Fun with blogging

How to write a blog effectively?

noreply@blogger.com (Afzalina) — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:20:00 +0000

Most often we are bemused with thoughts like ... What topic do I blog about, how do I write my posts that I have dedicated readers coming back for more...
I have listed some points below that I think would help you when blogging.
You would have chosen a general topic for your blog and select a title for your blog that best suites the blog's central idea. So your posts should revolve around this general topic in a manner that is useful for the readers.

Ground work for your blog topic:
First and foremost, I hope most of you would have chosen a blog topic of your interest..something that you have experience in or are good at, or something that you would love to talk about.
A ground work of the topic, you choose to write, is very important. Let's say, you choose to have a blog on "Pets". The categories that you can blog about could include:
1. Different kinds of pets and their food habits.
2. Keeping your pets clean.
3. Tips on how to bond well with your pets.
4. Common pet diseases and how would you deal with it.
5. Some uncommon diseases and some proven effective remedies.
6. Pet accessories ...etc to list a few

You can then pick one topic to blog on.
Now that you have a topic, you can then search the net for some useful information and do a comprehensive reading on your blog topic, to enhance your knowledge. You might even want to note down the new facts while reading, so that you can incorporate them when you blog.
You can visit some discussion forums and try finding out some concerns that are in the discussion thread - this could provide you with valuable information.

Now that you have the material about you topic, you can write your blog post with these ideas combined with the knowledge that you already have. When writing a blog, keep asking yourself... Have my readers already read this stuff before? Will it be useful? Am I offering soemthing new to read?

Original content
Hence it is very important that you have original content in your posts. Please do not copy and paste contents from other sources. Because most search engines crawl the web and list them in search results, based on originality and genuine content.
If you have read some piece of information somewhere on the net and copied it to your post, then its very obvious that, like you, some one else also might have read the same article... Imagine how many redundant copies of the same material would then be circulating in the net!!! One such redundant blog post is enough to scare your readers away!

Coming back to your "Pets" blog, once you have written the blog post yourself, with all the ground work and ideas that you have gained, the next step is to further amend it. How?
You search the discussion forums for your current topic. You would definitely get an idea of what is being discussed in there and what people are looking forward to read. Say, you are blogging about "Common dog diseases and remedies", then you search the discussion forums for similar thread posts. Suppose you find one concern on "fleas" and you do not find any useful information on "fleas" either in the forum or related forums...there now, you have another strong topic to add to your blog! :)
You search the net on "flea control" and add it to your post. You continue this strategy until you are satisfied that you have a good number of "dog diseases and their suggested remedies" to post. You can garnish this further by adding what you have learnt from your practical experience with your pets.
Once your blog post is ready, you must do a spell check. :)
After publishing the post, you can then join the same discussion forum where you identified the concern on fleas posted by a member, and join the forum with your suggestion of a solution... mention your blog link for others to see! This way you even get targeted readers to your blog posts!

Please note, that your blog readers might be from any age group, hence you might want to maintain a friendly tone and approach when you blog.
Happy blogging!

Make money blogging - part1

noreply@blogger.com (Afzalina) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 17:15:00 +0000

Earn money from your blogs

Find below, the points that I have summarized to get the maximum profits out of your blog. When you love writing about what you feel, expressing yourself , then no harm in earning a few scoring rewarding points for yourself. Here's how:

1. Sites that pay you to blog:
I recently stumbled upon this fantastic resouce that lists out 28 sites, that pay you to blog.
The list includes 451 Press, About.com, Blog burner, Blog feast, Blogger wave, Blogsvertize, Pay Per Post, Shvoong, Review Me and many more. You can publish your posts and if you have good content, then your blog posts get published and you get paid. How cool is that?
I have provided a link to their post which I think you will love to explore.
Click here to check out those sites

Out of these, Blogger wave and Blogsvertise are relatively easy to join in.

2. Google Adsense
Fetching money from your blog would not be an easy start of course, but its not unachievable as well.
If you notice my blog, you will find google ads. Thats how your ads will look like when you paste a google adsense code in your blog. Getting these ads are very easy and it costs you nothing. All you have to do is log into https://www.google.com/adsense/ and follow the simple instructions to get yourself registered.

Upon registration and accepting the google terms and conditions, you will be led to a page where you can choose from three categories of adsense gadgets:

a) Adsense for content: Content adsense is the most common form of textual ads placed by google.

b) Google search: Just like google adsense, you can also incorporate google search box (just like the I have used in my blog. Getting this search box is again very easy and is similar to the step 2 of google"Adsense for content" above. You get an HTML code for this as well and all you need to do is paste this code into your weblog.

c) Google referral boxes: Close to google adsense and search boxes, are yet another money fetching blog ingredient - referrals. You get an HTML code by following a similar process as listed above and get commission for referring some products on your weblog. Whats more, you get to choose which products you want to refer or promote and earn revenues.

You can customize what kind of ads you want google to place in your blog, the color customization of the ad and what size would you want to allocate for that ad in your blog. Upon confirmation of the ad customization,you will receive an HTML code that you need to paste in your website or blog.

How to place google adsense ads in your blog?
You need to log into your blog/site, and paste this HTML code into the webpage (If you are using blogger for your blogs, then you can navigate to Dashboard->Layout->Add an element->Add an HTML/Javascript,and then paste your HTML code right here). Make sure to save your changes.

(Click image to enlarge)

That's it....all done! Oh and by the way, these are called "Pay-per-click " ads or PPC ads.

Traffic: The next tiring and the most challenging step is to get traffic to your blog, else if you do not have visitors, then you have no one reading your blog, no one clicking those ads you have placed there and hence no money! AWeber is an excellent way to make use of an autoresponder. An autoresponder is that which sends you mail in your inbox without fail, if you have provided your email address on any of the sites that you were interested in. You get reminders and mails from these autoresponders and this is an effective way to drive visitors to your blogs. You could also use Get-Visitors-Now to get instant traffic to your website, though all these traffic providers will charge you some fee. Get visitors would charge you a one time fee of $49.95 but its worth it anyways.

Free download - Buttons for your website or blog

noreply@blogger.com (Afzalina) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:05:00 +0000

I had designed some buttons using MyCoolButton and thought of sharing them with everyone who reads my blog. Would love to hear what you think of them and yeah...they are free for you to download and use. So go ahead and "buttonize" your website or blog!

To save, just right click on the image and say "Save Picture As.." to save it in a folder in your computer.
If you like them, please do feel free to link back to this blog or spread the word around.
Thanks!

Free downloads - Logos

noreply@blogger.com (Afzalina) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:55:00 +0000

Happy New Year to one and all...

Its new year and so I thought of giving away some goodies (logos and 3d buttons) for free download. I designed some logos using AAALogo creator software. You can download this software on a free trial basis and experiment with the wide range of template logo images they provide. It would be worth if you even buy this software. Its an awesome software!

To use these logos in your website or blog, just right click on the images and "Save Picture As.." in a folder in your computer. They are free for you to use!

So here are your ten free logos for download.

Do let me know what you think of them.

My free download of 3d buttons would soon follow in my next blog.

If you like these logos, then please do feel free to spread the word across and link back to my blog. I'd appreciate it very much...Enjoy and have a blessed year ahead!

God bless!

How to add different widgets to your blog

noreply@blogger.com (Afzalina) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:18:00 +0000

Widgets? What are they?

Widgets are the graphical interface elements like a text box, frame, a chat window etc, that a user interacts with. They provide some basic functionalities for which they are designed. For example, a chat widget, when installed in your website or blog, will enable you to log in, search a room, let you know the online status for the users logged in and chat with them. They add great value to your website and blogs since they make them more functional, interactive, informative and diverse.

Where can you find them?

A website that I have found very useful and personally keep visiting for "widget shopping" is WidgetBox

You have a wide range of widgets from different categories to choose from and whats best is that they come free!

I have in fact installed a lot of widgets (see my comments widget, ratings widget, social bookmarking widget etc) in my blog to give an example of what they might look like.

You can even check out my chat widget (under "discussion and chat" link).

These are some other useful links that you might want to try out:

Babel Fish, add a translation tool to your blog
bLaugh, add a blog-related comic to your blog
Blog Hot or Not, add a Blog Hot or Not rating bar to your blog.
Blog in Space, feed your blog into outer space
Blogcartoons, Free cartoons to post on your blog
BlogRolling.com, add a Blogroll to your blog
Blogthings.com, add quiz results to your blog

Blogrush, to add more traffic and readers to your blog
Blue-Blooded Blogger badge, get a badge for your blog that shows your passion for blogging
Brilliant Button Maker, add a button to your blog
Bunchball, add Flash games to your blog
Cafepress, add a store with your logo or designs to your blog
ClockLink.com, add a clock to your blog
Del.icio.us, add a link roll to your blog
Emoticons4u.com, put emoticons and smileys on your blog
Feedjit, web traffic and visitor map widgets
Flickr.com, add photos to your blog
Frappr, add a Frappr map to your blog
Glassy Buttons, add a button to your blog
Google Gadgets, thousands of different add-ons for your blog or website
Gravatar.com, get a Gravatar to identify yourself when you post comments on a blog that accepts gravatars.
Haloscan.com, add comments and trackbacks to your blog
Hello, post images to your blog. Works with Blogger
ImageShack, host images for your blog
iMood.com, put your mood on your blog
Kineda Blogger Ranking Widget, determine whether your blog is an A-list, B-list, C-list or D-list blog
Meez, add a 3D avatar to your blog
Mobber, a chat tool for blogs
Moodsticker, a Moodsticker tracks the current mood of LiveJournal users
MusicVideoCodes.com, put music videos on your blog
MyBlogLog, add a community to your blog
MyChingo, add voice comments to your blog
Online Button Maker, add a button to your blog
Photobucket.com, host images for your blog
Pingoat Blog Worth Calculator, calculate the value of your blog
PollHost.com, put polls on your blog
Quizilla, add quizzes to your blog
Sideblog, add a small, seperate sideblog to your blog
Site Meter, add a counter and/or get web traffic measurement for your blog
SketchPlanet, add sketches to your blog
StikIt, StikIt from Opinmind allows bloggers to insert bloggers' opinions about a subject or keyword into their blog.
Street Sign Generator, make a street sign for your blog
Tag-Board, add discussion to your blog
TagCloud, show your blog's most popular tags on your blog
Technorati Profiles, add a profile and search box to your blog
Wanabo.com, let others tag your blog
We Love Widgets, add a horoscope widget to your blog
WebSmileys.com, put animated emoticons on your blog
Wunderground.com Weather Stickers, add a weather sticker to your blog

How will you install them?

You can click on each of these links. Some of them might require you to register.

You then browse through the widget list and pick your choice.

WidgetBox will let you install the widget to your blogger automatically - this means no copy paste of code. You just have to specify which blog you want to add your widget to. Once its added, you can go to the "page elements" of the "template" section in your blog and accordingly arrange where you want your new widget to be placed. Simple!

In case you are not using widgetbox's widgets,then after you pick your widget to add, you will be given a piece of HTML code.

You copy the code to a notepad. Log into your blogger account and navigate to "page elements" section of "Template" in your blog.

Click on "Add a page element" and choose the "HTML/Javascript" element. Once the pop up window opens, you can then enter a name for the element and paste the piece of code from the notepad. Save your changes. You are done!

Add a clock to your blog

noreply@blogger.com (Afzalina) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:12:00 +0000

Adding a clock in your blog…
One of my friends asked me the other day if it was possible to add a clock in your blog. And... that gave me an idea to blog it up. Most of my posts are with respect to blogger since that’s what I use for blogging. If you want any information on Wordpress, just let me know and I will look it up, test it and then blog it!
Just follow these simple instructions to insert a clock as you see in my blog (Orange clock in the top right corner)
Go to ClockLink . ClockLink offers you a wide range of clocks to choose from. Pick your choice and you will be given a piece of HTML code for your blog. Copy (CTRL+C) this code into a notepad.
Log into your blogger account and navigate to your blog’s “Layout” and then to “Templates” section. Go to “Page elements” section, click on “Add a page element” and choose HTML/JavaScript element.
Paste (CTRL+V) the code from ClockLink into the “content” section of the HTML/JavaScript pop up page. Save the changes and you are done!
You can now view the blog by clicking “View blog” and your clock should appear where you added the page element.

Adding smileys and emoticons to your blog post

noreply@blogger.com (Afzalina) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:16:00 +0000

Add emoticons and smileys to your blog posts. Here's how...
Adding smileys and emoticons to blog posts is easy. It makes your blogs look more meaningful and communicative besides that extra pinch of “expression” that tags along. Listed below are three means by which you can do this:

Method 1:
Click cybergifs to download emoticons for free. Right click on the emoticon that you want to use in your blog and the “Save Target As” as a jpeg image in your hard disk. You can download as many as you want and save them all in a folder for use.
When you are composing your blog, you can click the “Add Image” icon in your composer menu. This leads you to a pop up page where you can browse to the emoticon icon that you saved earlier, upload the image and click “Done”. You need to specify the image location if your want a specific pattern (right/left/center aligned) for your image to appear in your blog post. If you don’t choose any pattern, then you will have to manually drag the image (after you click “Done”).

Method 2:
Another way to add smileys or emoticons as images in your blogs (as in method1) is to download smiley central software from http://www.freesmileys.org/free-smiley-faces-download.php
The download from smiley central is free and this offers a wide variety of smileys, screensavers, cursors, fun-cards and emoticons to choose from (super smileys, talking smileys, custom smileys etc).
Once the download is complete, you will see a smiley icon in your menu bar.
When you are next composing your blog, you first place the cursor where you want the smiley to be placed, click on the smiley icon in the menu bar, browse through the smileys that show up and pick your choice. Click on your smiley to insert it. Simple!!

Method 3:
Another interesting article that I came across was posted by Deepa.
I have provided the link to her blog where you will have to copy paste a piece of code in the “Edit HTML” section of your blog layout.
(To navigate to “Edit HTML”, log into your blogger account go to Dashboard, go to the “Layout” section of the selected blog and click on “Edit HTML” button. It is very important that you take a backup of your old HTML code before you make any changes.)
Add Yahoo emoticons to your blog

Alternatives:
Links and scripts from other bloggers…

To add smileys in your blogs incase you are using wordpress, this link might come in handy:
Wordpress smileys

To add smileys using HTML code as in method 3 above, you can also use the script designed by Sumeet. Click http://sumeet.info/hacks/emoticons.html

http://emoticons4u.com/ is another emoticons gallery.

You can also try the link below

http://freeblogspottemplates.blogspot.com/2006/03/blogger-emoticons.html
And closely follow the instructions mentioned.

The instructions are very detailed and should work on both old and new blogger (beta blogger).

For bloggers using FireFox, this might be useful. http://wolverinex02.googlepages.com/emoticonsforblogger

That’s all for now….
Keep smiling!

Changing your blog skin

noreply@blogger.com (Afzalina) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:39:00 +0000

Not happy with your blog skin??
Blogger and Wordpress lets you choose from a variety of skins templates – templates with one column, 2 column and 3 columns. 3 columns are very useful when you have to maximize your content besides earning from your blog i.e. when you have more contents to put in your blog.
If you are still not happy with the skins and would like to have something different, then you can download the skin you want from the sites listed below. Though there are many different sites to let you download free templates for blogs absolutely free, I personally recommend the following sites for your review:

Where to download from?
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/29-beautiful-blogger-templates/
This provides 29 really neat and cool design templates for you to download.
(See emire template below for an example)

http://designs.bloggerbuster.com/search/label/three%20column
Some Web 2.0 enabled templates, 2-3 column templates, classic templates and a variety of different templates for you to choose from.
(See gourmet template below for an example)

http://www.finalsense.com/services/blog_templates/
A very good collection of template themes for both new and old blogger with fixed background, classic templates, 2-3 column templates for download, arranged neatly in different categories.
(Check butterfly template for an example)

http://www.pyzam.com/bloggertemplates/
A wonderful set of designer templates and 2-3 column templates for blogger.
(Check vintage flower template for an example)

http://www.idwebtemplate.com/category/template-categories/
Some neat templates that are also adsense optimized.
(Check Woman-auto-insurance template for an example)

How to use these templates in your blog?

1. For Wordpress:
Download the theme archive and extract the files. You need to preserve the directory structure in the archive when extracting these files. Using an FTP client to access your host web server, create a directory to contain your theme in the wp-content/themes directory provided by WordPress. For example, a theme named "ABCtheme" should be in wp-content/themes/ABCtheme.
Upload the theme files to the new directory on your host server.
To select the active theme for your site: Log in to the WordPress Administration Panel.Select the "Presentation" sub panel.From the "Select" column in the table, click on "Select" for the theme you wish to activate.To view the new theme in action, click "View Site" at the top of the Panel's screen.Your theme should immediately become active.

2. For Blogger
The sites display the HTML code of the selected theme for you. CTRL+A to copy all the contents of the code and CTRL+V to paste it to a notepad.
Now log into your blogger account, go to Dashboard, go to the “Layout” section of the selected blog and click on “Edit HTML” button. It is very important that you take a backup of your old HTML code (your previous blog layout) and copy it to another notepad. After taking a backup of your old code, delete the existing HTML code and paste the new code from the first notepad (you new template design layout).
Click on “Preview” to view how the new template looks like. If you are happy with it, go ahead and “Save template”.
Point to remember here is that old blogger templates might not be compatible with the new blogger layout and hence on “Preview” you might get an error that your file could not be parsed since it is not well formed.
Don’t worry about your page elements on copying the new HTML code. First, you already have the backup and secondly, blogger preserves page elements in the new blogger theme.

Note: All of the above links also contain template designs that are adsense optimized!

Getting started with blogging

noreply@blogger.com (Afzalina) — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 10:32:00 +0000

I have been asked by a few friends of mine..about blogging.. So, today I would be discussing on how to get started with blogging. Hope this turns out to be helpful for the ones who are serious about blogging.

What is a blog?
Blog, which is the shortened version of a weblog, is like a personal diary, wherein you can express your thoughts. Many would like to use it to publish contents for general public consumption and this inturn might inspire many to earn from their blogs...

Well..why not??

How to get started with your blog?

This is indeed a very tricky question, since the first thing you need to figure out is - what do you want to talk about. What do you want to publish for your viewers to read? Well...It could be anything ..any topic under the sun that you are comfortable with and that you love talking about.

Find your niche!
Once you are done with that, decide on the specifications that you would like to work on. Make your topic clear and specific and most importantly categorize them. This would help you decide the name of your blog. For example, if you are an animal lover and want to make a blog for animals, then you can "google" on pets and see what are the different search items that come up. You can "google" to find out the related search in forums, since forums are platforms where a topic of interest would be discussed.
You can then select the ones that people usually hunt for. Next, read some related articles on the net on the topics that you have identified. After you have enough articles, you can organize them and then proceed on planning your layout and where you want your topics to be placed. The best way to sort things out with blogs, is, to figure out how other blogs are arranged - this would give you a rough idea. Check how they have arranged their items, how have they used their ideas etc
Third, choose a template layout from the blog provider tools and customize your blog the way you want it to look like, which would also reflect you blog topic.
If you have many pages, then make sure navigability is easier. Now you can organize your topics into labels and categories and start posting your articles. Fourth, have a blog up wherein you post original content worth reading. Research on the net since this would add some spice to your recipe and make it an up-to-date article. Don't have too may pictures as this make your blogs slower to upload. How to create blogs? Creating a weblog is easy and convenient...

Find a few links below to get started and create your first blog, free of cost:
Blogger : http://www.blogger.com/
Wordpress : http://wordpress.com/
Blogsboom : http://www.blogsboom.com/
Weblog : http://www.weblog.com/

I am listing just a few here, since the more links you get, the more confused and diverted you would get. I personally prefer blogger, though wordpress is simply superb. Just register and follow the simple steps to create your blogs, customize them using the tools provided and get started. If your are using blogger, then you can make your blog fetch some bucks for you. You can start off with these tips and tricks for now. I will be back with more information again in my next post.Till then....happy blogging!