According to Comscore, the number of people accessing the web through their mobile phones has doubled over the last year to 22 million every day. Social networking sites and blogging are the most popular sites people are visiting on their hand held device.

If you want to make sure that you are getting as many visitors as you can, make sure you optimize your blog to make it mobile search engine friendly. Wordpress search engine optimization for the mobile client means making sure a business is as visible as possible on the mobile web and therefore helping that website get as much traffic as possible from search engines. There are two options:

Build your blog from scratch to be mobile friendly

If you are good at building websites, build a blog bearing in mind the following:

1. Screen size

This is a lot smaller on handsets than on a laptop and many WAP browsers strip out the style sheet (CSS) making the page display as text. This is not aesthetically pleasing. So what you need to do is make sure you have a mobile version of your website that doesn’t contain images and maximizes the functionality of your site.

2. Valid code

Keep the code on your website clean as mobile search engines are unable to digest invalid code.

3. W3C Mobile Web Initiative

Adhere to best practices, look at W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative. This will ensure that your content is accessible to anyone regardless of their platform — including mobile users and mobile search engines.

4. Follow traditional on-site SEO best practices

Write short, concise blog headlines as these will be what the mobile visitor sees and will attract them to click on the title.

Make sure the URL structure is as simple as possible. This means that it is also easier for your visitors to type in the address.

Use an off the shelf CMS – Wordpress

Alternatively, if you do not want to build your own site and are already using Wordpress, you can install Wordpress Mobile Pack plugin. Go to your plugins section and search for the Mobile Pack as below and follow the steps.

1. Type in the plugin you want to search for



2. Choose and click install now



3. Your plugin should automatically install which would allow you to activate it

I downloaded this plugin and it worked straight away. It was better than the MobilePress plugin which only displayed the title of the blog posts. I am not a patient developer and so this plugin was the best choice for me.

Is your blog mobile ready?

With more and more people expecting to access the Internet through their handheld devices, it is very important that our blogs are ready for it. If you have used any other mobile Wordpress plugins which you have found useful, please feel free to comment.

A guest post by Jo Turnbull of www.seojoblogs.com.

Image by The Lightworks

1. Blog Search Engine Optimization SEO plugins
2. Add Keywords To Optimize SEO When Writing Blog Posts
3. What is XML Sitemap and why you need it on your blog
4. Improve your blogging with WordPress blog plugins
5. Use Blog Search Function To Learn More About Your Visitors

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When I posted my plan for a guest posting blitz: 20 posts in 30 days, Marko actually replied saying that it was an aggressive goal and offered me an invite to post here.

So, I thought what better to write about than how I can continually generate massive amounts of content. Since starting my blog I’ve consistently published between 5-7 posts a week. So, I figured it’s time to answer the question, “How do you come up with so much content?”

• Write every day

Notice that I didn’t put post every day. I said “write” every day. Writing is like any other skill. The more you do it, the better you are going to get at it. I do a little bit of writing every single day on some idea I have for a blog post. At any one time I might have 10 or so different ideas for posts, and be working on 3-4.

• Consciously look for ideas

As I go through my life, I will often look for experiences that I could turn into a blog post. Sometimes simply asking myself the question “How can I turn this into a blog post?” will enable me to come up with the idea I need for my next post.

• Brainstorm

At all times, you should have either a notebook, text document, or just a simple list of of ideas for blog posts. Even if you don’t know what the content of the post will be and the idea seems half baked, write it down. I have ideas for blog posts that I came up with a month ago and I still haven’t written them.

• Psycho Cybernetics problem solving

I know that’s a mouthful. One thing I learned from Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s book is the idea of our subconscious problem solving mechanism. You can actually give your subconsciousness instructions to solve a problem before you go to sleep and in the morning you will wake up with the solution. It sounds nuts, but I’ve found it to be quite effective for coming up with blog post ideas.

So how do you do this? It’s pretty simple actually. Before you go to sleep, just tell yourself “I need an idea for a new blog post.” Do this right before you are about to fall asleep. Then when you wake up in the morning you’ll have an idea.

• Posts/Comments on other blogs

I come up with a lot of ideas for posts when I read people’s comments on other blogs. Sometimes a reader will make a comment or ask a question about the post I’m reading, so I just write a blog post about it. Again it comes down to asking yourself the question, “How can I make a blog post out of that?”

• Go off topic

Maybe you have a good story that has nothing do with the content of your blog? Turn it into a blog post. You’ll be surprised at how engaging people find your content.

If there’s anybody who actually does a great job of taking every day life experiences that seem completely ordinary and turnes them into awesome blog posts, it’s Kelly Diels. She managed to take a conversation about some t-shirt she bough her boyfriend, write a blog post about it, make a product out of it, and sell two t-shirts.

Developing momentum

All of this comes down to developing momentum. Once you hit your stride, you’ll see that coming up with posts is not all that difficult. Finding the time to write all of them is really about effective time management. If you want to know how I manage my time check out my post on how to put your Wordpress blog on autopilot and hang out at the beach and my 6 tips for efficient blogging.

A guest post by Srinivas Rao, a personal development blogger, at The Skool of Life.

Image by Ajawin

1. Blogging consistency and keeping a regular blog posting frequency
2. Reader Comment: Implementing blogging tips
3. What is great blog content? How do you know your content is good?
4. Need inspiration for your next blog post? Read!
5. Living the pro-blogger lifestyle by selling you the blogging dream

Thanks for reading HowToMakeMyBlog.com

You can also fan me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.

Andy Bargery, the organizer of London Bloggers Meetup, liked my blog and asked if I could present the 58 Ways To Build A Better Blog article at one of the events.

So on November 3rd I did the presentation at the London Bloggers Meetup. It was my first ever presentation outside the university doors.

To try and not bore people too much, I shortened the article, made it even more to the point than it was and added a joke or two.

Marko Saric at London Bloggers Meetup

Thanks a lot to Filip Matous of StandStrong.TV as he filmed it all, edited it and uploaded it so I can share the end result with all of you now. Check out the full video below:

Note to self – learn how to use the microphone properly, do not move the mic hand too much!

And the slideshow of the presentation:

Some comments from the London blogosphere

A great presentation on blogging & I was pleased to find I was doing most of the 58 things! Well, I didn’t have to throw away the TV, since I’ve not had one since around 1968 when I got married! – Peter Marshall

We were treated to a talk from Marko Saric, blogger extraordinaire who was kind enough to run through his 58 ways to build a better blog. Marko was a joy to listen to and as engaging a speaker as I’ve had the pleasure to have seen. – Matt Churchill

Marko Saric was up next to give the assembled audience his top tips on promoting and monetising your blog. I got some great ideas from Marko, and you can find more inspirational thoughts from him here, at howtomakemyblog. – Pete Stean

All in all, it was a great experience. This is a good proof that going offline when promoting your blog works. You meet new people and you get new opportunities. I got the opportunity to speak at London Bloggers Meetup after being at one of the previous events.

1. “Wetworld” Blogging – How offline events can improve your blog
2. FOWA Gary Vaynerchuk And Facebook Developer Garage Interviews
3. Make your blog a side business, problogging comes later
4. Reader Comment: Implementing blogging tips
5. Need inspiration for your next blog post? Read!

Thanks for reading HowToMakeMyBlog.com

You can also fan me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.

HowToMakeMyBlog reader Daan had the following comment to my recent post about how I built my blog traffic.

50 visitors from a trackback is a great number, in most cases it is higher than what you would get from blog commenting, so I asked Daan if he could write a guest post about his experience with building traffic via trackbacks.

How to boost your blog traffic using trackbacks

By Daan

A blog without readers (and comments) is a dead blog. One (quite easy, but lucrative) way to promote your blog is using trackbacks. Trackback is Wordpress-lingo meaning:

Trackback: helps you notify another author that you wrote something related to what he had written on his blog, even if you don’t have an explicit link to his article.

Before you begin

• Make sure the blog (and your new audience) you’re writing for is related to your niche.

• Make sure the article is recent, otherwise nobody will notice your link. Besides that, tracking back to a recent post raises the chance of your article being listed first below the ‘Trackbacks’-heading.

• Make sure the blog you’re tracking back to shows trackbacks in their articles.

How it works

1. Notice your “Yeah, but…”-moment: the best follow up articles – trackbacks – are written when the reader has a what I call “Yeah! But…”-moment: you agree with what you just read, but you’re missing something. That is your signal. Now write your article.
2. Make sure you give your article a catchy headline. Because the title of your trackback link can’t be changed later, you’ll only have one shot here.
3. Insert a link to the original article in your post, if the other blog runs on Wordpress. Your trackback will then automatically be placed. If you don’t have a place for a link to the other article, then here is an alternate way to send trackbacks.
4. After you have written your article and come up with a brilliant headline: Retweet, Digg!, Stumble, etc. the article that inspired you to write your post. Not only for saying ‘thank you!’, but to indirectly draw lots of traffic to your blog. ‘Help me help you’, get it?

Writing a catchy headline

The headline is the only tool you have, in order to make the readers of the trackback, want to read your article. So it has to be catchy, it should be inviting and it should make the reader understand that when they click this link, they’ll gain more insight to the article they’ve just been reading.

The first trackbacks I ever made were in an article full of linklove called: ‘7 Helpful Articles for Beginning Bloggers‘. Two very successful trackbacks were those directing to articles at HowToMakeMyBlog.com and Copyblogger.com.

Because the readers of these blogs are mostly beginning bloggers or eager to learn, the headline immediately caught their eye. As you can see in the statistics the results are astounding – for a blog that’s barely a month old, that is.

Get your readers to stick around

Don’t forget that if you want your new audience to stick around, besides the headline, the content of your article should be of quality too. What we can learn from the statistics of the HowToMakeMyBlog-trackback is that these readers appreciated reading the article and went on reading up to an average of three pages per visit.

For the referred readers of CopyBlogger counts the same. Although they didn’t stay as long as the other readers, they still managed to read a little less than three pages per visit.

Both referred visitors have one thing in common; they are very valuable readers. They both stayed longer and visited more pages than the average reader that visits my blog. This illustrates that even though i.e. Digg and Twitter are great promotional tools, the visitors you attract through trackbacks (and comments) are much more valuable.

Keep your value

Although writing ‘linklove’-articles is widely appreciated by most bloggers, flooding your blogposts with trackbacks probably isn’t the greatest idea. You should keep it in proportions. Nobody likes a spammer, and nobody likes to read articles that are spoiled with links. Keep your articles valuable and only use a trackback when you really have something to add or want to say “thank you!”.

1. How to write blog headlines that make people click
2. Increase your blog traffic and authority with outbound links
3. How to put your best blog posts back into the spotlight
4. Simple Tip To Improve Usability, Stickiness And Page Views
5. Make your blog go viral with Twitter ReTweets

There is nothing easier than having a blog these days. Everyone and their dog is blogging. But that doesn’t mean that every blog is worth reading. As a matter of fact, most blogs suck and they suck for a reason. Most blogs are “me too!” blogs.

By reading this blog you already proved that you don’t belong to the “me too!” crowd.

Creating link-worthy blog content

Creating link-worthy content should be your main concern because everything else will follow.

Referring traffic, traffic from organic search and, in the end, direct traffic directly depend on how link worthy your content is. It’s that simple.

Just to make things clear, link worthy content is something people can’t help but link to. Even when they don’t know you, and in some cases don’t even like you.

Emotional reaction is the key

Just look at the story about a boy who stole his dad’s credit cards and hired prostitutes to play HALO and eat junk food. The story was fake, but genius. (Thanks, Lyndon!)

Its appeal came from a place where emotions and imagination live. The story received thousands upon thousands of links.

This example is perhaps a bit too strong, but the underlying principle is something every blogger can learn from.

But what can a common blogger do to create link magnets every day? Just keep on readin’.

1. Create a resourceful post (every once in a while)

Don’t you just love it when someone spends a month collecting, testing and reviewing Wordpress plugins just to bring you the best ones for a certain function? They even make sure to include installation instructions.

This kind of content gets linked because it saves people time and effort. In this case, people link to share the resource, or to reward the effort if it’s very extensive. Links to resourceful posts or pages accumulate slowly.

2. Make people laugh

This one works every time. OK, almost every time. You can make fun of the authorities in your industry or take the industry as a whole and make fun of it. Matt McGee created what is probably the best piece of humor about SEO to this day.

3. Start a conversation or become a part of one

Someone criticized something in your industry. You probably have an opinion. Share it! If you disagree, go ahead and write a post about it. A unique point of view and strong arguments will help make your post interesting and linkable.

4. Be the first to break the news

Being the first to break the news about something works like a charm. The downside is – you actually have to be the first and that is by no means an easy task.

5. Attack a product, service, person or an industry

This is one of the most POWERFUL ways to get links, but at the same time, it’s the most dangerous one. Recently, Derek Powazek attacked the SEO industry with a pretty aggressive and insulting rant – “Spammers, Evildoers, And Opportunists“. The end result is a surprisingly large number of links. But beware – don’t pick your targets randomly. Make sure that your community doesn’t like the target of your rant. Just like Derek did.

6. Eye Candy

How many times did you see different images, designs, or just pictures of people or places on the front pages of Digg.com or Reddit.com? These pictures, websites and images can sometimes be enough to cause a linking frenzy. It can be done in virtually every industry as long as the imagery is captivating.

To increase the number of links your posts gets, try to combine these 6 ways. A resourceful post with stunning pictures sounds great, doesn’t it?

Or you can think about it like this – would you get all excited about the post you just finished if it wasn’t yours ?

A guest post by Vedran, aka SEO Rabbit, a Connecticut based SEO guy.

Image by fdecomite

1. 3 Simple Ways To Monetize Your Blog RSS News Feed
2. Optimize Link Juice Flow To Improve Google Rankings
3. Case Study: ProBlogger Guest Post Effect On My Traffic
4. Link internally to increase blog page views, improve usability and Google rankings
5. How To Get Blog Traffic – Inbound Links And Anchor Text

Thanks for reading HowToMakeMyBlog.com

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WordPress 2 iPhone app has just been released. I had a quick look and I like it. It is a perfect iPhone application for mobile blogging.

It is very simple to log in to your WordPress blogs (both .com and .org). Blog URL, username and password are all the things you need.

WordPress iPhone app now features a very easy to use navigation on the bottom of the screen with “Comments”, “Posts” and “Pages” . This  navigation allows you to easily switch between these areas.

WordPress 2 iPhone comments area

Comments area lets you review comments, approve, unapprove, delete and mark as spam.

Comments area looks very nice now as you can see the avatars of your readers and also their website URL’s.

Is it just me or is there no way to reply to a comment via the app itself?

Posts section of the iPhone blogging app

Posts area lets you view your published posts, your drafts and lets you add a new post.

If you go into “add a new post”, you get a post writing navigation menu which features “Write” where you can insert the title, tags, categories, the status (draft, private, published etc.) of the post and it is also here that you write the post itself.

Second tab in the post writing navigation is “Photos” which lets you add photos from your iPhone library or take a new photo with your iPhone camera.

The third tab is Preview and it allows you to see a preview of your post. Photos will be attached to the bottom of the post when you publish it.

Last tab is Settings and it allows you to schedule the publish date, set a password-protected post, and an automatic resize of photos option which results in faster publishing but smaller photos.

Pages area lets you see all your WordPress blog pages and you can also create a new page. It is also possible to add photos to your page, just like you do in a post.

Few more screenshots of WordPress application

WordPress mission accomplished

According to WordPress, the focus of WordPress 2 iPhone app was on better user experience and on eliminating the bugs and it seems that they have accomplished what they wanted. It is easy to use, it runs fast, what more can you wish for when you are on the go and have to publish something.

It is not possible to style the post in a visual editor, position the pictures, add H3 tags and similar yet, but if you are on the go, I do not think you need that anyway. It is all about getting the message across quickly.

1. Why You Should Upgrade To WordPress 2.7
2. Thesis Theme 1.6 Video Review – See what Thesis can do now
3. Why you should consider Thesis Theme design for your blog
4. Improve Blog SEO With Internal Linking Structure
5. How To Setup Your Own Blog RSS News Feed

Thanks for reading HowToMakeMyBlog.com

You can also fan me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.

Linking to your internal blog posts is one of the most important aspects of building a successful blog. TechThinker commented on my blog traffic post:

I love the way you interlink all your blog posts. Your posts always remind me of the importance of doing Internal links.

Why are blog internal links important?

First of all it is a great service for your readers to introduce them to an article that has more detailed information about a topic you mention. It increases your page views, improves the user-experience of your visitors and introduces them to some of your older blog posts.

Blog internal links are also important for your search engine optimization. Same way that your visitors discover older posts via internal links, same way you show search engines which content of yours is worth crawling and indexing in their search results.

Internal linking and anchor text

I got this email from reader Anton recently:

Hey Marko, thanks for such good info here. Just had to ask a quick question. I haven’t seen many others do this but you do. I noticed you’re using anchor text and a link to

1.Marko Saric
2.blog consulting
3.Twitter Marketing Ebook.

Why did you do that? Is that for SEO?

I know anchor text is super important when you’re getting link to your site. But is it important to use when you’re linking to your own pages?

Thanks so much, I hope you’ll find couple of minutes from your busy schedule to answer my question.

Anchor text is that clickable text in your hyperlinks. It basically tells both your visitors and search engines what the page you are linking to is about. Anchor text is very important for all links including internal links.

As you cannot really control what anchor text other blogs link to you, you can at least make sure that you use the important keywords that you want to rank for in your own internal linking. For example if you have a fashion blog make sure to use keyword phrases like fashion advice.

Read more on keywords: 7 steps to increase traffic and revenue via keyword research

Link also from older posts to new posts

Most bloggers only internal link to their older posts from their new posts. You can also do it the other way around.

If you have a good, older post that is relevant to something you have written more about lately, go back and edit the old one and include a link back to the new post. This is a great way of sending some page rank juice back to your new post to help it rank better.

Use for example one of the page rank checkers. This one will give you your Google PR for all the pages on your site and will allow you to see which of your pages have good page rank to give away from.

Another way is to use WordPress plugin called Insights. It is placed just below your post writing field and lets you search for keywords that you are writing about and easily discovers nice pages to link to and also nice pages to link from.

Think internal linking when writing your next blog post

Internal linking is the easiest way to help build a successful blog, increase your page views, improve the user experience and at the same time also help your blog rank better in search engines.

Next post you are writing, take some time and create a couple of good internal links to your older posts but also go back and link to that new post from some of your relevant old articles.

Image by SantaRosa.

1. Optimize Link Juice Flow To Improve Google Rankings
2. Improve Blog SEO With Internal Linking Structure
3. Simple Tip To Improve Usability, Stickiness And Page Views
4. Google changes PageRank flow: Why you should use an iframe in blog comments
5. How Google PageRank affects my search engine rankings and traffic

I started my how to make a blog on October 25th so this week my blog turns one year. As I have recently achieved the 200,000 visitors landmark, I thought this was a good time to put down some of the things I have learned from the first year that I would recommend bloggers to think of when launching a new project and building blog traffic.

1. Commenting on bigger blogs can bring you initial traffic

My first visitor other than myself was someone clicking over from a comment I had left at ProBlogger. In those first days all my visitors came from comments I left on ShoeMoney, DailyBlogtips, Mashable, Chris Brogan and other relevant blogs. For example on November 9th 2008 I left a comment on GetRichSlowly and that sent me 15 unique visitors first day, 20 the second day and 7 the third day which was huge back then!

Read more: How one blog comment can bring you 230+ unique visitors

2. StumbleUpon is a nice place to get the first spikes in traffic

I started looking for targeted people on StumbleUpon fairly soon after launching the blog. First time someone stumbled my post was on November 8th 2008 and that sent me 19 unique visitors first day and 37 the second day and that was huge! Even to this day, Stumble is one of the top 4 sources of my blog traffic.

Read more: 10 Simple Steps To Increase Blog Traffic Via StumbleUpon

3. Use Twitter to get an audience and spread your links

On November 30th 2008 I joined Twitter, immediately started looking for people in my audience and got 55 unique visitors from there on the first day. It never stopped really, so Twitter along with Google is the biggest source of my traffic.

Read more: How I got my blog post retweeted by @problogger, @GuyKawasaki and 250 more

4. Write a guest post for biggest blogs in your field

On December 14th my guest post was published at ProBlogger and that sent me 97 unique visitors on the first day and again 97 on the second day. Writing guest posts not only sends you traffic, it gives you authority, spreads your name to a targeted audience and also gives you a great value link for your search engine optimization.

Read more: How to get your guest post featured at biggest blogs

5. Keywords are a must in the domain name

   • How to make a blog
   • Make a blog
   • How to make my blog

Looking at the traffic Google sends me, the 3 most popular keywords used to find my blog are very closely related to my blog domain name itself.

If I went with MarkoSaric.com I would have had a much harder time getting ranked for these three keyword phrases.

Read more: How to choose a domain name for your blog

6. Use big brands to attract attention to yourself

   • 8 things every blogger can learn by studying Perez Hilton
   • How Gary Vaynerchuk built a multi-million dollar empire around a video blog
   • 13 blogging lessons learned from Stephen King’s On Writing

In some of my most popular posts I have used other brand names to attract attention to myself. It is a great strategy as these brands have many fans so it is much easier to attract them to click over to you, much easier to get them to comment and also much easier to get them to share the story with their friends. See these examples:

7. Write magnetic headlines

In RSS, on Twitter, in Google search results, we are bombarded with choices to click on wherever we are online. The only way to attract attention among tons of other blogs is to write remarkable article headlines. In my experience “how to” and “top list” headlines work the best, are very clickable and shareable.

Read more: How to write blog headlines that make people click

8. Hitting Digg or Delicious is worth it – spikes and links

The spikes in my traffic are from the days when my articles went “viral”. For example my Twitter plugins article hit the front page of Digg for few minutes and sent me 2799 unique visitors on that day, then my most downloaded WordPress plugins hit front page of Delicious and sent me 3602 unique visitors on that day. These events also bring you lots of links and that improves your SEO and increases your traffic in the long run.

Read more: How I got two consecutive record breaking blog traffic days

All these factors should contribute to your blog getting a momentum in social media and search engines, and this along with you writing great content regularly, would be able to achieve you similar or even better blog traffic results in your first year in blogging.

1. How one blog comment can bring you 230+ unique visitors
2. 6 steps to make your blog visitors loyal commentators
3. How to write blog headlines that make people click
4. How I Got 2000+ StumbleUpon Visitors Using My 10 Step Strategy
5. How I got my blog from Google PageRank 0 to PR4 in two months

Continuing from the offline blogging events blog post, I have gone to several more events in recent weeks. I am lucky to live in London, as many web 2.0 related events take place here regularly.

Future Of Web Apps (FOWA) took place earlier this month and Filip Matous, a great video editor I met on one of the blogging events, was kind enough to put together some video interviews and let me publish them here.

Facebook and FOWA video interviews

First video is from the FOWA edition of the Facebook Developers Garage. The video features interviews with David Nattriss of http://natts.com and Joshua March of http://theiplatform.com. Both of them are very active in the social media marketing area. David is working for BBC on social media integration for the popular show Mock The Week while Joshua is a consultant who worked with brands like Google and ITV.

The next video is with one and only Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary did a talk at Future Of Web Apps and Filip Matous was able to drag him away from the crowds for a quick interview. Gary is Gary, very passionate as usual, so check it out for some motivation.

Promoting online projects offline

Good stuff about going offline to promote your online projects:

• You build a network

• You learn

• You get new inspiration for your content

• You can get new content by interviewing or reporting on the event

• You meet the influencers

Go offline

Look around for events in your areas, tweetups, meetups or anything else related to blogging and the online world. If you cannot find anything, maybe you could be the one to organize an event in your area. All in all it is a great opportunity to get new connections and grow your blog.

1. 9 reasons why Mashable rules the social media
2. How Gary Vaynerchuk built a multi-million dollar empire around a video blog
3. “Wetworld” Blogging – How offline events can improve your blog
4. What Are Blogs?
5. Blog traffic – From 0 to 200.000 visitors, 8 blogging lessons learned

Thanks for reading HowToMakeMyBlog.com

You can also fan me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.

Pete Cashmore started Mashable, the social media guide, in 2005 and has built it into one of the most influential blogs in the world with a 7 figure annual revenue.

Mashable gets 8 million unique visitors, 12 million page views monthly, it has 1,5+ million followers on Twitter, 300,000 RSS subscribers and its articles are always on top of Tweetmeme, Digg and social bookmarking sites.

These are the 9 reasons why Mashable is the king of social media blogs today.

1. Don’t plan it, just do it

   Pete Cashmore was passionate about the social media and the social networking tools. It was a personal interest that he spent a lot of time on and he just decided to go for it and start writing about it.

   “I felt like social networking wasn’t being covered to the degree it could be. I didn’t necessarily know there was an audience for it. I find it best to dive right in and learn the hard way.”

2. Be focused and work hard

   It took more than a year before Mashable started making money but Pete Cashmore was very focused and was constantly working on the site with 20-hour work days being a norm.

   “I blogged seven posts a day, and about a year in, I started getting ads on the blog. When I got a deal for $3,000 a month to put ads on the blog, it was massive for me”

3. Write for the web

   Mashable is great at writing simple blog posts. They make no assumptions about their readers and they explain everything, keeping the beginner in mind while writing.

   “Figure out blogging, short-form writing. You have to write the story in three paragraphs. We like writers who can take complex ideas and explain them in simple terms”

4. Write great headlines

   Most of Mashable’s posts have very attractive, shareable and clickable blog headlines. They frequently use top list or how to type of posts. They also use many “Alerts” and “Warnings” in their blog post headlines. Some examples from the last few days:

   • 3 Great Social Media Policies to Steal From
   • HOW TO: Get Real-Time Traffic Reports on Your iPhone
   • WARNING: New Facebook Malware Attack Is Spreading

5. Appeal to mainstream

   Even though Mashable is categorized as a tech blog, they have expanded their coverage to appeal to more mainstream audience. They focus on celebrities and other mainstream events / brands in their blog posts, and use their brand to attract attention to Mashable. Some examples from the last few days:

   • YouTube Feud Ends: U2, Madonna and Green Day Videos Set to Return
   • Dear Lily Allen: File Sharing Debate Now Has Lyrics [Video]
   • Obama Assassination Poll Rocks Facebook

6. Spit out content

   Mashable publishes some 20+ posts every day. Majority of posts are pretty short, but there is something for everyone in there and that is also a reason for you to come back to their site several times a day. This is very important as they want to increase their page views, as their main blog monetization method is banner ads.

7. Encourage sharing

   If you publish valuable information that your readers enjoy, they will spread the word to their friends for you. Make it easy for them to do just that by including different “share this” buttons for Twitter, Digg, Facebook, Delicious, Stumbleupon or whatever social network your audience is part of.

8. Go directly to the source

   If you read some Mashable posts you will quickly see how they track down the source of information, they check out the original report, examine the original study and write a short summary of the most interesting points. This way they are a great resource of information and visitors like it and other people like to link to it, in fact they link to Mashable’s summary much more than to the original report.

   “There is original reporting and there is curation, which is just as hard, saying, “This is what’s out there, this is why it is important.” Both have their places, and it’s not a case of either or.”

9. Be present offline

   Mashable regularly draws crowds of hundreds of fans in cities around the US. It is an income source for Mashable but it also creates fans of the brand.

   “A lot of the benefits from running events has been in terms of greater visibility for Mashable as a brand. We are connecting our audience to other members of the tech community, and people are going away and talking about Mashable.”

Mashable is a great example of how anyone can start from scratch and build a blog empire with some luck and lots of hard work, consistent work, passion and knowledge.

1. Blog traffic – From 0 to 200.000 visitors, 8 blogging lessons learned
2. Create A Media Kit To Attract Advertisers To Your Blog
3. “Wetworld” Blogging – How offline events can improve your blog
4. Free WordPress Ebook – Blogging is dead, long live blogging
5. How to write blog headlines that make people click

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