Showing posts with label blogger. Show all posts
Let 's Start with Multi Niche Blog ( New Blogger )
Blogging is getting popular day by day. Millions of people start blogging daily but they quit the same after sometimes.
There are so many reasons for this but bad selection of topics is also a major cause as well.
I don’t want to confuse readers with the word “Niche” here so let me clarify its meaning. Actually blogging Topics is generally termed as “Niche” in blogging. There is an important question asked by newbie bloggers – “Should I start blogging with multi-niche blog or not?”
If you also have the same question then this post is your answer.
or example-The niche of SEOMOZ is search engine Optimization, the niche of Mybloggertricks is Blogging, the niche of ShoutMeLoud is small business and internet marketing etc. People always find it difficult to choose subjects before starting their blog. Normally they think that they will write about everything in their blog.
When I asked a simple question “What would be the field of your blog?” to new young bloggers.
I received so many similar answers -”I am an allrounder so I can write on so many topics like Making
Money, Blogging, Fashion, Photography, Travel, Health etc. My Blog will contain all these topics. People will find it quite useful because they will get so many things at one place and I will also get plenty of topics”.
If you are a new blogger and your thinking is also same then wait.This approach is completely wrong.If you are doing this then there is maximum possibility of your failure.
Why a new blogger should not start Blogging with Multi-Niche Blog?
First of all answer my simple question-What blogging means to you? Do you write just for fun or for making money from it? If you only write for fun then there is no need to worry about anything like traffic and SEO. Just Go for it.However if you are really serious and want to get traffic and money then you should not start blogging with multi-niche blog. Now a days,everyone appreciates the specialists not the allrounders. The following points proves this fact.
Can’t Create Readership
It is quite natural as well.Just assume that you visited a blog which write about Blogging. You loved such contents and subscribed to it as well. Next time when you returned there, you found articles on cars, fashion, health etc.
What will you do?
You would love to unsubscribe from it (I guess).
That’s probably the reason why I always support specialist rather than allrounders. From a reader’s perspective, I would love to subscribe to blog which writes articles of my interest. If I like articles on blogging then I will love to visit a blog which delicately talk about it rather than visiting the one which creates confusion by posting contents from so many fields or niche.
Gets Lower Ranking in Search Engines
The title is enough to tell, what I actually want to say. I don’t know whether you know about SEO or not but simply assume a common scenario. Lets consider yourself as a search Engine like Google and Yahoo. Your task is to rank different website based on different topics and keywords. The topic to focus on is “blogging” and you have two options:
One is a blog which writes only about Blogging whereas the other one is an allrounder blog which writes about blogging and other subjects like photography, Technology, Photo, Games, Product review etc then what will you do? I think you will give much more preference to the blog which writes only on blogging because you are focusing on “blogging” subject.
Same is the case with Google as well. Google team is bringing new algorithms regularly just to make sure that only quality Blogs/website appears in SERPs(Search Engine Result Pages). So don’t go with Multi-Niche blog.
Advertisers Always Give Preference to Specialist Blog
So many people can ask-”what are you saying? Why advertisers will not contact me. They need traffic and my multi-Niche blog has enough traffic”. If you are also thinking in the same manner then wait again. Let me make it simple for you to understand it through simple example. Lets assume that you have a company who sells android phones on internet. You have limited budget and you want to advertise your product on a blog which can give your maximum benefit.
You have two options-A multi-Niche blog which gets 60,000 page views per month and a blog on Android mobiles which gets 60,000 page views per month. I am sure that you will love to choose the later one i.e the one who writes on Android Mobile because you will get more quality traffic.60,000 page views per month on multi-niche blog means their traffic is divided in different categories which is not the case with any blog which writes on specific topic.
So What To Do?Is there any way to write on Multiple Topics?
If you are new blogger then I will suggest you to focus on one blog only. Try to popularize it and make money from it. Once done, you can think to start another blog on different topics. Since you have made your blog popular now, it would be better for you to use your sub-domains for your new blog with different topics.
For example:
- Tech.bloggingcage.com – Blog on Technology
- fashion.bloggingcage.com- Blog on Fashion
- Health.bloggingcage.com – Blog on Health
- Makemoney.bloggingcage.com – Blog on Making Money online etc
Your Time Now?
I think, I have made my points clear. I never recommend a new blogger to start blogging with Multi-Niche Blog because i haven’t seen so many such blogs on internet normally, a naive user starts this kind of blog.When they realize that it is not good for them then they choose a specific topic and continue with it.
So what are your views about it? Do you want to start a Multi-Niche blog or not? Share your views through comments
Inspired From: Single Topic Vs. Multi-Topic blog
Tips | Becoming A More Consistent Blogger
One of the hardest things to do as a blogger, is to remain consistent throughout. When I first began blogging back in 2009 I was firing out posts after posts on a daily basis. As time went on that frequency dropped back, and these days I’m taking a much more of a relaxed attitude towards creating content and writing only a few times per week, which means I get to focus more on quality rather than quantity.
Regardless whether you blog once a week or multiple times per week, becoming a more consistent blogger requires a lot of hard work and some carefully devised strategies. Here are 5 of these strategies to help you towards becoming a more consistent blogger.
How to Become a More Consistent Blogger
1. Create a list of post topic ideas
If you’re passionate about the main topic you blog about, i.e. Technology or making money online etc, you should never run out of post ideas. Having said that it’s always a good idea to have a list of post ideas at hand to pick from.
Thankfully most of us will have a Smartphone of some kind, so if you’re out and about and think of something cool to add to your list of post ideas; you can use your Smartphone to do it. A notebook and pen will do the job just the same.
Personally I usually come up with post ideas whilst I’m driving somewhere, as I’m thinking about my blog and usually what to write about next, or if I’m listening to a podcast presentation, an idea will spin off into my head and I’ll need to write it down, but since I’m driving this is impossible, so I’ll use my iPhone’s Siri function to add my idea to my memo.
So strategy number one: Create a list of post topic ideas.
2. Create ‘series type’ posts
A small misconception with blogging is thinking that you have to write everything about a particular topic in a single post. That’s not true at all; you can actually break your content down into mini series or parts.
I do believe long pillar posts are good, but why would anyone sit and read a 2,500 word long post, I certainly wouldn’t, people that consume content on the web are usually ‘on the go’ these days (consuming content on mobile devices), so keep some of your posts short and sweet, and consider creating mini series type posts instead of long ones.
3. Have a well organized ‘blogging editorial schedule’
Creating a ‘blogging schedule’ is essential if you want to become a more consistent blogger for sure. Use a calendar (Google Calendar is perfect) to plan out and schedule your posts for going live throughout the week. If you plan to write three times per week and post Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, ensure that you fill your calendar with what ever posts you have available for going live on these days.
4. Use a variety of post formats
One of my favorite things to do is to vary post formats. Varying post formats always provides something fresh and new for your readers to read. Here is a list of post formats and structure you might want to consider using.
- Top 10 lists
- ‘How to’ posts
- Case studies
- Series posts
- Podcast with show notes
- Video posts
- Review posts
- Cornerstone content posts
- Blog contests
- Interviews
- News type posts
5. Outsource to experts
Lastly but not least, when you really don’t have anything to schedule in your calendar or you’re planning to be away from your blog for a while (like Abhi ), get some help from other neighboring bloggers in your niche, which is why building relationships is important in blogging.
Guest posts are a great addition for adding frequent fresh content to your blog. Moreover it’s also a great way to add content that offers a totally ‘different perspective’ on certain topics.
So there it is troops, 5 simple strategies for helping you achieve the status of becoming a more consistent blogger, and as always I’d love to gear your thoughts on my suggestions. Leave me a comment below.
Until next time, keep working hard!
Blogger | Get Online Earning Sources
Here is the revelation of my online earning sources. Because you already know, I share the truth as I saw it, you can expect no hype but rather the different ways you can attempt to make money online.
Some bloggers who’re blogging for months but earning literally nothing wonder if there really exists any online earning sources!
Different Sources I Use to Make Money Online
Before proceeding any further, let me confess that I’m not an expert in online earning and do not make a 6 figure income. Whatever I write here are based on my experience and my online earning sources.
Image Credits: FreeDigitalPhotos
Selling Products as Affiliate
This is probably the best method for bloggers and online marketers to make money online. However, selling affiliate products is not one night job, it really requires you to be consistent, smart and trustworthy.
You can realize how hard it becomes to agree anybody to take money out of their pocket. A huge trust on you is the only key and the trust can be earned through building solid reputation.
Affiliate marketing is one of my major online earning source and truly proud to be somebody on whom you can rely
I’ve sold some products through my blogs and social networks (Facebook & Twitter). HostGator Hosting Accounts, WPZon Builder Plugin, WPDollar Plugin, MyeCoverMaker, PrettyLinkPro etc. are some of the products I sold successfully.
You can use social networks, mailing lists and sales pages to promote and sell affiliate products, but having a blog will definitely make your life easier. As I told you earlier, building trust is really vital and a blog offers you opportunity to build up your reputation.
#1. Adsense - Online Earning with Google
No need to explain it any further. Google Adsense is one of the prime revenue source for most of the blogs. I’m using Adsense for my sites like psexam.com, icttrends.com and in this blog too. Though Adsense is not earning much for this blog, it is performing well for my other blogs.
Blogs that have problem solving posts works great for Adsense earning. Often people face problems and look for solution. They do searches in Google and the like to land to those posts. Those organic traffic is much easier to convert when we aim to earn from advertisements like with Adsense.
#2. Amazon Associate to Earn Money Online
This is another great avenue to test your skills. Amazon is the largest online market containing products for all categories – from household equipment to office furniture, from books & CDs to software. You can find any product of your interest and promote them in your blog to make commission for every sale through your links.
I’ve sold some Computer Science books, Toshiba tablets (Thrive), iPhone accessories, baby and pregnancy products using different Amazon sites. The WordPress plugin WPZon Builder and some awesome Amazon themes really helped me to make those sales.
Amazon associates can be a separate sector to make money online.
#3. InfoLinks – Another Source of Passive Income
This is contextual text link ad network different than Adsense though both of these pays based on CPC. Once you register your blogs in Infolinks, you can get code to paste in your blog. It converts some words or phrases in your post into links and pays you if your readers clicked on those Ads.
Infolinks is not earning as much as Adsense yet, but the additional money it offers is worthy to collect in PayPal account.
The recent updates in Infolinks includes search links, tags and sidebars allowing you to earn more money.
#4. Sponsored Reviews – Get Paid to Write
This is relatively newer venture I’m making recently. You can register for an account in SponsoredReviews.com site and bid for different articles offer. If you can win any of the bids, you’ll be allowed to write about the offer as prescribed and will be paid for the post you publish.
The great thing about SponsoredReviews.com is that it has really huge number of advertisers and publishers; at the same time, the site claims 50% of the money you make for writing the posts will make you think twice.
I’ve published some sponsored posts to make some attractive money. If you have good writing skills, this is the way you can make some handsome money every month.
#5. Direct Ads – Monetize Your Blog
Once you make your blog popular, you can attract advertisers to purchase banner Ads or text ads. Most of the advertisers count the Alexa rank and Google PageRank, so, you need to try to improve these metrics for your blog.
Till last year, I enjoyed my psexam.com and icttrends.com having PR 6 and 5 respectively and earned good money by selling text links. I’m still selling some text and banner ads in my blogs. They constitute my regular income.
When you have good PageRank but did not find advertisers, register yourself in Teliad, BuySellAds etc to help you get advertisers. Getting approved in BuySellAds is a bit difficult but you’ll find Teliad a great source of online earning.
#6. Guest Blogging – Good Work Pays
You may wonder, but it is true! You can make money online by guest blogging. When you demonstrate your authority and impress with your great writing skill, the publishers will be attracted and interested to offer you. You can join those sites as paid author and get paid for your every published posts.
I joined a couple of blogs as paid author and started to write posts for them. I did not find much time to exploit the opportunity fully but I’m happy with whatever I make from guest blogging.
#7. SponsoredTweets - Free Online Earning
This is another opportunity you can make money online. You don’t need to have your own blog neither needs to research and write long text to get paid from SponsoredTweets.
If you are active in Twitter and have large twitter follower base you can register in SponsoredTweets to get offers. You need to check the offered message and site if it suits your followers. If yes, shoot the message to your twitter followers and earn money. The payment can be boost if your followers clicks on the link.
I’m using SponsoredTweets for some time and earned a few dollars. I know it is not a huge money but some dollars earned only to tweet message is not bad. Additionally, if you can have some referrals under you, you can make considerable money every month from SponsoredTweets.
Well, these are the different ways I make money online. Hope you got some glimpses of online money in this post. Please don’t forget to comment and share this post if you find it useful. Are you using any other method for online earning? I’d love to hear your views.
Adore WordPress But Won’t leave Blogger
Yeah! I love using WordPress and I’ll definitely endorse it; suggest it to the newbie bloggers who keeps asking me whether they should go ahead with free blogging platform i.e., blogger or get themselves self-hosting to start WordPress blog. There are good reasons behind this; however, this doesn’t mean I don’t like blogger. I do like blogger to but I don’t love it. Oh yes! I hope you’re aware of the stiff difference between these two words – like and love. If you’re not, please open any English dictionary and find out what do they exactly mean. That’s not our subject of discussion today. Right? So, why do I like blogger?
Let’s find out why I love WordPress but still like blogger. Even if you’ve zero knowledge about how WordPress works, I would recommend you to start using it and you’ll understand why when you’ll reach the end point of this article. Nobody is born genius and I or you; both of us are not exception to this.
Customization in WordPress and Blogger
You don’t need to be a coder or knowledgeable person to start using WordPress. Installing WordPress through cPanel is the task that you can complete within 2 minutes. Yes, that’s right. Exactly within 2 minutes.
So, assuming you’re not good at coding, you can simply pick up ready-made premium or free WordPress themes and apply to your blog. Once you’ve install the theme, you can go ahead in widgets section to add sidebar widgets. You can also add navigational menu through the appearance > menu. It’s that easy.
When it comes to blogger, there are bunch of free themes available over at various websites. For instance, you can check out these free and best blogger themes of 2013. These themes are mostly free but the customization needs you to have basic knowledge of web languages such as js, HTML and CSS. In fact, adding a navigation menu would also require you to edit and find the places. That’s not recommended when you’re not good at coding. A small mistake of missing simple semi colon (;) would drag your blog in big mess.
SEO Benefit
WordPress is way better than blogger when it comes to comparing the SEO benefit. WordPress lets you add your custom Meta title, description and keywords for each post. Besides, you can also add custom sitemap.xml and define the category and tags. Blogger still lacks some of these basic features and therefore it is not recommended to go with blogger if you’re SEO centric or care about SEO a lot.
Additionally, WordPress lets you change the permalink structure. What does it mean? It allows you to either display the URL of the post with data, month, and category or with simple blog post title. You can’t really change the URL structure in blogger, however you can change the content of the URL.
Plugins
WordPress offers a wide range of plugins and short-codes (through themes) which helps in improving the user friendliness of a blog. These plugins can help you every aspect. For instance, I’m using AffiLinker on my blog to convert the keywords into affiliate links automatically.
Not to mention, these plugins are exclusively available for WordPress. You don’t have any plugin support for blogger, however there are bunch widgets that you can add but the number these widgets and quality is really disappointing.
Multi-authors
When you’re planning to start a multi-author blog, WordPress is the best solution. You can define roles for each authors and you can also restrict them with certain capabilities so that your blog don’t end up with something fishy.
Blogger does lets you add authors through settings but it’s really difficult to manage them. You can’t really have a good control over them as you get in WordPress.
Hosting & Bandwidth
This is one point where I would say – blogger takes it away all the way down. This is probably the most critical reason to why newbies as well as others love using blogger. Hosting your media, images and everything that keeps your website running is totally free. All your media is stored in Picasa web albums. Also, you don’t really need to be concerned about how much bandwidth your blog is using. It will be taken care of by Google’s own servers.
WordPress doesn’t offer this for free. You need to buy self-hosting package in order to host your images and videos. You also need to take care of bandwidth. This would certainly cost you something around $100.
Security
In terms of security, blogger is one step ahead of WordPress. All the database files are stored internally inside the Google’s server. Neither you nor the attacker is aware of where they are stored. So, there is absolutely no chance of getting attacked by any brute force technique.
That’s certainly not the case with WordPress. All your database files and images are accessible to you as well as anyone who has the permission. If an attacker is able to get those permissions, it won’t take more than two minutes to see your blog resting in peace. Moreover, you can have a look to OddBlogger’s review of the best WordPress security plugin to protect your blog from most of the attacts.
That’s all from the desk today. The last two points especially the security topic sounds important to many of us. Don’t get me wrong that WordPress blogs can easily be attacked. You need to put a proper armor around your blog to save it from the attacks and it can be achieved by using plugins and .htaccess modifications.
As for the hosting and bandwidth usage, I would suggest you to invest in that hosting package which offers virtually unlimited space and bandwidth. You won’t feel any problem till the time you’re receiving views less than 8000-10000 per day (number varies with each hosting provider).
I hope you now know why I’m saying – I love WordPress but I won’t deceive blogger. Let me know your views about these two platforms. Which one you’re using?
Become A Winner As A Blogger
Where do you want your blog to be in the next 5-years?
What do you think can help increase your authority as a blogger?
Is there any need to re-emphasize that blogging is a very serious business? I know you can argue otherwise, you equally have the right and the will to continue against my theory but the truth is that; all pro-bloggers know this and many have dumped their corporate jobs and grown their blog beyond the scope of their imagination.
If you have never thought about where your blog will be the next 5-years; that can explain why you don’t see blogging as a very serious business that requires much more than passion, commitment and dedication but sacrifices that will consume your time, energy and resources. -
Once you recognize the fact that your blog is your global office then you can begin to nature yourself to win as a blogger in whatever niche you found strengths. Do not forget that your goal is to get enough information which will help you design your blog to meet the needs of your readers.
The art of blogging is often taken for granted and it is easier to understand the principles than to develop the skills required. However, constant research will benefit you and lead to more effective system that will guide your blog and ultimately enhance addiction.
You need to constantly analyze your blog and understand the dynamics of your niche. You need to allow flexibility; the capacity to change provided it leads to growth. Don’t just sit there and continue to think that you command an unconditional authority over your niche.
How To Drive Traffic To Your Website With Facebook Images
There are millions of fan pages on Facebook related to thousands of niches and all of them are not succeed to drive traffic to a blog or website. Bloggers used to put posts links there only to update the fan page.
But do you think, only updating the page will help you to succeed in your goal of getting traffic from Facebook? If you think yes, then sorry to hurt your feelings. This is not the job done. You have to learn some Facebook marketing skills that can bring more ways to increase website traffic.
While working on my Facebook fan page, I come to know about a hidden trick that can increase visitors to our blog. Let’s learn what’s the special today.
Increase Visitors To Your Blog
Without taking your too much time, let’s directly come to the topic. In one of my earlier posts about getting traffic from Google Plus, I mentioned that how posting images is helpful to attract wider audience. This concept works everywhere either you are sharing images on Google plus, facebook or any other platform where you can share your stuffs.
You just need to post such images on your facebook fan page for which you can get decent shares. Let’s see how posting images will help you to get visitors to your website.
Step-by-Step Tutorial
Below are some easy to follow steps that we need to take in action. Follow them and see how easily you can learn how to get more website traffic.
- Select an image that relates to your niche. Funny or humor related images works great.
- Post them on your facebook fan page by writing up a cool description.
- Remember: Not to put any link there. It’s not the correct time to promote links. Just Wait! We’ll do it later.
- Try to get maximum shares, likes and comments on that post as much as possible. Do everything that you can do to promote that image. Ask your friends to share it and leave a comment. This way you can get maximum shares. The maximum shares you get, the chances will higher to get more traffic to your blog.
- Once you get enough shares, it’s time to play for our own benefit. Simply click on the image and choose Edit from the right side options.
- Now smartly add your blog post link in the description that highly relates to that image. (Matching post will give you more traffic) and press Done Editing button.
- After saving the changes, your link will start appearing to each person’s timeline who had shared your image. That means, now your link will also appear to their friends and chances are higher to get more readers.
Points to be Take Care
- You need maximum shares on your images to get maximum benefit of this trick.
- Don’t put non-related links. Less number of people will click that link.
- Please don’t do spamming. Make use of this trick for good purpose.
Final Words!
There are a lot of ways that you can use to drive visitors to your website from social media sites. You just need to figure out those ways, make strategies, apply them and get results.
Top 5 best domain providers for bloggers
Every bloggers want to buy top level domain from their blogs or websites. As I seen before some people told me what is the best domain providers for buying TLD (Top Level Domain)? Buy a domain for your blogs from un-trusted providers is the bad think for every user. You will face too many problems with your blog or websites, something like: domain not found, page unavailable, 404 error page and many more.
If you get any problems like this, you will lose your page rank and site position rank for sure. Because if Google can’t crawl your website and see those errors in your page, you will definitely get too many problems with your site. You also can’t transfer your domain before 6 month you purchased and you need to wait 6 month for transfer domain or leave the domain for life. Make a new website, buy new domain and work hard again. So I created this post only for newbie who are looking for buying domains.
Best domain providers for buy TLD
Namecheap:
Why Namecheap is the best? Namecheap is the best domain providers because of they are giving good benefits and features. If you buy a .COM domain from Namecheap, you will get free URL forwarding (without any kinds of ads), free email forwarding and make email for website something like admin@bloggingmycareer.com , free whoisguard protection, dynamic DNS, eye catching control panel and many more. .COM domain from Namecheap, its only $10 (cheap). You can choose this provider to buy domain.
Godaddy:
Godaddy is one of the popular domain providers in the world. Many popular bloggers buying domain from this company, because they are also giving quality features to every customers. They are giving only web-mail for free and the whole domain price is $10.99 every year. Sometime they are offering wonderful coupon for buy domain with discount. It’s the great way to buy domain from this providers with discount.
Hover:
If you failed to find cheapest domain providers, they you can use hover. They are not cheapest but them offering some great coupon code discount for every domain purchase. There control panel page is eye catching and any beginners member can use it. You can see their price and plan here.
Network solution:
Network solution is the number 3 domain providers there. There’s great features is, they can support you 24/7 without any waiting time. If you have any kinds of problem with your domain or need any helps from network solution. You can click the live chat option and chat with them friendly. They are doing best and glad to help their customers all time. If you want to buy domain for WordPress, you can also buy web hosting with cheap price from network solution. So it’s the trusted domain providers to buy TLD (Risk free).
Name.com
As I can tell you it’s not a cheapest company, but they have amazing features in their website. When you purchase a domain from name.com, you can use suggest domain tools for find a good name of your website. They will tell you to put a keyword in your domain for better result in search engines and also awesome feature is they can help people any time without any hashing. If you want to see the pricing and plan of name.com, you can click this link.
5 Easy Steps on How to Set Up a Blog
No, you don’t need a pro web designer to set up a blog for you. If you've been itching to start an online business and having a blog is a major part in it, then do it now.
Even if you've got zero technical skills (of course, you must know how to use the computer) getting your own blog is not a far-fetched idea with all the resources available for you.
Last time, you learned the importance of finding the right keywords. Today, you’re going to learn how to set up a blog in very easy steps so that by this time tomorrow, you’re one step closer to finally launching your online business.
So let’s get started.
How to set up a blog in 5 easy steps
Get a domain
Your choice for a domain name is very important. It’s the equivalent of having a house in Beverly Hills or upstate New York. When you tell people you live in these places, they’ll pay attention. Suddenly, you’re someone they like to befriend. It’s a good status symbol.
So make sure to pick the right blog URL (another term for domain name) to get people and search engines to notice you. Always pick .com over .info or .net because they’re not going to help you a lot. Don’t forget to use the keywords you’ve chosen. Your domain has to be as close to the keyword as possible.
Domain names cost a little money. Yes, you need to invest in them even though there are free URLS (like yourblog.wordpress.com or yourblog.blogger.com) because they command more authority. Plus, you’ve got more freedom over your website if you own the domain.
How much do they cost? Namecheap and GoDaddy has domain names that are under $10 per year. See, they’re not expensive.
Find a web host
When you have your own domain, it follows that you have your own web host. What is it?
A web host (or server) is a place that stores your blog’s pages and makes them accessible to the public. Think of it as a suburb (or a city) where your house (blog) is built. For people to find you, they need to go to take the roads that lead to your area and then find your block.
Web hosting allows people to find your blog when they surf the web. Without a host, no one will ever find your website.
Free web hosting is an option for those who don’t want to spend money. You can have platforms like WordPress and Blogger host it but that would mean they have control over your blog. It’s like renting a house. You won’t have the liberty to do anything you want to the property because you have to answer to the real owner of the house.
It’s highly recommended that you pay for hosting. There are many hosting providers that charge as little as $9 a month.
Choose the right platform suited for your needs
There are currently two popular blogging platforms: WordPress and Blogger. I prefer WordPress because of its interface and ease of use. Those who don’t know how to set up a blog will love it. It takes you by the hand and makes the process very easy.
Another thing I love about WordPress is the wide array of plugins that make blogs look and function really well. But don’t just take my word for it. Go check out both and see for yourself.
Install theme and plugins
Looks matter a lot especially these days when there are so many other blogs to compete with. To get attention, have killer looks. In this case, make sure that your blog is downright awesome. WordPress has a huge selection of free and premium themes and you’ll certainly find it hard to pick one because they all look great.
Once your blog has a cool look, focus on its functionality. Install plugins that will offer both smooth user experience and easy management. Plugins like SEOpressor, SEO by Yoast, and Google Analyticator are just some of the tools that’ll help you manage your blog easily.
Create content for your blog
Now that your blog looks good and has all the armory it needs, it’s time to create the content. Despite what other people say, content is still king. Google pays more attention to quality, which is largely influenced by unique and quality content.
You’ll find a lot of tutorials and how-to articles that will help you create awesome content for your blog. I suggest you read a lot of them but make sure to not let it keep you from actual writing. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and just want to keep on reading and put off writing. Write a lot. Produce lots of articles. Your blog can never have enough.
If writing is not your strongest skill, outsource your articles.
Now that you know how to set up a blog…
It’s time to start working. Open a new tab on your laptop and start with purchasing your blog’s domain name. Then proceed with the next steps.
Common Mistakes Bloggers Make
Blogging isn't that much different from other things you do routinely. If you start making a certain mistake, you can keep traveling down the same road for some time without correcting it. The result can be lost readers and prospects that click away before you've even had a real chance with them.
That said, try to avoid these common blogging mistakes
.
- Being stuffy. Remember who your target audience is when you’re blogging and that should keep you on the right path. If you were writing a thesis for a university paper, it would be acceptable to use jargon and fill paragraphs with deep intellectual thoughts. For the most part, blogging is about being fun and conversational.
- Bad formatting. You need to watch what you say, how you say it, and even how you present the finished product to your readers. Long paragraphs are out. Bullet points and shorter paragraphs are in. Things aren't only visually appealing when they’re short and sweet, they take less time to read. You need to keep in mind that our attention spans are dwindling so things need to be more captivating.
- Bad writing. Regardless of the subject matter, your blog needs to be grammatically correct to be taken seriously. Stay away from the kind of texting shorthand that spells ‘u r’ for ‘you are’ and you won’t seem unprofessional and illiterate. If possible, it’s good to have another set of eyes look at your blog before you publish it; if not, read the text out loud to yourself to look for any mistakes.
- Bad optimization and links. Here’s the technical side of what you need to look at to be sure your blog is getting the right exposure. While keywords are the right vehicle to attract attention, make sure they represent what you’re trying to sell or say adequately. A little due diligence in the form of research is necessary and the same goes for quality links. You’re only as good as the company you keep when it comes to links so you need to be sure this exchange involves a back and forth with credible relevant sites.
Staying away from shortcuts is basically the whole thing in a nutshell. When you've invested the time into a blog, it doesn't make any sense to look for the easier, softer way.
4 Tempting Income Streams To Avoid As A Blogger
Whether you want it or not you will start earning from a popular blog. The world runs on money and anyone will get tempted to earn more and more money if the opportunity presents itself, but there are certain opportunities or income streams which you need to avoid as a blogger. Most bloggers use Google AdSense, Affiliates and direct ad sales as their main source of income online.
But there are certain other income streams which I would like to discuss below, which you need to avoid as a blogger due to the simple fact that THESE INCOME STREAMS CAN DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD.
You will see what I am talking about.
I can resist everything except temptation.
- Oscar Wilde
Lets look at these tempting income streams which you should avoid as a blogger -
Paid Links
I get mails every so often about people asking me if I can insert their links in one of my posts and what not.The answer to this should be a a big NO! But it is not always that easy, these guys offer like 50-100$ and sometimes even more for just 10 seconds work of inserting a paid link on your site, come on, how can you resist that? But you have to.
You may make a quick 500$ in a day by posting a few links to your site, but day by day your traffic and search ratings will reduce drastically as Google picks up on these paid links and penalizes your blog.
That’s not the only thing that can get ruined by paid links, the trust of your visitors may also get hurt if you are linking to a spammy casino site.
So be careful, paid links are not for true bloggers!
Sponsored Reviews
There is nothing wrong with sponsored reviews as long as the reviewer is not influenced by the people being reviewed. I do not mind doing a sponsored review if you want my honest opinion of your start-up, app etc. But definitely would not like to do a doctored sponsored review of something.
This may not have too much effect on search rankings but it will adversely affect your reader relations if you have a good review about a bad product.
Black-Hat Services
Trust me when I say that being a blogger for a long time, you will learn a few loop holes and black hat methods of getting things done easily while blogging.I will not give out examples of these black hat services, as it would only tempt you more
Never try to sell the loop holes and tricks you have learnt as a blogger to your audience, you are only creating a group of people whose blogs will eventually get penalized, sooner or later.They will hate you for that.
Never use these black hat methods that you have learnt from experience too, you do not want your blog to suffer either.
Pop-Up Ads
Yuck.I hate these ads.
Annoying.
Irritating.
These are a few things I think if a pop up appears when I visit a blog.Have you noticed none of the top and renowned blogs use pop-ups as ads? There is a reason for that.
Pop-Ups can pay a lot of money, but they are the worst for user experience, blogs run on returning visitors, so you need to create as good an experience as possible for your readers.
Pop-Up ads are a total No No.
So these are the four tempting income streams you should probably avoid while blogging, however tempting or whatever money they may offer.If you guys have come across some other income streams which can harm your blog, then please let me know in the comments section!
Why Bloggers hate google Adsense
“Most of the Bloggers hate google adsense”. You are hearing it right. Most of the Bloggers like you who are not able to get Google Adsense quit Blogging. And that’s why 90% People in the World who opt Blogging as a career are not able to earn money with it. Even if they get a google Adsense account they are not able to sustain it to earn a single penny.
You may get a Cheque or two from Adsense but depending completely on Adsense for Lifetime Income is just like asking an address from a blind person. Because you never know when your account would Block. You may have work hard to put 99$ in your Adsense Account and just 1 short for your payment dispatched , but even a slight activity in your Account may turn out to be 0.
If you didn’t have an active Adsense account, then after reading the above para you are just saying Thumbs Up Vipul. But for Readers who are currently making a huge Income from Adsense thinking that this article is of no use to them. And yah you may be right because Adsense is a lifeline for you and it is a dream of most of the Bloggers (like me) to get a Google Adsense check.
But you don’t know what next may come in your life. I do not wish but may be you can jump from that 10% Special category to 90% Common Category. So its better that you should have all the Knowledge about the Blog Market and have a back up that doesn’t make an impact on your Blogging Career. So All in one that’s the guide Every Blogger should read and informs you about the Most trending and Popular Reasons that why most of the People Messed up with Google Adsense.
Top Reasons Why Bloggers hate Google Adsense
Getting Adsense Account is not an easy task
Getting an Adsense account is not at all easy especially for Asian Bloggers. Although your site follows all the guidelines, still Chances of getting an account in one shot are very low. Most of the Bloggers have to wait for about 6 months or a year for Google Adsense.
Sustaining an Adsense Account
Although you might get approved in Google Adsense Program, but maintaining it is another complicated task as you don’t know when an invalid activity occurs on your site.
Strict Guidelines
Adsense Guidelines, one of the toughest guidelines any Internet Advertising Program has. Don’t believe me!! Read it and you will realize. Even if you have not fulfilled a single requirement, the chance of getting approved reduces exponentially.
Once blocked All Lost
If you have a new Blog and your Adsense account is blocked by any reason (invalid activity is the most common), then you will never get Adsense back on your Blog.
Minimum Payout and Long Delay
You will only earn money from Adsense if you had completed 100$. This is the minimum amount you had to make in order to generate an Adsense Check. Isn’t it time Consuming. Approving your Home address, pin transfer and then receiving checks almost takes 2-3 months.
No Customer support
They don’t have any phone or online chat support. And their email supports just Sucks. All you have an Adsense Forum, where you have to ask your Queries or reason anything about Adsense.
Low CPC
If your site don’t have enough traffic(100-500), and neither you are a resident of UK and US nor your Website have visitors from these Countries, then its hard to say but your Website earning speeds up just like a tortoise, and you must have enough faith for this.
Alternatives to Google Adsense
Cost per thousand Impressions (CPM Networks)
Affiliate Marketing
Sponsorships
Conclusion:
I had nearly mentioned all the major Disadvantages of Google Adsense. But instead of all this, Google Adsense is still the topmost and most preferred Advertising Networks Used by the Bloggers. May be Adsense has not paid anything to you deserve till now, but Man you are working indirectly with Google. Can this will not be proud felling of yours. Think about it!! You may have been rejected several times, but you can’t just quit then Because Bloggers are Optimistic and so you should be.
As I have mentioned above, choose other advertising Network to earn money from Blog and at the same time continue your hard Efforts to be successful with Adsense. Sooner or later you will get what you deserve.
To your Blogging Success
How To Add A Contact Form To Your Blog Without Using A Plugin
If you’re not doing elaborate things with your contact form then there is no reason that you should have to muck around with a plugin when a simple embed will do!
All plugins come with downsides, and even though Contact Form 7 is well optimized for speed, like many it can still be guilty of running on (slowing down) pages that are not your contact page.
Sometimes, a simple copy-paste script is all you need!
The Embedded Contact Form Alternatives!
I started out wanting to use http://www.foxyform.com/ but their embed script was not playing nice at all on WordPress.
Then I tried to use http://cloudcontactforms.com/ as recommended by some other bloggers, but it is somewhat clunky and appears to no longer be in active development.
I’ve used http://www.contactme.com/ successfully before – but I wanted something with less of their branding while still being free.
If I was using it on a site with heavy traffic I might look at http://www.jotform.com/ (but I’m not, at least not yet).
So I finally settled on using: http://kontactr.com/ which is super simple, straight forward, and does one thing well (with minimal app branding).
The only downside to Kontactr (which is also an upside in some cases) is that it uses a script embed rather than an iframe. I’m cool with that – but older versions of WordPress may not be happy with this. (Upgrade your site!)
Using Kontactr To Add An Embedded Contact Form To Your WordPress Site
1) Visit http://kontactr.com/ and set up a free account. Confirm your email address and then log in.
2) Once logged in, you can either copy the “Ajax Widget” as it is or click customize to make changes. I’m using it “as is”.
3) Create a page on your WordPress site named “Contact” or “Contact Us” and add your desired text. Then flip over to the Text/HTML tab and paste in your script after the text.
4) Preview then Publish your page and go view the result.
5) Be sure the page is published) Fill in the form with some sample data and hit send. To verify that it works. You should then see a confirmation message display:
6) Check your email inbox and in a few moments you should receive the test email
(Though it shows “no-reply” as the from email address… the email address the person provided is actually the reply-to address. So all you have to do is reply to the message to send them an email.)
7) It works and you’re done!
It’s as simple as that to add a simple contact form to your website or blog without mucking around with plugins.
This is an excellent replacement for a plugin when you do not need an elaborate form with more “stuff”.
Many contact forms are guilty of calling their plugin data (and thus slowing stuff down) on every page of a site… even though we only use them on a single page! By using a script such as this, we ensure that we do not need to do development tweaks to make the contact form plugin behave.
Of course, you will want to check in, every few months, to make sure that it is still working, since free tools like this come and go.
Do you have a contact form on your website? What do you use for it?
5 Easy Ways to Boost your Subscriber Rate
There was a time when growing an email list was not a difficult thing to do. You could throw up a PLR freebie and within a few days, you’d have a list. Unfortunately, or fortunately in some cases, those days are gone. A little thing called quality has crept in and turned all those worthless email lists upside down.
The good thing is that it just makes more room for quality marketers to reach their target audience with more compelling messages. But growing your subscriber list can be a long and frustrating process if you’re just relying on passive methods to generate optins.
Get Active and Boost your Subscribers
Essentially, if you want to boost your subscriber rates, you have to be willing to make some changes.
- The first step in increasing your subscriber rate is to take a good hard look at your own blog or website from a reader or visitor standpoint. Do you have an eye catching optin form on it? If so and you've been using the same form, the same set up for months, then it’s time for a change. This can be an easy fix – If you use Aweber, one of the more popular auto-responders, then try out some different fonts, different forms, different submit buttons. Sometimes just a simple change can make all the difference.
- The next thing to look at is add some in-content optin forms to your blog. Do you have the typical sidebar optin? Try adding an optin form at the end of your blog posts or on the About page of your blog. If the thought of creating all these forms yourself is unsettling, try an optin plugin. Some good ones to check out are Optin Skin and WP Subscribers. They are highly customizable and can add a much needed pick up to a blog. Plus it saves you from having to do all the coding yourself!
- If you don’t have a page dedicated to your optin, then create one. Adding a tab on the top of your blog, in the header menu is a great way to generate some additional subscribers. Readers can see at a glance what all your optin offer includes. This way, when you give out a link, instead of sending traffic back to your blog’s general address, send them to this page.
- Once you've changed up your optin forms, then you can take your message out to the masses. Twitter and Facebook are not the only places to hang out. What about forums? What about other niche groups? Most forums allow you to have a signature show up every time you add a response. Craft a compelling signature and you can add some highly targeted subscribers to your list.
- Have you ever been a guest blogger? If so, you know the mountain of potential that comes with it. But while guest blogging is great for exposure, credibility and a host of other pluses, there is one other crucial thing that often gets overlooked. Your author bio. Instead of sending readers to your blog’s general address, send them to a page dedicated to them. An example of this is below. This tells the readers that you created this page just for them and you have goodies for them!
Test Often
These are just a few ways of boosting your subscriber rate. Sometimes just changing a few things every now and then can have a huge impact on your subscriber numbers. Whereas you may see that number slowly rise, a change as small as a new optin form can garner a dozen subscribers in one day.
The key to a consistently rising subscriber rate is to test out many different options – find one that works and then later on, test out another. Something as small as border or font can mean the difference in readers opting in or not.
The Importance Of Good Content
They say that content is the “currency” and “soul” of the web. But if you spend more time on the internet, you would come across websites with poor, non-compelling and non-persuasive content.
Writing a website copy is without a doubt, a tough and time-consuming task but remember that it reflects the company’s reputation. So, in order for your business to succeed online, here’s why credible content matters the most.
Reader Engagement
Useful content will let you engage people, make them move, spark their interest and solve their problems. This will help you establish your expertise online and create an impression of your knowledge. With so much competition on the internet, quality content will always stand out from the rest.
Creates a Buzz in Social Media
Social media is necessary in online business because it has a broad reach, comes at a low-cost and is an effective marketing strategy. Say twitter for example — the very simple act of users tweeting a post from your page will increase your site’s visibility. So when people find your content appealing, expect a lot of “shares” and “likes” on different social media platforms.
Loyal Readers Converted to Potential Customers
As an online entrepreneur, always aim for loyal readers. To do this, observe how your competitors are doing, find out their weaknesses and you will know what kind of information to disseminate. Loyal readers seek effective, compelling and unique copy. Therefore, produce an attention-grabbing content and stay ahead of your competitors.
When loyal readers frequently visit your site and leave comments and queries, you are slowly converting them to potential customers. Constantly add new and useful content and you will see a spike in the number of your customers in no time.
Gain Customers’ Trust
Now that you already have customers, you NEED to gain their trust to keep them. This is hard especially when you do it online. It is quick and easy to showcase your products or services on your website but difficult to let customers purchase them. Hence, offer valuable content and show to people that you know what you are talking about.
Deliver compelling content and people will understand that you have a deeper commitment. This separates you from brands that are merely selling “stuff.” Good content will let you form a personal connection with your customers and help you become someone they want to do business with. Also, provide a user friendly website with the help of a reputable web design company to increase your customer’s trust.
Attract Search Engines
If you regularly publish valuable content, you attract and “teach” search engines spiders to crawl more to your page. Make this a habit and they will become your site’s regular visitors and will help improve your website’s Google ranking. Don’t forget the support of website designs firms – they aid you in outdoing your competitors with a good web design.
Links
Links are very crucial. When people find your content useful, they will link to your articles and you get extra links in the process. This will give more traffic to your site and increase its rank on search engines. Deliver credible content and expect more links in return.
Coming up with great content could be done in different methods but never forget that a clear and persuasive web copy is the most vital component for your website. If you continually provide quality content and have a professional website design, your business will thrive and succeed in the long run.