Essential SEO Tips For Every Blog You Own

Search engine optimization is one of the best method to rank any blog higher in search engines.If your blog or website is not optimized properly, then there are nearly no chances for your blog to be ranked higher in search engines. This totally means, no traffic and finally no income from your blog. Although you can use other sources like social media, direct traffic to get traffic to your blog, but without any organic traffic everything is useless. Today we will share some essential seo tips which you should apply to every blog or website you own to rank it higher in search engines for any certain keywords.This article is regarding essential seo tips will surely help you to know everything on how you can rank your blogs or websites higher in search results and get more organic traffic.

Essential SEO Tips

1. Basically one of the best from list of most essential seo tips is to use the meta tags in right way. If you are not using the meta tags in the right way, you will not be able to rank your post or article in search results. Meta tags mainly means some keywords which describe your post or article.A short meta tag will mainly contain a short description and keywords used in your article. With this description and keywords, search engines can easily identify your blog and enable it to be ranked higher in search results.This is one of the best from the list of essential seo tips. By using these essential seo tips, you can easily add meta tags to your blog or website.Use proper H1, H2 and H3 tags in your blog.

2. Another great trick from the list of essential seo tips is to do a proper keyword research before writing your article. By performing a proper keyword research, you can easily find low competition keywords and use them in your article to rank them higher in search results and get your blog more organic traffic. There are many tools like Google Adwords Keyword Tool which can help you in this case. This is another one of the best from the list of essential seo tips which can help you in blogging.Your keyword density should not be more than 4-4.5%

3. So, another great point from the list of essential seo tips is to use proper canonical URL’s in your blog. The URL’s you are using must be clear to understand and should contain the keyword for which you are ranking your blog higher.Your URL should properly describe what your article is about. This is another great point from the list of essential seo tips which can help your blog’s SEO.

4. Last but not the least. Building backlinks is one the best and top way from the list of essential seo tips. You can build backlinks in different ways like commenting, guest post, forums and either hire someone from website like Fiverr to do it for you. The more backlinks your blog has, the more it will rank higher in search results. This essential seo tips will surely help your blog to rank higher in search results.
So, these are some essential seo tips which can help your blog to rank higher in search results. If you know any other essential seo tips which can help our blog, share with us.
Source: idealtechblog.com
Essential SEO Tips For Every Blog You Own

How To Turn New Visitors Into Daily Readers ?

Well, this article will simply describe on how you can attract new visitors of your blog and turn them into daily readers for your blog. Yes, we will simply deal with some steps which will help you to know how you can get more readers for your blog or we can say how you can attract your blog’s new visitors into daily readers or subscribers.So, let’s move on.

Turn New Visitors Into Daily Readers

1. One of the best thing you can do to turn your blog’s new readers into daily readers is to make your blog’s design as much attractive as you can. In this case, you can use any premium template or theme and customize it as per your desire.We can often seen many bloggers using premium themes which are pretty simple to navigate and we can easily read the blog without any navigation problem.So changing your theme and using a new premium wordpress theme can help you to turn your blog’s new readers into daily readers.

2. Superb content is the key to success.In every post you write for your blog, try to contribute your 100%. Write as much you know about the topic and try to make your content go viral and interesting. The more interesting your blog and content is, the more readers will be attracted to your blog and finally they will search more on your blog instead of just what they were looking for. In this way you will surely be able to convert new readers into daily readers.

3. Consistency is also one of the major factor that affect your blog’s readers. If you write one post in a week, surely you will not be able to get as much readers.But, if you prefer to write 2-3 posts every week, you will be able to fetch double or even triple readers in just no time. But, keep consistency. Keep your blog updated every time any visitor visit your blog.This way people will be able to share your viral content and your blog will be able to fetch more readers and also turn your first time visitors into daily readers.

4. Facebook, twitter, stumbleupon and other major social networks play a very significant role to get more readers for your blog. Keep yourself updated on social networks will help you get more friends, followers and finally more visitors for your blog. Not only social networks, you can easily write a guest post for other major blogs and fetch more readers. This is another great process of turning new visitors into daily readers.

5. Email subscription boxes will help you get more subscribers for your blog. The more subscribers your blog has, means the more visitors your blog has and finally this means more traffic. So, try to use any awesome looking subscription box to attract as much subscribers for your blog.You can create any landing page, or even use it above your posts or below your posts or anywhere where your readers can easily notice it.

These are some basic and major steps which can help you turn your blog’s new visitors into daily readers. You can use other methods like giveaways, polling, etc to fetch more readers for your blog. If you know any other better method of turning your blog’s first time readers into daily readers, share with us.
Source: http://idealtechblog.com
How To Turn New Visitors Into Daily Readers ?

6 Things You Must Do Before Publishing Your Articles

There are some simple, yet imperative practices bloggers ought to put to work on their articles after writing and before publishing them, these practices aren’t compulsive but are essential for SEO. It is advised that bloggers should make sure their articles are search engine optimized, but this has never been compulsive, implementation of SEO is always by choice – but to a goal oriented blogger, these SEO practices should be compulsory. SEO tips are advice (no two ways about it) but are always rendered as recommendations, you may or may have not been putting these SEO tips to work, but if you start utilizing them, your posts may start doing better on SERPs and on the long run, your site will grow better in Google PageRank.

There’re several on-page SEO factors to put to work before publishing your articles, and what I’ll be covering here are certainly not all but are very crucial to a blog’s growth. That said, let’s run through the guide.

1)  Your title

Every blogger fights to get to Google’s first result page, but even on Google's first result page there’s still competition? It’s not enough to get up there on the top of a SERP but one still have to attract searchers’ clicks. Your title is the key thing that attracts clicks on SERPs, in other-words, driving traffic to your site. Someone else may have written about what you want to publish, so it’s important to add more techniques to your titles.
Let’s take an example, let's assume there are two headlines on Google’s result page and these two are containing the same information but are titled: 
1)  “Recent Posts Widget for Blogger”
2) “Professional Recent Posts Widget for Blogger”
Between these two headlines, more people will go for the second choice which is tagged: “Professional Recent Posts Widget for Blogger” because they already perceive that the widget is not just a related posts widget for blogger, but also a professional one at that. 
This also implies to making your titles catchy (simple but detailed, interesting but short – not just a broad title or a set of keywords), that way, internet surfers will likely hit your posts’ titles on search engine result pages cos it will become appealing by then. It is best to maintain a short title even as you implement this insight.

2) URLs (Permalink) optimization

Google pays attention to URLs; as a matter of fact, Blogger launched permalink sometime in 2012, so that blogspot bloggers can edit their posts’ URLs. After you must have written your title, the relevant words might not be there on the permalink (post’s URL), so in this case, it is important to optimize the URL, but as you do so it is best you follow good guidelines to optimize URLs. Blogger does a good job in choosing a URL for you automatically, that may save time but then Blogger might omit the relevant words (keywords) on your URL, as it generates the URL with the first thirty characters of the title. See example: 
Title: “Guest Post: How to Make Money via PTC” 
Blogger may generate URL this way: http://worldwebsurers.com/2013/2/guest-post-how-to-make.html
Note: This was just an example for clarity.
What we are focusing on up there is the string of texts with yellow background. When blogger generates a permalink for you, it will work just fine but then it may not contain the most relevant words or the target keywords which are “make money” and “PTC”. Now, if I was to optimize this URL, here’s what I’ll do: 
Permalink: http://worldwebsurers.com/2013/2/make-money-via-ptc.html
You see? Short but contains my target keywords, which are make money and PTC leaving out Guest Post and How To. Note that in some cases “How to” could be a keyword. Optimization of URLs depends on the keyword you’re targeting. See a live example from a Blogger Sentral post:
Title: “How To Use Effective Blogging Strategies in Place of Professional SEO Services?”
URL: “http://www.bloggersentral.com/2013/01/effective-blogging-seo-strategies.html”
URL optimization summary: Always make sure to keep URLs short, plus you should make sure they contain the target keywords of the topic.

3) Interlink to old posts

Every blogger who cares about growth must build a good habit of Internal Linking and should always put it to work – This practice is way too powerful to be neglected. Check out every pro-blog, you’ll see a related posts widget implemented under the posts – it is never omitted on potential sites, cos it actually adds value to a blog as it reduces bounce rate and increases pageviews, but it will surprise you that internal linking is 5 times (or even more) more powerful than related posts widget. It is a better way to recommend something to your readers – something related to what they’re reading, it serves as a map for Google to crawl through your site, it promotes other contents, it connects your whole blog, it passes the reputation of one page to the other, and it is closer to readers compare to related posts.

4) Make sure to set location

Setting the location of a post is a good thing to do in outsmarting your competitors on SERP, blogger.com gives you an option used by Google to detect the location where a particular piece of information (article) is meant for or would be more useful, and you surely rank better on that particular keyword in that chosen region. Google trends is good for checking where keywords are most popular, but may not always show location which sometimes results from low search volume. To set Location on blogger; click on Location under Post Settings on the right side of blogger editor, type in a region into the field provided and click Search (do not press enter, else it will publish the article), blogger will then fetch a recognized region on the field below the map. Click Done and that’s it.

5) Let your images do more

Using image on every blog post is a very good way to drive extra traffic, people use Google Image Search in searching for images day in day out, and Google does a good job in fetching images from websites to visitors and also drives traffic to the sites by providing means that searchers could use in getting to image source. But if your post images have no alt text, Google cannot tell what the image is, and that means it may not fetch the image to visitors. So it is important to write a short description of your uploaded images on the image alt attribute.

6) Grammar check

If you don’t normally go back to review your work before publishing them, I’d advise that you start doing that henceforth. Wrong spellings tarnishes your site’s image, trust me! If you are selling, this might cause buyers not to trust you enough to buy your stuff. It brings respect to naught; it divulges unreliability and gives you a poor reputation unless the reader has known you before. If you've made a mistake on spellings on previous articles, don’t sweat yourself over it, everyone, I mean everyone makes mistakes. But henceforth, make sure to check your grammar and spellings if they are correct before you publish your articles.

Source http://www.bloggersentral.com
6 Things You Must Do Before Publishing Your Articles

Writing Tips For Bloggers

There are lots of ways you can create your blog, and the beauty of the process is that you are allowed to be as creative and original as you like. You can follow the guidelines and rules of others but there is nothing stopping you from trying something new and running with it.

Just because other blog posts are 500 words does not mean you cannot create one that is 2000 words. Just because other blogs have one picture does not mean you cannot add 12 pictures and turn the blog into a comic book style.

Your freedom from restriction is what makes blogging so fun. Here are some tips for blogging, but they are not rules (and even if they were, you should still break them at your discretion).

1. Keep your paragraphs short and sweet

Writing long paragraphs is going to bore your readers and they will leave to find easier reading. Unless your blog gives out valuable information that the reader is lost without, there is little chance that you are going to impress them with long paragraphs.

2. Do you switch from 1st, 2nd and 3rd perspective?

This is a common mistake because it takes a keen eye to spot when you do it. Do you go from writing "I" to "We" to "one"? It is hard to spot, which is why you should check each paragraph separately for which perspective it is from.

3. Do not make silly spelling mistakes

To avoid making mistakes it’s best to nip it in the bud – during the writing phase. Be sensitive to spelling mistakes like there and their, it’s and its, form and from. The occasional slip is not going to lose you a lot of readers, but making the same mistakes repeatedly is going to annoy people.

4. Do not use txt talk

Txt talk is the language used by people on mobile phones, which will save character space and make writing easier and quicker. It has its place and its uses on mobile phones, but not on a blog. It makes your blog harder to read.
The people reading your blog have been reading since childhood to the point where they can glance at text and know what it means without needing to physically read it. Txt talk however requires thought in order to interpret it, so do not use it.

5. Proof read your blog post four days later

When you have just written a blog post you cannot look upon it with a cold and clinical eye. The text is still fresh in your mind and you will have more trouble reading your text without skim reading. If you look at it a few days later you will have to read every line again, and you will pick up more of your errors that you missed the first time.

6. Proofread line by line

This may seem a bit excessive for a blog post, since it need not be perfect. Nevertheless, you will find a marked improvement in the flow of your writing and the overall quality if you consciously concentrate on one line at a time when you proofread. You may also like to find a cheap online proofreader to check for your mistakes.

7. Check for contradictions

Do not forget to check the message/content of your blog post. Some people will contradict themselves in various minor or glaring ways and be completely unaware of it because they proofread their text without noticing the theme or content. Do you say that you were not present but then describe part of the event in the first person? Do you claim that you were upset by the incident whilst also mentioning how much you laughed about it?

8. Write about things you’re passionate about

Good blogger should remember to start with content first. What does that mean? You need to have something to say before any other part of the writing can begin.

Original article was post in hongkiat.com
Writing Tips For Bloggers

Fast Ways to Get Readers to Unsubscribe

Making a big bulky list of subscribers for your blog is difficult, but not impossible. We all know how to grow a big massive list of people waiting for updates from our blog.There’s a big difference between subscribers and readers. If you love any blog’s design and its content and its your habit to read the blog daily, then you will be counted as a reader for any blog. On the other hand, if you enter your email to get updates from any blog, or to get any freebie or to win any giveaway, then you might be counted as subscriber for that blog.

Its one of the most difficult task to maintain a big massive list of email subscribers. You cannot even guarantee that if your blog have ability to fetch 1000 subscribers every month, that it will grow upto 12k every year. There are many mistakes that people make that result in any subscribers to click “unsubscribe” link in no time.

So, here are those 5 fast ways to get readers to unsubscribe.

1. The first and main reason why people are unsubscribing from your emails is that you are just selling,selling and selling.In every email newsletter you send to your readers, there exist any affiliate link that make your reader think that you have just created the link to sell affiliate products and make income. Remember, to maintain a bulky list of subscribers, you should promote 80% of your blog’s content and 20% affiliate products.

2. Another main reason is that you are just explaining or describing about yourself in every newsletter. In first newsletter, this is my name, this is my business. In another, its my home, its my lappy and everything else. People have subscribed because they want to get some content from your blog, not to know who you are and where you live.This is another main reason why people subscribe from your updates.I don’t say no to introduce yourself, but introduce yourself to such an extent that there should be a reason.

3. Another interesting reason why people unsubscribe from your blog’s updates is unproper content delivery.Suppose you subscribe to my blog’s updates and i am sending you newsletter about any movie release or how to lose weight or anything unproper to my niche.Then this will just cause in loss of readership and finally unsubscribe from updates.

4. Suppose you get 10 or 20 emails from a single person every day, no matter how much valuable content he/she is providing, this will just result into loss of readership and unsubscribe from updates.Remember to maintain a big bulky list of subscribers and not letting people unsubscribe from your updates, send maximum of one newsletter daily or one in two days.People don’t like flooded inbox.

5. Lack of design can result your readers to unsubscribe from your email updates.If you have design any newsletter just to inform your readers that you have updated your blog, its worthless. Nobody will open and respond to your newsletter. Doesn’t make the design so much distracting  that it might fetch readers away from your blog or in other words “unsubscribe”.

These are some basic reasons or ways for why people unsubscribe from your email newsletters.If you have any other or better reason, share with us.

Source: http://idealtechblog.com
Fast Ways to Get Readers to Unsubscribe

How Freebies Can Help You In Blogging ?

In this article we will discuss how freebies can help you in blogging. We will talk about using free giveaways to strengthen the relationship with your email list and to build trust.
But you can also use freebies to help get people on your list. Offering a giveaway to entice someone to join your list can be a very effective method of quickly adding names to your list. But it comes with some potential negatives.

How it Works

If you have joined some email lists yourself, you may have been enticed with a freebie. It’s a simple exchange, you’re email address (and maybe your name) in exchange for the freebie.
And it might not be just one freebie. It might be many. As of this writing,it works very well!

What Can You Offer as an Incentive to Join Your List?
There’s almost no limit to the range of possible materials you can offer as incentives for joining your list. Possibilities include:

• Ebooks or reports
• Links to videos that not just anyone can access
• If it’s appropriate for your niche, you might consider offering a bit of your time for a free consultation. (Careful with this one, though, it could get out of hand!)
• You could offer the chance of winning some sort of prize. For example, anybody who joins the list by (fill in a date) will be entered into a drawing for a free Ipad (or whatever)
• If you have your own Clickbank product you could offer a discount coupon for that product

These are just a few ideas of methods to encourage people to join your list. I’m sure you can get creative and come up with many more possibilities.
It’s important, though, to try to keep the incentive relevant to your niche and to the focus of your email campaign.
And you also want to be careful not to devalue the benefits of your email campaign with your freebie. Don’t give away too much, in other words. If you give too much as an incentive, you could end up with lots of hit-and-run subscribers, they join, get your freebies, and then bail out before you get a chance to cultivate a relationship.
You want it to be clear that the bulk of the value you offer will be delivered through the emails you’ll be sending to people on your list – not through sign-up incentives.

The Dark Side of Freebies

There’s no question that offering a freebie will encourage more people to join your list. I believe in offering incentives. I offer lots of them to people who join my email list.
But there is a negative to offering incentives.

By essentially bribing people into joining your list, you’ll end up with some on your list that – obviously enough – wouldn’t have joined otherwise.
In some ways that’s bad.
Since the costs you’ll pay most autoresponder services are based upon the size of your list, you want the list to be full of engaged people who really want to be there.

But there’s also a good side to the dark side.
Let’s suppose that you joins your list mainly just to get the freebie you offered. You doesn’t really care about anything else. He might even unsubscribe just as soon as you’ve delivered his freebie.
But – he might not. He might even read the next message you send. And the next. And the next. And might eventually become a long-time, fully engaged subscriber to your list, welcoming every message you send.

That could happen because of all of the great value you’ll be sending to you through your email series – including more freebies, as I outlined in the 20-day plan. You could end up staying with you for years.
But you might probably wouldn’t have joined your list in the first place without the temptation of your freebie offer.
source: http://idealtechblog.com
How Freebies Can Help You In Blogging ?

How Paid Guest Posts Can Ruin Your Blog

We all know about guest posts. What it is and how it affect and helps our blog. But there are many other fellow bloggers who accept paid guest posts if someone wants to write for their blog and wants a backlink to their own blog or product. Today we are gonna share how these paid guest posts can ruin your blog and result in decrease in your blog readership.Previously we have discussed about some guest post secrets which helps to make your blog much better and effective with guest posting.

So first of all we will discuss about what are paid guest posts. There is not any much difference between paid guest posts and sponsored posts. Both these are same. Guest posts are simply a way to write content for other blogs and request for a backlink in return. There are many blogs which loves to charge a small fee if someone wants to write for their blog. In this way they love to make money from their blog. This is called paid guest posts. This is one of the way to monetize your blog with paid guest posts and make money.It depends upon you either you charge $10 or even $100 or even more for paid guest posts.

So what are the reasons for bloggers to charge their readers or somebody to write for their blog. What are the possible causes for accepting paid guest posts for their blog.According and me and many other experts, making money from their blog is the main reason for paid guest posts. This way help bloggers make money and maintain better readership.
Well this article is regarding how paid guest posts can harm your blog and bring big adverse affects to your readership. We will discuss some bad harmful effects for which paid guest posts are the main reason.

Harms Of Paid Guest Posts

1. One of the main reason which bloggers should understand while charging someone for a paid guest post is time and content. Bloggers don’t understand that they are getting free and fresh content for their blog.Everyone takes his precious time for the article he loves to send you as a guest post. And on the other hand you are charging him certain fee for writing his high quality article n your blog.According to me its not right. If the article is of low quality or if the reader is demanding backlink to any low authority blog or website, then it depends upon you to give a backlink or not.
Its not a big deal if the person demand a double sentenced biography and a link back to his blog or website. Make sure, if the article is highly qualified, it will not affect your blog’s ranking in any case. Remove this thought from your mind that giving backlinks to other blogs from any guest post will affect your rankings a lot. Bloggers like Darren Rowse also loves to write thousands of guest posts for his blog. This way you can get more better articles for your blog instead of getting low quality paid guest posts.On the other hand, if any company is requesting you for any paid guest post and offering you good amount of money, i don’t think you should let the offer go. At last, money is money.

2. Another harmful effect of paid guest posts is that it hurts your readership a lot. Suppose you know any person either through any social network or through any other mean and he/she is interested in writing a guest post for your blog. This way you will get high quality fresh content for your blog. On the other hand if you will ask him for a paid guest post instead of any simple guest post, i don’t think he/she will offer you his valueable content and ideas.Paid guest posts hurts your readership and relationship with your fellow readers.

3. Remember, giving a backlink in author bio doesn’t means selling backlinks from your blog. If you are accepting paid guest posts, then the writer will ask you for more than one backlink from the article. This will fully affect your blog rankings. According to Matt Cutts, “ Your Paid Posts Should Not Pass Page Rank”.This is totally according to the mean.You can accept or reject as many paid guest posts, but keep in mind with your blog’s rankings.

Nobody wants a nofollow backlink to their blog. On the other hand if someone reported your blog to Google for charging money for guest posts, or for paid guest posts, your blog could be penalized. It depends upon you weather you accept paid guest posts or not.

Original post was in http://idealtechblog.com
How Paid Guest Posts Can Ruin Your Blog 

Types of Blog Hosts

There are several types of blog hosts available to help you get your blog online. It's important to understand what the difference is between the types of blog hosts before you jump in and start paying for an account with a specific blog host. Keep reading to learn about the types of blog hosts that are available, so you can make an informed decision that will help you meet your blogging goals in the long term.

 

Free Blog Host

Free blog hosts offer you space to publish your blog online at no cost. Sites like Blogger.com and Wordpress.com provide both the blogging application and online space needed to create and publish a blog for free. Free blog hosts typically have limitations in terms of the amount of space your blog can take up online, the amount of advertising you can place on your blog to earn money from it, and the amount of flexibility you have to customize your blog. Free blog hosts can be an excellent choice for beginner bloggers who simply want to get their feet wet in the blogosphere.

 

Shared Blog Host

A shared blog host is typically the least expensive paid hosting option. With a shared blog host, a number of customers with their own blogs or websites share a server that is dedicated to storing their blogs and making them available online. The advantage to a shared blog host is the cost, but the disadvantage can come from a decreased response rate as more and more blogs and websites are assigned to the same server or as your blog grows and has higher performance demands. Additionally, shared blog host accounts usually have limitations in terms of the space allocated to each accountholder's blog or website, transfer speed, and more. However, most simple websites, blogs and small business websites do well with a shared blog host.

 

Reseller Blog Host

Some people purchase server space from a blog host or company then sell it to customers themselves, acting as resellers for the original blog host or company. It's important to investigate the benefits offered by the reseller to determine whether or not purchasing blog hosting services through a reseller will actually help you or not.

 

Dedicated Server Blog Host

If your blog becomes extremely popular or very big (meaning you have a lot of content, images, videos, etc.), you might need to consider moving to a dedicated server host. With a dedicated server, you are basically renting your own server from the providing company to store your blog and make it accessible to visitors. With your own server, naturally, the price goes up, but you'll also get increased space, transfer speed, and more. Typically, only very large and popular blogs and websites need to pay the extra cost for a dedicated server blog host.

sumber http://weblogs.about.com

Types of Blog Hosts

5 Things to Avoid in a Blog Domain Name

Choosing a domain name for your blog is a very important decision, and if you don't choose well, you could be dooming your blog from the start. Making the process even more difficult is the fact that so many of the domain names you probably want to use for your blog have probably already been registered by other people.
Don't settle for a domain name that you don't like or could hurt your blog's chances for success. Below are five things you should avoid when choosing a blog domain name that you should keep in mind as you conduct your domain name search.

1. Don't choose an uncommon domain extension

If the domain name that you want isn't available with a .com extension for the URL, consider choosing a different domain where the .com extension is available. By far, the .com extension is the most common and the one that most people expect a URL to use. An uncommon extension could make it difficult for people who aren't fully committed to finding your blog to keep looking for it if they can't find it after their first try.
If you're completely committed to a specific domain name but the .com extension is not available, then consider using the .net extension. Avoid using the least common extensions like .info, which your audience is least likely to search for and are often used by untrustworthy and spam sites.
Most importantly, you don't want to confuse your audience, make them feel like your blog might not be trustworthy, or make it difficult for them to find your blog. Instead, make every effort to help them find your blog and trust it by sticking with a .com or .net extension in your domain name.

2. Avoid misspellings in your blog domain name.

Misspellings can be confusing. As mentioned above, the majority of people won't make an extra effort to find your blog by typing in a variety of spelling combinations to find it. The simpler your domain name, the better.

3. Be careful of numbers in your domain name.

Numbers can also cause confusion. Is the number in numeric form or spelled out? When you speak your domain name, it can be a lot more confusing than it is when someone sees it in writing. Imagine you speak the word "four" in your domain name. Verbally, that could be interpreted as "four," "4," or "for." Which one is used in your domain name? If you have to spell every letter of your domain name out each time you speak it, then your domain name is weak. Tread carefully and understand the ramifications of including numbers in your blog domain name.

4. Consider punctuation carefully in your blog domain name.

Punctuation is another area of confusion in domain names. Of course, many punctuation marks are not allowed in domain names, but even those that are allowed, such as hyphens, can be confusing. Write and speak the hyphenated domain name you're considering using before you commit to it. Make sure punctuation doesn't confuse the domain name or weaken it before you start using it for your blog.

5. Never use trademarks you don't own in your domain name.

If you register a domain name that includes a trademark owned by another person or entity, then they can issue a cease and desist to you which you'll need to abide by. That means you'll need to stop using the domain name that includes a registered trademark and all references to it.
Imagine that you've been blogging for years and suddenly receive a cease and desist letter from an entity that owns a trademarked name or phrase in your domain name. If you have been using the name without permission (whether or not you knew you were doing so), you have to stop using it by law. That means all of the links and backlinks to your blog that have been created over the years will be gone as will your search engine rankings. This is a risk you don't want to take. To avoid it, enter your domain name into the United States Patent Office trademark database search tool and make sure there are no active trademark registrations for it.
An article from http://weblogs.about.com
5 Things to Avoid in a Blog Domain Name

6 Blogging Mistakes for Business

These days it seems like every business — from dentistry to software — has a blog. However, just because everyone has a blog doesn’t mean everyone is doing it right. Whether you’re just launching a blog for your business, or you’ve been blogging for awhile, it’s easy to fall into some blogging bad habits.

As a small business owner, I try to truly embrace the unique opportunity that social media offers. I’ve been experimenting with our company blog for years; here are some lessons I've learned along the way, including the mistakes.

1. Mistaking your blog for a promotional platform.

Many small business owners rush to blogging, and to social media in general — they see it as free advertising. However, when your blog posts focus too much on your company, products and services, your blog is no longer useful or credible. Few readers will return to read about why you’re so awesome week after week.
If the bulk of your posts are company or product-centric, you’ll need to change the way you think about your blog. Focus your content so it offers information that’s useful and relevant to whatever your particular community cares about. For example, my company helps small businesses incorporate, file for trademarks and launch their business from a legal perspective. Therefore, we try to cater our topics toward whatever would help small business owners run their companies, from leadership and employee management tips to small business marketing and taxes.
Some experts advise on keeping a 90:10 or 75:25 ratio when it comes to educational vs. promotional content. You don’t necessarily have to stick to some magic equation, as long as you keep your audience’s needs and interests at the forefront of your blog strategy.

2. Not posting consistently.

It’s easy to start a blog, but not so easy to keep it going. A small business blog usually fails due to lack of commitment or resources. A HubSpot report found that companies who blog frequently and consistently benefit the most from their blogging efforts.
Before launching your blog, determine the ideal posting frequency to keep your blog fresh, for example, once or twice per week. If you need to, scout out your competitor’s blogs to gauge the average number of posts per week. In an ideal world, you should create a quarterly editorial plan for your upcoming post topics. And during downtimes, create a handful of general (non time-sensitive) topics that can be fed into the blog whenever the schedule gets tight.

3. Not engaging with your readers.

A blog isn’t a press release or static web page where information simply flows from you to the reader. Social media uniquely provides a direct link to interact with your customers and community; it would be shame not to take advantage of the opportunity. If you’re fortunate enough to have engaged readers who comment on your blog posts, be sure to acknowledge them – whether by thanking them for some kind words, answering a question, providing further details, or inserting yourself in a conversation.
While everyone will differ on the level of community moderation and control, the following is true: If you want to encourage engagement, you need to make it easy for your readers to leave comments. Log-in systems and captcha forms help limit spam or trolls, but they also make it difficult for the casual reader to leave a comment.

4. Being too SEO-focused.

Blogging can have an amazing impact on your keyword rankings and organic search traffic. I encourage businesses to develop an SEO strategy for their blogs. Identify the top keywords for your business and optimize your posts with those keywords. Tools like Scribe or Yoast can help you with search engine optimization.
However, the most successful business blogs write for humans, not machines. Don’t hire a poor quality SEO company that churns out posts filled with specific keywords and phrases, without even thinking whether the content is useful or easy to read. That strategy might drive visitors to your blog, but those visitors will never stay, read, engage with or share your content if it's poor. Keywords don’t create credibility. Write posts that are interesting, sprinkle in keywords now and then, and your efforts will be rewarded.

5. Not using images the right way.

While many new bloggers focus on the words, images are the best way to grab people’s attention quickly. In addition, breaking up longer posts with images that illustrate what you’re talking about will help keep readers interested and combat our limited attention spans.
For many small business blogs, the problem with images boils down to resource allocation. You may expect it to take you one hour to write a post, but only a few minutes to find an image. However, finding the right image is rarely that easy.
Before you begin searching, take a few minutes to think about the main concept, feeling or idea your post is trying to convey. You should always use images that are visually engaging, aesthetically pleasing and relevant to your post. Your image needs to express a concept and not just look like you picked the first stock image that came your way.
In addition, many small businesses run afoul of copyright law and fair use practices by thinking they have the right to use any photo found on the Internet. The best way to steer clear of trouble when selecting images for your blog is to use ones with Creative Commons licensing. You can search for Creative Commons-licensed images on Flickr, on the Creative Commons website or via CC search engines like Compfight or Photo Pin.

6. Not listening to your readers.

Not sure what kind of content appeals to your audience the most? It’s not a mystery: Your blog analytics can provide valuable insight into what types of posts are resonating with readers.
By failing to pay attention to analytics, you’re ignoring valuable information that can take your blog to the next level. Continually track the responses to each blog post. Tinker with different topics, titles and types of posts. Which posts generate the most activity (comments, shares, likes)? Increase the frequency of the most popular.
What are some of the top lessons you have learned with your business blog?
Original article by Nellie Akalp in mashable
Photo via iStockphoto, Erikona
6 Blogging Mistakes

6 Things that make Your Blog Is Repelling Prospective Clients

One of the most difficult and perhaps the thorniest task for a freelancer is to get clients. You may be blessed with a great writing talent or web designing skills that sparkle interests and blow off minds, but if you can’t manage to get a single client, you won’t be able to seize upon your expertise – and obviously there is no point of labeling yourself as a freelancer.

Chances are, in your search to find tips on how to get freelance clients, you will find that experts expect you to build a blog as your portfolio. Which I’m sure you did. Nevertheless, getting clients still is a ‘glitch’ that you couldn’t ride out until now. Ever wondered what’s wrong with your blog that keeps repelling clients?

Here are some of the reasons:

1. Cluttered design

Here is a question: Can you attract a butterfly with a ghoulish and an unattractive garden? A place where they wouldn’t be comfortable hanging out and reaping the benefits of the nature? I’m sure it would be a little hard and most likely impossible.
For a clientele, the process is almost the same. In order to get clients and gain a client’s trust to contact you seeking for your freelance services you need to have a clean and ‘tidy’ design.
A blog with clutter, sidebars dreadfully structured, and widgets popping out can repel clients making them cast doubt on your potentials before even contacting you. Ensure that your blog is clean and clutter-free.

2. Buried contact forms

Your objective as a freelancer after generating a good impression is to make a client get in touch with you asking for your services. What if the client can’t find a form to fill-in and contact you? Is he going to waste his precious time foraging for one in your blog, when he could be working on finding another freelancer among the millions out there?
If he leaves the site without contacting you, you’ve just lost out on a potential income-earning project. Make sure your contact form is easily viewable to grab potential clients (who are already interested).
Hiding contact forms on pages, and camouflaging contact pages on fuzzy menus certainly repels clients.

 

3. Flabby first impression

Your website is a place to showcase your talents and what services you are offering to clients. It plays a major, yet essential role on a client’s first impression of your services.

If you are a freelance web designer, then your website shouldn’t be of the average standard. You should spruce up your web design to demonstrate your designing aptitude before your clients get in touch with you.
On the other hand, if you are a freelance writer the masterpiece of your copy and content should reflect your abilities as a writer. Failing to do so, grammar mistakes and inappropriate word use can result in a bad impression and obliviously push away freelancing writing gigs.

 

4. Presenting exorbitant fees

This is one of the most common mistakes a freelancer can make. Presenting the rates of your services can divert the client’s notion if applied wrongly. When a client stumbles upon your website, before he decides to reach out for your services, your rates will determine a further action.
If your rates are exorbitant and not even close to the client’s budget, he will feel undermined due to insufficient budget. You will lose out the opportunity of negotiating terms and prices because he’s already gone.
That is the reason why most freelancing experts advise to hide the prices as a way of getting contacted for further negotiations.

 

5. Fake testimonials

To increase your work reliability and credibility towards prospects you should attach in your website real testimonials from people who previously hired you. It woud be great if they could endorse your valuable services and recommend you to entrepreneurs who want to leverage their businesses.
The sad thing is that many freelancers drop the ball showing fake testimonials in the form of text only. To remove all doubts, you could attach a link to their websites and the images of the clients who endorse your work.
According to a research conducted by Eryn Jane Newman from the Victoria University of Wellington, images make claims and statements more believable than a simple text. With that said, you can implement that principle to increase the credibility of your testimonials.

 

6. No ‘About me’ page

You need an About Me page for clients to form a strong bond and build trust with you. You should make sure you include on your website, your personal picture and relevant information about yourself, your services, as well as your background (or portfolios).

With more and more scams turning up on the internet every day, if you don’t attach any photo of yourself on your website, clients will not be more likely to invest in you.

 

Conclusion

You might be thinking you are doing exactly what it takes to hook freelance clients but if your blog/portfolio doesn’t entice clients at first glance, you’ll end up losing out and repelling more high-paying and prospective clients over and over again.
Have a look at the strengths and weaknesses of your blog or website, tweak it to the best of your abilities with sources of inspiration you can find on this site to increase the likelihood of closing freelancing deals and contracts.
Source: hongkiat.com
6 Things that make Your Blog Is Repelling Prospective Clients

Popular (but bad) Blogging Advice You Should Ignore

Every blogger I’ve known (including myself) has googled ‘How to grow a blog’ one time or another. Soon after the first post is published, you start thinking about getting traffic and comments, more precisely what you need to do in order to increase both.

(Image Source: Fotolia)

One of the first things a blogger does, when faced with the dilemma of growing his or her blog is research. As you search, you realize that you keep coming across the same advice over and over again – from A-listers and normal bloggers alike.
If so many people are vouching for the same piece of advice, then it must surely work, right?
So you spend the next few months trying one advice after another, hoping it’ll take your blog to greater heights. You’re doing everything that they say will work; the problem is, they don’t! Here’s what won’t work and how you can make it work for you.

Blog every day

This was the first blogging advice I took to heart – and failed spectacularly at. Blogging every day is an open invitation to a blogging burn-out. Not only do you run out of things to say but your writing suffers too because you can’t spend as much time proofreading, editing and polishing every post.

(Image Source: bLaugh)

To top it all off, your blog post’s life span is reduced to a single day. That’s not enough time for it to gain traction in social media or get comments. You don’t get any time to market it!
Blogging every day sounds good in theory, but in reality, it squeezes the life and creativity out of you.

How to make it work for you

Unless your blog is your business, there’s a good chance new blog posts every day isn’t what your blog needs. Change your goal of blogging every day to blogging regularly. Decide on your blog’s needs. How many posts a week do you really need to attract visitors and keep your blog active?
New blogs tend to do well with 2-3 posts per week. Experiment with posting schedules to see which days get most visits, comments and interaction and target your publications within that optimum space.

Write great content

The second piece of blogging advice that you still find famous bloggers imparting proved to be a bit of an oxymoron for me. How could I write great content if I had to blog every day? If you’re blogging every day, your content is going to suffer.
Great content takes time to write. It starts with a killer headline and ends with a powerful call to action. Throw in the content that needs to go between the two, and a mini-quest for the perfect images, and you’re looking at a LOT of time and energy devoted to creating great blog content.

How to make it work for you

Writing great content takes planning. Great content not only imparts knowledge but it solves your readers’ problems. It gives them viable solutions.
Take some time to go through your blog analytics. What are the people who are landing on your blog searching for? What answers are they looking for?
I’ve found that the posts I write based on conclusions from my search analytics are the ones that remain evergreen and keep the traffic flowing in.

Be controversial

That seems to be the advice for anyone looking to make a big splash with their blog. Everyone’s writing the same old stuff so they say be different, take an opposing view, and don’t be afraid to offend a few people.
What it really does is make a fool out of you. Instead of convincing readers of your point of view, controversial posts force them to take sides. What happens if you can’t defend your controversial view and some commentator comes in and convinces readers that you’re wrong? Only write a truly controversial post if you’re confident you can defend your point of view.

How to make it work for you

Instead of writing a loud, controversial post, pick an angle that hasn’t been covered. Let’s say you have a freelancing blog. Every other freelancing blog out there is telling you not to work for low rates.
No matter what the gurus say or how solid that advice is, freelancers still offer low rates in the beginning. So instead of trying to convince them not to do so, write a blog post about factors to consider when accepting a low-paying client.

Comment frequently

If you want to make your blog visible, comment on as many blogs as possible – that’s the general consensus. It allows you to leave your footprints all over the blogosphere which trails back to your own blog. While that was true a few years ago, it’s not anymore.

(Image Source: bLaugh)

Blog commenters have gotten busier. They no longer have the time to go over to your website after reading your comments. Most of the time, commenters don’t even read other comments! They leave a comment and get out.

How to make it work for you

No one is saying you shouldn’t leave comments. They are a very important part of your blog-growing strategy. However, comment on relevant blogs and posts, and then monitor which blog is sending you the most traffic.
I still get visitors from a blog I commented in 6 months ago. Here’s a tip: to increase visibility for your comment and your blog, sign your comment with your name and your blog’s name, for e.g. Samar @ myblog.com. This way when people see your comments, they’ll know which blog you’re from.

Run a competition

I fell for this advice hard – and swore off holding a competition on my blog for a long time afterwards. The fact that you need to grow your blog means you won’t be getting enough traffic to make the competition successful. Besides, competitions require effort on the reader’s part. They won’t make the effort if they don’t know or trust you.

How to make it work for you

Instead of holding a competition with a prize at the end, do a give-away instead. Social media is the best way to raise awareness these days, so ask for a simple tweet in exchange. If it’s a free report or a product of your own making, you can also give it away to everyone who tweets or shares it on social media. Create a social share page where they’d be taken to the info product after they share the page on social media.

Reflection

The problem with popular advice is that it’s generic. No two blogs can follow the same advice and get the same results. A lot depends on the blog content and blogger in question. So take the time to understand your blog and business needs before applying any of the advice you hear about blogging. Keep experimenting and tweaking until you find a combination that works.
Have you followed some popular blogging advice only to find that it didn’t work for you?

a post from hongkiat.com
Popular (but bad) Blogging Advice You Should Ignore

Secrets to Writing Blog Post Titles That People Click

Want to get more traffic to your blog? If so, you need to learn how to write blog post titles that interest people and motivate them to click and read. One thing is guaranteed in blogging: if your blog post titles stink, few people will read your blog. Without readers, a blog's audience has no chance of growing, and you won't reach your blogging goals.

Think about how many people are exposed to your blog content each day through a feed reader, a Twitter post, a Facebook update, a LinkedIn post, or a shared link on a social bookmarking site like StumbleUpon. Now, think about how many more people find your blog posts through Google searches or keyword searches using their preferred search engines. There are so many ways for people to find your blog, and most of those ways highlight your blog post titles, not the content.

In other words, most people are exposed to your blog post titles and nothing else. Your post titles must be compelling or no one will click through to visit your blog and read your content. That means if your blog post titles aren't compelling, you're losing potential traffic, and if you want your blog to grow, you don't want to lose that incoming traffic!

Your blog post titles are the gateway to your content. If the entry way isn't interesting, visitors won't bother. Therefore, it's essential that you deliver on the promises made in your blog post titles. That's just one of the top three steps to write blog post titles, which you should review before you start writing. Once you understand the fundamental steps of writing headlines, you can use one of the examples that follow to craft a compelling title for each of your blog posts.

Quantifiable Titles
There are many ways to turn a post that includes a list into a compelling blog post title. Here are some examples:

• 5 Steps to Write Killer Blog Post Titles
• 10 Tips to Write Amazing Blog Post Titles
• 20 Examples of Blog Post Titles that Work
• 3 Blog Post Title Tricks Every Blogger Should Know

Insider Information Titles
Blog post titles can make big promises as the following examples demonstrate (just make sure you live up to those promises in your content):

• The Secret to Irresistible Blog Post Titles
• Secrets of Writing Blog Posts that the Pros Don't Want You to Know
• Ultimate Guide to Writing Amazing Blog Post Titles
• 20 Free Blogging Tools I Can't Live Without and Neither Should You

Warning Titles
Blog post titles that warn of impending doom can be very effective. Some examples follow:

• Fatal Blog Post Title Mistakes You Should Never Make
• Warning: Make These Blogging Mistakes at Your Own Risk
• How to Destroy Your Blog with Bad Blog Post Titles
• Blog Writing Rules You Should Never Break

Words of Wisdom Titles

• 5 Things I Wish I Knew About Headlines When I Started Blogging
• 3 Lessons Seasoned Bloggers Can Teach You about Post Titles
• How the Pros Fix Boring Blog Post Titles

Keep in mind, many writers create titles after they've written the content. That way, they're not confined by the headline. If this approach works best for you, then by all means, use it. Creating content to fit a headline can lead to a weaker blog post than you'd end up with if you wrote from your heart and mind without any restrictions. Consider your audience and create relevant content with appropriate yet compelling titles, and more people will click on those titles when they stumble on them across the web.

An article from http://weblogs.about.com
Secrets to Writing Blog Post Titles That People Click

How Authorship can take your blog to the next level in 2013

If you haven’t heard of Google Plus, Google’s new social network, then perhaps you’ve been living under a stone for the last year. Whilst it’s certainly not yet a Facebook or Twitter, Google is doing everything it can to push and promote it. That’s something that as a blog owner you should give serious consideration to. Taking on the might of Facebook is a huge challenge for Google and having learned many lessons from their previous attempt with social networking called Orkut, this time they’re out to really push G+.

Of course I can hear you asking why should I care, I already share my content on Twitter and Facebook which has a far greater reach. The answer is quite simple. Google is giving out plenty of encouragement for you to be active with them. As a serious blogger, you should take advantage of it! So if you’ve gone through your SEO checklist and think you have everything covered, don’t forget to markup your blog with rel=author!

Everyone likes a great picture
The first and most obvious advantage is the ability to have a pretty picture of yourself in the SERPS (search results). You’ve probably seen quite a few sites that have this when you search Google. Do you think you’re more likely to click the result with the picture or the one without? The web is becoming more social because ultimately people are social animals. Your picture in the SERPS not only makes you stand out from your competition, but it can make you appear more trustworthy. As the vast majority of blogs aren’t yet using Google authorship, then you really should be! Here’s what it looks like when implemented correctly.

Not only this but click through rates within search results are often much higher with sites that have authorship enabled. Bottom line, this means more visitors to your blog. If you even got an easily achieved 10% increase in your CTR, this means an extra 10% of organic search visitors to your blog. Obviously that’s clear value to you, no matter if or how your blog is monetised. A 10% boost in new traffic for 20 minutes of work to set it up is a clear and easy win for you. However, it gets much better.

The big picture, if you’ll pardon the pun
The big picture goes far beyond the ability to have your picture in the search results. That’s just a nice little carrot that’s dangled in front of you. Google wants to stay at the top and to do that they continually need to find better ways to organise and understand the plethora of documents on the web. Pagerank and links which are the fabric of their understanding of the relatedness of the web are buckling under the pressure. To take things further they need to understand who is adding the content and how authoritative these people are within the realm of their topic areas.
Authorship is a great way to do this, and it really is a stroke of genius. If they can get webmasters like you to link their blogs and content written around the web to G+, then they can start to understand more about the context of who is building the great stuff on the web. If they can understand who the great authors are then they can use that to rank quality sites much more easily and give their users a much better experience. If you put out great content, then that means you!

What does this mean for you?
This means that you need to be giving the right signals to Google that your content is the kind of content that deserves to rank well and to be receiving the gift of the traffic Gods. Do you already get the kind of metrics and interactions that Google loves to see on your blog? Do you get great comments, links, and social shares because of the quality of your blog? Then you should be telling Google that you are the author of this great stuff!
Once they know that you are the author you can start to build your ‘author rank’ or agent rank as their patents describe it. Now I’ll be honest, nobody knows if Google is currently using this as a signal for ranking. You have to realise that they’ve put so much effort into it this and it’s likely to be so potent a ranking signal that it’s obvious that it’s coming soon. Delivering quality relevant results is at the heart of what Google wants to do, and you dear reader should see the opportunity to be at the very heart of it from the beginning. Of course we don’t yet know what the full effects of this are likely to be, and this post is not the place for a discussion on correlation versus causation, but hopefully you can see that the potential is huge.

What you need to do set it up
Firstly you need to create a personal profile with Google Plus, fill out all the information required, and add a picture of yourself. Note, you need to use an actual real picture of you (a headshot is best). Company logos are not what was intended here. Then you need to add your site (or any others that you post on) as a site that you contribute to in your profile.
Finally you need to add the link to your G+ profile page on your blog posts and you’re good to go. If you use WordPress as many are, you’re probably using Yoast’s SEO plugin (which I highly recommend). Yoast kindly has made it easy for you by providing fields to do this within the plugin. Alternatively many other SEO plugins provide this functionality. Once you’ve done this you can test the results with Google’s Rich Snippets testing tool and if it all works you need to wait a couple of weeks.

The implications of doing this
Google already understands more about your site than you think. It knows about interactions and social sharing as well as other important metrics. Make sure that this great stuff is linked to you, the real life human being. Why? The answer is because as a ‘known author’ you can take this authority around the web with you. Think of it as a suitcase full of topic authority. If you contribute to other sites as well as your own, then your articles there should get a boost based on your authorship. Also if those other sites do the right things then your posts should further increase your author rank.
Finally one of the other obvious connotations of this that you don’t often hear about is the impact of people guest authoring on your site. It clearly will benefit them but think about how it would impact you to have the highest quality authors on your site. Once you see that Google can understand who is authoring all this content you can see that attracting industry thought leaders and experts to post on your site (with verified G+ authorship) is going to massively help. Top experts aren’t going to work with low quality sites, so in effect you can leverage the authority of others to help your own ranking. You should positively encourage expert authors on your site! However you need to make sure that these are quality authors, so your vetting process needs to be even stricter.

A semi advanced tip
If you’ve already shared content on other people’s sites through the connections you have then you should contact those site owners. Not only is it likely to be good to get back in touch anyway, but you can explain the importance of authorship implementation. If you’ve contributed to sites all around the web in the past then you may be able to build up very quickly by implementing this on your past work. A head start is always a good thing, but just make sure that you only link quality work back to you.

A final word of caution
I’ll finally say that if you do any kind of black hat SEO promotion, then you should stay far away from this. Of course most don’t do that stuff, but I thought I’d mention it. By creating authorship and taking it around the web with you, you are linking all of your work. You need to be sure that you’re ‘whiter than white’, otherwise the past might come back to haunt you.
Why not tell me what you think in the comments. Have you used rel=author markup and have you noticed a CTR or other improvement on your blog?

How Authorship can take your blog to the next level in 2013