The 5 Things They Didn't Tell You When You Started a Blog

In the beginning, it always sounds like a simple idea. I want to start a blog. Anyone can. But, there are some things no one tells you. I will tell you what I learned.

The "five minute installation" at wordpress is not "five minutes" but more like a four hour torture session. It's designed to check if you are serious about this blog thing. After four hours, I found the fantistco button on my cpanel and I was up and running. No one shared that helpful hint with me. I just saved you four hours.

Your theme is more important than you imagine. It is your reader's first impression. More importantly, it's not easy to change after you have posted for awhile. Spend more time on a theme than I did.

Traffic analysis tools like google analytics are required but I will issue a warning. It is the first person in the morning to tell you that you have no friends. Don't even think about visitors. Here is how it works. You wake up hoping that someone found your site in these early stages. Maybe they will subscribe too. But the stats say three visitors. They also spend less than two minutes on your site. It's more like a drive-by stop. Google analytics should just say "good morning, you are still a loser today. Why don't you write another post for you and your mom."

How many times have you heard "write content and the readers will follow". It sounds easy. In the beginning ideas flow on the blog. But, finding good ideas to write about everyday is not easy. I let search traffic guide me. Isn't that how the Google algorithm finds the best site. Hopefully, I can do that and convince new subscribers and at least one-third of my current subscribers( my mom) to return and read because the posts are good.

Another axiom is "contests are an easy way to get traffic". Who wouldn't want a chance to win a free prize? Don't count on a thousand visitors. But, isn't that what John Chow did. Then a week later the two people who signed up for it are laughing at the fifty-fifty chance at your free prize. The funny part is that you had to tell your mom that she can't enter. Now, you have alienated one third of your subscriber base already. One thing that helped me was that I found contest blogger. It's a great site that features blogs and their contests. It's one of those great sites. After you are done visiting, you kick yourself for not thinking of it first.


Author: Mike Gentleman writes about current hot search topics with a sarcastic tone at his website Whassupjack

What You Want To Do With Your Blog But Can't

Have you ever been faced with the dilemna of "To do or not to do" about your blog?

Have you ever been placed in a situation where much as you want to, you have to refuse posting items your friends or fellow bloggers requested you to post as you don't want any distractions that would dilute your blog's image that you worked so hard to build ?

Were there activities you would have wanted to undertake for your blog but again it is not in keeping with your blog's theme or image?

You are not alone? Could you imagine how a poetry blog would appear if it were sprinkled with all those blog awards? Poetry is a serious read and a blog on poetry must set the mood for its readers if they are to get absorbed in their reading experience and enjoy it. This means that distractions must be reduced at the most minimum level and those blog awards I am sorry to say are clearly distractions. Or take a Philosophy blog or a Political blog which are suppose to let their readers do some real thinking. Pepper such blogs with those fancy awards and surely their blog image will be altered. Think of the impressions of their cultivated readers who visit their blogs expecting some serious stuff only to be greeted by some kind of an award half of the blogosphere seem to have received.

The same could be said of contests. It maybe a good strategy to promote your blogs sponsoring contests but for some kind of blogs, contest could dilute the image these blogs want to project.

Bloggin Circle could be your blog's way out from such dilemna. We could run or hosts your contests. We could also acknowledge your awards in your behalf. All these services are free. No strings attached. It is one of the services we offer to blogging friends.

Image courtesy of:
www.oregon.gov/OLCC/

A One Stop Blogging Information Depot

Information is vital in whatever endeavor we venture into. Not equipping ourselves with the information we need, that is crucial to whatever business we intend to pursue before we undertake it, is on top of the list on how not to succeed with your plans.

Blogging is no different. If we are to blog and are really serious about it, we must provide ourselves with all the blogging information we need so as to stay on top of the heap and not be buried in the thousands of blogs that the blogging machine churns out each minute.

Having the right information saves us from making unforgivable errors and wasting our resources as we stir our blog to success. But the hunt for relevant information could often be a time consuming task. We need to sift through all the information and identify what is really helpful and what is just a junk.

Blogging Circle would like to answer that need as a way of response to one of its objectives, which is to facilitate the flow of important information to those who are new in the business of blogging and struggling bloggers alike. Building an information depot that bloggers could readily access will be on this blog's list of things to achieve.

Photo Credits:
Irina Savkina

5 Steps To Write Effective Articles In Less Time

Do you sit in front of computer for a long time to create a single blog post or article? Does it take too much thinking for you to come up with an effective article? If your answer was ‘yes’ to any of these questions, you should continue to read the post. Whether you are a blogger or a freelance writer or an article marketer, you need to write effective articles quickly. If you are doing one of those as a full time job, you must really use your time properly and try to write more articles in less time. Here are few things you should do when you sit to write an article or blog post.

1. Close Every Other Application

Ever installed any software? Few of them ask you to close other applications when installing it. The same should be followed when you sit to write an article. Close the chat client first. This is probably the one which eats up most of your time. Next, close your email client. Don’t have any other application open, other than your writing software. You should not open any of the applications when you are writing the article. You can open your browser when you want to look for some reference, but close it again as soon as you are done. Don’t check your blog traffic stats, AdSense earnings or anything else as well.

2. Do Research Before Writing

It is always better to do a little research before writing the article. This will help you to write an effective article. The quality of the article will show clearly that you have researched. Almost every blog post that hits the front page of social bookmarking sites is well researched and structured. By doing research, you also make your article longer and in depth.

3. Prepare a Schedule

Preparing a schedule will help you in saving time. Set a time for each and everything you do for the article. You can allocate 30 minutes or whatever you are comfortable with, for writing the article itself. Set 5 minutes for selecting an image. Also have 10-15 minutes for collecting references and coming up with a catchy headline. Within an hour, you should be able to create some top notch content.

4. Proof Read At Least Once

This is very important and most people skip this due to lack of time (or patience). This will prove to be costly when you are writing for some other person or for a client. Once you finish writing the post, read it once. If you have written many articles and don’t have time to proof read all of them, hire a person to do the work for you.

5. Do the Editing Till You Are Satisfied

Once you have completed writing the article, do the formatting works. Place the image at the right place. Give credit to the image author if needed. Preview the article. If it is what you wanted, publish the article. If not, continue with your editing and formatting. Add quotes to the post to make it more effective. Tie any loose ends.

Writing quality articles in short time is not an easy task, but if you prepare yourself and use a structured process soon you will be cranking paragraphs like there is no tomorrow!

Author: Ramkarthik

He authors Blogging Tune a blog which was started to serve the needs of new bloggers or intermediates by giving tips on blogging and making money online. It gives regular tips on unique ways to get traffic to your blog.

Seven Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic

Looking for blogging tips and tools to get more blog traffic? Here are seven ways to increase the popularity of your blog:

Viral content - If you want more traffic to your blog, you have to write interesting posts. People love short lists, funny topics, insights into your particular niche they can't find anywhere else, and your personal take on current buzz topics.

Be controversial - Be opinionated. Take a stand on issues you and your readers care about. Don't be afraid to go against the grain or take a negative slant on things. Controversy stirs people up and makes them want to find out more. Plus, your blog's comments will increase exponentially.

Technorati tags - Add Technorati tags to all your posts with keyword rich tag text. There are tools that will do this automatically by adding your category tag or create a tag from a keyword list.

Social bookmarking - AddThis has a great widget to enable social bookmarking on your site from one small icon. The nice thing about it is that a simple mouseover pops up a window listing all the social bookmarking sites, so you don't have to devote a huge amount of space to all the various site icons. Plus, you no longer have a dozen or more outbound links to all those sites from every post on your blog.

RSS Feeds - Make it easy for visitors to find your feed. Register your feed at FeedBurner and related sites. Prominently place their reader icons right next to your feed link because that's what they're looking for. Don't hide it!

Blog submission - Be sure to submit your blog to the hundreds of blog directories out there. Why? Because you get hundreds of links back to your blog which increases your search engine visibility. Hint: There's software that will do all the heavy lifting on these submissions.

Blog comments - Post comments on other blogs and link back to your own blog. Use trackback links for extra link juice with Google. Use Instant Blog Links or Blog Commentor to greatly speed up the process.

Many of these methods can be automated using the tools and resources listed below.

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About the Author: Kimberly Reynolds writes about website traffic for HitsUSA.com. Discover how to easily get free website traffic and top 10 Google rankings. Signup today for your free membership at HitsUSA.com

A Guide To Blogging For Newbies

Blogging has become more than just a trend. It has become a norm to online aficionados. If you're a true-blue frequenter of the Internet, you might as well maintain a blog. What does a blog accomplish you might ask? It's either for self-expression, reaching readers that share the same interest or promoting your business. Take your pick!

What if you have never gone to the realms of blogging before? Don't fret. Here are some blogging tips tailored to walk through noobs:

1. Choose a Blogging Software.

Newbies will be better off with free blog platforms in the meantime. Wordpress, Livejournal and Blogger are some of these free blogging software. Just fill in the blanks during the registration of your blog.

2. Choose a Catchy URL for your Blog.

What will you be blogging about? Will you be talking about basketball oftentimes? Will you talk about your job as a sales clerk? Is it about your dog? A short and easy to remember blog URL such as www.shootinghoops.(freebloggingsoftwaredomainname).com that can identify whatever it is you will be blogging about is a good URL candidate.

3. Post away.

Starting with an introduction of your blog is the best way to do it. Maybe a short biography or whatever it is you do or what you will blog about should prep up your readers on what to expect from your blog. Write post titles that either summarize your blog post or entries or will intrigue readers the most. Write short paragraphs if you are quite mindful in keeping your readers interested as too long-winding paragraphs usually turn off online readers.

Also, observing some blogging ethics such always giving credit to your sources if you will be quoting some other bloggers' work. Using proper link titles or anchor links is also another ethical blogging practice.

If you'd like to introduce your readers to your work more often, then post more frequently.

4. Respond to comments.

The feature that differentiates blogs from websites, aside from the reverse chronological order of posts, is the comment section. This is usually at the end of each post, wherein the author allows readers to react on his every post. Responding to comments is one way to optimize a blog since the more comments a blog receives, the more updated it gets.

As you advance as a blogger, you might want to get your blog hosted and get your own domain name. This will help you establish better yourself as a blogger in whatever field you choose to blog about.

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About the Author: The above article was written by Sarah Miller on behalf of http://www.babygiftstation.com

How To Write Interesting Blog Content

Blog is a free platform where you can write almost anything you like. Now everyone can create a blog and starting posting on it. However, it is your content that determines whether you can make money with blog or not. Below are some tips to help you to create profitable blog content.

According to studies, most readers love to read light and relax materials. So, the next time you publish your blog post, write things that appeal to your readers' interest. Let your readers get the necessary information and enjoy their read.

The next thing you need to know is that every bloggers have their own style and you might have a different opinion on some matters. You can express your personal opinions in your blog and your readers will appreciate that you show them a different side of the story. So, show your unique personality in your blog content.

Most of the writing guides nowadays agree that you need to address your readers as 'you'. This is because people like the feeling of being special. When you address your readers as you in the blog content, they will think that you are giving them your full attention. When you are able to make your readers feel special, they will visit your blog regularly.

Speaking of attending to your readers, you need to add some human touch to your blog content to make it interesting. Always remember that your readers are real people with real emotion. Your job as a successful blogger is to rouse their emotion and one of the best ways is to add some sense of humor in your posts.

Sometime your readers will be bored with your writing. Relax. Your blog content is still interesting. Just that they grew bore of looking at words. So, it is good that you can add videos or audios as your content once in a while so that your readers will feel something fresh from your blog.

About the Author: As making a living is becoming more and more challenging, don't you think you are more secure when you know how to make some extra cash online? Take a look at

=>www.BuddingPro.blogspot.com

Wong Michael is interested to help you to get more money into your bank account. He hopes to empower you with the techniques necessary and in return to learn something special from you.

Make Sure To Blog About Your Passions

An important thing to remember as you are making your decisions about your blog is to choose a niche or subject that you are passionate about. If you decide to blog about a topic because it is popular or it gets lots of traffic but you lack passion or an interest in the subject then you are doomed to fail.

For example don’t choose to blog about sports if there is nothing worse to you than spending the weekend watching game after game of football. Experienced bloggers will definitely agree that blogging without passion is a chore rather than a joy.

Even if you choose to blog in an industry that you have a great deal or knowledge about or if you intend to research and learn as much as you can about the particular area, there is a vast difference between that kind of blogging and blogging with passion. When you blog about something that you know a lot about, it is fun and exciting in the beginning but it does become work. After the initial excitement wears off, it becomes a daily chore to keep doing your research to ensure that you are up to date with all of the most recent breakthroughs in your chosen area of expertise.

Conversely, if you are blogging about something you are passionate about then it is probably is part of your life anyway and you would be trying to find out any new innovations even if you didn’t have to blog about it. Going back to the football example, if you are an avid supporter of your chosen team then you probably watch every game already and know all of the players and all of their stats. In this situation blogging will come naturally and easily. You will find yourself thinking automatically, “Oh that is something I can blog about”, or “That is something that I can share with my readers,” or “That is something that I can go out and find and write on my blog about this.” It just all flows so much easier when you have a passion for it. If you blog about your passion then you will never struggle for things to blog about.

Richard Branson sums up the topic of passion exquisitely. He says that he doesn’t look at work as work and he doesn’t look at play as play. To Richard, it all is just life. So, when you are passionate about your work, it is not really work. You might spend 20 hours a day doing it, which is a bit extreme, but you probably don’t look at it as if you are working if you are passionate about what you do.

The other thing about passion that when you are writing or speaking about a topic that you are passionate about, your readers or listeners can tell immediately. There is more excitement in your demeanour and oftentimes it is infective. When you blog with passion your content is more powerful and unique. You give more of yourself. When you are passionate other people are more interested in what you have to say. There is more energy and more of a connection between the blogger and the reader. This advice holds true for blogging but it also holds true in the rest of your life as well.

If you build a connection with passion then your readers will come to know, like and trust you and return to read your blog more often. It’s the emotion behind the information that makes the difference. It is easier to maintain a high level of energy in your blogging if the topic is close to your heart.

However, you may be in a situation where you want to become a blogger for business reasons and you may find it hard to find something you are passionate about in the first instance. Being passionate in your blogging is not necessarily related to the actual topic or niche of your blog. You may be excited about the concept of making money blogging or making money while you sleep. In this situation the passion lies in the strategy or business concept rather than in the niche or subject itself.

So start blogging about your passions and success will come naturally and seemingly effortlessly.

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Author: Ann and Katie of http://www.videotimesavers.com.

Why Do You Want To Be A Blogger

Blogging would certainly rank among the top most activity in the web today. If you are one of those who would want to dip his hand into the blogging pot, you are certainly not alone. There are 12 million blogs on the internet from the USA alone and every day over 120,000 new blogs are created. There are 1.4 million new blog posts every day and over 57 million Americans read blogs.

Why are blogs so popular?

22 of the 100 most popular websites on the internet today are blogs. The reason why blogs are so popular is because blogs are interactive websites. Blogs offer the ability to give and receive instant feedback and blog readers can voice their opinion and add to the discussion.

Blogs also provide free information which is recent and changes rapidly and after all, why do people surf the internet? For information, of course. The blogging platform is an extremely easy to use interface where bloggers can upload new information to the internet as often as they like. A blogger needs only the most basic of computer skills to start blogging. If you know how to turn your computer on and connect to the internet, you too can be a blogger. The wordpress and blogger platform are free pieces of software that are by far, the best tool to use for your blog.

But why do YOU want to blog?

To answer this question, first, we need to revisit the history of blogging.

In the beginning, when blogs actually started, they were online diaries. The term blog is derived from “web log”. People used a weblog as an online journal and talked about themselves, what they were doing, their activities and the events taking place in their lives just as they would in a written personal diary or journal. Even today there are a large number of blogs that are online diaries. These types of blogs are of benefit both to the blogger and his/her readers. It’s great to connect with like-minded people and share your opinions and views of the world.

Another group of people that like to blog are the ones that have special interests, maybe a cause that they support, a charity that they support, or a specific hobby that they enjoy. They blog to promote their message, and to interact with other people who share the same interests. They want their blog to serve as a kind of hub of information for their readers or target audience. These bloggers collect information from many different sources and present it to their readers in a central place. These bloggers create a dialog or conversation about their special area of interest and invite others to participate via their blog.

The third kind of blogger is the business blogger. There are many levels of business blogging or making money from blogging. It starts with something simple - for example, you might be an artist looking for a way to start selling art on the internet. A blog is a great way to promote yourself and your art. You can discuss art, your passion, you can talk about the meaning of your paintings and you can also talk about the work of other artists that you like and promote their work as well.

Then, of course on a completely different level there are the people that call themselves professional bloggers. Whether they are selling their own products and services, or simply selling other people’s products, they treat their blog as a business. Their blog is their passion and their full-time job. Although they might not spend 40 hours a week on their blog it does provide them with a full-time income and they take their blogging very seriously.

Corporate blogging is also being more popular. A corporate blog is a way for a large company to keep their customers up to date with new products and information. It also is a way for customers to communicate with the corporation and make their opinions known.

An Important Blogging Tip – Consider Your Blogging Goals First

To help you decide the kind of blogger that you want to be, it is extremely helpful to pause and think about what your blogging goals or intentions are.

Here are a few questions to consider:

Why do you want to blog?

What do you aim to achieve by blogging?

Who are you blogging for i.e. who is your target audience?

Once you have the answers to these questions you are in a much better position to start blogging. You now have formulated your goals and intentions and you have a plan. With a plan and a vision you have set yourself up for a successful blogging venture.

In the blogging world it is so easy to get distracted and to get lost in all the different avenues of information. So, when you really understand what it is that you want to do with your blog, then you can start to build on that. It is far easier to maintain your focus when you have a vision and goals to achieve. If you want to ramp up your success rate then write your goals down and stick to your plan.

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Author: Anne and Katie, http://www.videotimesavers.com.