25 Blogging tips to build better blog for beginners

During my surfing of the net and participation in discussions I came across many blogs and bloggers.
After looking at their blogs and blogging help they have asked for I decided to write this post about blogging tips so that by using these blogging tips they can do better blogging and make their blog better.

You may already have a blog or want to start a new blog so I will list my tips starting from choosing the blog name (domain name)

Please read following 25 blogging tips to build better blog .

Group #1 - Blogging tips for starting a new blog or writing new post.These are important for search engine optimization.

1) First do the keyword research for the blog topic / subject . Please read my post on keyword research .Finding popular keywords related to your blog or your post topic is must.

2) Try to use the keywords in domain name, blog title, post title, post content,hyper link , ALT tag, TITLE tag etc.in a natural way.This will help you to get higher search engine ranking.

3) Try to limit no. of your labels / categories around 20. Use tag cloud or label cloud if you want to save space. If you have many topics on one blog try to regroup and relabel. If totally different topics are mixed on one blog and has sufficient no. of posts for each topic then start new blog for that topic.

4)Do not copy old posts of a blog on new blog.You can get penalized for duplicate content. You need to remove old copy from the search engine and then add same post at new blog.

5) Use post title optimization widget on this blog for blogger / blogspot blog so that you get better search engine ranking. Wordpress bloggers can use plugin like All in one SEO for meta tag and title optimization.



Group #2 - Blogging tips related to look and content of the blog.

6) The look and layout of the blog should be nice, neat and beautiful so that it can create good impression on the visitor and he should feel to stay more and visit again. Content quality should also be good for this.

7) Navigation and layout should be such that visitor should be able to find the recent posts, labels very easily. So if Recent posts and Labels are near top of side bar it will be visible in first screen of the blog and the visitor will have a quick idea of what the blog is about and can jump to his topic of interest quickly.

8) Use pictures , images wherever possible to make your post colorful and attractive.
Do picture / image optimization as described in my earlier post. No need to use large images , you can use medium to small images .

9) Loading time of the blog should not be very long or visitor will run away before the page opens. So keep check on what widgets / code you are installing and does it slows down the loading. If you are loading pictures , make sure that the file size is not big .Do not use BMP files , you can use jpg , png files. Also check image size. You can do all this using photoshop. As sometimes images load slower from external sources , check that also.

Group #3 - Blogging tips related to writing and visitors

10) Write your post after proper research and gathering total information . Do not write too long.
Use grouping , paragraph , sub titling for arranging the information in post body.

11) Writing language should be easy to understand and wherever possible write in humorous way. If visitor enjoys your post he will come back.

12) Give links to useful resources related to your topic. Also give links to your earlier posts with proper anchor text wherever possible. This improves internal linking of your blog.

13) Encourage the reader to participate / comment . You can also run some contest or survey on your blog and keep some prize for that.

14) Use beautiful and professional looking theme / template and header image for your blog.
There are many free templates available so you can easily get one suitable to your blog.
Choose 3 column template which uses full 1024 X 768 resolution.This gives you more space.

15) The font color and size should be such that blog should be readable in different screen resolution.

Group #4 - Blogging tips to increase readers and revenue.

16) Burn your feed at feedburner and provide subscribe via email facility for your RSS feed .

17) Check your blog visibility and feed in different browser. Especially in internet explorer and firefox.

18) Try to increase your RSS feed subscriber and use adsense for feed to display google adsense on the feed.

19) Use google adsense or other advertisements in post body , right hand side bar and below the header . Use adsense link unit with labels or links or below header. Match background color of adsense with blog or post background color.

20) Read my post on blog traffic tips to build traffic from sources other than search engine.

Group #5 - Following are precautionary blogging tips (what not to do)

21) There should not be many outgoing links (pointing to other websites / blogs) in the post or side bar. Remove unnecessary outgoing links. Place all outgoing links near bottom of right hand side bar or footer.

22 ) Do not buy or sell links for link building.

23) If paid posts are must for you keep it minimum or have separate website / blog for paid posts or articles.

24) As said above do not write same post again ( duplicate content ) . Do not edit old post titles and content for search engine optimization .

25) Do not have METATAGS only for main home url of blogger blog , as it will be used for all the post and you will get duplicate metatag error in google webmaster tools. You are also misguiding and confusing search engine by having same meta tag for all posts . So you can use script / widget which can give different METATAGS to individual posts. Wordpress blogger can have METATAG for individual post by using All in one SEO plugin.

I hope these blogging tips covers all important aspects of blogging . Please write your comments and any tips you have !

Add adsense ad, link unit or page element below header

Many blogs have good blogger template and they want to add the google adsense link unit or google adsense ad below header or title. How to do it?

For this purpose either they can change the whole template or do the simple html code editing mentioned here. This widget / trick actually gives additional 'Add gadget' (add page element) option above the header.

Go to your Dashboard > layout > edit HTML > then search for

<div id='header-wrapper'>
<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='1' showaddelement='no'>
<b:widget id='Header1' locked='true' title='your blog title (Header)' type='Header'/>
</b:section>
</div>

Now you need to edit this code as shown below

change maxwidgets='2'
change showaddelement='yes'
change locked='false'

your code should now look like this

<div id='header-wrapper'>
<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='2' showaddelement='yes'>
<b:widget id='Header1' locked='false' title='your blog title (Header)' type='Header'/>
</b:section>

Now go to Layout , you will find Add a gadget option above the header . Now click on it and you can add adsense link unit or ad unit or some other gadget. Then click save.

Your adsense ad will start showing above the header.

But suppose you want it below the header then how to do it ?

Sometimes you can not drag it in layout screen . So again go to Edit HTML and search for the code and then swap the lines as shown below and then click save. Now your ad unit is below the header.

<div id='header-wrapper'>
<b:section class='header' id='header' maxwidgets='2' showaddelement='yes'>

<b:widget id='Header1' locked='false' title='your blog title (Header)' type='Header'/>
<b:widget id='AdSense1' locked='false' title='' type='AdSense'/>
</b:section>

Show total posts - total comments script widget

On right hand side column of this blog traffic tips blog you can see total number of posts and total number of comments.

How to show total number posts and/or total number of comments on your blogger blog ?

Here is script to show total number of posts and comments . You have to add this java script
by going to Dashboard > Layout > Add a gadget > HTML /Java script

Then copy following java script .

Please change blog url from www.blogtraffictips.net to yourname.blogspot.com in the following script.


<script src="http://www.blogtraffictips.net/feeds/posts/default?orderby=published&alt=json-in-script&callback=rp"></script>

<script style="text/javascript">
function numberOfPosts(json) {
document.write('Total number of Posts: <b>' + json.feed.openSearch$totalResults.$t + '</b><br>');
}
</script>
<script src="http://www.blogtraffictips.net/feeds/posts/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=numberOfPosts"></script>




<script src="http://www.blogtraffictips.net/feeds/comments/default?orderby=published&alt=json-in-script&callback=rp"></script>

<script style="text/javascript">
function numberOfComments(json) {
document.write('Total number of Comments: <b>' + json.feed.openSearch$totalResults.$t + '</b><br>');
}
</script>
<script src="http://www.blogtraffictips.net/feeds/comments/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=numberOfComments"></script>


The first half can be used to display only total no. of posts and second half can be used to display only total no. of comments.

Post title optimization for blogger blog

Earlier I have written two posts for title optimization - What is title optimization and Title optimization widget

But there was one problem with this widget . After installing this widget one can not shift the page elements , it gives error when you click on save after shifting.
So there was request to find a error free title optimization widget or script.

First we will understand what is post title optimization . Normally the title of the post appears on top of browser as Blog title + Post title . i.e. the title of this post will normally appear as
Blog traffic tips to make money : Post title optimization for blogger blog . But since title optimization is done on this blog it appears as only Post title optimization for blogger blog. This is important to get proper weightage in search engine for the keywords used in post title.

Now how to do this ?

Go to Dashboard> Layout > Edit HTML
Then search for

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

Then replace it with following code

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'>
<title><data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/></title>
</b:if>

Then click on Save template . Your post title optimization is done.

Now check the individual post of the blog . And look at top of the browser for title .

How to shift to custom domain

You must have noticed the new domain name www.blogtraffictips.net for this blog and I thought the whole experience will be useful to my blogger friends and hence writing this post.

You can buy domain name of yours from any domain registering company , the pricing are ranging from $5 to $10 (lees with hosting packages) per year. But if you buy from any company other than google/blogger dashboard than you need to change CNAME record in the domain name control panel.

Now how to shift to custom domain using our blogger dashboard ?

From dashboard go to settings> publishing > then click on switch to custom domain >
Now you have to choose the domain name , the extension available are .com, .org , .net, .biz, .info

Please see the picture below ( click to enlarge )


After choosing the domain name , you have to make the sign up and payment procedure.

Your custom domain name starts working within few minutes . (my experience) .

Now what are the advantages and disadvantage of shifting to custom domain ?

Benefits or advantages of shifting to custom domain

1) You get your unique identity for your blog owned by you. Makes you also feel little better.
2) You get more and better advertisers . You may get higher paying cpc or ppc ads .
3) Many advertising network programs do not allow publishers with free domain , so you get approved there.

As your old url will be there in search engines , blog directories etc. what about the traffic coming from all these sources to your old url ? There is no need to worry as blogger / blogspot gives you facility of redirecting all your traffic to new custom doamin url .

Disadvantages

Are there any ? yes

You have all you internal and external links in posts, blog directories etc. pointing to your old url ( yourname.blogspot.com) so it is better to change it to your new custom domain name (yourname.com) . Please check your blog is pointing to http://yourname.com or http://www.yourname.com and use the new url accordingly. it is important from search engine point of view.

Now think of what happens to your search engine entries and ranking and also alexa rankings ?

Awaiting your comments ....