Blogging tips for beginners - Part 2

These blogging tips are update on my last post on Blogging tips for beginners. These are mainly using some blogger.com features which are actually useful but rarely used by bloggers.

Blogging tip #26 - Scheduling

Please write regularly for your post because search engine likes blogs which are updated regularly.
Many times due to lack of time or other reason we do not get time to write for the blog so when ever you have some thoughts or ideas to write something straight a way write into new post and do not publish but save as draft. Later on add and edit into it as you get time.
Also there is one feature on blogspot blogs called scheduling. So when ever you are writing more than one post do not publish them at a time. Rather than this , publish one post and schedule the publishing of more posts on future dates. You can do this by clicking post options below the post editor window and then change date , time under Post date and time and then click publish. See the picture below (click to enlarge).

Wordpress blogger can do this by entering future date and time located at Publish window on right hand sidebar. See the picture below.


This helps you to take vacation from blogging , search engine benefit and good impression on visitors.

Blogging tip #27 - Adding free content

The other important feature of blogger.com is you can have free relevant and interesting content for your blog with add video bar and newsreel option. You need to go to Layout > Add a gadget > then select Video bar or Newsreel . You can enter keywords related to your blog subject and save. This will display related content on sidebar of your blog. This content gets updated automatically.
e.g. check news on right hand sidebar of Vegetarian Bloggers.

Blogging tip # 28 - Adding special gadget

When we click on Add a gadget a list of basic 20 gadgets is shown.But if you look at left side you can find categories as new, tools, communication, fun and games, finance, sports, life style and technology. There are thousands of gadgets for each category so you can find gadget suitable to your blog subject.
e.g.I have added a domain check gadget on right hand side bar of this blog from technology category.
Check sidebar of Urja's Paintings blog for fish game.



I will keep more blogging tips posting . Please leave your comments.

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 !

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 ....

How to change Blogger blog template

Personally I feel three column blogger templates are better and I have mentioned resources for free blogger templates in my earlier post free-blogger-templates-resources

So you may want to change your blogger blog template to a better professional looking template and here is guide for it.


To change blog template please follow the following steps

Steps for installing default blogger templates

1) After login to your blogger account go to

Dashboard > Layout > Pick new template

Then you can choose from available templates on blogger.com and click Save template.
You need to save widgets before doing this as mentioned below.

Steps for installing third party blogger templates

1) Suppose you want to install some other third party template which is not on blogger website.
Then you can download the template you like from the website and can save that template on your hard drive .

2) Then you need to backup your original template first. For this from Dashboard go to > Layout > Edit HTML > Download full template > choose save to disk and save it on your hard disk.
This backup is helpful if anything goes wrong with new template.

3) Now when we change template , the widgets are lost .Widgets are your added page elements like visitors counter , html script , link list etc. So you need to download code of each widget properly name it and save it with notepad as a text file. To copy code of each widget you need to go to Page elements then edit and you can view the code of respective page element which you can copy and then paste in Notepad.

4) Now go to Dashboard > Layout > Edit HTML > Browse
Choose saved template from your hard disk and click Upload.
This will give you warning for widgets to be deleted.
Then you can continue with save template.
Your new template is installed , so view your blog and check it

5) Now start installing each widgets you have saved earlier by going to Page Elements > Add a Gadget.

Hope this post is useful and works out.



blog directory

How to add video to blog post

In my earlier post , I have discussed about adding and optimizing pictures on blog post . Today we will discuss adding video to blog post.This article is for blogger / blogspot blogs only. Adding video to blog post makes it more interesting and attractive.
You can add video from three main sources.
1) Video stored on your computer harddisk. You might have shoot it using your cell phone and then downloaded to your PC.
2) Video from youtube.com
3) Video from video.yahoo.com

Now we will discuss how to add video from this three sources

1) For adding video from your PC , please go to create new post then in the post toolbar you will find a 'Add video' button or icon , at second last position from right hand side as shown below.

Then you have to select file from your PC by clicking on Browse , then give title and click upload video. But please remember that your video file format should be AVI, MPEG, QuickTime, Real, and Windows Media. And maximum file size of 100MB . If you have saved your video from cell phone , file format can be different , so please convert it to any of above format using proper video conversion utility software.

2) For adding video from youtube.com , after going on this site , you have to select the video you want to add. Then on the right hand side of the screen or browser window you will find Embed and html code written there as shown below.You have to select that code and paste into your post in edit html mode.

You can change size of window for video by changing width and height pixels.

3) For adding video from video.yahoo.com , after going to this website you have to select your video.Then below the video it is written Add to site and the html code will be there as shown below. You have to copy this code and paste it on you blog post in Edit html mode.


You can resize window size for video by changing width= and height= pixel no.s

I hope you like this post and is useful to you.

Blog traffic - keyword research

In my earlier posts I have told that one need to do keyword research for the subject of his/her blog. And try to find popular keywords. Then after finding this keyword one should use it in domain name ,title etc as I have said in my earlier post.

Now how to do this keyword research ? What are the free tools available ?

Please check following sites for keyword research.

http://www.wordtracker.com/index.html ( go for free trial)

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

http://www.google.com/trends


After finding the keywords , you need not select the most popular one , because sometimes you can not get top ranking for that keyword. So you need to choose smartly among the popular keywords. For this wordtracker.com will be useful.

Please comment as how you find this post.

Jump start your blog

I was active last two days on blogcatalog and discussing blog promotions also. It was good experience and was nice to talk to bloggers. I visited many blogs and found that they have missed few basic things related to their blog optimization and promotions. So I felt I should write this post to boost their blog and jump start their blog.

1)Please do keyword research for the subject of your blog. For which keywords you want your blog to be ranked high in search engines ? Find out popular keyword.
2) Try to use this keyword in domain name / blog name.
3) Use this keyword in Title and description of your blog.
4) Submit your blog to good top blog directories. Do not submit to paid one.
5) Optimize pictures/images on your blog by hyper linking them to your blog with your keyword in ALT and TITLE tag.
6) Use keyword in content of the post, do not over do it. Convert those keywords in to hyper link with TITLE tag. See blog promotions word in first line of this post.
7) When visitors comes to your blog he is looking for some content so please see that in first screen of the blog, content of your recent post is visible and not ad or something else.
As 70% user have 1024 x 768 screen, check visibility in that resolution and also in 800 X 600 screen resolution. If for any reason loading of the blog is slower please find out why it is so, many times because we load images from other source so correct it.
8) Will add more tips .......


Few tips above need more explanation so I will add it soon e.g. sites for doing keyword research, how to add hyper link, ALT tag etc.

To be continued.....

Please leave your comment here, it will boost me and my blog :)