Blogging Tips : How to Start a Popular Blog

By : Deny E.Y
There are many ways, but some things that might be performed are as follows:

1. Get a simple and specific ideas about something that you have mastered, or the source of something already there or easy to find. Why should a simple and specific? And why the material should be easy to find?

Answer: The idea of a specific contact with the reader's interest, and search with a search engine on the internet. Just compare the following two blog titles: 1. Cooking Recipes 2. Cuisine Recipes South Kalimantan. Which you choose to visit? The majority would answer the second. Why? The title of a general nature do not generate curiosity, was too broad in scope, so as if it will open the blog was exhausting and a waste of time. Not so with the title or theme that is specific, this blog will satisfy people's curiosity about the cuisine of South Kalimantan. Find the hidden ideas (niche) you own. If you can find an idea that can satisfy curiosity most people, then you will have success in blogging, and would be flooded with traffic and becomes a celebrity on the internet. Wow!

2. Use keywords that match the blog title and most likely to be sought after by many people. Top Keyword must have been widely used by other webmasters, and this means you must be ready to do battle with the webmaster who is more experienced and better trained. But do not be afraid or lost before the war, it's better than you avoid popular keywords. Avoiding the popular keywords for me, tantamount to avoiding visitors.
There is always room for a newcomer, do not give up, select the keywords that you think the most interesting but least used by other webmasters. Do not miss also do the following: tehknik learn SEO (Search Engine Optimation) from the Internet or books, populerkan title / keywords your blog through blogwalking, social networks (facebook, twitter, etc..). Perform regular posts and load keyword at the beginning or end of the article.

There is always more powerful than us

Writter : Deny Eko Yuwono

The fact that what we have is not complete make us always seek to develop ourselves.
A webmaster sometimes have to do embarrassing things like: asking other webmasters.
Competition on the Internet is very hard, new things arise all the time, make new ideas become stale in a matter of hours. Thus we should not turn a blind eye to what is done by another webmaster. This is what makes consultation with their less embarrassing than just remain silent. Begging the information may still embarrassing, but it is not a taboo.

For me personally, which was still relatively new on the internet, nothing is taboo. He he he ..

Blogging Tips : Approaching Bloggers

5 Things You SHOULDN’T Do When Approaching Bloggers

Brian asks:

I know successful blog promotion is all about networking with other bloggers and practicing strong SEO. How exactly would you go about asking others to link to your blog and increase the quality link juice? Is it bad form to strait-up ask for a link, or propose a link exchange? Or is it the kind of thing that just naturally develops over time?

That is quite a pertinent question. Networking with other bloggers is certainly essential, but I see many people doing it the wrong way. Below you will find 5 things that you shouldn’t do when approaching bloggers for your networking efforts (with a bonus tip in the end).

1. Asking for a link to your blog, article or service

Albeit good your blog, website or service might be, don’t email bloggers asking for a link. Links are the currency of the web, and people don’t give them away for whoever comes asking.

Additionally, if you write an email to a blogger explicitly and exclusively asking for a link, there are high chances that your email will be sent to the trash folder as soon as the person gives it a quick glimpse.

This approach can do more harm than good, therefore, because it won’t get you the link in the first place, and it might also damage your image and burn a bridge with the blogger.

2. Stating that the audience of that blog will be interested in your article or service

Writing to some blogger stating that you are sure that his audience will be interested in your service or article is a lot of presumption. The blogger knows his audience, and he will be the one determining whether or not your service or article will be interesting to his audience.

Again, this approach might do more harm than good. If the service or article is indeed relevant and useful to the audience of that blogger, he will consider writing about it, because it represents an opportunity to give value to his readers.

Your statement that “his audience will love the service” will certainly not convince the blogger, but it might annoy him.

3. Proposing a link exchange out of the blue

There are many spammers around who mass email webmasters and blog owners proposing link exchanges. If you approach someone with this same style, guess what, you will look like one of them.

If you are trying to develop link partnerships where you will recommend relevant and useful sites for your readers, and where your partners will do the same, take the time to build a relationship first.

4. Proposing a deal where only you have something to gain

The summary of this point is: don’t try to be a smart ass. If you have a blog that receives 30,000 monthly unique visitors, don’t email another blogger who receives 500,000 monthly unique visitors asking whether he is interested in exchanging banner ads with you.

Networking is about finding win-win situations.

5. Asking before you give

This is a golden rule of networking: give before you ask. If you want bloggers to link to your service or articles, link to their posts first. If you want someone to promote your products, promote his products first.

This approach is even more effective is you do it genuinely. In other words, don’t link to or promote someone’s products just because you are hoping that he will return the favor. Do it because you think that his website or product has a good quality, and because you genuinely want to spread the word about it. If in the future the person returns the favor, that is a plus.

Bonus Point: How To Pitch Your Service or Article

You might be asking yourself: “OK, those are the things I shouldn’t do. How should I approach a blogger if I want him to write about my service, product or article, though?”

It is simple: write an email or use his contact form and go straight to the point. Mention that you have a service or article, and that you want him to take a look. Include the URL, and sign off. If the service or article is interesting and relevant to the audience of that blogger, he will certainly write about it. If it’s not, he won’t. As simple as that.

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5 Things You SHOULDN’T Do When Approaching Bloggers

Blogging Tips : Blog Tips (for Bloggers Who Have Been Around a While)

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been running a series of posts here on ProBlogger about how to grow a blog to the next level once it has moved past its launch phase.

If you missed some of the posts - here’s a full listing of them:

1. Building Upon Your Strengths
2. Converting First Time Readers to Loyal Readers
3. Keeping Fresh Content Flowing
4. Growing Traffic to the Next Level With Search Engine Optimization
5. Building Community a sense of Community on Your Blog
6. Shaping Your Brand
7. Expanding Connecting Points With Readers
8. Extending Your Blog Audience Beyond Your Current Network
9. Making Money - Moving Beyond AdSense

I hope you enjoyed this recent series on a topic that many bloggers struggle with.

A number of readers have asked for some more ‘beginner’ level tips on how to launch a blog - for those wanting this I’d recommend checking out the Blogging Tips for Beginners Series that we previously ran with a whole lot of tips more focused upon the launch phase.

Blogging Tips : 15 Things You Should Know Before You Start Blogging

I am in Rio de Janeiro right now for the SEO de Janeiro event. That is why we had no post yesterday (the welcome pool party required all my attention…).

The event goes until Monday, and after that things will go back to normal on the blog. On Tuesday I will also try to post a recap of the event here with some pictures, so stay tuned.

On the mean while, if you are thirsty for some blogging tips, check our the article from Neil Patel titled 15 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started My First Blog.

Here is how he started the article:

Over the last 3 years I created 2 blogs, my first (Pronet Advertising) is on marketing and my second (Quick Sprout) is on business. Although both of my blogs do well, I made my share of mistakes. I am not a big believer in regrets and I have learned a lot over the last 3 years, but if I started all over again, I would do things very differently.

Check it out!


15 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started My First Blog

by Neil Patel

Over the last 3 years I created 2 blogs, my first (Pronet Advertising) is on marketing and my second (Quick Sprout) is on business. Although both of my blogs do well, I made my share of mistakes. I am not a big believer in regrets and I have learned a lot over the last 3 years, but if I started all over again, I would do things very differently.

• Don’t blog about news

Within your industry there are probably dozens of blogs that write about the news. So why do the same? I know blogging about the news can get you more traffic, but it doesn’t provide your readers with much value.

Pronet Advertising was accepted into Google news a few years ago, this meant that it could appear really high in the Google search results for almost any search term. Due to this, I would analyze Google trends and write on things that were hot. This was a great way to get tons of traffic, but my readers didn’t care to read blog posts that were news related.

• Pick a niche

My first blog was about marketing, the problem with that niche was that there were too many blogs that already discussed marketing. Sooner or later I realized this and started blogging about social media marketing instead of general marketing. After I did this, my blog became so popular that it got into the Technorati 100.

Now I don’t have a niche with Quick Sprout, but if I had, it would be more popular. Make sure you pick a niche with your blog.

• Pick a big niche

As I mentioned above, my first blog was about social media marketing. Quick Sprout also had a niche at one point and it was personal branding. Both of these niches were so small, that I got tired of blogging on them. With my first blog, I just stopped blogging on it. With Quick Sprout, I ended up changing the blog from being on personal branding to business.

You want to pick a niche, but it can’t be too small. If it is, you may run out of content ideas.

• Be passionate

I wasn’t too passionate about social media marketing, which is why I stopped blogging on Pronet Advertising. If you aren’t passionate about what you are writing on, your readers will be able to tell. Just look at the content on Pronet Advertising, you can tell by reading it that I didn’t care about the blog.

• Don’t burn yourself out

When I started blogging, I used to blog twice a day. I got burned out and felt that I was writing too much. Blogging shouldn’t seem like a chore, you should enjoy it. I now blog once a week on average and I love doing it. Don’t force yourself to blog to often or else you will get burned out.

• Make money

There is nothing wrong with making money. If you are spending a lot of time blogging, you should be rewarded from it. With Pronet Advertising, I made money from ads and consulting deals that came through the blog. With Quick Sprout, I am not making any money from it, which is fine because I don’t care for the money I could make from ads.

If you are in a position where you don’t need money, that’s great. If you aren’t, you better figure out a way to make money off of your blog.

• Don’t spend too much on a design

I spent around $5,000 getting Pronet Advertising designed. What I didn’t realize is that you don’t need to have a cool design to have a popular blog. If you look at some of the most popular blogs on the web, such as Boing Boing, there isn’t anything special when it comes to their design.

The main thing you should be concerned about when it comes to your blog’s design, is that it needs to be usable and simple.

• Have a unique design

With Quick Sprout, I am using a generic blog design. It looks great, but too many people are using it. This is making my blog blend in with thousands of other blogs. Because of this, I have two options:

1. Modify the theme and make it look different
2. Change the design

• Write detailed content

If you look at the blog posts that I wrote when I first started Quick Sprout, you will notice that they aren’t too detailed. Until the last month or two I continued to write sub standard blog posts and because of this Quick Sprout wasn’t growing. Once I started writing detailed blog posts, my traffic increased and you started to enjoy reading the blog.

• Respond to every commentor

The biggest mistake I made was taking commentors for granted. If I responded to every commentor since the first day I started blogging, I would have built tons of relationships. After I started to respond to every comment, I got to know a ton of people on a personal level, such as you. ;-)

• Build relationships with other bloggers

If you want your blog to be popular, you better get to know other bloggers. The easiest way to make your blog popular is to get other bloggers to blog about you and your blog. Sadly, I didn’t figure this out until a year into blogging.

After I figured this out I started building relationships with many of the top bloggers. When I launched Quick Sprout I told these bloggers and they naturally blogged on it. This lead the blog to have a 1000 RSS subscribers within the the first 24 hours of launch.

• Pick the right blogging platform

My first blog was on Movable Type and this one is on WordPress. I had tons of problems with Movable Type such as comment spam and worst of all it wasn’t easy for me to make changes. Due to this I had to spend a lot of money on Movable Type developers. Once I switched to WordPress I was able to do everything myself. This saved me a lot of money and time.

• Don’t write for Digg

Pronet Advertising did very well because it got on Digg a lot. Digg traffic caused the blog to grow like a wild fire, but it caused me to lose my core reader base. On the other hand Quick Sprout hasn’t got on Digg more than once and I have a very strong core user base. This is the main reason Quick Sprout has tons of reader interaction compared to other blogs.

• Tell your story

Open up to your readers by telling them your life story. I didn’t do this during my first few years of blogging, but now I have a very detailed about page. I wish I did this from day one because it creates a stronger bond between you and I.

If you don’t have a detailed about page, you should consider writing one. Don’t be shy, make sure you open up to your readers.

• It’s not about you

Who doesn’t want to write about their accomplishments? Bragging may sound cool, but people don’t like it when you brag. I did this a bit when I started Quick Sprout, but luckily Darren Rowse from Problogger set me straight and showed me why it isn’t wise to brag.

If you want to do well in the blogosphere, write with the intent of educating, not to brag.

Blogging Tips : Choosing a Blog Platform

This post talks readers through some of the issues that they need to think through regarding choosing a blog platform.

• ‘Which Blog Platform Should I use?’
• ‘Should I use a free Blogger.com blog or get my own hosted blog on my own Domain? Which Blog Platform is best?’
• ‘What are the Pros and Cons of going with Typepad instead of WordPress as a blog platform?’
• ‘Should I start out on a free Blogging Platform and Upgrade later?’

These are just some of the typical questions that I get asked each day from bloggers starting out and attempting to make a decision on which blogging platform or tool they should choose.

I’m not going to tell you which blog platform you should use because, as you will see, there are good reasons for choosing most of the available platforms depending upon the goals of your blog.

What follows is my attempt to flesh out some of the factors a new bloggers might like to consider in deciding on a blog platform. It is probably impacted by own experience of blogging over the last three years and the preferences I’ve accumulated in this time. I invite readers to add to this post in comments below with their own ideas and experiences so we can have a more balanced and useful collection of tips for readers considering such a choice.

Some Questions to Ponder Before Deciding on a Blog Platform

As with making any important decision it is worthwhile to take your time with this decision. There are MANY competing blog platforms on the market (check out the results of a poll I did on the platforms ProBlogger readers use to see just some of them). While you can change your blog platform at a later time (many of them have ways of importing and exporting your content later) there are usually some costs associated with such transfers (and I’m not just talking money - ie changing from a free hosted blog service to a self hosted one means changing your domain which has implications on Search Engine traffic etc). I guess all I’m saying is that it’s best not to rush into the first option you find - take your time, do your research and you might find a blog platform that will last you for a long time. Start by answering some of the following questions and you’ll have every chance of getting on the right track:

What are Your Goals - Probably the most important thing to do when starting the process of choosing a blog platform is to consider your aspirations for your blog. Of course complete first timers might struggle a little with seeing the future of their blogging, but to the best of your ability attempt to answer some of these questions:

• Is blogging something I see myself doing long term?
• What will the main purpose of my blog be?
• Is my blogging more of a hobby or does it have some professional application?
• Do I foresee putting ads on my blog?

Of course there are many other questions you’ll want to ask (I’ve written a series of posts on thinking through blog strategy here) but the answers to these sorts of questions are worth keeping mind as you research blog platforms as some platforms are much more suited to the hobby blogger and others to more professional blogging applications.

A Note about Wordpress.com - if you’re going to use Wordpress.com (note again, it’s different to wordpress.org) you need to know that at the point of writing this they don’t allow you to monetize your blog. If your goal is to make money, don’t choose WP.com. They do allow some of their bigger blogs to run advertising and affiliate programs but not smaller blogs. They say they may allow this in the future, but there are no guarantees and you should probably consider another option.

What is Your Budget? - As with most things in life, blog platforms come with a variety of price points ranging from free through to more expensive options. There are three main things that you might pay for:

• The blog platform itself
• Hosting for your blog
• Domain Name

Different blogging platforms offer different levels of service. Some like Blogger.com and WordPress.com offer both the platform, domain name and hosting for free. Others like Wordpress.org (note this is different to WordPress.com) offer the platform for free but you then need to find and pay for your own hosting and domain name. Others still, like MovableType charge for a license for the platform (depending how many blogs you have and whether they will have a commercial, personal, educational or not-for-profit use - they do also have a free version) and then you need to arrange and pay for your own domain name and hosting.

Other costs you might like to factor in at an early stage include:

• design - all platforms come with free templates (some more professional looking than others) but if you want a more individual look you’ll either need to have some design skills, know someone who does or be willing to pay for a design.
• blog tools/metrics - there are any number of tools you can pay for to help you in your blogging. These might include stats packages (again you can get free ones but can also pay for more features), offline blog posting tools etc. If you’re a beginner you might not need any of these - but down the track you might find them useful.

How Technologically able are you? - This is a crucial factor to consider when choosing a blog platform. If you’ve never had any experience in creating a blog or website before and are not a technologically minded person then there are some blog platforms and set ups that will be much more suited to your needs than if you know a few of the basics, or at least are willing to learn them.

The other option of course is to find someone who is a techie to help you out (either paid or as a friend). One of the great things about blogging and most of the platforms out there is that there is a wonderful communal knowledge out there and many forums dedicated to helping people get the most out of their chosen platforms.

What Blog Platforms are Others Using? - While I am always advising bloggers to make their blog their own - when it comes to choosing a platform it might be worth finding out what others are into. Over the last few years different platforms have come and gone and I suspect they will in the years ahead also. My recent poll on the topic might be helpful to get a handle on recent trends - but as this post gets a little older you might like to do some research of your own.

Hosted vs Stand Alone Blogging Platforms

With the above questions in mind it’s time to consider your options and ask yourself one of the key questions that you’ll ask in this process.

Will you go with a Hosted Platform or a Stand Alone Platform?

I’ve already mentioned above when talking about budgets that there are a few options with what platforms offer but there are two main camps of blog platforms (and a few that offer a combination of the two - just to make things confusing).

Hosted Blog Platforms

This is the type of blog that many bloggers start out with, simply because they are easy and usually quite cheap (if not free). Probably the most popular of these systems is Blogger.com - but there are others like WordPress.com and MSN Spaces. TypePad also runs hosted blogs - although have the option to go with a type of standalone option also through remote hosting..

These systems are ‘hosted’ blog platforms because they ‘host’ your blog on their own domain. After what is usually a pretty easy set up process they will give you a web address (URL) that will usually be some combination of their own URL and the name of your blog. For example a popular WordPress.com blog is AtariBoy - who’s web address is www.atariboy.wordpress.com. You can see the structure of that address has two elements, his blog’s name first and then the wordpress.com extension. This means that this blog is being ‘hosted’ by WordPress as opposed to the blogger having to organize and pay for that himself.

Pros and Cons of Hosted Blog Platforms

Pros:

• Cheap or Free to run - most hosted options are free (of the four I mentioned above, only TypePad charges).
• Relatively easy to set up - most of these types of blogs can be set up with a basic default template within minutes. The set up is usually just a matter of filling in a few fields with your options and choosing a template design.They are ideal if you know nothing or very little about the technological side of blogging.
• Simple to Run - Once you’re through the easy set up process hosted blogs are usually pretty simple to run. You will obviously need to learn some basics, but these days most blog platforms come with very user friendly features. Posting is as simple as filling in a few fields and hitting publish.
• Updated Automatically - if the blog platform updates it will automatically do so for you. Instead of having to upload new software onto a server, these updates happen much more seamlessly.
• Indexed in Search Engines Quickly - one of the advantages of many hosted blog platforms is that they are put onto domains that have good page ranks already. While your blog won’t be indexed in search engines when you start, most bloggers notice that their blogs get picked up and ranked pretty quickly. In the long run they probably don’t rank much higher than other blogs on stand alone hosting - but they are a quick way to get into SE’s.

Cons:

• Less Configurable - My first blog was on a Blogger.com blog - the reason I moved from it within months was that it was so limited in terms of features and ability to design a professional running blog. Of course this was 3 years ago and Blogger.com has improved - but one of the biggest frustrations with hosted blog owners are their limited options for customization. This does vary from platform to platform within the hosted options. For example WordPress.com has quite limited design options (for instance you can’t ad ads to templates making it a poor choice to make money with), Blogger.com doesn’t give the option for categories and TypePad has different options depending upon which level you buy in at.
• Default Design Limitations - While this can be true for standalone blogging systems also I find that many hosted blogs end up looking very similar to one another. This is because the default templates get used over and over again and if you’re a beginner they can be difficult to adapt. For instance with Blogger.com to make changes (and you can make your blog look quite unique) you need to know CSS and HTML to edit your templates (something you need to know with other platforms also it’s worth mentioning).
• Less Control - Another common complaint I hear regularly from hosted blog owners is that they are frustrated by not having ultimate control over their blog. While they do own the content, the URL is not technically their own and they are somewhat at the mercy of their platform in terms of whether their blog is working or not. For example there have been times in the last few months when TypePad bloggers have been frustrated by their blogs being down for periods of time (something Blogger.com struggles with from time to time also). To be fair on TypePad - they did compensate their bloggers for this down time.
• Generic URL - having your own URL can give a sense of professionalism and memorability to a blog that hosted options might well go without. While there are some very successful blogs on hosted platforms some bloggers believe that having your own URL is much more professional if you are using your blog in a professional way.
• Upgrading to Standalone can be Tricky - Probably the question worth asking before you go with a hosted option is what you’ll do if your blog gets big or you get the blogging bug in a way that won’t let you go? One of the issues of starting out with a hosted platform is that if there comes a day when you want to go with a standalone one that you have some work cut out for you in retaining any traffic that you’ve built up. I’m not saying it’s impossible to do (I’ve done it myself) but there are implications of changing domains later in terms of taking regular readers with you, having to climb the search engine rankings all over again and redirecting traffic from one blog to another.

Who would use Hosted Blog Platforms?

If you just want a blog and don’t care much about having your own unique domain, are not too interested in tweaking your blog or getting all the latest and greatest features then hosted options are a completely valid choice. In fact it’s worth keeping in mind that while some may scoff at hosted blog platforms and say that serious bloggers don’t use them - there are some popular bloggers who use them very successfully. For example one of my daily reads is Robert Scoble has a WordPress.com blog, Post Secret is on a Blogspot blog (blogger.com) and Hack MSN Spaces is obviously an MSN spaces blog (all of these and others are highly ranked blogs in the Top 500 at Feedster).

Stand Alone Blog Platforms

The other type of blog platform is that which is hosted under your own steam on your own domain/URL. This is what I do with all of my blogs these days (apart from one or two which I started just to see how the hosted platforms work). So you’ll see that ProBlogger is hosted at ProBlogger.net and is powered by WordPress.org. I also use MovableType, for a number of my blogs. Other Stand alone blog platforms that many use include PMachine, Greymatter, B2Evolution, TextPattern and Expression Engine (to name just a few).

Pros and Cons of Stand Alone Blog Platforms

Pros:

• Full Control of Design - Depending upon your ability with web design standalone blogs generally are very adaptable. I am not strong in this area personally but am constantly amazed by some of my colleague’s abilities to create incredibly diverse and clever designs. Of course those bloggers with little ability in this area may either need to use default templates (with the same limitations as default templates of hosted blogs) or get others to help with this.
• Adaptability - One of the things I enjoy about WordPress here at ProBlogger is the vast array of developers who are coming up with all manner of ‘plugins’ which extend the ability of the basic WP installation. Similarly many of the other standalone platforms have communities of developers producing similar arrays of plugins (check out the plugins that ProBlogger readers use here for some examples of what is being developed).
• Free Platforms - while you end up paying for your domain name and hosting systems like these are usually free to run. Some do have license fees if you’re having multiple blogs or using them for commercial purposes - but many are open source.
• URL - Having your own domain name is great for many reasons. For one it’s easier to remember, secondly it’s more professional and hirdly it is more easily brand-able.

Cons:

• Complicated Set Up - once again this depends upon your technical abilities and web savvy but when you move into stand alone platforms the complexity of set up tends to increase. It often involves arranging hosting, setting up databases and then downloading the platform onto you own computer and then uploading it via ftp onto your web hosting server. There are good tutorials around for most of the platforms to help with this process but for many it is a daunting thing. Once again it’s not my strength so I generally get by blogs set up and designed by a professional designer (although recently have been learning to do it a little more myself). NB: one way around this is to find a web host that will install your blog platform for you. This is becoming increasingly popular. Some platforms even recommend hosts that will do it for you (eg see MT’s recommendations and WP’s recommendations).
• Cost - While the blog platform itself might be free you need to factor in the ongoing costs of having your own domain name (a yearly fee plus a one off registration fee) and hosting fees (again yearly). There are many great deals out on these so it need not cost the world - although if your blog gets a lot of traffic the costs do go up and you might want to consider going onto a more professional and expensive plan.
• Updates - Most blog platforms go through different and versions over time. Updating from one to another can be complicated if you don’t know what you’re doing.
• Hosting Issues - I mentioned in the cons of the hosted platforms that you have ‘less control’ over your blog and are at the whims of your platform’s hosting being up or down. Of course this is also true for any hosting as from time to time different hosting solutions can have their own problems. Whether you use a hosted solution or a stand alone solution it’s important to back up and be aware that from time to time things do go down. Choose a reputable host if you go the stand alone route to ensure maximum uptime.

Who would use Stand Alone Blog Platforms?

Stand alone blog platforms are ideal if you want a little more control or flexibility with your blogging. They can be configured to look and run very professionally and to be adapted into configurations that are limited only by your imagination. Of course just because you go with a stand alone blog doesn’t ensure you will have the perfect professionally looking blog. In fact if you don’t have the ability to set these blogs up correctly (or know someone who can) standalone blogs can be messy and non-professional looking blogs.

Examples of these types of blogs are many - The vast majority of the top 50 or so blogs at Feedster are stand alone blogs.

A Word About Remote Hosting Options

Some blog platforms allow a combination of hosted and stand alone blogs via remote hosting. TypePad and Blogger.com are two examples of this. They allow you to run your blog on your own domain and hosting but still using their system to publish your blog. I’m not too familiar with how Blogger.com does it but have seen it used effectively with TypePad. The beauty of doing this with TypePad is that if you are a beginner blogger and are not too confident with running your blog it gives you the ability to set up a blog without too much trouble but on your own domain name from the very beginning. This will make swapping platforms later a lot easier.

Summing it all up

This has been a fairly long post and I hope I haven’t lost or bored you along the way but it’s an important topic for new bloggers to think through.

To sum it all up I generally advise this. If you’re wanting to develop serious blog and have aspirations for it to be used on a professional sort of level (whether as a business or corporate blog, as a blog to build your own profile or a blog to earn income from advertising) I’d recommend you go in the direction of a stand alone blog. Even if you are not highly skilled in this area it’s worth spending a little money to get it set up with a designer or even better still, to learn how to do it yourself.

If you just want a blog for fun and to keep a record of your life for your friends and family and you don’t have the time, money or patience to put into it then a hosted option might work well for you too. They are instant (it’ll take 5-10 minutes to set up) and while they might not have quite the same level of features, in effect they may well suit you every need. Of course many hobbyists also go the stand alone option because tweaking their blog is part of their interest.

Further Reading on Choosing a Blog Platform

If you choose to use WordPress.com as a platform you might find Jon Symon’s video series on how to set it up on a domain and hosting worthwhile.

Macworld - The best Blogging Tools for the Mac - features a useful comparative table
Are you using the right blogging tool - Contains a helpful glossary and reviews of a few of the more popular blogging tools
Blog software Comparison Chart - a companion chart to the above article
Blog Software Reviews at a Glance - a page that links to a variety of in depth reviews of Blog Software packages at the Performancing Blog
Blog software Smackdown: The big 3 Reviewed - review of Movable Type, WordPress.org and Textpattern
Blogger.com vs WordPress.com - a review of these two hosted options
Blogger.com Review - review of blogger.com

By no means is this post the definitive guide to choosing a blog platform or software. I’m sure there are many experiences that the readers of ProBlogger could bring to this topic and I encourage you to share your own advice in comments below. I’ll update this page with what you teach me as I can.

Blogging Tips : Crawl before you walk

6 Step-by-step Instructions for Starting your First Blog

If you’re starting out in blogging for the first time it is easy to get ahead of yourself. In this post Aileen Journey from the Problem Solver Blog shares some tips on getting going with your new blog.

Image by candrews

Many new bloggers read everything possible on successful blogs. There’s so much information out there, in fact sometimes it’s way too much information. I find that my blog is not necessarily far enough long to take advantage of all the information. What happens sometimes is that beginning bloggers start to feel overwhelmed and like they’ll never be able to do what’s necessary to have a successful blog. I am a new blogger. I have started and run a variety of other businesses like a retail store and an online store, but the blogosphere is new to me

I went the traditional business route and got my MBA in 1996. The world has changed quickly since then. I’ve been blogging for just over 6 months, but started my only currently running blog at the beginning of December 2008. I only “discovered” blogs about 8 months ago, previously thinking they were all personal journals. The way I see them now is that they are mini-magazines, some more mini than others. They allow people to pinpoint their exact interests and just read the information that they’re interested in.

One: Consider your reason for blogging.

Go further than to “make money” or “become famous.” Those are perfectly good reasons for blogging, but what about them are what you want. What in particular do you want to become famous for, remember John Hinckley, Jr. shot Jodie Foster to become famous. I want to be known as an expert in my field of helping people figure out how to get what they want, personally, with their children and in their relationships. As for making money, are you thinking of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or are you thinking about enough extra money to go out to eat regularly? What about other motivations? Are you trying to convey some point of view or opinion, do you want people to pay attention to some issues, do you want people to support you in some situation? Every time you consider using a new idea you’ve read about online for successful blogs go back and see if it fits in with your goal. Will it help you get where you want or would it really be better on another kind of blog? Remember, a blog that earns money is a business. All businesses need specific goals or mission statements.

Two: Do your research.

Go through AdWords Keyword Tool or Worktracker and find which phrases and words within your topic are the highest searched and the least used by others. Make a list of them in order. Make sure you only search for terms related to your topic. People arriving at your site from unrelated words will make them annoyed, not ready to subscribe. Use one of the terms you found to use as the title of your site and perhaps as titles for your categories.

Three: Put together a basic blog.

It’s great to try to get every single cool widget and plug-in on your site as the big sites have, but start with the basics. Make sure you have your feed/subscribe information prominent on each page and after each post (feedburner’s feedflare can do it easily), put together an About page. Then choose a theme, set up some categories out of the terms you found through your research, make sure your RSS is working and that’s the basics of what you need to begin with. Down the line you can add more features. Don’t try to do everything at once.

Four: Start writing posts for each of your beginning categories so there’s something for people to find when they arrive at your site.

Don’t worry about making these brilliant. Write them up quickly in rough draft then go over them and edit them. Run spell-checker and grammar checker. Don’t let posts full of mistakes be posted, but don’t try to write it in perfect verse or anything.

Fifth: Get out there!

If you’ve used your research from step two then you can relax about search engines for now. They’ll find you when they find you. Immediately, though, you can get your own site out there. Comment on other blogs (use your blog title as your name), send guest posts to the blogs that you like and read regularly, and use whatever social networking sites you already use to tell others about your new blog.

Sixth: Be patient and keep it up.

This is not my first business and not even my first online business. Things take time. Try to look at your blog every day and see what might need a little tweak. If you can find some truly computer-incompetent people, ask them to look over your blog and figure out how to subscribe. If they can’t do it then ask them what might help them. When everything else is in place, choose the kind of monetizing option you want, AdSense, affiliate marketing, advertisers, etc. and start working on setting those up. No matter what you choose, it won’t do much until your blog has some kind of traction. Keep working on improving and enjoying the writing on your blog while you work to get it to take hold.

Blogging as a business is hard, as any business is. Don’t discount your efforts just because you haven’t made it to the big time in a few months. Instead of getting overwhelmed trying to perfect every piece of your blog business, do the basics to start with and build on it from there.

Blogging Tips : Starting a New Blog?

Start With a Mind Map

Yesterday we covered how to use mind mapping to come up with topics to post about.

As I was writing that post I was reminded of a very similar process that I went through when planning my last new blog - Digital Photography School.

I wish I could find the notebook that I did the exercise in (I’ve still got boxes to unpack from our move) but it was very similar to some of the mindmaps that I shared yesterday.

• The idea is to start with your over all blog’s topic/niche.
• Then to brainstorm categories
• Then to begin to brainstorm post and series topics

Here’s how it’d look:

The beauty of doing this exercise before you start a new blog is that you think a little strategically about the bones of your blog (categories) and before you even start blogging you have a road map of the posts that you want to write in the first weeks and months.

Blogging Tips : 9 Tips to Start Blogging Successfully

This post was written by Sudeep D’Souza

I have been blogging for close to 3 years just for the fun of it without realizing the amount of money you can make. One day while browsing the internet, I stumbled upon problogger.net and suddenly realized the opportunity out there. So I started to blog a bit more seriously and here are 9 tips that I should have implemented to have a successful blog.

1. Have a Consistent URL

The identity you create for your blog lies in the URL. Once you decide on a URL for your blog, do not ever change it. Every time you change it you need to popularize your blog all over again. Besides, the technical problem is that the search engines and articles that reference posts in your blog have links to the older URL and it can create a lot of confusion and hence lost readership. Choose your URL carefully and stick to it.

2. Choice of subject to blog about

Choose the subject of your blog with care and consideration. Your blog should mirror your passion and knowledge on the subject. Identify whether you will be able to consistently post on the subject. Some topics that are search engine friendly and that never really die out are technology blogs, product related blogs, city centric blogs and money making blogs. There is always news to give your readers and also there are a lot of points to discuss on. More challenging blogs to write are blogs on thoughts, ideas, short stories, poems. In these blogs you have to be able to provide self- driven original content whereas in the previous kind there are other websites from where you can draw inspiration and ideas.

3. High Quality Content can get hard to produce consistently

Posting quality content consistently keeps your readers engaged and makes them come back for more. In the initial days posting is easy since you will have a lot of ideas in your mind. However, delivering high quality content to your readers day after day gets tougher as time progresses and ideas dry up. You need to keep innovating and ideating constantly.

4. Marketing your blog is hard work

Once you have content in your blog, its time to tell the world. The challenge is – ‘How do you tell prospective readers that your blog has what they are looking for?’ Social networking sites like stumbleupon, orkut, twitter, facebook and a zillion other websites are breeding grounds for finding prospective readers. Building your network can be a time consuming, never ending task, but it doesn’t end there, you need to make the effort to make your network aware of your blog. The benefits can only be exponential. Getting them to post comments is a completely different ball game.

5. Technical know how is required

Lack of technical know-how can hinder you from tweaking your blog and giving it the finesse and feel that you envisaged for your blog. Serious bloggers will have to dabble with HTML, JavaScript and so on. It is this technology that can give the blog the uniqueness, user-friendliness and functionality that makes it stand out. Be prepared to invest some time in learning web technologies. Being search engine savvy can go a long way in getting the traffic that you are looking for.

6. Research, Read, Reflect

Every post is a brand new post. Don’t be surprised that you would have to regularly research on your topic, as there is always something new out there. Read what others have to say and reflect. It involves a lot of hard work, patience, persistence to read content, assimilate and formulate your own content. At times, you should be ready to dig deep within your self.

7. Expect to ride an emotional roller coaster

Do not expect an easy ride when you blog. You can put in a lot of hard work and then realize that nobody is commenting on your post and on the other hand you will write a one liner and you will have the whole world talking about it. You will have days when you will be banging your head against the wall wondering what to post about and then there will be days you have so many ideas in your head that you don’t know where to start. So be ready to enjoy the ride.

8. Be prepared to sacrifice something in life

Since all this hard work is going to use up your time, you have to be prepared to give up something. For those that have a full time job – your personal life or work life is going to take a hit. Maybe some of your other hobbies or interests will get affected. So you need to decide carefully on the things in life that you are ready to forego in order to become successful as a blogger.

9. Writing a good post takes time and patience

There may be few gifted bloggers out there that can churn out interesting posts easily. Some have this skill from practice, and for some, it is a gift, but for the majority of us it is hard work right from coming up with the title to the way the post is structured to the content of the post. Be prepared to go through many iterations of it before you come up with the post that you would feel proud to publish.

Blogging Tips : 3 Factors to Consider Before Starting a Blog

Maintaining Blogging Momentum

As I’ve pondered how to write about maintaining momentum (this is part 2 of a series) on a blog many of the suggestions that I have have boiled down to one thing - thinking ahead.

While I know many bloggers like to blog spontaneously and to go with the flow, I’ve found that planning a blog (both before you start it and in an ongoing way) can save a lot of heart ache later on.

Following are three of the issues you might like to consider ahead of time and before you start blogging that will help you later when it comes to maintaining momentum on your blog:

1. Topic breadth

Will the topic you’re considering starting a blog about be lend itself to being an ongoing project?

As I mentioned in my series introduction, there are two extremes when it comes to topic breadth that often lead to the death of a blog. The first is choosing a topic that is so broad that it becomes overwhelming and the second is choosing one that is so narrow that after just a few posts the blogger runs out of things to say.

One simple way to test whether a topic is wide enough is to search for news on it using tools like Google News or Topix.net. Look particularly for the frequency of news on the topic. This will give you an indication of whether there are stories breaking on the topic that you can bounce off on your blog.

Another test is to simply brainstorm what posts you could write on the topic. Simply put down on paper as long a list of post titles as you can as quickly as possible. If after 10 minutes you only have a handful of potential post ideas you might want to either widen your topic or find another one.

2. Energy Levels

Does the topic excite you? Are you motivated enough to write about it for the long term?

I made the mistake 12 or so months ago of starting a series of blogs on topics that I knew very little about and that I didn’t have sufficient interest in to sustain over the long haul.

While I did have some interest in the topics I was really kidding myself that I could write on the topics for long without slipping into a zombie like blogging state. In the last few months I finally ended these sub standard blogging efforts - they simply fizzled out due to a lack of interest.

Ask yourself what your passion and energy levels are for the topic you’re considering blogging about. Be brutally honest about this because as I found, we can sometimes fool ourselves into thinking we are interested in a topic when we are not.

Here are a few questions you might like to ask:

• Can you honestly see yourself writing on the topic in 2 or more years time?
• Is the topic one that you’re proud to be covering?
• Do you want to be known as an expert on this topic?

I’m not saying that you can’t start blogs on topics that you don’t want to be known for or that you’re not interested in - but these questions will help you to work out what your motivations are which is an important step in the process of building a sustainable blog.

If you’re not interested in your topic your potential readers will sense this and the chances of success will fall.

Successful blogs are almost always long term efforts and most do not really begin to see significant ’success’ for 12 or more months. They take a significant investment of time and energy and I guess all I’m saying is that it’s worth considering if the topic is something that you want to invest your life into for such a significant amount of time.

3. Time Audit

How much time do you have? Do you have time for this blog?

Different blogs will demand different levels of time from their blogger depending upon a combination of numerous factors:

• Topic - some topics are more dynamic than others in terms of how often they lend themselves to being updated, what type of posts they might stimulate and what potential traffic levels they might bring in (all factors that contribute to how much attention you’ll need to give the blog).

• Age of blog - I’ve noticed that my older blogs take more time to maintain. This happens for a number of reasons including the number of posts that people can leave comments on, the blog’s increasing Search Engine ranking, and an increasing profile etc. When you start a blog it might seem quick and easy to maintain but it will only become more involved and time consuming over time.

• Blogger’s Style - the style of blogging that you do obviously has an impact upon the time it takes to maintain. For example if you write a lot of longer original posts it takes significant time to write them. If you write in an engaging way that invites feedback the time needed to maintain comments sections increases.

Before you start a new blog do a time audit on your life. What spare time do you have currently? Is there any way you can free up more time for blogging? What upcoming life events do you have and how will these impact your spare time?

Doing a time audit is especially important if you’re considering starting multiple blogs at once. Many bloggers set themselves up for problems by simply starting to many blogs too quickly.

My recommendation is to start one blog at a time. Once you’ve set up a blog and have maintained it for a month or so do another time audit to assess whether you can realistically sustain another one. In this way you’ll only ever start as many blogs as you can maintain and you’ll give each new blog a real chance to survive rather than over stretching yourself and ending up doing multiple blogs poorly.

Step by step

Sumber : fatihsyuhud.com

“Ok, ok saya buatin.” Begitu jawaban saya pada beberapa email yang meminta saya untuk memberi tutorial step by step cara membuat blog gratis di wordpress.com. Awalnya saya agak ogah-ogahan karena saya pikir sangat mudah. Tapi karena banyaknya permintaan dari kalangan yang mungkin betul-betul baru di dunia internet, maka tutorial ini saya dedikasikan khusus buat mereka– para calon blogger potensial. Semoga kehadiran mereka semakin menambah semarak dunia blogosphere Indonesia. Tutorial di bawah ini merupakan serial panduan membuat blog di wordpress.com bagi yang pemula (sekali). Insyaallah akan diteruskan pada tulisan-tulisan selanjutnya. Untuk seri tutorial blogger.com/blogspot, silahkan mulai dari sini.

1. Buka www.wordpress.com
2. Klik Sign Up
3. Isi form
a. Username: -> isi nama blog sesuai dengan keinginan (paling sedikit empat huruf/angka)
b. Password: Isi password/kata sandi (sedikitnya enam huruf/angka)
c. Confirm: Ulangi password yang sama dengan di atas.
d. Email Address: Isi email Anda (apabila belum punya email, buat dulu di gmail.com atau yahoomail.com)
e. Legal flotsam: beri tanda tik di kotak yang tersedia sebagai tanda “setuju” dengan perjanjian.
f. Beri tanda tik pada menu “Gimme a blog” (biasanya sudah otomatis ada tanda tik di sini).
g. Klik “Next”
h. Blog Title -> Isi judul yang sesuai.
i. Language -> Pilih Bahasa Indonesia.
j. Privacy -> Kasih tanda tik (biasanya sudah ada otomatis).

4. Klik Sign Up
5. Akan muncul pesan sebagai berikut:

Your account is now active!
You are now logged in as (username Anda).
An email with your username, password, Akismet API key and important links has been sent to your email address.
Write a post, change your template or visit the homepage.

5. Itu berarti Anda sudah berhasil membuat blog. Silahkan login ke blog Anda. Berikut alamat penting untuk Anda:
a. Untuk login, buka: http://namabloganda.wordpress.com/login.php
b. Isi username (=nama blog) dan password.
c. Klik “Write” atau “Tulis” untuk mulai membuat posting.
d. Klik “Publish” atau “Tampilkan”

6. Selesai (kalau mau udahan, jangan lupa klik “Log Out”).

Catatan:

* Di wordpress.com, satu account hanya untuk satu blog. Ini berbeda dengan blogger.com/blogspot di mana satu account bisa untuk membuat beberapa blog.
* Kelebihan wordpress.com dibanding blogger.com adalah (1) comment friendly: pengunjung mudah berkomentar karena kotak komentar langsung terbuka di bawah posting. Bagi Anda yang suka dikomentarin, wordpress cocok untuk Anda; (2) Posting terbaru akan muncul beberapa saat di Dashboard (Menu Utama) seluruh pemakai wordpress.com, apabila posting Anda cukup menarik Anda juga berkesempatan masuk BOTD (best of the day) yakni 10 posting terbaik hari itu dan akan muncul selama sehari di Menu Utama (Dashboard) seluruh pemakai wordpress.com. Untuk BOTD ini diklasifikasi berdasar bahasa. Pastikan Anda memilih Bahasa Indonesia pada saat mendaftar (lihat poin 3.i.)
* Kekurangan wordpress.com dibanding blogger.com/blogspot adalah javascript tidak berfungsi (disabled) artinya Anda tidak bisa memasang iklan apapun–AdSense, Adbrite, dll–di wordpress.com. Tidak masalah buat blogger yang memang betul-betul ingin ngeblog saja, tanpa ada niat untuk iseng-iseng pasang iklan. Bagi yang ingin pasang iklan, dapat juga di blog gratis yang pakai software wordpress juga seperti blogsome.com atau blogs.ie. Sayangnya, kedua penyedia blog gratis ini masih memakai software wordpress lama (tak ada fasilitas widget, dan lain-lain).

Selamat ngeblog di wordpress.com

Blogging Tips : 6 Step-by-step Instructions for Starting your First Blog

Crawl before you walk: 6 Step-by-step Instructions for Starting your First Blog

If you’re starting out in blogging for the first time it is easy to get ahead of yourself. In this post Aileen Journey from the Problem Solver Blog shares some tips on getting going with your new blog.

Many new bloggers read everything possible on successful blogs. There’s so much information out there, in fact sometimes it’s way too much information. I find that my blog is not necessarily far enough long to take advantage of all the information. What happens sometimes is that beginning bloggers start to feel overwhelmed and like they’ll never be able to do what’s necessary to have a successful blog. I am a new blogger. I have started and run a variety of other businesses like a retail store and an online store, but the blogosphere is new to me

I went the traditional business route and got my MBA in 1996. The world has changed quickly since then. I’ve been blogging for just over 6 months, but started my only currently running blog at the beginning of December 2008. I only “discovered” blogs about 8 months ago, previously thinking they were all personal journals. The way I see them now is that they are mini-magazines, some more mini than others. They allow people to pinpoint their exact interests and just read the information that they’re interested in.

One: Consider your reason for blogging.

Go further than to “make money” or “become famous.” Those are perfectly good reasons for blogging, but what about them are what you want. What in particular do you want to become famous for, remember John Hinckley, Jr. shot Jodie Foster to become famous. I want to be known as an expert in my field of helping people figure out how to get what they want, personally, with their children and in their relationships. As for making money, are you thinking of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or are you thinking about enough extra money to go out to eat regularly? What about other motivations? Are you trying to convey some point of view or opinion, do you want people to pay attention to some issues, do you want people to support you in some situation? Every time you consider using a new idea you’ve read about online for successful blogs go back and see if it fits in with your goal. Will it help you get where you want or would it really be better on another kind of blog? Remember, a blog that earns money is a business. All businesses need specific goals or mission statements.

Two: Do your research.

Go through AdWords Keyword Tool or Worktracker and find which phrases and words within your topic are the highest searched and the least used by others. Make a list of them in order. Make sure you only search for terms related to your topic. People arriving at your site from unrelated words will make them annoyed, not ready to subscribe. Use one of the terms you found to use as the title of your site and perhaps as titles for your categories.

Three: Put together a basic blog.

It’s great to try to get every single cool widget and plug-in on your site as the big sites have, but start with the basics. Make sure you have your feed/subscribe information prominent on each page and after each post (feedburner’s feedflare can do it easily), put together an About page. Then choose a theme, set up some categories out of the terms you found through your research, make sure your RSS is working and that’s the basics of what you need to begin with. Down the line you can add more features. Don’t try to do everything at once.

Four: Start writing posts for each of your beginning categories so there’s something for people to find when they arrive at your site.

Don’t worry about making these brilliant. Write them up quickly in rough draft then go over them and edit them. Run spell-checker and grammar checker. Don’t let posts full of mistakes be posted, but don’t try to write it in perfect verse or anything.

Fifth: Get out there!

If you’ve used your research from step two then you can relax about search engines for now. They’ll find you when they find you. Immediately, though, you can get your own site out there. Comment on other blogs (use your blog title as your name), send guest posts to the blogs that you like and read regularly, and use whatever social networking sites you already use to tell others about your new blog.

Sixth: Be patient and keep it up.

This is not my first business and not even my first online business. Things take time. Try to look at your blog every day and see what might need a little tweak. If you can find some truly computer-incompetent people, ask them to look over your blog and figure out how to subscribe. If they can’t do it then ask them what might help them. When everything else is in place, choose the kind of monetizing option you want, AdSense, affiliate marketing, advertisers, etc. and start working on setting those up. No matter what you choose, it won’t do much until your blog has some kind of traction. Keep working on improving and enjoying the writing on your blog while you work to get it to take hold.

Blogging as a business is hard, as any business is. Don’t discount your efforts just because you haven’t made it to the big time in a few months. Instead of getting overwhelmed trying to perfect every piece of your blog business, do the basics to start with and build on it from there.

Blogging Tips : Foundational Necessities for Bloggers

Whether or not your like it, blogging is going through an evolution. Although it has only been around for less than a decade, we have seen quite a lot of impacts it brings to businesses and publishers. In the upcoming years, more radical changes will be happening, as blogs are going to be around for quite some time.

As a blogger, you have no choice but to adapt your strategy accordingly. Technology-wise, blog software is going to be much easier to use. It will also be seamlessly integrated into other tools such as micro-blogging and social networking.

However, the most prominent change for web publishers is strategic wise. While site building through unique and quality content production is still the way to go, and although link development and site promotion are still very much the same old advice, how bloggers should execute them have pretty much evolved.

This means that not only new bloggers need a whole new set of strategies to get across their messages and be noticed, but existing bloggers also will see a large shift in how they reach their audience including new ways to tap into new audience that is otherwise not available before.

Building Strong Foundation - It Starts Within

Blogging is easy, but that doesn’t make the foundational part optional. Many new bloggers overlook this part because they don’t want to waste time but in return they go in circles trying to figure out how to grow their blogs to get more traffic and revenue.

Your blog is the only thing that you have full control of. It just makes sense if you start there. Once you get a head start by getting the house in order, it feels better knowing that whatever you plan from there is likely to have more impact. Even a little boost in search engine position is worth it, if you take into account the traffic and revenue that you’re going to generate for years to come.

One thing you should be aware of though, it is easy to over-organize your house that you never move beyond those activities. That happens to all of us, even to go getters who persistently take action. It’s just natural because as human being, taking actions to grow a business often put us outside of the comfort zone.

Brand Your Design

When Kubrick was first introduced as the default WordPress theme, everyone thinks it is cool but nowadays whoever uses it — even if he modifies the header color or image — is at risk of turning off the visitors.

Boring themes make people want to click the back button of the browser. First impression counts so it is worth it that you hire a designer to create a brand new design from scratch.

If you are tight on the budget, pick a design that suits your blog best and customize it. A good theme designer is able to turn an existing design into entirely unique work.

No matter which way you choose, just remember that while design is important, it is not everything. Most successful blogs have been through a redesign or two. While optimizing your blog design is necessary, it is not that critical when you are getting started.

Just get a unique one up and move on to content production and promotion. A makeover can come later. Again, prioritize.

It is critical that you don’t skip this step though. Although there are ugly sites that work very well, it can be hard to establish credibility or show to others that you are serious about your business unless your design is professional. Moreover, bloggers will be more hesitant to link to amateurish blogs.

Related articles:

• Blog Design for Beginners
• How to Choose WordPress Layouts (Themes) in 7 Simple Steps

Optimize Your Blog Theme

When it comes to blog theme design, less sometimes means more. Know which elements you want on your site and add nothing else to your design.

If you are to sell advertising space or earn money by displaying ads, you may want to reserve space for those ads, but avoid burying your content for ads. Remember that visitors come for content, never ads.

Your goal with site design is to keep the readers on your site or blog as long as possible or take whatever action you want them to take quickly.

Steve Krug has written a superb book on web usability. It is considered a must read for whoever wants to create a web site or blog. The title is Don’t Make Me Think.

Another thing to optimize is search engine wise. While the visitors must be at the top priority, you should also optimize your blog so it benefits your rankings. Although more and more the criteria for rankings are external — things you have no or very little control about — never underestimate on-page factors too.

For long tail keywords, on-page optimization and site authority may get you to the top spot on the search engine listing almost overnight, if done right.

I’ve put up quite a lot of articles and pointed to resources about blog SEO on my site. Take a look if you find this a challenge or if you need to improve on your search engine optimization.

Tweak the Back-End (Dashboard)

WordPress is now the dominating blog software, so this post presumes that you want to use it for your site. Out of the box, WordPress is already very usable but there are a few things you should tweak to optimize your blog.

Some of the things you should pay attention to include:

• Allow post notification. This may slow down posting but you should enable the option to attempt to notify any blogs you linked to from your article. It sends pings to the corresponding blogs so the bloggers are aware about you referring to their work. This is often a great way to start a conversation, especially if you publish insightful post on your blog.
• Populate update services. WordPress has a list of blog pinging services you should have on your blog setting. By default it is only one entry, i.e. rpc.pingomatic.com, which pings other services on your behalf.
• Optimize your permalink. Permalink is the URL that identifies your blog post, category, archive, etc. Search engines are now able to index dynamic pages with simple parameters but you should take advantage of clean URLs to make your URL friendlier. Remember that if you include keyword in your URL, it may appear as bold in search engine listing, which increases click through from search users to your site.
• Publish full feed. This is enabled by default but you should make sure you have it selected. There was a debate about whether to use full or partial feed of which hands on I think the winner is full feed. If you are reader-centric, there’s no argument about it. Period. And in the long run, loyal subscribers will also benefit your traffic wise.

Keep Up to Date on Industry News

Whether you have been following the niche for some time or you are new to it, there is one thing bloggers should be good at. Getting up to date on the industry news is necessary if you want to be the go to person for your niche.

It is also very likely that you have a list of favorite blogs and news sites. Add them to your favorite RSS reader and make sure you make time to go through the list. If you haven’t made your decision about which news reader yet, you can’t go wrong with Google Reader.

Look for filters in your niche or learn how to create filters yourself. There might be blogs or web sites out there that track events and news around your industry. You will save a lot of time going through tens, if not hundreds, of RSS feeds yourself.

News sites usually allow you to filter your favorite news and grab a customized RSS feed. Learn how to do this effectively. Remember this is a one time process that may save you time repeatedly.

By using news reader, you are able to keep up with the news more efficiently compared to visiting every site. That saves you a few hours a day.

Learn How to Monitor Brands

Just like news, you also need to monitor certain brands. By brands, I mean any name that you are interested to keep track of. If your are an individual blogger, your name is your brand.

Basically what you do is to create RSS ego-search feeds. Rather than doing it regularly, you let news readers fetch the search result automatically to your news reader.

What is an ego search? Simply put, it is a search you perform to monitor for mentions of your product name, personal name, or company name.

The usage, however, is beyond egocentric though. Nowadays, it is absolutely impossible to visit each site just to see if it mentions the name you care to track. By performing ego-centric search via RSS feed, you will be able to know if someone happens to be interested in the topic you are writing, link to your blog, or mention your name somewhere in the post.

In other words, this is also important for conversations. Isn’t it one of the reasons you blog in the first place?

Plan Your Response Mechanism

Conversations may only happen if two or more parties are participating in it. With a blog, you may join conversations at any time, both as a conversation starter or to respond to other bloggers.

I’m also partially guilty for this in the past but responding to a conversation is important and may benefit bloggers. You can use it as a way to establish relationship with other bloggers but also to manage your brand and straighten the issue when — not if — one surfaces.

Nowadays, micro blogging tool such as Twitter is a quick way to credit people and quickly respond to conversations. A blog is necessary only for comprehensive response that doesn’t fit into 140 characters.

As you go, you will discover brand monitoring tools that will help you become more responsive to on-going conversations but I recommend starting with Technorati, Twitter Search and Google Alerts.

Become an Expert on Your Topic

No matter which niche you decide to blog about, it pays to become an expert on that topic. Being a thought leader certainly helps in building your audience, but if that’s too high a goal, at the very least you want to be resourceful.

That doesn’t come out easy. A bunch of articles don’t help at all unless they are really useful. Ability to reach out is also necessary. Spend some time to research on a topic that you like but rather than paying attention to the information, examine which content you really like as a consumer.

If you find that you could improve what you’ve found, you are ready to compete for the long haul.

People go online to find information. Even when they are ready to purchase something, they want to know if there is a better deal elsewhere.

Your role as a blogger should be to publish good information the visitors enjoy reading. That’s how you become the go to person, build your audience base, and finally monetize your traffic — if you aim for the long term instead of just expecting the visitors to click away and earn you advertising revenue.

It is astonishingly easy to become an expert nowadays. Go to Amazon.com and purchase 5-10 books about the topic you are blogging. Spend some time to read it. Surf web sites and blogs. Think about various issues related to the topic. Get involved to get hands-on experience. The more you immerse in the topic, the better expert you become. But reading is a great way to start.

Review

If you have been accustomed to traditional method of web publishing, some of these may be new to you. Blog software, for many of us, is an awesome way to get content up online but bloggers should know more!

Blogging is about joining conversations and if you read Cluetrain Manifesto, markets are really conversations.

Starting conversations is one thing but being proactive in responding to the market is necessary. You want to immerse in the market instead of broadcasting your message out aggressively.

Also in this post, you’ve learned why you should brand your design and optimize your blog properly. With that, you are ready for content diversification, which is exactly the topic for the next post.

Hendry Lee helps bloggers overcome strategic and technological challenges in starting and growing their blogs. He also writes about make money blogging on his blog Blog Tips for a Better Blog - Blog Building University. While you are there, download your free eBook and subscribe to his blogging e-course where he reveals his secret about blogging and content writing!

Blogging Tips : 5 Steps for Planning the Direction of Your Blog in 2009

Last week I shared a series of questions for bloggers to ponder as they look back on their last year of blogging.

The point of the questions was not to engage in a navel gazing exercise but to look back with the objective of identifying how a blog has been performing in order to improve it moving forward.

Today I want to suggest a process for thinking about the future of your blog.

I’m not sure that this process appears exactly like this in any strategic thinking books or teaching but it is the process that I use when I periodically look at how my blogs and business is going.

Here’s a quick visual with some questions to explain each step in the process:

Hopefully the diagram speaks largely for itself but let me extrapolate slightly on each step.

Step 1 - Define your Mission

This is fairly big picture stuff and for me actually goes wider than just why I blog and more fits with my overall life mission. I guess it’s about looking at your overall purpose and direction - what you want to achieve etc. Having this firm in your mind then enables you to work out how blogging fits into that overall purpose.

Step 2 - Paint a Picture of Your Vision

This is still pretty long term and looks beyond the coming year to where you want to eventually take your blog. It’s a picture of a reasonably distant future. Dare to dream a little and think big in this stage.

Step 3 - Make Goals

Now we’re drilling down into the year ahead. Where do you want to be at the end of 2009? Hopefully it’ll be somewhere towards your ‘Vision’ and have helped you to accomplish some of your ‘mission’ - but what will your blog look like, be doing and have achieved this time next year? Dare to think big but keep in mind that it needs to be achievable. You don’t need to have done everything in your vision in 12 months - these goals are stepping stones to the eventual goals.

Step 4 - Devise a Strategy

What are you going to need to DO to get to your goals? Usually this means some kind of ‘change’ in your approach. Do you need to blog more, start a new blog, change your topic slightly, hire a writer, network with other bloggers more, start using a new method for promoting your blog, follow what others are writing more, build community engagement, redesign your blog etc? Think about strategies across the different activities of blogging that will take you closer to your goals.

Step 5 - Set out an Action Plan

Most people set ‘resolutions’ in their lives (and for their blogs) that are quite ‘general’ and wishy washy in nature. ‘I’m going to lose weight’, or ‘I’m going to find a girlfriend’. While these resolutions are great they are often not achieved simply because while a decision is made to do something - the person making the decision puts no actual plan in place for ‘how’ they’ll do it. The same is true for thinking strategically about your blog. ‘I’m going to get more traffic in 2009′ is a great goal - but what are you doing to specifically focus on DOING to get that traffic. Your action plan should be made up of very concrete tasks that you’ll do in the coming months. I will write 5 posts a week - I will email 7 readers each week - I will leave 1 comment per day on another blog in my niche - I will write a guest post for another blogger each month - I will run a competition on my blog in June.

The above 5 steps are the way I approach planning on my blogs (in fact it is how I do it in other areas of my life also). I actually do this for each of my blogs. The mission generally is much the same for each one and at times there are similarities in other steps.

This process will not be for everyone but I think can make a useful starting point for thinking about your blog in 2009. Some personality types will find it easier than others to think this way - actually for me it is not a natural way of thinking - I’m quite impulsive and this is a real effort to do. You might find some steps in the process more natural and quicker to complete than others but thinking things through from the big picture right down to specific tasks will hopefully help you to not only plan but make the changes you need to make in order to achieve your dreams.