Entries Tagged 'Blogging Tips' ↓

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Free, a word that can make your blood run wild. We are all interested in getting anything for free. But in the case of blogging, you should be a little careful. Today’s post deals with this question : whether you should choose a paid hosted blog or go with a free one like Blogger.

The Blogosphere is a humongous place. There are already millions of blogs out there. And thousands more are added everyday. So, you see, the competition is pretty tough. You want to make sure that you’re blog stands out. Having a free blog makes you look cheap. Whereas, if you have a paid hosted blog, it shows that you are a bit dedicated to your blog.

Reasons why a Free Hosted Blog is not good

• Difficult to brand - This is not the right platform to build your business. You cannot create a brand for your blog.
• Less control - Free hosted blogs don’t offer much flexibility or customization. You can’t make your blog look the way you want.
• Gives less returns - Suppose, if you start a Blogspot blog, build it, get a lot of rankings and traffic and wish to make money from it. Its very difficult to monetize it. There are too many rules and restrictions. You won’t be profiting from your blog.

The Cost Problem

If you have been thinking that hosting expenses are too much, think again. Hosting today is very cheap. Plus every web host has an affiliate account. Join the affiliate program and use your own link to sign up to that service. For example, HostGator pays an affiliate $50 for every sign up. So, just sign up to HostGator using your affiliate link(use this link to sign up) and pay $0.01 for hosting and make $50 for referring yourself! How’s that?

If you want a free domain name, you can use the DNTemple forums to get one. Each post you make there earns to some points. You can exchange these points to get a domain name of your choice. On an average, you can make enough points for a domain name within 4-5 days.

So, all in all, opt for a paid hosting blog. How did you like this post? Tell me in the comments below.

This is the first post in the series of Better Blogging, a series of posts on blogging tips that can make you a better blogger. Make sure you subscribe to my feed so that you don’t miss any of the posts in this series.

Traffic is what makes visitors come to your blog. Traffic is what makes people like John Chow rich. Isn’t that true? So today’s post deals with how you can get more traffic to your blog.

Ways to increase Traffic

• Use Entrecard - Entrecard was the first source of traffic for this blog. In the first month, Entrecard contributed the majority of traffic to my blog. Keep dropping your cards on other blogs and you’ll get plenty of traffic. Here are my stats for the first month of my blogging. You can see that most of the traffic came through Entrecard.



• Comment on other Blogs - Comment on other blogs in your niche to receive more traffic. My real traffic came one month after starting the blog from comments. Target blogs that have dofollow comments. You can search for a list of blogs that have dofollow comments using DoFollow Diver Here is how comments increased my blog traffic.



• Participate in forums and message boards - Forums like Blog Premiere and Bloggeries are good places to do some promoting about your blog. Participation in discussions at BlogCatalog is also a great way to get more traffic.
• Use the power of Social Bookmarking - Hitting the front page sites like Digg and StumbleUpon can generate massive amounts of traffic to your blog. However, the main disadvantage of these sites is that the traffic is generally not targeted and visitors will stay on your blog only for a few seconds. Carl has written an excellent (and humorous) post on how to game the Digg system. You can also read Tom’s post about StumbleUpon traffic. Bryan has written a post about social bookmarking.
• Create a fantastic linkbait - Do you remember that John Chow asked everyone to review his blog in exchange for a link in his blogroll? That was a very clever idea. Suddenly hundreds of blogs started writing about John Chow. The root of all evil, John Chow received a lot of traffic from this. Just like that, think of some ideas, start a contest. Go use your imagination.

Those are some of the ways for driving more traffic to your blog. What do you do to get more traffic?

Have you seen that blogs like John Chow get over 100 comments for each post. I’ve always wanted to have such a huge number of comments on my posts. Lets see how a blog can have more comments.

1. Use the Top Commentators Plugin - This is a nifty little plugin that lists commentators who have made the highest number of comments and links back to their blogs. This plugin really encourages people to leave a comment on your blog. If you want to tweak the comment a bit, have a look at this really nice tutorial by Shankar Ganesh. This plugin is a must-have if you want more comments for your blog.
2. Invite Comments - While writing your posts, don’t put all of your ideas together leaving nothing for the comments. Ask questions to your readers, ask for their opinion and be open-ended.
3. Make it easier to Comment - The main reason why many people fail to comment on blogs is because the commenting process is a big hurdle for them. Make the commenting process easier for them.

I’m sure that by following these tips you will get more comments on your blog. Do you have any ideas to get more comments? Give me your tips and ideas in the comments section below.

I’m sure every blogger gets stumped by this problem in their blogging experience and I’m no exception. For a few days, I just couldn’t get myself to write a blog post. I suspect that it was due to my laziness. Anyway, if you cannot get yourself to blog about something, I suggest you try one of the following.

• Go visit some other blogs to get an idea on what to blog about.
• Listen to some good music. Try to relax yourself.
• Or just shut down the computer and go out and play. Honestly, how long have you been sitting in front of the monitor? Go out and enjoy yourself.

Well, I hope these tips help you when you just can’t get yourself to write a blog post. Give me your ideas of what to do when you can’t blog in the comments section below.

One of the best aspects of blogging is that the readers are able to provide their feedback through comments. Like I said in my previous post, Please Comment, commenting helps you become a better blogger. If you have just started a blog, commenting on other blogs will help you get lots of traffic. If you comment more on other people’s blogs, you’ll get noticed more. And people start flocking to your blog. In some blogs where the links are followed through by search engine spiders you can get a high page rank that links back to your site.

When commenting on blogs, target blogs that have little or moderate amount of traffic. This way bloggers will notice you. If you try to comment on an A-listing blog like JohnChow.com, you will not be noticed much. Also, whenever there’s a new post, immediately comment on it.

Here are some things to note when commenting on blogs:

• Find blogs that are related to your niche and post comments appropriately.
• Build good relationship with bloggers and other commentators by commenting often in their blog.
• Don’t post a one line comment like Hi, etc., instead write a flattering comment to compliment the post.
• Finally, never comment for the sake of commenting. Write your opinion. Give some ideas.

Try to be the first to comment on a post. Because most readers will only pay attention to the first ten comments. Try this, you’ll get a lot ton of backlinks and your blog’s traffic will skyrocket.

There are two things that, if you do, will certainly help to become a better blogger:

• Read lots of blogs.
• Comment on blogs often.

I’m sure most of you read a lot of blogs.

However, most of you don’t comment on blogs enough.

Please try this. For the next week, make an effort to comment more on blogs that you frequently visit. Don’t just copy everything that is in the previous comment. Write your opinion, your thoughts. Commenting more on blogs will definitely help you to become a better blogger. Just try this for one week, you’ll notice the results.

We all know that writing good posts is the best way to drive traffic to your website. Many people think that writing a good article is an art which they cannot master. This is wrong. Writing is a form of communication. In this post, I will outline 6 tips to write a killer article for your blog or website.

Remove all distractions.

Make sure your focus is on writing the article alone. Close all other programs and open a word processor like MS Word and start writing.

Write about something.
It does not matter if you don’t know what to write about. Choose a topic that you are passionate about and write. Don’t mind about grammar, punctuation, or spelling mistakes. That can be taken care of later. Just write whatever you have in mind.

Read it.

Now that you have written something, read it once. Continue reading →

Forget about banners or doing link exchanges with other blogs. This time, let’s do something evil. These are some of the most evil blog promotion ideas. They could send you a lot of traffic, or land you in trouble. These ideas are so evil that you will definitely try them out.

You ReviewMe me, I ReviewMe you

This evil scheme works only when ReviewMe has a 50% coupon code available. You agree to review another blog through ReviewMe and they do the same for you. Let’s assume that your blog costs $100 for a review and the other blog costs the same. Both of you agree to review each other and sign up for an affiliate account with your own ReviewMe affiliate code. You will pay $50 for the review with a 50% coupon, but it is canceled by by the $50 you get for reviewing the other blog. In the end, you’ll have a free review and make $25 for referring yourselves.

The Text Link Ad Shuffle

Text Link Ads offers a $100 coupon for new advertisers but it requires that you buy $125 of links to take advantage of this offer, but it gives $125 worth of links for only $25. And you get $25 if you are a TLA publisher and refer yourself for an advertiser account. $125 worth of ads for free, isn’t it? Hehe.

Sponsoring a Wordpress theme

This idea is not evil but its pretty unique. Thousands of bloggers opt to download popular Wordpress themes for free. What you do is sponsor a Wordpress theme in exchange for placing your link in the footer. And you can get tons of backlinks. The main problem is that the evil blogger who downloads the theme will remove your link.

Well, these are all the evil promotion ideas for your blog. But, if you get into trouble, don’t blame me!

Many of you would certainly have created a few blogs and tried to monetize them. Its the same case with me too. I’ve created many blogs in the past in hope that I will make big bucks from them. I’ve learnt a lot from my experience and I have summed it up in eight no-nonsense expert blogging tips.

And here they are:

1. Content First. I’ve come across many bloggers who monetize their blogs which have absolutely no content. We have all heard that Content is King. But where is the content? Focus your attention on content first. The rest, all the trivial things can be taken care of later.

2. Be Original. Whatever you write, write it with on your own. I know that writing original content can be hard at times, but don’t worry, everything comes with practice. Never resort to plagiarism.

3. Write with Passion. Pick a niche that you are comfortable with. Write about topics that you like, it doesn’t matter if you are not an expert on the subject. If you don’t have enough knowledge, research until you are familiar with the concepts.

4. Expressions and Emotions. You are a blogger, not a news reader. So, don’t Continue reading →