Saturday, September 29, 2007

A Blogging Life: 2000 to 2007 and Beyond

This post was written by Linda Jo Martin for the "My Experience" series.

I've been blogging since 2000. I started blogging because I noticed the beginning of the online diary phenomena, and wanted to participate. I love web design, and at that time was experimenting with creating various types of sites. For over a year I didn't use blogging software; instead I updated a HTML page by hand. I didn't know anything about blog platforms but I wanted to record fragments of my family's life on the web. At that point, blogging was all about letting people know just a bit about who I was and what my goals in life were.

I started using Blogger.Com right after the 9/11 disaster in 2001 when I was dealing with all the emotions and trauma of that situation. I loved Blogger – so much that I started several blogs: one for my daily life, one for writing about war and justice, and yet another for writing about a popular radio program I listened to daily.

I started another blog to write about the homeschooling I was doing with my two youngest children. I believe that may have been the first homeschooling blog on the Internet; I don't know of any others that date from before then (late 2001).

Blogging has been part of my life for seven years now. At this point I've abandoned all my earliest blogs though I'm in the process of restoring some archives for SEO value. I've transferred all my current blogs to WordPress because again, I'm looking at SEO value. I like to write posts that do well in the search engines; most of my blog visitors come to me that way.

Though I started blogging as a way to write about my daily life, I no longer do that because I feel I've got more important things to write about. Now I like to keep my life more private and have transformed my blogs into services that will help others achieve their goals.

For example, my goal with my writing blog is to help and inspire other writers. Here's the link: Perspectives on Writing - http://www.lindajomartin.com/


Why most beginners are not mistaken

You may have seen a post like “why most beginners are mistaken by selecting blogging niche” in many popular blogging blogs. They were hurting me as I was running a blogging blog. But now I say they are the ones who have mistaken. Many beginners start a blogging blog without much knowledge and fail. Selecting ‘blogging niche’ in the beginning is not at all a mistake. The mistake is trying to make it popular and failing. Let me say “every beginner blogs fail”, topic and content doesn’t mater. As I said in my last post, if you make your first blog a training, you can convert the failure to victory. Blogging is the best niche to start with as it let you learn more about blogging. It may fail and nothing is wrong about that. If you have just started blogging, I will encourage you to start a blogging and I will ensure you that you will win in your next blog.


Friday, September 28, 2007

What is your first blog for?

I haven’t heard about someone who earned lot in his first attempt of blogging. If there is one, he is so lucky. Just like that, being a beginner, your first attempt may not get much attention. Don’t worry, you can win next time.

Then, what is your first blog for? Consider your first blog has a learning course. In your first blog you learn and try each and every factor of blogging. Building more than one blog in the first attempt is not a good idea. You just need one blog and you concentrate on it to learn the maximum. If you have learned the maximum with your blog, be sure you will win next time. You learn how to blog perfectly from your first blog, then you use what you have learned to build your second one.

Just try to earn something you may need for your next blogs and don't spend much for your first blog.


Related Posts
Study your best day
Reason of my failure
Why blogging

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Share your experiences of blogging

I have decided to give you an opportunity to share their experience with other readers. You just have to write your experiences of blogging and send it me via email. I will post it in this blog shortly after editing. You get an opportunity to know what other bloggers are doing, plus you can show them what you are doing and what you have done.

What do you get?
The readers would like to see your blog when your post is published here. You get some traffic and link from this blog and the best opportunity to know experiences of other readers. You will get good reviews from me and other readers.

How to write the post
The post must have at least 150 words. You should write about what you have done, what you are doing, what you felt, your mistakes and everything from your experiences. You can use your own style of writing. If you are not a beginner just write the experience when you started blogging.

How to submit the post
You can send it via my email id:-jaseemumer@gmail.com. Subject of the mail must be like this: “My experience-{here goes the post title}”

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

11 things readers want in a blog

1-Content-Everyone reads a blog for content!

2-Good look-Bloggers and readers like a good look

  • Color combination-A color combination that makes it hard for reading says "go back" to the readers.
  • Font-When selecting font, remember "it is for reading".

3-Links-What do you think about a webpage without links?

  • Links to their blogs (If they have)-Is there anyone who doesn’t like a link to his own blog?! (Don't worry about this)
  • Link to other useful blogs-People read blogs for content and you should show them where to find it.
  • Links to related posts-They can read more if they want.

4-Navigation tools-Reading a blog without anything for navigation is like being lost in a forest.

  • Archives-Without archives how can readers find old posts?
  • Search box-Help the readers to find what they want.
  • Categories/Labels-Categorized navigation for finding posts on interested categories.

5-Feed-Help readers subscribe and make loyal visitors!

  • Feed burned with Feedburner-Feedburner helps the readers to subscribe easily.
  • Link to Feed-If there is a feed, there is a feed URL. If there is a feed URL, there must be a link to it.
  • Feed chicklets-Give one click access to their readers.

6-‘Contact Me’ form/link/email-If anyone wants to contact you private.

7-Comment forms-All blogs have this. If anyone has hidden comment forms, show them for your readers.

8-About-They want to know what the blog is about.

  • About page-They may like to know more about your blog.
  • About the blogger-Yes, about you too, bloggers.

9-No NoFollow-I am a fan of DoFollow.

  • In comments-Extra value for commenting.
  • Anywhere in the blog-You are really selfish, if the whole blog is ‘protected’ with NoFollow. Remove NoFollow entirely from your blog.

10-Images-Beautiful images for beautiful blogs.

  • Inside posts-Readers can understand more easily through images.
  • Outside posts-Readers love to read beautiful blogs.

11-Money-Everyone wants money! If you can't spend any, just put a paid review button or something like that.



Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Increase RSS subscribers with ten steps

I always wanted to increase my feed subscription. When I started this blog, I didn’t have any readers and it was before a month. As readers increased in my blog I tried to increase RSS subscriptions. The tricks worked amazingly and doubled the feed subscribers. I would like to share them with you. They may not double your subscription but will do great.

  • Burn your feed with Feedburner-This will give a two click access to feed readers and work really well
  • chickletize your feed
  • Use full-feed
  • Make it easy for readers-Make it easy for the readers to subscribe in anyway. They don’t want to visit 4 or 5 pages for subscribing. Put links in appropriate places that peoples can catch it easily.
  • Mention the feed in a post
  • Ask people to subscribe-This can be done in your blog or by contacting readers privately.
  • Frequent posting
  • Fix the time of posting- A sudden change in the time of posting is like saying the subscribers “you can go”. I would like to give an example: a person reads his subscriptions everyday at 5pm. One day he found there is no post and unsubscribe. This can be happened if the blogger changed his posting time to after 5. So fix the time and call them back.
  • Don’t display small count-Publishing a count that is low, works negatively and the count will go down in no time. Display it only when you have 150 subscribers.
  • Show your feed before an audience- Communities like MyBlogLog and blogging forums allow you to show your last posts in them. You should use this feature to build subscribers.


Liked this post? What are you waiting for? subscribe to this blog!

Monday, September 24, 2007

Why quantity is important for blogs

If you ask an expert how to increase traffic for your blog, he will share some tips with you. Still if you find the tips not working, it may be because that the quantity of content is low, there may be other reasons. I’m not talking about anything else, but quantity.

The tricks used for better blogging like social networking, link exchanging etc; works better when you have lots of content. When I started this blog I used some but found them useless, but now I find many of them amazingly useful. There have been lots of changes to this blog since it started. Quantity also increased. I find the tricks more and more useful each time my quantity increases. Search engines consider the quantity also for the ranking and lots of content can increase your search engine rank.

Lots of content is a type of “giving readers what they want”. A person reads my blog because he wants to make his blogging better. So I have to give him the maximum I can that make one’s blogging better and that’s what I meant by increasing quantity. You have to post a lot before seeing those tricks working. Still you have to make it easy for the readers to find what they want.


Related Posts
Factors of quality content
Frequency and length

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Do better without NoFollow

Comment on this blog to get linkedNoFollow is an HTML attribute value used with links to instruct search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link target’s search engine rank. It is used like this: rel=“nofollow”. In all blog platforms, links in comments are set to NoFollow by default. You can remove this by deleting rel=“nofollow” from the template code or by using DoFollow plug-in. Removing NoFollow is a favor for the commentators. This will encourage the readers to put comment as they can increase their search engine rank by just commenting. You can put a badge in your blog to inform the readers that you have removed NoFollow.

You may think “who want a link in an unpopular blog”. There are people who want. What you have to do is, remove nofollow, go to the link exchange part of the forum you participate and put a post like “exchange links for comments”. So if anyone wants to exchange links they will put a comment in your blog with a link to their blog.

This trick works in another way. You can increase your search engine rank by commenting in popular blogs without nofollow.

Blogs linking to you in posts will be linked back. Those links are called backlinks. You can disable backlinks. You can encourage linking to your blog by removing NoFollow from backlinks. This may not work with a newly established blogs.


Saturday, September 22, 2007

Are you on the right track?

Let me quote a comment posted by Barbara from Blogging Without A Blog: “It can be disheartening when you work so hard at posting and the traffic doesn't show up. But, if you truly love blogging and sharing, in the long run it will pay off. Traffic is fickle, and the highs and lows at times may feel like a roller coaster ride, but if your traffic increases from month to month, you know you're on the right track.” Thanks to Barbara for the comment.

When you start a blog the traffic will be low. It may climb the Everest and fall from there and you shouldn’t have to worry about it. If your traffic is increasing month to month, you should be happy that you are on the right track. If it is not, there is a problem with your blog or blogging. It may be the topic, language, template or something else. It is you who can understand the problem and fix it.

My traffic usually increase day by day and I am happy about it. But when my traffic climbs the cliff, I may have to take a vacation for some reasons. Then my traffic, feed subscribers and everything goes down. The reason of the problem is that I don’t have anyone to blog for me. Do you know how to solve this problem? Are you ready to blog for me? If you do, put a comment here.


Related Posts
What do you felt when you started
Traffic-A big barrier
When you get stuck

Friday, September 21, 2007

Top four ways to make money from blogs

As I can’t make money from ads, I found some other ways of making money. There are lots of ways and I have selected three suitable ones for beginners.

  • PayPerPost - PayPerPost is a website that provides opportunities to the bloggers for making money from writing posts on topics needed by advertisers. If someone want a post on a topic, he submit the topic in PayPerPost and a blogger write the post, he receives the money provided by the advertiser. You need to register in PayPerPost for using this facility. Your blog must have 19 posts and must be 3 months old.
  • Affiliate Programs-Some websites give money for blogging about them, linking etc. They will give a fixed percentage of their income to you.
  • Donations-You can ask for donations, some may give. Don’t get offended if no one donates.
  • Ads for search-Adsense offer ads for search to your blog. When someone search your blog using google and click on ads appeared in the result page, you get money. I use this because I don't have to spend time customizing ads

I have selected only the three as the others are not appropriate for beginners, even then I don’t guarantee that you can earn a lot.


Related Posts
Making money from ads
When to put ads
Earn $25 for nothing

Thursday, September 20, 2007

10 Top tricks to increase comments

People consider the comments in a blog as an indicator of quality; so increasing comments are essential for better blogging. I found some useful tricks that can be applied to your blogs.

  1. Remove NoFollow-NoFollow is an attribute used in links that prevent search engines from counting them. In all blog platforms links in comments are set to NoFollow by default. You can remove this by editing the template code. Removing NoFollow is a cup of juice for the commentators. This will encourage the readers to comment on your blog. Read this to learn more
  2. Invite comments- You may ask your readers, friends or relatives to post a comment.
  3. Give a question- Giving a question in the post will attract comments as the readers may like to answer them. This may not be applicable if your blog has a very low traffic
  4. Highlight top commentators- Most of the people like to be highlighted before the crowd. You can do this by putting a ‘Top Commentator Widget’ or something like that. You may link to the commentator in it.
  5. Ask for opinion-You may ask the reader’s opinion in a debate or discussion post. Readers will always tend to comment when their opinion is asked for.
  6. Display recent comments-This will remember the readers that there is a comment form there and a conversation is going on.
  7. Make it easy- People don’t like to waste their time. They don’t want to register an account for commenting. You should remove all barriers like login, registration, filling long forms etc. for commenting
  8. Provide links to the form-You can encourage your readers to put a comment by providing links to your comment form.
  9. Reply to the comments-Replying the comments increase interaction with the readers. if you are not replying, that is enough to decrease your traffic and comments
  10. Comment on other blogs-If you comment on a blog, then the blogger will tend to visit your blog and post a comment. This may be wrong if you are posting an irrelevant comment or in a blog with tons of them. But it is sure that this will increase the traffic

Do you have any more trick post it here. Don't be too shy to post a comment, I have also removed NoFollow.


Related Posts
Factors of quality
Make you blog look professional

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Buttons for bookmark optimization

Sorry for not posting in the last 3 days. It was because of a problem of my computer.

Social bookmarking is a way of traffic to blogs. You can earn more traffic if you do better with them. I am now using some bookmark buttons to increase bookmarking by readers. I think it is working great. This will make it is easy for the readers to bookmark your blog. You can add buttons like mine to your footer. I know only the code for Blogger, you may find it if you are using Wordpress or else.

If you want to add buttons: Login to your blogger account→ click ‘Layout’→ Select ‘Edit HTML’ tab→ Check ‘Expand Widget Templates’→ put this code below <p class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-3'/>→ click ‘Show preview’→If you liked it click ‘Save template’



Saturday, September 15, 2007

Go for a reader hunt

I was using this trick before and am sorry for not sharing it with you. This trick really makes good and loyal visitors and they will stick to you all the time. It is nothing but finding readers who need your blog. I didn’t get time to use this, but now I am sure it will work. It takes time, but is worth. You go for a reader hunt!

There are so many places where you can find readers for your blog. Let me show you how I did it. I went to the ‘show your blog’ part of the forum I participate, where I can find new bloggers who don’t know how to do better in the blogosphere. I put a reply for every post and the bloggers started reading my blog. If you are running a chess blog, you can find readers from a chess community. You can find readers to your chair blog from a furniture blog, but should contact the reader by emailing or putting comment in his blog. But before this you should make sure your blog contains what readers want. If it doesn’t, you should make it the only place they can find something they want by select a unique topic.



Friday, September 14, 2007

Make Your Blog Look Professional

You have a blog with tons of good and useful posts, you have done all traffic increasing tricks, and still you don’t get visitors. Why? Many popular blogs post useless and long posts still the posts don’t decrease their traffic. When someone sees your blog they should see your posts and find them useful, but before that they will evaluate your blog. I have seen many blogs with cool and useful posts and they don’t get much traffic. Even I am affected by this problem. I have to solve this problem and for that I have to list the things that are counted by readers and then fix the problems.

Domain-Unlike any other factors your domain name is evaluated before someone visit your blog. As I can’t buy my own one I am using a ‘blogspot’ sub-domain. I have to find a way to make money outside my blog.

Host-Yes, host counts. I don’t know why but Wordpress blogs have more traffic than blogger blogs. It may be because it looks more professional.

Template- When a visitor sees your blog it is the template which first come to his eyes. I have been trying to make my template cool. I added a favicon, some widgets, made a logo and selected a color combination for my blog. I am still trying to making it better.

Number of posts- Number of posts means how much big your blog is. Most people like to read bigger blogs rather than small ones. But blogs with fewer posts also get good traffic if the blogger is experienced and popular. To know why, you have to ask an expert. You should fill your blog with good

Number of comments- Number of comments is considered by readers as the indicator of traffic. You should do something to attract comments. Replying to the comment, giving link to comment form, thanking commentator etc. are the ways to attract comments. I you have any more ideas share it with us.


Related posts
First Impression
Factors of quality content

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Chickletize your feed

After the comparison post I was in a search of widgets. I found some useful ones and you may have noticed that I have added 3 or 4 in two days. The widgets made my blog colorful and increased the pageviews. The most effective one among them was the feed chicklets which you can see in the sidebar. They increased feed subscriptions from 7 to 20 in just one day. They provide a one click access to feed readers and are very much useful.
Feedburner provides an inbuilt chicklet chooser with links to popular feed readers. You can use this to make your widget and is pretty much easy to use.

Related posts

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Submit your blog to search engines

Search engines are a source of traffic to websites. You should ensure that your blog is indexed in search engines. The only search engine that gives traffic to my blog is Google, but I have submitted my blog to other popular search engines like Yahoo, MSN etc. You should do so to ensure you are indexed in them. In most times blogs are automatically added to search engines, you can do it manually through the site submission pages of the search engines. I have given the links to some submission pages below. Find others and your blog to them.

  • Submit to Google
  • Submit to Yahoo!
  • Submit to MSN
  • Submit to Alexa


  • Related Posts
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    Full-feed or short-feed

    ProBlogger has a new debate on choosing feeds. Gina Trapani is arguing for short-feed and Rick Klau for full-feed. Reading the debate and comments, I think I should choose full-feed. I was using short-feed till now. I had written a post on RSS feed but haven’t said which one to choose. You may go to ProBlogger and read the debate. Choose your feed type!


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    Tuesday, September 11, 2007

    Factors of quality content

    Quality content is the most important factor in the success of a blog. You may ask: “what is this quality”. Let me answer this. I have given the factors of quality content below.

    What readers get-people read your blog for something and you have to ensure they are getting it in your posts. They must get what they expect from your blog. You must give them description to everything in the post or link to it.

    Title-Title have to be attractive, it has to make people click in the links from social networks. People have to feel that the post contain something they needed. Title must give a description of what you are writing about. (Don’t give a title ‘Music’ to a post about blogging)

    Language-In any article you write, the language style is important. Good language can make people stick to your blog. If your language is bad try to make it good. You must use your own style in writing.

    Pictures-I have felt that people like pictures. You should try to add pictures in your posts which will make it more attractive and understanding

    Links-You should link to websites or blogs related to the content. Don’t mind linking to StumbleUpon when you write about it.



    Monday, September 10, 2007

    Compare and learn

    FoFComparison is a way of research. We are going to compare some blogs now, OK? Find most popular blogs on your niche, if it is yours then choose blogs from some other topics. You should compare them and learn. By doing this we get the answer to the question: “What changes should I make to my blog”.

    I’ll show you how I did it. I found two blogs that offer guide to beginner bloggers. I’ll show you them:- Preblogging and New2blog. First I have to compare them.let us have a look.

    The Preblogging is a Wordpress hosted blog, pretty good template than mine, is using ads, have got its sidebar full, cool widgets, the blogger really know to make the posts long, but it is not like mine and is talking about the tools.

    Now let us look at New2blog. It is too using Wordpress, is using a Wordpress inbuilt template, have got links to social media in post footer, have ads, got cool videos, is talking too much about tools and some posts are not at all related to blogging, wow- it was nominated for ‘best blogging blog award’.

    There are lots of differences between them and mine. The main one is that they are hosted in their own domain and Wordpress, but I can’t do so as I have no money to pay. The two blogs I mentioned here looks more professional than mine because of the template. the bloggers have made their blogs attractive by images and videos.

    What changes should I make?

    This is the question we have to answer now. Preblogging and New2blog has filled their sidebars with widgets, it seems pretty good and I should add some more useful widgets. I am going to add some pictures to make my blog to make it attractive, add bookmark buttons in the footer of every post and what ever it makes my blog look more professional.


    Related Posts
    Study your best day
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    Saturday, September 8, 2007

    Earn $25 for nothing

    Me too just didn't believe it first. You may have heard about Auctionads giving $25 for new users. This is really a good help for beginner bloggers who is not earning anything(like me). You should use this to make money. $25 for nothing is not a small thing. What you have to do go to Auctionads and sign up, you will see $25 in you account. The hard thing is making the rest $25.


    Related Posts
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    Friday, September 7, 2007

    Overcoming challenges

    When you start you have lots of challenges, usually a beginner can’t do much with his blog and he doesn’t know how to become good. The essential factors are forgotten while describing tricks and tips.

    Make it the best
    What do you think about me saying to make the best blog, to beginners! I am not telling to make it good or better, to make the best. There are lots and lots of blogs in the blogosphere and people can’t read all of them. They read the best blogs on their favorite topic. So if one has to select your blog, it has to be the best. Yes, blogging is hard, but beginning is harder! If you start a blog about blogging, there are so many good blogging blogs and who will read yours if it is not the best. You may ask “Is this also important to experts too”. Yes, but it is more important to beginners because they have to get noticed.

    Make resources available to reader
    Readers come to your blog for something. If you consider my blog, people come here to know how to win in blogging and so I have to give them everything that will make them the best. You should link to other blogs that may help them and don’t think this will decrease your traffic.

    Be unique
    Most beginners have a temptation to copy everything like topic, template, posts etc. from popular blogs. Quoting from a blog or copying some part of the template is not a problem. But be unique! It’s your blog and it is you who have to lead it to success, not any other blogs or bloggers. People come to your blog for something different. if not, why they to your blog?


    Thursday, September 6, 2007

    Time of posting

    If you think your new post is really great then you should post in right time. What do you think if your readers don’t see that post? Post it in time which gives you maximum visitors, so when someone visits your blog he can read the post. You should always try to make the best post popular.

    To a beginner blog the traffic come mainly from social networking sites like Digg. By making it available to bigger audience you can earn more traffic. The link to your post will be there only for sometime. You should track the time you have more visitors and submit your post in that time. This will make your link available to a bigger audience and you can increase your traffic.


    Related posts
    Analytics
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    Traffic- A big barrier
    What I did to increase my traffic

    Study your best day

    If you think that you don't have any traffic and these tricks I publish here are not working, be patient. A blog with less than 50 posts can only attract a few visitors if it is a beginner's.

    Before telling you the tip I’ll tell you to use Analytics if you aren’t using any visit tracking software. If you get high traffic one day and low in another day, what would you do? You should compare the two days in three ways.

    • Posts- What you blogged on the days. If you consider mine, the best day of traffic was when I posted quotes from Problogger. I have written a post about copying from other blogs because of this. You should compare the style, language and every thing in your post.

    • Other tricks-you should submit your post to every popular social networking sites and compare if you have missed or added to a new one.

    • Template- templates can do changes to your traffic, so compare the templates

    This is what I call learning and it is a big process. You may call this a research, I will tell you that this is important. I always try to learn from each and every post and it help me a lot.


    Related Posts
    Analytics

    Time of posting

    Wednesday, September 5, 2007

    Best way for a blog with 0 traffic to increase it

    You can see many posts on how to increase traffic to your blog. Most of these tips are not applicable to blogs with traffic less than 50. The best way for them is to increase post frequency. I got high traffic when I was posting three per day and got low when I posted 1 per day. If you write lot of posts then your visitors get a chance to read your blog many times. This will also give you more links in social networking sites. i found this tip very useful.

    NB:This is only applicable to beginners.

    Sunday, September 2, 2007

    When you get stuck!

    Most of the bloggers get stuck without knowing what to write for your blog. This happens to even experts. This may happen when your topic is a narrow one.

    How to prevent this

    Prevention is always better than cure, so try to prevent being stuck using these methods:

    • Don’t select a narrow topic. Selecting a wide topic will be hard for blogging, so just make the size of your topic medium.
    • schedule your post before two days. You should find the topic and resource for a post before two days.

    If you get stuck

    You may get stuck even when you use prevention methods. This is how you can get free:

    • Write about another blog of same niche. Write a review of a blog of same topic. If you think this will decrease the traffic, then you are wrong. This method even work as a traffic bait for beginners
    • Write about news on the topic. Go for a news search and write what you found.
    • Write about an older post. This is not recommended for beginners.
    • List some useful sites and resources which will help the readers

    Saturday, September 1, 2007

    What I did to increase my traffic

    I know you won’t like this. This is post which you can see in any blogs, but it’s my duty to share what I did with you. Before increasing traffic you should make your blog sticky. That is, to make your blog feel better to readers. You should prepare your blog (do what I said in previous blogs).
    1. Comment on other blogs-You should be a blog reader before being a blogger. Commenting on popular blogs is a way to be linked in them. This method is said to be the best thing you could do to increase traffic
    2. Use social bookmarking
    3. Use any SEO tips from any blogs
    4. Write a traffic bait- Use your full creativity for a post. You can increase traffic from social networking sites in this way
    5. Participate in a forum-I have found this way really useful. Actually it is from forums I get most of my visitors. Find a blogging forum on your topic and participate in it.
    6. Exchange links with other bloggers

    There any many other ways, but I have used the above methods only.

    Meta tags for SEO

    You may have heard that META tags can be used for increasing search engine rank. I have heard too, but it can’t be a good method. It can be used as a tool that will improve your rank in search engines which use it. It is not at all important than any other SEO trick. I haven’t felt any use from them.

    META tags have lots of other uses. Some search engines search for META keywords in a site (not Google). I will not recommend them and is not at all useful to beginners.

    If some one wants to use them here is the syntax:

    <meta content="keywords separated by commas" name="keywords">
    <meta content="description" name="Description">

    Friday, August 31, 2007

    Traffic-a big barrier

    As traffic is the most important factor in blogging, it is the most difficult thing to increase. I tried my best to increase my traffic, the result was low. I found many tricks useful but still I couldn’t increase it to a reasonable amount. There was no big difference in the average traffic. I thought “all the hard work was vain” Then what was the use of tricks?

    You will be thinking why I wrote this with no use to you. This is only for cheering up you. I want to repeat, there is no shortcut, trick or anything like that to success. Every bloggers start like this. Your blog traffic will increase gradually if it is good. You can use any tips, but they won’t explode or boost your traffic now- in this stage, in the beginning.

    I have said that many of the tricks were useful. They was useful in many ways, they taught me that this is not at all easy. The traffic increased a little bit and is increasing. If you know any tip that really work great, share it with me and other bloggers.

    About

    Let me talk about this blog. I started this blog with an intention to help myself and other newbies in blogging. When my two blogs failed, I searched for a guide that would help. There were lots of sites who help bloggers in making money. Most of them didn’t give a mentionable help to beginners and was meant for intermediates or experts. The blogs for beginners were not so much good or helpful. Me who was searching for a good topic used this problem and started a blog really for newbies and this is it.

    This blog is for newbies who are wondering in the blogosphere. I feel this blog helpful to myself. I am not an expert in blogging, then how am I writing these posts? I search in the guides for anything that is useful to me or beginners, do some research and publish here. I will share everything I have done, with you, always.

    Contact me –Jaseemumer@gmail.com

    Thursday, August 30, 2007

    Selecting Niche

    This is what you and I have to do before starting any blog. Most of the new bloggers select very popular topics, which is a big foolishness. When I first started blogging I too was really mistaken by selecting Blogging as a topic. I understand what you are thinking "What about the topic he is blogging on now?” Can you show me a better blog who walk with the newbies in the path of growth in blogging? I searched a lot for one, the result was $%^&^% (nothing). That's why I started this blog.

    Starting a blog on a very popular topic is worse than a very unpopular one. If you select a general topic then you have to be bewaring of other blogs on same niche. A blog with a topic which is not known attract no visitors (some times they do when all other factors are OK)Your topic must be unique, and suitable for you, readers and search engines.

    Wednesday, August 29, 2007

    About RSS

    RSS stands for 'Really simple syndication'. It is used by people to subscribe to their favorite web-postings.

    Using RSS feeds you need not go to the websites or blogs to read the posts, you just subscribe to the site and read the posts in your 'feed reader'. It is just like subscribing to a daily.

    Reader

    RSS feeds are read by softwares called 'Feed readers', eg:Google Reader, My Yahoo etc. I am using both of them

    To subscribe to a feed :

    1-Log in to your feed account/sign up
    2-Copy the feed URL
    3-Paste it in your reader
    4-OK

    You can subscribe to feed using widgets given in the Blog. To subscribe to this blog, just click on the link on the right sidebar and choose your reader. Many browsers offer inbuilt feed readers. You can use them to read feeds. You can subscribe via email, if the author offers it.

    For Bloggers

    All most all blogging softwares give a built in RSS feed. If you are using 'Blogger', your feed URL will be like this: http://[yourdomain]/feeds/posts/default. I made the widget in the sidebar using Feedburner-the widely used feed manager. Feedburner offers subscription through email.
    Sorry for the post being long!

    Friday, August 24, 2007

    My Traffic








    I would like to share my traffic diagram with you. The days I got the highest traffics and their reasons are given. I think my blog is developing. What is your opinion?
    If anyone ask me to give an advice, I have only one thing to say "Be patient"

    Thursday, August 23, 2007

    In the beginning

    The featured post on problogger this time was really for Newbies (you may think I have started reading problogger now. I am really thankful toDarren Rowse who promotes everyone through his posts).

    "In the early days you’ll feel like you’re talking to yourself (actually in the very beginning you probably are) - but don’t give up because it’s a feeling that will subside. The key is to keep blogging through that awkward beginning because if you do you’ll find people will begin to find you and the memory of talking to yourself will be a distant memory".

    If you are a real Newbie, you will feel like that. Even when I post this, in mind there is a feeling- "all this vain hardwork"-praying it is not.

    First Impression

    The last video post from Problogger was about the first impressions of blog readers. It was sufficient to make me think about the first impression of my readers. I thought about my blog in the view of a reader. Ok, what I thought was "A good blog. Even if it isn't a stand alone, even if it hasn't got its own domain name, the reader is trying to make it good". But not all the viewers are not positive. Some may think that the domain name, template etc. are big problems. They are really problems, but I have no money to buy my own domain or... That's why I have started this blog. I want to train and earn something. I'll guarantee you that after two years-if I continue like this-you will be reading a blog with everything perfect.

    Wednesday, August 22, 2007

    Social networking

    I first heard about social networking in the last week. Not a joke, I have told you that my traffic suddenly increased one day to 122 then back to 15. I looked for the reason. It was 'Stumbleupon' who send 114 visits to my blog. I didn't understood what it was. When I open the page that send me this traffic, it shows 'one of our members has added you to stumbleupon'. I read about it in Problogger, I found that there is some relation between Digg and Stumbleupon. Just with a search I found what it was and why it send me this lot of traffic. You can submit blog posts in these sites . A link will be published there. It is just like free ads, (due to lot of links yours may not be noticed, never mind!). I publish all my post in them by myself. You can use pings like Ping-o-matic to update these site that you have updated your blog.

    Link Exchanging

    Link exchanging is one of the methods used by beginners for Search engine optimization(SEO). Search engines like Google consider links in sites of higher rank for page ranking. Link exchanging is a free process, you exchange your link with another blogger. Both exchangers get profit from this.

    Recently this has got lot more popularity. You can see topics related to this in most every blogging forums. You just find another user who is willing to exchange link with you and exchange links. I am using link exchange to increase search engine page rank and traffic. Link in a good blog can give you a good traffic.

    When you exchange links be sure they are relevant. The relevancy of links are more important than the number of links.

    As I said in the last post, linkbaits can give you links from sites with high rank and popularity.



    Tuesday, August 21, 2007

    How to prepare a Linkbait- 17 easy steps

    I was searching for an article on 'how to prepare a linkbait', I can't find a good and useful one. So this the post is on how to prepare a linkbait. Linkbait is a post that attracts links to your blog. You should use your all skill for it.
    I don't mind anyone who oppose linkbaiting.
    1-Find the topic
    A good topic usually pop-up in your mind, there is no need of searching. The topic must be perfect for you, others and search engines, what people is searching for, what people will link etc. Use your creativity for its full extend.
    2-Review the topic
    Topic is the main part of linkbaiting so you have to review it.
    3-The topic should have different opinions
    If you write with one opinion then the others supporting you will link your post and ones opposing you will also place the link.
    4-Search in the web on the topic.
    This is to see the best article written on this topic. Choose the topic only if you can do better than the best ones written.
    6-Search in Technorati on the topic
    For the same reason of the above tip.
    7-Search again
    This is for collecting resources for your post.
    8-Select the title
    A good title is necessary for a good blog and a good post. The title must attract the readers.
    9-Redo the tips from 2-8
    To make sure you have done it clearly
    10-Start writing the post with all you got.
    Squeeze out your whole creativity and write. Use perfect language and talk to people. You should use informal word and humor (some sops for the readers). Something that create a discussion must be there in the post.
    11-Read the post five times
    Make sure you are fully satisfied with it. You may take two different days to do this so you can read it with different aptitudes. If you are doing it as a team call another one from your team to read it.
    12-Redo the whole things
    13-Review your post
    14-Cheers! Publish it
    15-Don't forget to post it in Technorati, Digg , StumbleUpon etc.
    Give the post maximum publicity
    16-It is upto the readers now
    17-Use the post usefully
    Do something to make money. It can rise you upto a good blogger.

    Read More
    Link baiting within your site

    Monday, August 20, 2007

    Weekly planning

    This is a popular method of planning even followed by countries ( but they use yearly planning). I want to spend my time usefully for my blog. So I decided to use each work for different purposes. That is, the most needed thing for my blog now is traffic so I will spend this week for increasing traffic. Through this system we can use our time usefully.

    When deciding plan for a week you should consider your need, availability of time, method etc. I can only spend 2 hours per day so I have to find methods that will fit in 2 hours. If you want to use your time purposefully, the main factor is how you spend, that is what method you used. To increase blog traffic there are lots of methods, so you have to select the perfect ones from them.

    I am starting this planing today and my first plan is to increase blog traffic!

    Analytics

    This is a part of planning, you should see how many visitors you have and how do they get to your blog etc. I found it very useful (even if I have a little visitors). Increase in your blog traffic means that you are very near to success. There are sites offering statistics for your site, I am using Google Analytics and it is one of the popular ones. You should start an account immediately if you haven't.

    There are lot of uses for this. You can see who visit your blog, when do they visit, where do they click, which page do they read etc. My daily traffic is 13 now. It is pretty low, but I am trying to increase it. i think you understood the use, then what are you waiting for, just find one (I recommend google analytics) and sign up.

    Sunday, August 19, 2007

    When to put ads

    Yesterday I was search for a good blogging tutorial for beginners, when I saw a post which says to place ads immediately. The website was a popular one and it says to put ads immediately after making your blog and this was against my opinion. I should say a beginner has to learn lot from making a blog, placing ads have much more. If I put ads now I think that will be a big foolishness. A beginner has to do lot to make his blog good. If he gets lots of traffic then he can place ads in his blog that there is no need of much concentration on working with his blog.

    I think that the post I told you was for the full time bloggers who can manage their blogs and ads simultaneously. But I am not a full time blogger and majority are not. Even if I was a full time blogger I will concentrate on my blog not ads until average daily visit to my blog become a considerable amount. It is easy to get there, but takes time. What would you say guys, to put ads immediately or after making good traffic. I know someone will say to put ads now, but a new blog needs lots of work and is not like working with a developed blog.

    Saturday, August 18, 2007

    Layout setting

    Layout is one of the important factor of blogging. I can't read a website with bad layout even if it has the best content. If the contents are images then the layout don't mind much, but when it comes to a blog for reading your colour combination and template must be perfect. When I started this blog, I want to choose a template, I selected Minima as it is one of the most used and easily customizable. Then the next step is colour combination. A blog with only white colour feels very much amateur. I tried different colour combination, one with a background of lime green which was changed later considering the request of readers. Now I am sticking with combination of orange and white.

    You don't want to waste space in the screen. I use three column so that I can use maximum space and it provide more customizability. I use the template published at Blogcrowds. There are lot other template in the web. You should create your own if you know how to, so that you get a unique blog. I don't know web designing, that is why I use a made-by-others layout.

    Thursday, August 16, 2007

    Frequency And Length

    While starting the new blog, I had some questions like how long my posts have to be, when often should I post? In almost all tutorials there was a discussion in these topics. Some sites conducted polls to get the peoples view. I know I can't post more than two with only two hours. All the websites told to post one per day and that was suitable for me. As you can see this blog is in the path of growth, I have no usual readers now and lots of posts make new readers stick to my blog, but having readers including feed readers it must be good for author and reader to post one per day. As my blog has no usual readers, if I get time I'll try to post more, the poor thing is I am only getting 2 hours per day. However, I will try to post two per day. I want to post more than 50 in my first month (even if I can't).

    Then the matter is about the length. I like to write small but useful posts, even if any tutorial say to post big ones. As a reader I like reading small posts, as a blogger I like to write small posts. If you decide to write a literature work, you can post long ones, but if you can divide them to shorter ones that's better.


    Wednesday, August 15, 2007

    A New Blog

    After my blogs been failed and deleted I planned of starting a blog with all defects cleared. A blog planned for success, with attractive topic and layout, referable and that gives me lots of money. I searched for topics, but before that I want to make sure I know how to win in blogging. For that I searched in Internet and now also I am in the training. I decided to start a blog on the topic 'blogging'. I knew that there was lots of blogs with excellent posts on this topic. But I wanted to win. I didn't want to start a tutorial or guide about blogging, because I was a total newbie in this subject. So I am made my blog my path of growth and you are reading it- The best Blog of Future- A Newbie's Blog.

    I told you that my blog is a planned one. I will talk to you about the planning. As I learned from the earlier blogs I didn't want to place ads before my blog is developed. If do so I have to spend my time for customizing the ads. So I have to develop my blog before placing ads in it. That's why you can't see any ads here. So how can I develop my blog? The first step was posting, so that if anyone reach my blog, they will find my posts useful and good which will make them stick to my blog. Then I will place ads here, but till now only one other than me has visited my blog. I plan my blogging for next week, and make a review today about the post I am going to post tomorrow. That's planning. I want to place ads here in 2 months (praying for that).


    Tuesday, August 14, 2007

    Reason of my failure

    My blogs being failed, I thought why they failed. The blogs was good enough for me but not for others. The main reason for the failure I thought was no one need my blog. So when one visit my blog, they read my blog and thinks this has no use for him. So he will not come back. The content of the blogs was not referable, that created a big problem for me. My content must good enough so that people can use it to refer. As I was a newbie I didn't know the techniques of blogging, I didn't know the method of winning, I even didn't know how to blog. This all was reasons. Even now these problems always disturb me. I thought of putting ads, there was no traffic so there is no meaning in thinking about ads. So I have to learn blogging. Do blogging need learning? Yes, If you want to earn something from it then you have to learn blogging. There is no limit for tutorials in this subject. I choosed one and started learning. You should also select one or more and start your lesson if you are a newbie, you shall see the success. Good luck, god may bless you!

    Monday, August 13, 2007

    One More Blog

    Before deleting my first blog I decided to start one more blog. This time I fixed the topic before starting. My blog had a travelogue in it. I knew that no one will search for a travelogue just for reading. In the previous blog I used thisaway template because it provide a suitable atmosphere for reading. But in the second blog I used minima black because here people come not to read but to find something or some pictures. I decorated the blog suitably. This time I had readers, but no one stayed here for long. I think this because they didn't feel my blog as interesting, but this time too I failed to be patient. I didn't give the time for my blog to grow-I delete all the blogs I had. Then I thought of a blog about making money from blogging which had no right to start because I wasn't getting any money from blogging. So I didn't start it being sure it will fail.


    Sunday, August 12, 2007

    Making Money

    You will be anxious about this, I have told you that I tried to make money from blogging. I will tell you how you can do it. To a money maker a tele show and a blog is same. There are lot other ways but the most popular one is putting ads on your blog. Someone who want their advertisement to be shown in websites approach advertising companies like Google AdSense and pay for it. The website owners who wanted to make money, sign up to AdSense and copy the html code(code used to make webpages) and paste it in their websites. When someone click on the advertisements, the owner of the webiste get money. This type of revenue generation is called PayPerClick. There are lots of other ways, but I am only using this method. I'll tell you about the other methods later.


    My first blog

    I told you I started a blog, yes it was great to become a blogger. My first blog was a great one for me not for others. That's where I learned the most, but the sad thing is I had no readers and I could make little money. The blog name was 'PASCHEL' it had a thisaway template. I added pretty cool things in it.

    My blog was a study guide (I don't think no one likes to study). My blog was good but it had no readers so I deleted it. You can guess why it had no readers. Yes, I had started blogging in last month and which blog do you think will have lots of readers in a half of a month. I was impatient and didn't know what time it'll take to make a blog good and attract readers. That's not the only reason, but the content was less and was not useful. Then how can it be a success and I want to tell you that you are very good and extremely lucky if you have millions of reader to your first blog!



    Why blogging?

    I made a blog for just knowing what it is and to give a hand on making money from blogging. I was a bit confused when I sign up for blogger. I didn't know what I would add or how can I make money. The first week was a not at all a waste, it give me lots of knowledge about blogging. What I learned may be but it's important. What about making money, I will tell you later.

    But do you think that's the only use? No, the best thing about blogging that it is the best the way to publish what is in your mind. No one will disturb you. You can share your knowledge, your works, your attitude or what ever you think.

    Someone think it as a way of coaching for web publishing, but I don't think so. I feel it greater than an ordinary website. The thing is that there will be more readers for a good blog than a ordinary website. You can receive comments easily and add content very easily. Don't wait, start a blog, you have lot to study from it.


    Wednesday, August 8, 2007

    What is a Blog?

    I am going to talk about when I first discovered that there was a thing called blog. I read about making money from blogging in a newspaper called Madhyamam. It said that we can make money from a blog, without saying what a blog was. That was before I know there was a thing called blog. I remembered seeing "blogspot.com" in the end of sum URLs. I just typed "blogspot.com" in the address bar which led to "blogger.com". I started a blog there without knowing what it was, seems fun ha..? With a search in wikipedia I found what it was. The Wiki said :"A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog". That was the time when I understood what a blog was. You can find lots of definition to blog, spending just a minute for googling. The best way is 'make a blog'

    I will tell what I know about a blog "a blog is a website where you add new content called 'Post', continuously". After that I heard about some sites other than blogger to make a blog and I understood that some blogs can be made paying and without having an extension like ".blogger" at the end. They are made stand alone using sites like wordpress.org. You can make it free using Blogger or Wordpress. There are lots of uses for a standalone blog, but I use a blogger blog because I don't want to take risk. I don't know if I can pay for a stand alone one and a blogger blog is sufficient for me. I want you to use a stand alone one if you can pay for it. You can make it here at Wordpress.org.

    Post

    You know what a post is, it's the name given to the content you add to a blog. You are reading the post 'Blog?'. I am adding this so you can understand any tutorial or guide about blogging. The posts are arranged in chronological order and few are given in the home page the older one are saved as archives which you can find in the link at home page. If this description is not enough then gave a search or what ever it takes to understand. When I started blog I don't know what a post was. You can really what I did with a blog where I can't do anything.

    Comment

    You should know what it is, yes the review of the readers about your posts. They may say good or bad, but I think it is essential.

    If you have any more confusion, there are lots of guides waiting for you.