There are tons of sites out there that will assit you in publishing your blog on the web. Here, we have reviewed some of the more popular offerings:
1. Wordpress.com
Numerous excellent templates, flexibility and ease of use, plus reliable promotion and tracking tools all make Wordpress an extremely reliable and professional blogging site. Although not ideal for coders, the 45 different templates can be customized as far as the header image and side bar widgets are concerned. This free hosting service also submits your blog to Google and Technorati, and with its outstanding tracking solutions, you get to view your blog stats as well as the visitors checking out your site. All these make Wordpress a perfect blogging site for both beginners and pros. Here is a great blog tutoirial on how to get started with Wordpress.
2. MSN Spaces
This free blogging service was introduced in the year 2004 and continues to grow with millions of users or bloggers worldwide. The best thing about MSN Spaces is that this site features a no-fuss, simple to follow non-HTML means of blogging. This makes it ideal for blogging novices or HTML non-experts to have their own personalized space over the web. Moreover, the photo uploading and display features of the site are impressive. You can post slideshows as well, and even integrate your favorite tunes through MSN Music.
3. Blogger
Although Blogger was initially introduced as early as 1999, it was acquired by Google only in 2002. Currently, this blogging site is one of the most popular and widely used all over the globe. One of the biggest advantages to this free blogging service is their Adsense sign-up feature. This means that you can place ads on your blog site, and you get paid whenever a visitor clicks on your site. Moreover, since Blogger immediately submits your blog to the Google directory, it will be easier for your blog to be found all over the web. Flexibility, ease of use, and design tools are other outstanding features.
4. LiveJournal
Since LiveJournal does not only make available a good number of template varieties but also allows you to add a modified CSS style sheet, this blogging site is ideal for those who want to have a more personalized and distinctive blog space or site. You can also edit the HTML code per template, if you want to add or modify something in your blog. You can moreover, submit posts using the email service of your cell phone, as well as upload pictures and video files.
Showing posts with label Blogger Tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogger Tips. Show all posts
Using The Google Keyword Tool To Pick Your Niche
The Google Keyword Tool is a free resource which will show you the approximate search volume for any keyword in the prior month. So, its now December, 2008, and I typed in college basketball to the Google key word search tool. This tool shows me that college basketball was searched 450,000 times in November. Is also gives me related terms, so I see that mens college basketball was searched 14,800 times in November.
So, this free tool can give you the search volume of any keyword on the web. It will also show you the related keyword searches as well. When you are thinking about a niche topic for your blog, this tool can be invaluable.
You want to pick a topic that is a niche topic and not too broad. But, you also want to pick a niche topic that has solid search volume as this shows you that there is demand for your topic. Also, this volume shows you that if you rank well for your respective topic, that traffic will come to your site.
You may be asking how much search volume is good for my blog topic. This is hard to answer. Lets say you want to write a blog about games. This topic is way to broad as there is over 100 million searches for it per month. Video games is too broad as well, with over 10 million searches. Arcade games, still seems to broad with over 1 million searches. However, interactive games has 200,000 monthly searches - so it is much more realistic that if you focus on a blog about interactive games, you get other sites to link to you using the anchor text, interactive games - that you'll have a better chance at quality traffic as compared to some other search terms.
For another example, say you wanted to start a blog about cholesterol. Cholesterol has over 1 million searches, however lowering cholesterol has 60,000 searches. So, if you focus your website, anchor text, and keyword density on lowering cholesterol, you will have a more realistic chance at getting traffic.
So, you want to have a niche topic, but you don't want to have a topic that is so niche - that there isn't any demand. Finding the right balance can be crucial to the success of your blog.
So, this free tool can give you the search volume of any keyword on the web. It will also show you the related keyword searches as well. When you are thinking about a niche topic for your blog, this tool can be invaluable.
You want to pick a topic that is a niche topic and not too broad. But, you also want to pick a niche topic that has solid search volume as this shows you that there is demand for your topic. Also, this volume shows you that if you rank well for your respective topic, that traffic will come to your site.
You may be asking how much search volume is good for my blog topic. This is hard to answer. Lets say you want to write a blog about games. This topic is way to broad as there is over 100 million searches for it per month. Video games is too broad as well, with over 10 million searches. Arcade games, still seems to broad with over 1 million searches. However, interactive games has 200,000 monthly searches - so it is much more realistic that if you focus on a blog about interactive games, you get other sites to link to you using the anchor text, interactive games - that you'll have a better chance at quality traffic as compared to some other search terms.
For another example, say you wanted to start a blog about cholesterol. Cholesterol has over 1 million searches, however lowering cholesterol has 60,000 searches. So, if you focus your website, anchor text, and keyword density on lowering cholesterol, you will have a more realistic chance at getting traffic.
So, you want to have a niche topic, but you don't want to have a topic that is so niche - that there isn't any demand. Finding the right balance can be crucial to the success of your blog.
Make it easy for users to bookmark and share your website or blog
As you probably know, many users use bookmarking to save websites that they want to visit again. Users also use Social Bookmarking servcies so that they can share their bookmarks with friends and peers. Users also use social bookmarking sites to browse sites that others have bookmarked as well.
It is clearly important to make it easy for your users to bookmark your site. The more your users bookmark your site, that more likely it is that the user will come back to your site. And, if users bookmark your site using social bookmark services, new users may start to trickle into your site for free.
Addthis.com offers an extremely easy to use tool which webmasters can implement into their website for free. The tool will make is easy for your website or blog vistors to bookmark the page they are on within thier browser or at the makor social bookmarking websites.
This tool is extremely easy for you to sign up with an implement onto your website. The Addthis.com tool is also extremely easy for your website visitors to use. So they will easily be able to bookmark your site at the place of their choosing. There is also an easy for users to send an email to anyone promoting the website that they are on. You can try out this tool at the end of this article, it is titled bookmark.
Not only is this tool free - but there are no adds or over promotion by Addthis.com. So, you can easily implement this tool, without affecting your website's look, feel, or usability.
It is clearly important to make it easy for your users to bookmark your site. The more your users bookmark your site, that more likely it is that the user will come back to your site. And, if users bookmark your site using social bookmark services, new users may start to trickle into your site for free.
Addthis.com offers an extremely easy to use tool which webmasters can implement into their website for free. The tool will make is easy for your website or blog vistors to bookmark the page they are on within thier browser or at the makor social bookmarking websites.
This tool is extremely easy for you to sign up with an implement onto your website. The Addthis.com tool is also extremely easy for your website visitors to use. So they will easily be able to bookmark your site at the place of their choosing. There is also an easy for users to send an email to anyone promoting the website that they are on. You can try out this tool at the end of this article, it is titled bookmark.
Not only is this tool free - but there are no adds or over promotion by Addthis.com. So, you can easily implement this tool, without affecting your website's look, feel, or usability.
Attracting Readers to Your Blog
A blog isn't a website. Simply repurposing your site content, press releases or brochures on your blog means death in the blogosphere. When blogging for business, you have to change what and how you communicate.
According to an April 2006 study by blog search engine Technorati, about 75,000 new blogs are created daily. There are about 1.2 million blog posts every day, or about 50,000 posts each hour.
That's an overwhelming number of messages vying for the attention of blog readers. To catch their attention, you've got to connect with them, not just throw information at them.
How can you do that? Be astoryteller from your industry.Share your personal insights, favorite resources and relevant statistics. Reveal your name and the position you hold in your company. Blog readers don't want a company voice; they want a personal one. And the voice doesn't only have to be yours. Ask several key employees to post periodically. This spreads the workload while giving prospects a more personal look at your team. Gettingpersonal is great for business.
Before you get too personal, though, make sure you relate the right kind of information. A ski resort owner could absolutely discuss her crazy crashes on the slopes, and a pet store owner can certainly share silly stories about his pets. Those postings are relevant. But an online diary won't likely bring in new business.
Focus on making your blog a fun and informational industry resource. If you do, other blog and website owners will link to you quickly. A company blog has a better chance of getting links than a company site does. Not only will you score direct traffic from these links, you'll also get greater link popu-larity, which boosts your blog inorganic search results. To further boost your search engine rankings, use keywords in your blog posting titles that are relevant to your business.
Effective blog marketing isn't simply setting up a blog. Invite your future customers into your conversation with what you say and how you say it.
Catherine Seda
According to an April 2006 study by blog search engine Technorati, about 75,000 new blogs are created daily. There are about 1.2 million blog posts every day, or about 50,000 posts each hour.
That's an overwhelming number of messages vying for the attention of blog readers. To catch their attention, you've got to connect with them, not just throw information at them.
How can you do that? Be astoryteller from your industry.Share your personal insights, favorite resources and relevant statistics. Reveal your name and the position you hold in your company. Blog readers don't want a company voice; they want a personal one. And the voice doesn't only have to be yours. Ask several key employees to post periodically. This spreads the workload while giving prospects a more personal look at your team. Gettingpersonal is great for business.
Before you get too personal, though, make sure you relate the right kind of information. A ski resort owner could absolutely discuss her crazy crashes on the slopes, and a pet store owner can certainly share silly stories about his pets. Those postings are relevant. But an online diary won't likely bring in new business.
Focus on making your blog a fun and informational industry resource. If you do, other blog and website owners will link to you quickly. A company blog has a better chance of getting links than a company site does. Not only will you score direct traffic from these links, you'll also get greater link popu-larity, which boosts your blog inorganic search results. To further boost your search engine rankings, use keywords in your blog posting titles that are relevant to your business.
Effective blog marketing isn't simply setting up a blog. Invite your future customers into your conversation with what you say and how you say it.
Catherine Seda
Blogger Under Posting Comment box
Now, blogger(blogspot) have developed their comment box. Last time ago, if we want to post a comment there should be only a link under our posting, and we have to click the link send a comment, it's not interesting. But now we can find a comment box under our post exactly. It's original from blogger, it's not like haloscan or intensedebate. But it's truely from blogger/blogspot. You can see it under this post.
Here is the trick to create comment box under your post.1. Login to http://xyz.blogspot.com
2. Go to Setting-->Comments. then change "Comment Form Placement" to be "Embedded below post" (look at the image below)
3. Then "Save Setting"
Try to see your blog and klik on your titile post. if there is a embadded commnet box below your post just stop this step here. But if there is no comments box, just follow the next steps here.
4. Go to "Layout-->Edit HTML"
5. Check the "Expand widget templates" box.
6. Find this code :
<p class='comment-footer'>
<a expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>
<data:postCommentMsg/></a>
</p>
</b:if>
<a expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>
<data:postCommentMsg/></a>
</p>
</b:if>
7. Then replace it with this code :
<p class='comment-footer'>
<b:if cond='data:post.embedCommentForm'>
<b:include data='post' name='comment-form'/>
<b:else/> <b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>
<a expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>
<data:postCommentMsg/></a>
</b:if> </b:if> </p> </b:if>
<b:if cond='data:post.embedCommentForm'>
<b:include data='post' name='comment-form'/>
<b:else/> <b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>
<a expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'>
<data:postCommentMsg/></a>
</b:if> </b:if> </p> </b:if>
8. Save your Template.
Domain names SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
There are various factors when choosing a domain name. It is natural to go for a short domain name and is connected to something that is popularly searched for by surfers so that the chances of it being found and visited form search engines (free or organic hits) are better. An example might be camera.com. This is in the hope that surfers (potential customers) are more likely to find camera.com when searching for camera. There are many domain name registrars, but don't try to register that domain name because 99.99999999% that had already been registered by someone, and if it is not already in use, very likely the one who registered it will be trying to sell that popular domain name at a very high price.
Now you can try other domain names and it will be good to do some research first like looking up common and popular key words and try to zero in on some key words related to what you want to put on your website or blog in the domain name. If you want to do that, type "keyword suggestion tool" into the Google search box above, tick the radio button beside WEB and search. You will see a few websites that can help suggest key words for you. But that is hard work.
Now you can try other domain names and it will be good to do some research first like looking up common and popular key words and try to zero in on some key words related to what you want to put on your website or blog in the domain name. If you want to do that, type "keyword suggestion tool" into the Google search box above, tick the radio button beside WEB and search. You will see a few websites that can help suggest key words for you. But that is hard work.
Individual post visitor counter with Google Analytics
Installing separate visitor counter for each individual blog post is a frequent blogger request. So far, we can only install visitor counter for the whole blog, not for individual post. However, with Google Analytics which store an enormous amount of data plus allow you to analyze the data in great number of ways, it is now possible to have a pseudo individual post visitor counter (or on closer inspection, it is not pseudo but real provide you choose a relevant keyword to filter).
Now if you are logged into Google Analytics Dashboard, click on CONTENT > CONTENT BY TITLE, you will see a box for FILTER PAGE TITLE (see screen shot below):
Type into the box a suitable keyword to help identify the post for which you want to check and click GO. You will see a list of blog post titles with the number of pageviews etc. For example, I want to see how many pageviews were there for posts containing the word "categories", I type in the word "categories" and filter and you can see the results in the screen shot above.
Now you may even try to filter Google Analytics data by blog title by typing in the full title into the box to filter. For example, I typed in "3 column templates by Thur" and found that there were a total of 253 pageviews for that particular post (see screen shot below):
Now if you are logged into Google Analytics Dashboard, click on CONTENT > CONTENT BY TITLE, you will see a box for FILTER PAGE TITLE (see screen shot below):
Type into the box a suitable keyword to help identify the post for which you want to check and click GO. You will see a list of blog post titles with the number of pageviews etc. For example, I want to see how many pageviews were there for posts containing the word "categories", I type in the word "categories" and filter and you can see the results in the screen shot above.
Now you may even try to filter Google Analytics data by blog title by typing in the full title into the box to filter. For example, I typed in "3 column templates by Thur" and found that there were a total of 253 pageviews for that particular post (see screen shot below):
Things to Avoid On Your Webpage
There is a lot of talk on the internet about all of the different SEO related items that you can do to your website to help your pages rank better in the SERPs, but you don’t often read about the things you shouldn’t do. These items are probably some of the most important SEO rules to consider because getting a bad reputation with Google or the other search engines can make all your other SEO work worthless.
With that said, here is a list of things NOT to do with your website:
With that said, here is a list of things NOT to do with your website:
- Don’t link to any obvious spammer sites or “bad neighborhoods”. These would include link farms and other obvious link schemes.
- Avoid using any hidden text or hidden links.
- Don’t use cloaking or “sneaky redirects”
- Don’t use “doorway” pages that are designed just for search engines
Regarding Blogger Image
With the blogging platforms today, adding images to improve the look and feel of your blog has never been easier. As more and more images are being used in blog posts, it is very important to consider how the search engines will view your images and the effect that can have on your blog.
The biggest problem for a webmaster is when an image results in his or her blog being placed outside of Google’s safe search filter. This can occur, even if everything else in your blog is completely family friendly. There are a few precautions that you can take to help ensure that you don’t fall victim to this problem.
The biggest problem for a webmaster is when an image results in his or her blog being placed outside of Google’s safe search filter. This can occur, even if everything else in your blog is completely family friendly. There are a few precautions that you can take to help ensure that you don’t fall victim to this problem.
- Be careful when naming your image files. Never use any name though could sound like the image may be adult in nature or oriented toward gambling or non-family friendly topics.
- Use descriptive alt text for your images. Don’t just list keywords, but actually provide a very concise description of the image.
- Keep others from hotlinking your images. This can be done with a quick setting change within your host’s cpanel. If a search engine finds a couple of adult sites hotlinking to your website, it can result in your images (and blog) being filtered by safe search.
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