it simple, yet entertaining/interesting
• Don’t write pages and pages of something. Break it down into chewable bites
• People LOVE lists. It makes information easy to see
• Make the content relative to your topic.

Hopefully this very brief outline will help you get started. Remember, the aim of the game in blogging is to write something so that readers will keep returning for more. If your blog is boring, you won’t be getting any subscribers…

Blogging is all about writing. Whether it is an online journal, a product review, or a help page. The only difference really is the layout.

The term “Blog” is an abbreviation for “weblog“, which is a method of posting your writings online in a reverse chronoligical order. This means, each new article you add to your blog appears at the top of the web page, and the previous articles appear below it, ordered from most recent to least… It is just a case of taking a blank page, and filling it with words that will attract an eager reader or 10.
As I mentioned above, blogs are a personal choice. Each blog can focus on something different, whether you are writing about personal experiences or not. If you would like to start blogging, I fully recommend taking a look at what is already out there, and get a feel for the process. Here is a list of some of the blogs that I read, in no particular order:

• Waiter Rant – An EXCELLENT blog written by a waiter in an Italian Bistro, writing about his dealings with customers and, sometimes, life in general. One of my favourite reads.
• Scobleizer – In his own words in his title, Scoble is a Microsoft Geek Blogger. BUT, the one thing that he has above other MS Geek bloggers? He works for Microsoft. An interesting read dealing with most things geeky but interesting. Also a frequent poster…
• Matt Cutts – Matt works for Google, specialising in SEO and Google’s search indexing. But he also blogs about a lot of other intersting things, like life at Google.
• Seth Godin – In his own words: “SETH GODIN is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change”. His blog is like a bucket that catches his little drops of wisdom that he occasionally lets loose. Another interesting read…

So, now you have a very TINY background about what blogging is. Enjoy the reading…