BLOGGER TIPS

How to Use Social Media for Branding

2017-10-04T13:22:00.001+07:00

Setting up your company and going through the process of branding it may seem like a difficult thing to do for people from all around the world, but the truth that is once you get the hang of it, branding with the use of social media can turn out to be quite easy to handle from all the points of view.

With that being said, there are a couple of mistakes to avoid, but also tips that must be followed in order to ensure that the branding of a business with social media goes according to plan. Without further ado, here’s how to use social media for branding:

1. Manage your reputation and listen

One thing is clear: Once you decide to put your business on the Internet and to promote it to other people, most of them will begin to think and to talk about your business. This is exactly the case when it comes down to social media, as users will go ahead and discuss more about your services on the social media platform that you chose, but also give advice and express their concerns in order to make sure that you are able to improve your business. Once this happens, an essential aspect of branding is to listen and to take action, as keeping your customers and possible customers satisfied is indispensable.

2. Creating a community

As mentioned earlier, on social media, people will inevitably come by your profile page. Once this is done and you gain a larger number of followers, it is important to come up with a plan that will keep everyone engage and make you shine as a brand. With this factor in mind, you must find a way to activate your fans, thus giving them something to do, through ideas like apps, quick quizzes, events and so on.

3. Network on social media

Unlike other areas of the Internet, most social media platforms that are available at this moment are great when it comes down to allowing a business owner to connect with another. By doing so, new partnerships and connections can be created between businesses and service providers, most of them which can actually turn out to be of great help. With this being said, it is important to hunt for those who are working in a similar niche as you are and discuss strategies and potential partnerships, as a business with connections is a strong brand.

By keeping all of the aspects related to branding your business through social media marketing, not only will you be able to quickly attain a number of followers, but you’ll also make sure that they are there to stay and that they are engaged, thus providing you with a pool of clients that will see you as a brand and continue purchasing whatever services that you may be currently offering. Develop relationships, keep your users engaged, while also making sure to listen to all a potential customer has got to say, in order to be able to serve well and to gain all of the benefits of successful social media branding.

Strategies for Better Execution

2017-02-20T22:22:00.001+07:00

These tips will help you achieve your goals:

1. Rely on illustrations and diagrams.

There’s a reason visual content has exploded in popularity over the past few years; people find it easier to absorb information through visual demonstrations than with written language. Accordingly, try to include more visuals in your work. These don’t have to be glamorous or labor intensive; even a stick-figure drawing or brief sketch can make the difference in making a complex subject easier for people to understand.

2. Use metaphors and storytelling devices.

Similarly, you can use metaphors and storytelling devices to improve understanding and simplify your material at the same time. As an added bonus, people will be more entertained, which will draw them deeper into your content even if it’s naturally hard to approach. For example, instead of describing how gravity represents a warping of space-time with math equations and theoretical proofs, you could describe it like a magnifying glass distorting the images it runs over.

3. Try a question-and-answer format.

You may also consider opting a question-and-answer format for your post, or at least having a small Q&A segment at the end of your original post. This will help you address readers’ concerns, thoughts, and feelings directly. If you do a good job at capturing your average reader’s mindset, you’ll easily lock them in for future content opportunities. Plus, you’ll have the chance to explain your topic bit by bit, rather than in an extended paragraph-based form.

4. Start with an introductory post.

“Keep it simple, stupid,” KISS, is the acronym to keep in mind here. You don’t need to dive into the full complexities of your chosen topic—at least not right away. Instead, work to create something high level and approachable for anyone, even if they’re completely new to the subject. Describe the general concept of the subject, such as stating that aerodynamics is the study of how to make things move more efficiently, rather than digging into the details. You can always expand later—for now, focus on warmly introducing your readers to the topic at hand.

5. Avoid technical language (until necessary).

In what may be an obvious step, reduce your reliance on technical language whenever possible. When it comes time to introduce technical terms, do so gradually by carefully defining them and incorporating them slowly into your content. For example, instead of writing about “entangled photons,” you could say “particles of light that are fundamentally linked together.” If you get stuck, use illustrative language to bail you out.

Knowing Your Audience

In addition to these general tips, it’s also important that you know and understand your audience intimately, as your methods of execution and specific considerations will vary based on those factors.

For example, if the reading level of your audience is fairly low, you’ll need to use approachable, low-level vocabulary and sentence structures to explain your points. But if your audience is already somewhat familiar with your subject matter, you’ll need to bridge the gap between high-level material and technically complex explanations.

No matter how experienced you are in a complex topic, it can be hard to present that topic to others. Fortunately, these tips can spare you from more than one headache. Put them into practice and become familiar with them. In time, you’ll be able to make better, more approachable content from even the most complex subjects.

Are Keywords Still Important When it Comes to SEO?

2017-02-20T22:19:00.000+07:00

However, keywords aren’t completely dead and are still in many ways the backbone of SEO. They just have to be approached differently. Let’s take a look at how the role of keywords has changed when it comes to search engine optimization.

Keyword Placement

Google still needs the use of text, and therefore, keyword placement still plays a major role when it comes to search engine rankings. However, keyword placement will do more for your site than keyword stuffing or keyword rich backlinks.

Placing your main keywords in your title and headers is still an important part of any on page SEO marketing strategy, and this probably will be the case for years to come, unless Google makes a huge change in the way pages are indexed. Title tags play an essential part in search results, and poorly optimized title tags will always yield negative results.

Google still gives priority to key areas, such as meta information and headers, followed by copy and navigation last. It is therefore capital that you optimize these key areas with a variety of keywords so that tags across your site do not become redundant.

Keyword Meaning

Google is doing everything in its power for its algorithm to be more “plastic” and tailor itself to the user’s needs. It is also trying to make its algorithm more human by not only identifying keywords and indexing them, but by deriving meaning from them as well. Google is constantly changing its algorithm so that it can make correlations between keywords on a specific page to allow it to make sense of what the page is truly about.

For instance, different iterations of the same keyword phrase are less likely to rank for different search terms than they were before. So, you should forget about adding specific keyword phrases to your pages and rather focus on a consistent theme throughout your pages that will allow them to rank naturally for certain keywords.

So what does it mean for SEO Marketers?

It simply means that keywords are not completely obsolete, but our approach to them has to be changed. Instead of focusing on keywords, webmasters should focus on the human aspect of search and focus on providing relevant content rather than creating content for machines. As technologies such as machine learning are being introduced, the gap between man and machine is drawing consistently closer, and this should prompt SEO marketers to move towards other facets of SEO such as user experience if they want to be more successful in the future.

6 Ways to Speed Up Your Site

2015-09-14T11:05:00.001+07:00

The load time of websites is one of the most important factors affecting its usability; most Internet users will just skip a site altogether if it fails to load within a couple of seconds. Below you will find the summary of the “Speed Up Your Site” series. Those are simple yet effective ways to make sure that your website is running fast. You can click on each point to read the article with comments from the readers.

Optimize Images: always use the “Save for the web” feature included on image editing software. Images represent the heavier load on virtually any website so make sure you are optimizing them. Alternatively you can also turn to an online image optimizer.
Image Formats: apart from optimizing images it is important that you choose the right format. JPEG format is suitable for photographs or true-color images. The GIF format should be used with flat-color images like logos or buttons. PNG works very similar to GIF but it supports more colors.
Use a Slash on Your Links: when a user opens a link on the form “http://www.domain.com/about” the server will need to figure what kind of file or page is contained on that address. If you include a slash (/) at the end of the link the server will already know that this is a directory page, reducing the load time of the site.
Optimize Your CSS: most websites are designed with CSS nowadays. Make sure to aggregate and clean your CSS. CleanCSS is an online tool that will merge similar selectors, remove useless properties and remove the whitespace from your code.
Reduce the HTTP Requests: when opening a web page every object (images, scripts and the line) will require a round trip to the server. This latency can add several seconds to the load time of your site. Make sure to reduce the number of objects and to combine CSS files and scripts together.
Use the Height and Width Tags: many people forget to add the Height and Width tags on image codes. Those tags will make sure that the browser knows the size of the image before loading it. The result is that it will reserve a spot for the images while loading the rest of the page, speeding up the whole process.

Australia Phone tapping President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and some Indonesian Minister

2013-11-20T18:22:00.001+07:00

Australia's spy agencies have tried to tap the phones of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), his wife Ani Yudhoyono and a number of cabinet ministers in the SBY, foreign media reported on Monday (18/11/2013).

A number of secret documents leaked from the U.S. whistleblower, Edward Snowden, who was in the hands of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the British newspaper The Guardian, the name of the President and the nine people in his inner circle as the target of the wiretap Australia.

The report appears as bilateral relations between Indonesia and Australia tense spy-related charges earlier and how to deal with issues related to the boat people heading to Australia via Indonesia. The documents show that the electronic intelligence agency Australia, Defence Signals Directorate, Yudhoyono track activity via cell phone for 15 days in August 2009, when the Labor Party Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister of Australia.

Intercepts the target list also includes Vice President Boediono, who was in Australia last week, former Vice President Jusuf Kalla, presidential spokesman on foreign affairs, defense minister, and the minister of communications and information technology, the report said.

ABC said one of the documents entitled "Impact of 3G and Update", and seems to map the Australian intelligence effort to follow the launch of 3G technology in Indonesia and throughout Southeast Asia. A number of options and a recommendation registered intercepts were made to choose one of them and apply it to a targeted, in this case the leaders of Indonesia, according to ABC.

The latest release of leaked documents Snowden came a few weeks after a number of reports claiming that the Canberra diplomatic posts abroad, including in Jakarta, has been involved in extensive monitoring network led by the United States. That triggered angry reactions Indonesian Foreign Minister, Marty Natalegawa. The report followed a report in The Guardian earlier this month that Australia and the United States have launched a joint monitoring operations against Indonesia during the discussion of the UN climate held in Bali in 2007.

Careful with Your Linkbuilding Strategies

2013-11-20T18:05:00.000+07:00

If you haven’t been following the SEO sphere lately here’s what you need to know: Google is starting to push harder against artificial linkbuilding methods, including low quality links, link networks and so on.

Earlier this year Google started sending warnings to websites that were breaking one or more of Google’s policies regarding backlinks. Then we had the Penguin update which supposedly hit many of those websites hard.

The curious thing is that in some cases the penalty coming from those bad links was pretty harsh, and large websites that were penalized were desperate to fix things.

Google’s own advice was to remove those bad links. so the websites started asking for other websites to remove links pointing to them, and threatening to sue if they didn’t! I am not sure if this was clear, but here’s what they were basically saying: “Hey, you know those links you have pointing to my website? While I appreciated them a couple of months ago, I don’t need them anymore, so please remove them or I’ll sue you!”.

don’t resort to artificial linkbuilding schemes, networks or paid links, as sooner or later it will get your website penalized. Sure, natural linkbuilding takes a lot more time and effort, but at least you can be sure it will be worth it in the long run.

HOW TO CHOOSE A BLOG NAME

2013-09-22T21:32:00.001+07:00

There are three simple rules to follow when choosing a blog name:

1) It must describe your blog:

it is probable that plenty of people will see a link to your weblog before having the chance to actually read it (in search engines, for example). Guess what, if by taking a look at the name they can figure what the weblog is about they are going to be more likely to visit it.

2) It must be easy to remember:

suppose your weblog talks about walking, fitness & health advice in general. Naming it "The Walking, Fitness & General Health Advice Weblog" would offer an exhaustive description of the weblog, but would it even be simple to keep in mind? Stick with simple names.

3) It must be equal to the domain name:

this rule is often ignored by people, probably because finding an appropriate domain that has not been registered yet is a difficult task. Still if your domain name does not match the weblog name you will probably lose some readers along the way. When people visit your weblog through a link they will read the name of the weblog. Ought to they pick to revisit the site a couple of days later they will type that name followed by a dot com. In the event that they do not find your weblog one time they hit enter they will go somewhere else.

How To Write Powerfull Posts on Blog

2012-08-11T19:20:00.000+07:00

One thing I've found is that most bloggers, while specialists on promotion, are always looking for ways to communicate with their audience, and grab and captivate the attention of their readers.

As a communication and social skills specialist, I have a unique take on this topic, and in this weblog post I need to show you some simple ways that you can basically and instantly improve your connection along with your readers, and get them drawn in to literally anything you write.

Fundamentally, I'm going to show you the psychological "tricks" to holding people's attention, and getting and keeping them focused on whatever you're speaking about on any topic.

TALK IN PICTURES

Now, if I use words like italian chocolate cake, Ford Mustang convertible, swimming pool, how do you feel?

If I use general words like food, automobile, or water how do you feel?

This happens because when they use words referring to specific things that have specific feelings associated with them in our minds, than abstract ideas, we're able to generate emotions inside of a person, which is the key to holding someone's attention and interest (think about when you're bored; it's a lack of emotion or feelings).

Did you notice on the second set of words that a FEELING was created inside of your body?

What's the difference?

In addition to this, you're also doing something else that is brilliantly powerful; you're going from speaking at someone to actually communicating with them.
But why?

The difference is that when you get their emotions involved, and you also get their imagination focused on generating pics of whatever you're speaking about, they go from being a reader to an active participant in what you're speaking about, and they're actively (and emotionally) involved in what you're speaking about.

Which brings me to your next key to success in making a powerful communication piece:

TELL A STORY

Now, let's add a narrative to the picture to hold the person's attention even further, & get them even more deeply involved in the post.

If I say swimming pool, you'll notice you receive a picture of a swimming pool in your head, & definite emotions associated with it.

If I say, jumping in to a clear-blue swimming pool on of the hottest days of the year, when the sun was burning hot, & it was the middle of the day, & experiencing the feeling of being cooled as the water ran up against my skin, was the best feeling in the world.

Doesn't that appear light-years ahead of communicating without a narrative, & with abstract words like water, hot, or body?

It's a simple alter, but that 99% of people will seldom recognize, & that you can use as your own personal secret to supercharge your success.

THE COMPLETE PICTURE

I took vauge idea like water, added a physical description to it by describing a swimming pool, then I built on top of that by building a narrative which described events that got your emotions flowing, and also used your imagination to build pics.

Did you notice what I did there, and throughout this post?

Between your emotions and your imagination, I got you actively involved and participating in what I was writing about as if it were a actual even that was happening right now in YOUR head.

This is also powerful because you made what I wrote personal, and you saw the picture in your head as YOUR idea, not mine (you can imagine how powerful this perception "trick" is for marketing!).

THE KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL BLOG POST

I ought to also note that I'm not saying you ought to write crappy content, but that you could write the best content in the world, but no would need to read it because it doesn't capitivate their emotions, hold their attention, and get them emotionally invested and involved in what you're speaking about.

Remember that holding people's attention is 100% about keeping them emotionally involved in what you're writing about; in the event that they feel nice while they are reading your content, they are going to need to keep reading it, irrespective of how informative or practical it is (think about the kind of tv they watch).

But the best thing about these simple tips is that they take literally no hard work to apply, but they can skyrocket your success in walking a blog, or writing any piece of content or communication, and the more you practice using this formula the better you'll get at it, and the more powerful your communication will become.

ADOLF "THE FUHRER" HITLER'S FINAL JOURNEY

2012-04-17T04:50:00.000+07:00

Adolf Hitler born 20 April 1889 was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 and Führer (Leader) (Third Reich) Germany since 1934 until he died. On August 2, 1934, he became dictator of Germany after President von Hindenburg died. He unites the chancellor and president into office at the same time making Nazi Führer as a single party in Germany. He is also a Chairman of the Nationalist-Socialist Party (National Socialist German Workers Party or Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei / NSDAP), known as the Nazis. Nazi officially disbanded after the German defeat in World War II because Hitler dictatorship system. Hitler was a charismatic orator, Hitler is one of the most influential leaders in the world.

When World War II would end, Hitler committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin with his wife whom he married not long ago in the bunker, Eva Braun.

With so much information available about the death of Hitler, no one can say with certainty what caused the death of the Nazi dictator was.

How is the actual end of Hitler's adventure? Is it true that Hitler and his wife Eva Braun commit suicide after drinking cyanide poisoning?

So how did the autopsy the Americans when Hitler's skull exhibited in the year 2000, which was the skull of a woman? Where the actual existence of Hitler after the fall of Berlin in the hands of ally?

German version, as told by Flegel, a nurse Hitler and other Nazi officers while in the bunker.
Russian version, which is expressed by a high-ranking Russian secret service, KGB, who claimed that Adolf Hitler did not end his life by shooting himself, but by drinking cyanide poisoning.
As stated by Lieutenant General Vasily Khristoforov, archives staff for Russia's FSB security service, "Soviet military Paramedia when it has ensured that Hitler and Eva Braun died from cyanide poisoning after a minimum of 30 April 1945."

Version of the scientists, the latter is a common opinion in this case represented by the scientists. Has long been true of scientists and historians claim that the piece of skull that had been taken outside Hitler's bunker by the Russians and Soviet intelligence had been saved that would be convincing evidence that the shot himself to death after drinking a cyanide pill on 30 April 1945.

Finally, DNA analysis of the skull pieces by American researchers, and they declared, "we knew the skull was associated with a woman aged between 20 and 40 years," said Nick Bellantoni archaeological expert from the University of Connecticut, USA, quoted from Dailymail.
"It looks very thin bones, skull bones of men tend to be stronger. And the junction where the skull plates fused in touch with someone who looks younger than 40 years. Hitler in April 1945 aged 56 years. "

With the DNA test results, it means the history of Hitler's death became a mystery again, and conspiracy theorists have to rethink the possibilities of others about the death of Hitler, like Hitler might not die in the bunker.

Berlin, Argentina, Brazil, and Indonesia believed to be the place where the end of life of former German dictator, Adolf Hitler. In Indonesia the story about Hitler emerged from the figure of the doctor named Poch - German doctors in Sumbawa Besar.

In 1954 Adolf Hitler's entry into Indonesia by using fake names, Dr. Poch. dr Sosro Husodo testimony revealed that Hitler had met while in Sumbawa large and furnished documents and photographs are accurate. The evidence presented Sosrohusodo, is that doctors can not run normally --- He was always dragging his left leg when walking. Then, his hand, said Sosrohusodo, the German doctor's left hand is always vibrating. He also had a mustache like Charlie Chaplin vertical, and his head bald. This condition is believed to be similar to the picture of Hitler in his old age - which is found in a number of biographies of the Fuhrer. When I met him in 1960, the alleged 71-year-old Hitler. According Sosrohusodo, a German doctor she had met a very mysterious. He had no license to be a doctor, even he had no expertise on health. Sosro conviction, that he met Hitler and Eva Braun, make her more interested in reading books and articles about Hitler. He said, whenever I see pictures of Hitler in his prime, he was more convinced that Poch, the old doctor from Germany who he encountered was Hitler. His confidence grew as a cousin, in 1980, gave Adolf Hitler biography written by Heinz Linge translated into Indonesian by Budi Satria Try. In a 59 page article that described the physical condition of Hitler in the elderly. "A number of Germans knew Hitler dragged his feet when walking, increasingly blurred vision, hair no longer grows. At war raged more and continue to beat the German defeat, Hitler suffered from nervous disorders." While reading the book, Sosro more confident, because the same physical condition he found in himself Poch. In the book also told Hitler was always shaking his left hand since the battle of Stalingrad (1942 -1943) - which is a devastating blow for the Germans.

Sosro admits she still remembers some of his conversation with allegedly Poch is Hitler. Poch always praising Hitler. He also said there was no murder at Auschwitz concentration camp is believed to be the location of the massacre of the Jews. "When I asked about the death of Hitler, he said he did not know. Therefore, when the situation in Berlin in a state of chaos. Everyone tried to save themselves, respectively," said Sosrohusodo, such as pages loaded Militariana. Sosro claimed to have examined the left hand Poch is always vibrating. When asked when these symptoms begin to occur, Poch and then asked his wife who then replied, "This happens when the German defeat in the battle near Moscow. It was Goebbels told you that you beat up the table again and again." Goebbels that was called by his wife who allegedly Joseph Goebbe, a well known German propaganda minister loyal to Hitler. Sosro said, Poch's wife, Eva Braun allegedly, several times calling him 'Dolf', which allegedly short for Adolf Hitler.

Meanwhile his wife is from Germany back to his homeland, Not long after his first wife left, Dr. Poch proposed Sulaesih, he embraced Islam in 1964, attended by Chairman of the Office of Religious Affairs in Sumbawa, (but unfortunately Sulaesih forgot his name) and changed his name to Abdul Kohar. In 1965 Hitler was married.. He was known to live in Babakan Ciamis.

Poch died on January 15, 1970 at 19:30 in Surabaya "Karang Menjangan" Hospital of a heart attack, aged 81 years. He was buried a day later in the Ngagel cemetery.

After remain silence about her husband, Sulaesih finally give all the documents belonging to her husband on Sosro. including wedding photos, a full driving license with fingerprint Poch. There is also a notebook containing the names of Germans who lived in several countries, like Argentina, Italy, Pakistan, South Africa, and Tibet. Also some stenographic handwriting in German.Once before he died,Poch confessed to his wife who's native Indonesia, Sulaesih, that he is indeed the real Hitler, "Der Fuhrer".

Poch notebook contains two codes, J.R. Kepad No.35637 and 35 638, the code symbol of male and female."It is possible notebooks owned by two people, Hitler and Eva Braun," said Sosro.There is also the writings assumed escape route of Hitler - namely B (Berlin), S (Salzburg), G (Graz), J (Yugoslavia), B (Belgrade), S (Sarajevo), R (Rome), before he was to Sumbawa Besar.

CLOSING WORDS

In the end, everything I give it back to you to assess how far the truth of this fact. It is wise not to judge someone for bad behavior in the past but it would be prudent for us to appreciate the goodness at the end of his life if only slightly.

FRUSTRATIONS OF GUEST BLOGGER

2012-04-05T03:29:00.002+07:00

For most of you reading this post, it should be a lesson on how to accept guest posts on your blog. You may know how to write guest posts and might even be a successful guest blogger. But are you good enough on the other side of the table? Are you a gracious host to your guest bloggers or are you making life a living hell for them? Read on to see what frustrates me as a seasoned guest blogger myself.

Guest posting is in vogue, all of a sudden, bloggers and internet marketers are waking up and smelling the coffee. A concept that many bloggers were once against, have now made it their mantra. Their logic was, “How can I give away my hard written content to some blogger, to make the rich even richer!” The thought of it was a pain for the ego. Enter present date: everyone wants a piece of the guest posting pie! Today high page rank blogs have become fish markets where bloggers are clamoring with their so-called masterpieces, all trying to get published.

In fact, the heat of guest blogging has caught on so strongly that small blogs such as my own are able to get a trickle of a few guest posts, now and then. It is good, guest posting is finally making the blogosphere a huge symbiotic eco-system where everyone needs each other.

So back in 2011, like my old grandfather, who would mutter under his breath when forced to try out something new. I decided I would start guest posting. And I did, and I got pretty well at that. My posts got published in quite a few good blogs and I received fair audience attention and I was happy. But on my venture in becoming an awesome guest blogger, I came across some blogs that made guest posting on their site an ordeal rather than the much hyped “nirvanic” experience. And there is no one to blame for that except the owner of the site. He/she is ultimately responsible for delivering the joy to the guest blogger of having a published a post to a brand new audience.

For every blog that I wanted to guest post, I would write out an article that was researched like a mad scientist, added beautiful sub-headings and titles that Brian Clark would be proud of, search engine optimized the whole article in a way that Matt Cutts would be moved to tears. And then I would contact a potential webmaster with it, and that is when I realized:

What I Hate the Most About Blogs That Accept Guest Posts

Lack of ease in submission

The author has probably worked his ass off to create a guest post that is fit to be published on your blog. And the least that the owner of the blog can do, is it to make the process easy. But instead, when I try to submit a post to some blogs, it becomes an ordeal. They have a thousand-word long guideline and even if you wade through all those words, you are not left with a clear message on how you can submit the post. Does the owner want me to submit the post via the contact form? Or should I email them?

I mean, friend, you just gave me a 1000-word guest posting manual, but how do I send over the guest post to you? Give me one, clear-cut way and I will send it across that medium. As long as I get to be certain that you will be seeing my article.

Complete lack of intimation

In many cases, you submit the post to the blog and they don’t ever get back to you. So you are left wondering, if you should go ahead and use this post to guest blog elsewhere, and then there is also a nagging feeling that maybe, the author has scheduled the guest post and just hasn’t informed.

The worst thing that can happen is two blogs publishing your same content. It would ruin your reputation for good and you would usually have a fat chance of landing another guest post in another blog. Because it is going to hurt your credibility if the two blogs somehow overlap community-wise. The chances are that they would be overlapping when it comes to the audience.

The Surprise-giving!

No doubt, the joy of having a guest post published is boundless. It is the sort of happiness where you smile yourself to sleep. But what happens when the the webmaster does not inform you when your post is live?

It is like a jolt. In my personal case, it so happened that I did a guest post at a Page rank 3 blog, I was not even informed that the post was live. Seven months later I see a couple of hits from this page rank 3 website, and lo behold, I find that my guest post had been published. Seven months back.

I had forgotten all about the post and the webmaster was only too busy to let his guest blogger know that his post was live.

No doubt, most websites have made it really easy to submit a guest post to them. But there have always been cases when it has got frustrating for me to get one published. In the end, I just hope – this post adds value to you as a blogger who is on the other side of the table. I look forward to learn from your comments!

LOSE WHEN YOU QUIT

2012-04-05T03:22:00.002+07:00

Succeeding is not hard if you think about it.

All is takes is persistence and a minimal amount of common sense. The common sense part is to make sure you will learn from your failures and not repeat your mistakes. If you got that and are willing to keep trying, sooner or later you will succeed.

I am not saying it’s easy, as the “keep trying” part can be quite cumbersome. You might need to sacrifice things like time with friends, entertainment, travels and what not. But if you are willing to pay that price, again, sooner or later you will succeed.

In other words, you’ll only lose the game if you quit. Even if you keep failing it still won’t be over until you either quit or finally make it. These are the only possible outcomes.

You probably heard about the game Angry Birds, right? It’s the most popular game on most mobile platforms, with over 13 million downloads to date. As a consequence of its success Rovio, the company behind the game, is now worth $2 billion.

How did they manage such a hit? With persistence and some common sense. How do I know this? Because they launched 50 games that went no where before hitting it big with Angry Birds.

You only lose when you quit.

6 Step To Writing Your Best Post Yet

2011-10-27T22:31:00.002+07:00

How effective are your blog posts?

Maybe you're producing posts, hoping to build your search engine rankings and engage their readers - but do not seem to have much effect.

You could spend months mastering SEO, set the topic of the blog and building your network on Twitter ... but you could be wasting your time. Your blog will not succeed unless their posts are well written.

Here’s how to build a great post, in six steps:

Step #1: Know Your Purpose

Whenever you start a job, you need to know what you're looking for. Are you writing a message that teaches the reader something new? Are you trying to be funny? Inspiring? Encouraging?

Having a clear purpose makes it much easier to write your message. Often, you have more than one goal in mind: it is possible that teaching his reader how to use WordPress, but also trying to build trust by demonstrating your own experience.

Step #2: Create a Structure

To keep your reader engaged, your message needs a clear structure. Like any other piece of writing, this means you must have a beginning, middle and end. For a job that looks like:

Introduction - this should attract attention and establish the scope of the job
The main part of the message - in which he must deliver what they promised (implicitly or explicitly) in the title and introduction
The conclusion - this can be as short as one sentence, but it is important to have something that completes the message

Without a clear structure, its message is likely to lie as abrupt or confusing.

Step #3: Write Directly to the Reader

As you write, focus on the reader. That means avoiding long paragraphs about all that - unless you're a very good writer and has a fascinating story to tell, readers tend to shut down.

Use "that" often, and write as if speaking with a single read (not write "all who read this" - is the distance). If you get stuck, imagine that you are sending an email to a specific reader - you might even like to have a commentator in particular in mind.

Forget what they taught you in school about writing essays: no prizes at the blogs of big words. It is okay to use contractions like “I’ll” for “I will” and “shouldn’t” for “should not” - help make your writing sound casual and friendly.

Step #4: Add Subheadings and Formatting

A short message may not need any sub - but once your post is more than 400 words or less, it is useful to break. Subheadings help the reader to draw his message immediately left to see a topic where it ends and another begins.

It is important to use format to help readability. This means that:

The use of ready-point bullets in his case, instead of long, dense paragraphs
Add in the bold text to make key phrases (perhaps one or two paragraph).Put quotation marks around "blockquote" format for highlighting
Readers put off by blocks long, gray text, so make sure your message is visually interesting.

Step #5: Edit Your Post

Unless you're a writer with a lot of confidence, always allow time for editing messages. This not only means looking for spelling and grammatical errors - which means polishing your writing to be their best.

When editing, keep in mind:

Is there a tangent in his message that should be eliminated? (Sometimes, they can be used for the basis of a new post.)
Have you used the same word or phrase many times within a paragraph?
Do you have a long and complicated sentences that could be written simpler?
Can you cut all the redundant phrases? (Be careful with things like "my opinion is that ..." or "most people will agree ...")

Step #6: Include a Strong Call to Action

Add a strong call to action at the end of your message. A "call to action" is a request to its readers, asking them to do something concrete.

You will want to share to help in some way:

Get more traffic to your message ("If you liked this, please click the" tweet "to share")

Selling your product or service ("click here to learn more about my latest e-book")

The participation of the reader with his blog ("leave a comment below to tell me what you think")

Help the reader to get good results ("five minutes today to follow the simple action steps")

So – it’s your turn! Are you following all the above steps when you write your posts? If not, which one could you focus on during the next week or two? Let us know in the comments…

Quality Over Quantity, but Quantities of Quality Wins

2011-10-20T11:10:00.000+07:00

A popular topic in blogging circles advice these days is the idea that quality is more important than quantity. The old advice that should daily blog is being neglected with the advice that is much better on the blog just a couple of times a week - or even just once a week - with a message of quality rather than filling your blog with junk just for the sake of publishing something that day.

I do not disagree with this advice, but it is certainly false. It's a bait and switch and it's so easy to nod along and that the council is telling us we can not do less work. Doing less work is easier, and now we are told that it can actually make more money or get more readers, working less! Who would not want that?

As always, listen to the advice that is too good to be true, usually is not true. The fact is that blogs every day is better for almost any independent blog.

But you have to compare apples with apples. Blogs every day with messages of quality is better than the blogs a few times a week with quality posts. The fault with the too good to be true advice is to compare spam messages with quality. If garbage or messages usually have low quality, then you have a much bigger problem than programming.

Developing Reader Habits
Most blog readers actually go to the URL of the blog to read. Interestingly, the subscribers to the feeds are still a minority of visits for most blogs. Your goal as a blogger is to develop custom readers to visit your blog regularly. Each time you return to your blog and see a new zip since there is a pleasure, positive reinforcement. Most of them surfing from work and looking for that brief moment of distraction on a subject you're interested in. You want to read your blog is an enjoyable part of your daily routine, something they do without even thinking about it.

But each time they visit your blog and I see no new entry is a little disappointment postal. The more it happens less often than you visit us again. Some of them are a medium that matches your time of publication (and please, if you are not sending every day, at least have a schedule so that readers know when to expect a post). However, some of them is not the median, I'll just leave the check back. It is not getting upset or actively decide to leave their blog, but simply forget or be distracted by something new. You simply vanish.

This is great for certain types of blog: some blogs rely on SEO traffic to specific questions and provide solutions for the search phrase. These blogs are designed to be successful based on the traffic, but not readers. Readers are returning regularly to hear what they have to say (and perhaps click on ads or affiliate links).

If after all the days, we will convert more of its traffic from the readers. You want the user to find your site, like the article, then start to look at the navigation provided to us and realize that like many of his things. Now they are on the hook, but weakly so. If they come back a couple of days later and there is nothing new, chances are you've lost. Providing a new and interesting since the second visit is when you really have a chance to set the hook and get your favorite site to remember, to begin a visit to part of your routine.

I started a blog on a relatively popular niche that had stiff competition in time. My two plans to highlight were superior to use SEO to drive traffic in the first place, and to convert that traffic into blog readers every Monday - Friday. No other blogs in the niche, even published on a schedule, and most of them after three times a week (plus or minus). Within a year he was dominant in the niche blog with more than 20,000 hits per day. There are plenty of reasons for success, but a regular schedule and frequent publication of a large part of it - people got used to checking the site every day of work, but he spent more time with me than they did with anyone, As a result, got to know better than anyone, and trust me. I honestly do not think the site had been so successful (approximately four times the number two site), without the regular calendar.

And a dirty little secret here: not even write five posts a week quality. I guess in a way you can get a filler piece with at least one each week to come and see some minutes 5 whipped together after a few hundred words is even more satisfying for readers to come and watch at no charge . Also, and this is very frustrating indeed, many of these posts are among the most popular.

Different Blogging Frequencies

To some extent, the frequency that you post will be determined by the type of site you have and your audience. I have blogs that are additions to the main website. The main advantage of blogs is to capture a part of longtail search traffic and provide regular updates to the site. For those who only blog once a week - what I think of as the minimum to keep breathing blog.

I also write for a news blog that receives large over a million hits a day. After at least 12 times per day (half the weekends), and although they have a lot of quality content, they also have a lot of filler and fluff in that country. But here's the thing: if you cut that burden and fluff that is losing readers. His audience has been trained to check the site regularly throughout the day and readers want the distraction again every time, even if it is just an update to 150 words of no importance. Your readers will prefer to come to see a spam message instead of no new position, provided that you also can expect quality posts regularly.

Here are some of the most standard blogging frequencies:

Less than once per week: a blog that is dying, but may not yet know it
Once a week: minimum amount to still be alive. If your blog depends on readers and you’re posting this seldom, be sure to always post on the same day.
Three times per week: the Mon/Wed/Fri schedule is popular among web comics and is a great compromise for a blog when you just don’t have enough time or inspiration to keep up a more ideal schedule.
Five times per week: Mon-Fri is pretty much the gold standard that you should be trying to reach with quality posts each day. This is the optimal point to convert traffic into readers and get those readers trained into making visiting your blog a part of their daily routine.
Multiple times per day: posting more than once per day on a regular basis requires a very specific kind of blog. I know on my blogs if I post twice in the same day, one of those two posts will get about half the readers. Unless your readers are trained to expect more than one post per day it’s very easy for them to only look at the most recent post and assume they’re caught up for the day.

Of course there are exceptions to any kind of guide to the frequency shift. But if you have a blog that posts of less than five times a week, almost certainly increase traffic and readership by increasing the frequency of publication, provided it can do so without degrading the quality.

If the increase in traffic and readers is worth the increased workload is something only you can answer, but do not let someone tell you that you can blog and readers less increase. Better content means more traffic and readers. Blogs more frequently, up to five times per week, also means more traffic and visitors.

10 crazy ideas that actually worked

2011-10-20T11:03:00.001+07:00

The beauty of the Internet is undoubtedly related to the fact that there are no rules. Anyone can create a website with no idea in mind. This means that the amount of crazy things you see around you is great, but some of these crazy ideas end up working. Here are 10 of them.

1. MillionDollarHomepage.com

Sale of pixels on a website is a ridiculous idea, but when it comes to the internet, ridiculous ideas have always been the key to the ridiculous amount of money. For Alex Tew sold pixels on a website just supposed to be something that will help pay for college. Little did I know that would be more than that and it would actually help you get a head start in life and now the young man is now worth over a million dollars. Interviews in major news networks and more publicity than a child of 21 years would know what to do with those who follow and soon other people even tried to piggyback on his idea. Now that is ridiculous, ridiculous success.

2. SantaMail.org

Each year it becomes more difficult to convince children that there is a real Santa Claus somewhere in the North Pole. But no child will say if they received a direct response from Santa and armed himself with this idea Byron Reese set out to become a real live Santa Claus for children around the world. Through the website SantaMail.org, children had the opportunity to send your letters to 'Santa' in the 'North Pole'. For a personal reply from Santa cost to parents, children $ 9.95. This may not seem like much until you multiply by 300 000 responses that 'Santa' sent last year.

3. ShitMyDadSays

What do you get when you put together an unemployed writer living with his parents, a very sarcastic father to mourn an adult and a Twitter account? In the experience of Justin Halpern, mentioned in The Daily Show, a book deal and last but not least an agreement of comedy. Just 30 days after the writer began to publish his father's "wisdom" in a twitter account, Justin Halpern was well on its way to a successful life without even trying.

4. WheresGeorge.com

We are always told to wash our hands after touching money, we do not know where the money has been. Now you may know exactly where your money has been just log in WheresGeorge.com. This web site keep track of your money by allowing users to enter their zip code and serial numbers of the currency. If the person who had the bill before you had done the same, you get to see what their money has been. It will also be able to see where the bill is if the new owner does the same. The website is currently tracking over 200 million bills worth over a billion U.S. dollars.

5. PickyDomains.com

At the beginning of the era of the "dot com" you could get paid thousands of dollars for a single domain name you called the attention of the appropriate people. Dmitry Davydov successful line went something like this, except to pay a measly fifty dollars for each domain name that occurred to him. Buyers liked since the risk-free and not have to pay anything if you do not like the name. Dmitry liked the idea because each domain name sold only meant fifty dollars to get to do something he liked. Soon the San Francisco Chronicle learned of his history and fame came to more customers. Crowd sourcing became the next step for Dmitry and the rest is history.

6. FindAGrave.Com

Visit to famous people is a creepy hobby. Visit after going on the idea that Jim Tipton used to achieve success. When Jim 'tombstone tourism "came to a sudden halt after it ran out of dead celebrities to visit in his native Utah, began FindAGrave.com, a site dedicated to locating the graves of people buried anywhere within U.S. More than enough people were happy to make use of the site and genealogy research very soon and other payment services are also offered on the website.

7. Doggles.com

May have been the most useless invention in the world, but never gave Ken and Roni Lullo, this crazy idea turned out to be worth millions. Most dog owners would never have thought to buy sunglasses for their dogs, but "Doggles" the moment he began to be marketed as a shield against UV radiation, thousands of dog owners rushed to get a pair their dogs. The result? Cool looking dogs and two new members into the club of millionaires with a chain of stores in 16 countries around the world.

8. GeesePoliceInc.com

It may not be an online business, but it was with the help of the internet that David Marcks succeeded in changing a relatively simple idea into a $ 2 million a year company. In the 1980s, David noticed two things while working on the golf course. First, the wild geese were proving to be very irritating and secondly, the Border Collie was extraordinarily effective in deterring the birds. Putting these two together, David Marcks started his own business which now has 27 trucks and 32 dogs with a mission to deliver to any place of wild geese.

9. BugMeNot.com

Most Internet users agree that there is nothing more irritating than having to register to access a site that is already free. However, no agree more to this the fact that King Guy and that is why he decided to do something about it. BugMeNot.com is a free web service that began with the king to provide instant logons free sites (such as YouTube.com or NYTimes.com) and the site was a great success because many users were tired of having to waste time on meaningless registration process and having to expose their email addresses to send spam. In an ironic twist, BugMeNot.com have advertising, simply because they tried to close in 2004. After a mere mention of this in Wired magazine, the website attracted the attention of more and soon to expand into other niches as Retailmenot.com.

10. ShoppingCartAbuse.Com

Only a fool would fall for such an idea. Luckily for the owner of ShoppingCartAbuse.com there are a lot of crazy people out there. According to the description of the website, "The Center for Shopping Cart Abuse Prevention is an organization dedicated to preventing abuse of the pervasiveness of Shopping." T-shirts and other business interests, the website became an instant hit, and even some Hollywood celebrities could not resist being part of this "campaign".

Enjoying Ice Cream Considered Sexual Harassment

2011-10-11T14:22:00.000+07:00

Are you a fan of ice cream Beware, beware if you happen to stop by the country of Finland. Because if you are not careful can be entangled suspicion of sexual abuse. Oops ... What do ice cream with sexual harassment.

Dailymail media reported on Saturday (8 / 10) that a group of lawyers calling for a new sexual harassment law to include women who eat or enjoy an ice cream or ice lollies too provocative in public. According to the article, a woman called suggestively licking an ice cream could face a sexual harassment case.

Lawyers in Finland has even released a video showing a young female office worker sucking on an ice lolly ice called in a very suggestive. In the video male colleagues turned awkward when he was licking ice cream.

Finland lawyer associations, which represents thousands of lawyers in the country, said on its website, "We have released this video to enhance a very difficult problem. Sexual harassment in the workplace can target anyone, male or female.

However, some people judge the video footage is difficult to indicate where the boundary line of women or men can be guilty of sexual harassment. A European Union legal experts told the French newspaper, France-Soir, "In most countries in Europe, the law says that every movement that aimed to be sexually intimidating to others is a crime

3 Timeless Blogging Lessons

2011-10-06T09:55:00.002+07:00

The first is the weblog of the cyber-activist, a community of rebels with keyboards who hammer away at the established and non-questioning way of taking a look at things, usually with a pet cause that they champion, such as governmental owner reforms, or surroundings friendly measures that can be adopted by everyone. The other is the world that hides behind the overt activism, providing it in lieu with the guns and the ammunition of magical followership, sharpening the knives of method, and researching in to methods of promotion and selling causes to a sufficiently massive number of readers to make your weblog beautiful to advertisers.

I had not thought about jogging a blog as anything over personal journal-keeping till a few months back, a place to record one's thoughts and feeling, and document my life as it unfolds. It was only when I chosen to make use of my writing for something over personal documentation that I began to examine the principles behind successful jogging a blog. This was when I began to recognize that there's distinct worlds in the blogosphere.

These worlds coexist harmoniously since they not only feed off each other, but also strengthen each other's case. So you have the women's rights activist learning from the blogger who writes about 24 ways to drive more traffic to your weblog. It is a ideal case of you scratch my back, I scratch yours. The issue I faced with this realization was that I didn't fit in to any of these categories.

Most of my weblog posts are way long to maintain the attention of the average weblog reader. (Which explains why I never find comments on my posts, since most of them have nexted me before they reach till there!) My jogging a blog is a catch-all, with commentary and news that encompasses the ridiculous and the sublime, the useful and the trite. I have no niche that I write for, no cause (beyond ethical living) that I feel strongly about, and no tips that I can offer somebody after the introductory "be kind to yourself". I weblog because I think in the power of writing to alter lives for the better, and that is all that there is to it. I weblog because I feel it is the best way I can use my gift of communication to make a difference to my life and times. Done.

Being a voracious reader, and having an open mind much of the time, I have, however, imbibed a number of the mystic and unwritten laws of the blogosphere. While I wait for inspiration for my next random post, I thought it prudent to put them in my words. These are the lessons that I have learned that have made me feel lovely about what I do, as well as helped me earn readers, respect and returning visitors.

1. Create

Writing is about creativity, and not keywords and SEO tricks. Those are the herbs and garnish on top of the dish. If you focus on creating a great piece of writing every time you sit to write, you will build up readership across time without fail. If instead you just focus on the garnish, you will perhaps get a large volume of crawler traffic but lose readers who come looking for substance.

Write because you want to get what you have in your mind out there in the open. Write because you want others to benefit from what you have benefited from. Write to create value in the lives of your readers. Write each post to make your reader think, to free them from suffering and to empower positive changes in their lives. Write each post as if you have been given 10 minutes of prime time on a national TV channel. Write each post as if it were the only thing of importance. Write for human beings, and not search engines and traffic fakers. Write what will make a difference to a human life, and not your blog stats and advertising revenue. If you do not have anything significant to say, don’t write, but if you do, put your heart and soul into it.

2. Organize

Clarify your thinking. Declutter your blogging life in terms of topic, tools, and technique. If there is a single recurrent theme in your writing, make it central to your blog, and hive off other posts either to another blog of your own or as guest posts on other blogs. A prominently displayed list of labels or categories sorted by most frequently used can help keep your off topic posts lower down on your readers’ radar.

A common advice for bloggers is to write short sentences and paragraphs. Decide if your target audience includes readers who cannot get past dependent clauses. Even if your preferred style is a convoluted one, go over your choice of literary devices, and get rid of the ones that clutter your writing.

Look out for repetitive techniques, topics, sentence structures, words and phrases. Everyone has a finite vocabulary and it is natural for you to return to the comfort of the familiar. Exercise your reading skills, expose yourself to uplifting literature and varied styles of writing, and explore a broader range of subject matter and different genres in order to add depth to your own writing. Refrain from peppering your posts with links, but learn to throw in just a few links of real value and relevance.

3. Persist

The modern generation of Internet users have a terribly ADHD way of looking at content (that is what writing on the internet is called, content!) which is compounded by the immediacy of how the worldwide web works. Blogs that do not update frequently tend to be fall to the bottom of the pile. This does not mean you have to sit with your finger on the publish button even in your sleep. However, it is a proven fact that consistent and frequent publishing of content tends to keep your blog more alive than otherwise. (I tested this out by republishing older content, and it still worked in terms of new readers, but cost me a good chunk of my regular readers.)

There will be days when you do not have a clue what to blog about, or days when you just can’t find the motivation to break out of your blogger’s ennui. Those are the very days that you need to flex your blogging muscles and nip the writer’s block in the bud. Allow it to grow, and it will sink its roots in, and convince you that it is okay to give the writing habit a break. When faced with such a speed breaker, pull out your some-day list and write from it, or spend time reading other blogs to find motivation.

Fake it to make it, take an older popular post of your own and rework it into something more lively and pertinent to the present time, or surf the news channels to find something that will lend an unusual perspective to what you have said over and over on your blog. No matter what, write regularly and update your blog frequently.

These three lessons are timeless in that they apply as much to a newbie blogger as they do to the masters of the craft. With these simple tips (and if you re-read the post, you will see that there are tips within tips within tips out there), you can be confident that what you are attempting to do will stand the test of time and prove to be of real value to your readers.

12 Ways To Encourage Your Visitors to Stay

2011-08-11T21:35:00.000+07:00

We all want more traffic, more loyal readers, and more sales. I know I do. For most of us our blog is the precious stone we chisel our artwork into. We slave over making our website as good as we possibly can and don’t want our work to go unnoticed and unappreciated. I know exactly how you feel and that’s why I’ve put together 12 ways to compel your visitors to stay.

Whether you’re looking to increase your readers loyalty, improve your website’s accessibility and friendliness, or build a community these tips will help you achieve your goals.

1. Simplify your websites navigation - You should focus on the most important elements of your website and display those in your navigation and eliminate the rest.It can be very confusing and annoying to make visitors click on everything.

Your navigation should give them clear direction to what your site is about and how to navigate it.

2. Choose an engaging color scheme – Your website should have two or three primary colors that stand out.You want to break your content apart and allow your audience to see your website as different sections of content.Don’t overdo it though. Too many colors can turn visitors away as quickly as it can entice them stay.

3. Use images to break up the content and add personality – Images have a way of speaking to people the way that words never can.Use images to convey emotion and draw your audience in.

4. Make your websites header (logo) and tagline stand out – It’s one of the first things a visitor sees on your site and can make your site look either professional or glued and pasted together.Your headline and tagline should be clean and clearly display what your website is about.

5. Add more calls to action – A call to action is simple and often only a sentence long.

Ask people to comment, twitter your post or take some other action.Whatever you decide to do get them in the habit of taking action.In fact don’t forget to comment at the end of this post

6. Create strong, emotional headlines – Other than your posts picture your headline is immensely important.If your posts title doesn’t get any attention readers aren’t likely to click on your little read more icon.In fact they will probably ignore your post all together.

7 . Simplify your readability – While your content may make perfect sense to you it doesn’t mean your reader gets it.Most readers want the information they are looking for to be easy to read, highly memorable, and easily accessible.

8. Offer more at the end of your post – Your post was absolutely amazing, now what?

Did you add a related posts section, a call to action or a request to comment?

If you want people to stay engaged give them more of what they want, or they’ll find it somewhere else.

9. Use sub headlines to break up your content – Most readers like to skim content. I know I do, and I bet you’ve done it too.If your writing a long post or speaking on multiple topics break your content up with bold, larger, or different color sub headlines.You’ll please the skimmers and the loyal audience, and most likely get more return traffic.

10. Change your content or change your audience - Your content may be great, monumental even, but if your audience isn’t reading it then you may need to change your audience or change your content.

If they’ve already heard your content a million times over by everyone else, then you need to teach it to an audience that hasn’t heard it as much and wants to learn it.Or create fresh and new content for your existing audience.The reason teachers have students is because students don’t know as much as their teachers.

If they did then we’d have no schools.You need to find fresh minds to grow and build relationships with, which brings me to my next tip.

11. Create a monthly post questionnaire – You know it all don’t you? I know I do (just kidding )

Writing a post every month or so and asking your audience what’s most important to them will do wonders for your blog or business.It’s about as direct as you can get.Ask them to comment about what’s on their minds, what they need the most help with, and what they think you can do better.It will help you uncover topics, and idea’s you’ve never thought of “guaranteed!”

12. Build relationships with peers – We all love the A list bloggers, but building relationships with those that are at the same level as us is a great way to gain additional insights, followers, and contributors.

It helps you expand your reach, get your name into the blogosphere, and become known.

One of the best things about sharing idea’s with those in your niche is the motivation that you get.

It helps you reshape your thinking and build new principles to help you reach success.

If these tips have helped you than please contribute in the comment section with your own tips.

I’m sure it will not only help me improve, but help those that read your comments as well.

Your participation is just as important as this post! Thanks again

How to Become productive Blogger

2011-08-04T15:03:00.002+07:00

At its core blogging is about sharing ideas and personal opinions. While bloggers may have ideas bouncing all over the place, a crucial choking point is trying to convey those ideas from our mind to paper.

Blogging typically requires generating loads of content, so if we can find a way to create that content at a more efficient pace it only makes our job that much easier.

Below are 5 action items we can follow to become more productive bloggers.

Create an idea list

Great ideas can spawn anytime, and we need to make sure we have a system to capture those eureka moments before they slip away. Whether you use a sophisticated application like Evernote or just pen and paper, come up with a set way to store blogging ideas and reference it when you are ready to create.

Focus on one article at a time

When it is time to actually write an article, focus on one at a time. While it may be tempting to flip back and forward as ideas pop into the head, it actually makes the final product take longer, while dropping the quality at the same time.

Outline your article

As useless as I thought creating outlines in English class were, I have never found them so important and useful as I do now.

Outlines allow us to visually see all pieces of an article and how we can best craft it together. In relation to blogging, an outline also makes it easier to see where we can link to other articles from our blog and insert any appropriate affiliate links.

Finally, an outline will let us know if the idea is actually meaty enough to be a full fledge article as sometimes the ideas in our head turn out not to be so grand or in-depth when we break it down onto paper.

Write all the way through the article before editing

When putting together an article you may be tempted to stop and go back earlier into the work to fix or add onto something, but that just ends of breaking the current concentration or flow of the article.

Write all the way through the article once, and then edit, remove, and add stuff as you see fit.

Create a checklist for post-article publication

Whether you submit your articles to social bookmarking sites, social networks, or email distribution lists, create a set checklist of tasks that should be done once an article is published.
Perhaps you could even pawn those tedious tasks out to somebody else, and by writing them out it makes it easier to share what needs to be done.

Wrapping it all together

Regardless of where we are trying to improve our productivity, creating a defined list of tasks or action items to follow is a great way to master that activity and achieve increased efficiency.

The less we make our brain focus on administrative tasks, the more free it is to be creative.

If you want to be a more productive blogger, stop thinking about quantity, focus on one article at a time, and rinse and repeat. Before you know it, you will be spitting out great content faster than ever before.

3 Important elements in designed a blog

2011-07-23T13:32:00.000+07:00

WordPress is of the most versatile walking a blog platforms out there with tons of options to not only personalize the look & feel of the experience but also the interactions that your users have along with your content.

That's why it's of the most widely used platforms as well! But a constant challenge that you have is "bloating" your WordPress weblog with plenty of features because the choices are near boundless. Sometimes the best thing that you can do is basically add the elements that are the most important to your core experience for your end-user & reader & skip all the excess.

For example, some of the top blogs out there present their content first & foremost both from a stylistic point of view & a user-interface. Take for example ZenHabits.net that takes it to the extreme in terms of design.

But make no mistake about it - ZenHabits is of the largest blogs out there & is growing & highly profitable!

So what can someone learn from ZenHabits as an archetype for good usability and a focus on the simple elements that matter? Here are 3 things that you can do to make sure you capitalize on your user’s experience and make an impact:

1.Overall Blog Design

The most obvious is the simplicity of the design. If you’re content is going to make your blog grow and attract an audience then you have to make sure that the design complements your content every single time.
Even the blog here at BLOGGER TIPS sports a simple design and structure that no one would scoff at. In fact, many people have remarked how visually refreshing it is to simply have the content first and all the other stuff second.
Make sure you use a WordPress Blog theme (I use Standard Theme) that highlights your content first so that you users can get what they came for! I feel (like you do) that your blog commenters and readers are worth it!

2. Comments

Your comment area, for many, is the lifeblood of interaction and engagement and yet it’s confusing why so many people have so many different plugins and features that crowd the comment space.
For example (and you’ve probably seen it yourself) some comment fields are so messy that you don’t know exactly where to begin! You see “calls to action” all over the place and advertisements surrounding the comment area and you’re simply not sure where the “reply” button is!

3. Social Sharing

Social networking and social media is everywhere – you simply can’t avoid it. And to a certain degree this is a great thing! You want people to engage with your content but you want even more for them to share it with their networks and with other interested parties!

But you have to make it easy to use and simply to share! Again, as I scan the many blogs that I walk through daily I see a complete mess of social sharing etiquette as there’s 20 social sharing icons (and repeats) both in the front of the blog, on the single post layer, and even near the comments!

The best option to simplify and to prettify your blog is to keep one set of social sharing icons on your single post layer (this also speeds up the front page of your blog tremendously) and do it with taste. For example, I use a persistent sharing tool that scrolls with the user unobtrusively to the side of the content so that it’s always there (but never in their way of reading the content).

Choose wisely and you will be rewarded! There are other great plugins that do this as well and another one to check out is part of the JetPack system that WordPress themselves has released.
When you spend the time necessary on making these small but effective changes you will see more people engaging with your content and even find profitable results in more traffic and perhaps even more advertising revenue as you open up space for more opportunities (and more high converting space)

How to Start a Weblog and Make It a Million Dollar Business?

2011-07-14T23:40:00.000+07:00

The best way to start a weblog that would make you money & make you successful on the net is to start the right weblog with right intentions. In case you weblog for the right reasons, with right intentions - nobody can STOP you from making it in to a million dollar business. & in case you weblog for wrong reasons - nobody will ever SPOT your weblog. Time to take your call!

The formula is to know what you are getting into:

Do your homework.
Be ready for the hard work.
Be passionate about the subject.
Be clear about the plusses, minuses, expense, time, effort, & everything else that makes people successful and rich bloggers.

And finally give your goal your best and most patient shot. Remember, that just because your friend or cousin is making great money out of her traveling blog is no reason for you to start a traveling blog, especially not, if you are a fitness freak and happen to be an instructor at the gym.

Your fitness blog is likely to earn you money like you haven’t been able to imagine. And fitness blogging would be so much fun for you. That is another secret to success:

Blog about subject close to your heart and have some interest, knowledge and control over.

That was my success key. When I started my blog, I did not want to change it to a business that makes money for me. I just wanted to blog about something that I loved and knew very well (trading). However, as the subject was my passion, it started moving like a river and took me with itself. I did not change my blog to a business. My blog readers did it. They wanted my blog to be promoted and upgraded. They did it themselves too.

Maintaining focus while building your blog is crucial. Figure out the focus for your life, and blog about that. What is so fascinating to you that you know will still fascinate and interest you 20 years from now? If you know what it is – you know that’s the thing to blog about! Think of blogging as a means of self-expression, contribution.

The sincerity with which you work on it will decide the kind of dividends it will reap in years to come. This may sound clichéd, but that’s the only way it can sound! No carrots, shortcuts, no quick-buck….none of all that. Hard work and home work is what will spell success for your blog!

We know that 90% of money and attention goes to 10% of people and blogging offers nothing that is different. There are hundreds and thousands of blogs mushrooming every minute and yet only a handful are doing what they are suppose to – making money for their owners.

I have been observing and following several successful blogs, and psyche of bloggers to find out why do blogs that fail, fail and why do blogs that succeed – succeed!

The answers I have found are surprisingly not boasting of some complex formulae or rocket science. On the contrary they are straight and simple.Don’t chase money. Let money chase you.To understand this let us discuss what I have said at the beginning – that one should start the right blog with right intentions. Right blog is a blog that you would genuinely be interested in writing about. And you will genuinely be interested in writing about things or subject that you have a natural liking for and knowledge about.

When you create a blog on a subject that is of genuine interest to you – you will make a great success out of it. Since you understand the subject, your blog will have the right kind of information; flow of information will follow a certain hierarchy; your interaction with the visitor will be direct and easy, and above all in the right tone.

When the above elements are present, your blog is bound to attract traffic and traffic means money! Simple!
I have observed that a successful blog also succeeds in building rapport with its readers. A smart blogger knows that building trust with readers is highly imperative. And rapport is built by being human and genuinely connecting with people. Saying the right thing, at the right point of time, in the tone that strikes a cord with them – is the big secret behind a successful blog.

Don’t start a blog casually, if you seriously intend to make money with it. Make sure that you have something worth the salt to say. Then, make a well thought out, well informed effort towards its publicity, promotion and, consequently, traffic will come your way, provided the information (read content) on he blog is truly great.

To create good content, become the master of your subject matter. Read and learn; use your sensibilities and intelligence while writing; never stop gaining knowledge about your subject; with experience, and as time passes, your reputation will grow and people will seek you out. This will help to attract more comments in your blog, which is what cross promotion is all about. Therefore it is important that you always respond to your comments too, it is vitally important.

Another thing I have observed in successful blogs is that bloggers do a great job at striking an impressive first impression. First impression is as much about words as it is about theme, layout, navigation, colors and design of your blog.

Last but not the least, learn to be web savvy. Lean to work with blogging softwares, publishing, book marking, marketing, pinging, tagging, reading traffic statistics, using multiple streams of income that you can use on the blog and so on.

All it takes is attitude. Right attitude and right frame of mind will put you en route making your blog into a million dollar business! Patience will come in handy and so will your familiarity with right blogging tools and techniques.

How To Be An Internet Millionaire in 6 Easy Steps

2011-07-09T13:52:00.000+07:00

1. Be willing to do what it takes

You might heard of the story of Kevin Rose. They is Digg.com founder. If a person in the short Web history did over him to succeed, I would be amazed. How far did they go? They even split up along with his girlfriend to found Digg. What about you, are you willing to do what it takes to get your first million?

2. Create something new/unique

Kevin created a thing that was new and unseen. You can imagine that if he would have made a search engine or something that existed before, he would have been swept away by the competition. In lieu he invented something new in the social media field.

3. Don’t wait, just do it

Ideas are icy & all, but action is what will get you your first million. Cease those daft brainstorming sessions, cease generating business designs. In lieu start executing, implementing, doing!

4. Find out what the market wants

If you know or even predict what the average customer needs you receive a straight head-start. Defining your niche's habits gives you a brief idea of the route you are going to take to accomplish financial freedom.

5. You need traffic. A lot of it!

You will "die" on planet Web in the event you don't get visitors. There's so lots of blogs created these days, so your competition grows every minute. So yeah, focus on getting lots of traffic and half of the battle will be won.

6. It’s all about the numbers

Money does not care who you are, the way you were raised, what your favourite color is, in case you got an A in your Maths class, in case you got picked last on your soccer team, money does not care. All money cares about is: Numbers.

The numbers I am speaking about are even more important than traffic. They are: sales, revenues, profits & customers.

Why No One Cares About Your Blog and What You Can Do About It

2011-07-02T12:37:00.000+07:00

Creating a company weblog is a great way to embark on your content promotion strategy. A company weblog is a nice place to start a dialogue together with your audience, establish your company as an industry leader, build a brand & company voice, grow your online brand presence in the search engines & more.

Let's say you launched your blog; announced it with a press release, scheduled months of posts, optimized the headlines so they would rank well in the search engines, promoted them on all of your social networks & more. You ought to have a loyal band of happy readers in no time, right? Not necessarily.

Here are 3 reasons your blog is failing and what you can do to make it right:

1. It’s all promotional fluff

Yes, it is your company blog, so of course you are allowed to use it for a little self-promotion—once in a while. Great content marketing plans are all about educating the consumer, not selling a product.

Why would anyone want to read a dozen posts that are thinly veiled advertisements? Your blog posts need to inform and educate the reader about your industry and related issues. Once you’ve convinced your readers that you’re not just in it for you, you can start slipping in a promotional blog post every now and again.

2. It’s old news

Your blog has to be up to speed with the times. You can’t be writing about the ways things used to be done (unless it’s a post comparing then and now), you have to center your blog on what is happening right now. What trends are big? What is coming around the corner? If you want your blog to gain loyal readers, they need to know that you are the best place to go for breaking news and information.

In the same vein, if there is a hot topic in your industry right now, don’t write a post and schedule it for three months down the road. Get in the conversation while it is still relevant. Playing catch-up doesn’t do anything for you or your readers. Take a unique spin on the issue and go live with it that day. Get your opinion out there while it matters. If you can’t stay ahead of the curve, at least keep pace with the pack.

3. It’s not resonating with your audience

You have to be really honest with yourself about who your readers are. Is it potential clients? Other industry professionals? A blog about baking could (theoretically) appeal to professional bakers, amateur bakers, bakery owners, culinary students, foodies, chocolate lovers, people with special diets, caterers, food writers and photographers, food critics and so forth. It is up to you to decide who your audience is and what kind of information they would want to read.

If your company sells commercial bakery equipment, who is your blog really going after—the stay-at-home mom who likes to bake or the restaurateur who owns a dessert cafe? Your blog posts have to mesh with the needs and expectations of your audience; give the people what they want! If you aren’t sure where to start, check out some of your competitor’s blogs. What topics and issues do they focus on?

You also must keep in mind that you need to give your weblog time to gain a following. It isn't going to happen overnight. While your weblog is maturing, take the time to create relationships with other industry bloggers, build your online network so they can help promote your posts & create some great content.

A Different Strategy To Make Money Online

2011-06-20T18:20:00.000+07:00

The majority of people use either Adsense or Affiliate Marketing to make money online because it is easy and cheap to setup. Most quit after a while because they’re too lazy to do it but there’s a smaller group of people that for one reason or another don’t fully identify with any of these methods and try to find another way. This post is for those people, it shows there’s in fact a different way and how to achieve it.

For me one of the problems I had with the traditional methods was that I just couldn’t stand doing all the hard work of generating traffic to my website, just to have visitors go away through a sly ad (and make $0.20 per click) or through an affiliate link.

A Strategy For Different People

I was not satisfied with these traditional methods so I set to find a strategy that allowed me to be open about making money but at the same time doing something valuable that truly helped people and felt more real to me. We are all different, why should we do the same things, the same way like everyone else?

What I found is a combination of methods that work for me and before I explain you what the strategy is I would just like to say that this strategy is not for everyone, it’s a different strategy for different people, it’s not better or worse, it just requires a different mindset then the one you’re probably used to.

Membership Websites

After a lot of research I started learning about recurring revenue and information products such as step-by-step courses or other valuable content and suddenly it all made sense. I imagined a blog with plenty of free information about a niche and then a special part that people would pay to access. This special part would contain a course about a a specific topic in the niche plus a support system where people personally asked me questions and a forum to create a community feeling and increase the value.

Basically, I would sell a product (the course) and a service at the same time (the forum and the support) and use the blog and other marketing techniques to attract people.

I then figured out that a type of these websites already existed and had a name. They were called content-based membership websites, where members pay to get access to the content on a regular basis.
There are several advantages with content-based membership websites. For once, they allow you to completely focus on the content and the users, building a loyal community of members that are happy to pay you. Plus it’s a great way to make money because it gives you a stable and dependable income that feels like a real business and that’s a motivation factor.

The Strategy

1. Find a Topic That Takes a Long Time To Achieve or One Where There’s An Infinite Need For New Content

Let’s say the topic is for example Improving Your English Pronunciation. This is a good topic because it takes a long time to achieve and members have to practice and get directions regularly. Another good idea would be Photoshop Brushes, because there’s an infinite need for these files.

Some membership websites need more work to be sustained than others. Websites where there’s an infinite need for paid content are harder to maintain but have a longer membership life cycle. Websites like the one about Improving Your English Pronunciation can be setup with a time-limited course but then again, the membership life cycle will not be so long.

2. Build an E-Mail List of Interested People (Before Creating The Paid Content Itself!)

The best way to do this is by using a combination of marketing tactics like guest posting, blog commenting, forum posting and social media, all connecting to an e-mail opt-in list. You would use content marketing as the encompassing strategy and your blog as your marketing hub, creating free high quality content about your niche and posting it there.

For example, if your topic is Improve Your English Pronunciation, you can write free content about your niche which would be something around Learning English. Your blog is the the hub of all your free content and your e-mail list the way to communicate with your followers.

3. Create an Engaging Premium Section (The Paid Membership Of The Website)

The blog would harness all your free content but the premium section is where you would put all your paid content and other goodies. This can be anything, from step-by-step courses, forums, databases of files or any combination of them, such as a course, a forum and a support system.

Regardless of what your premium section consists, it has to be easy to use and comprehensive enough to be useful.

Also, you shouldn’t worry about completely creating the Premium section before opening the membership doors. Instead, you should just create the first part your members will see and then build the rest from there, using their feedback. For example, if your Premium section is a course, a good strategy is to create one month or so in advance and then build the rest while your members consume what you’ve already created.

4. Launch The Website

When the e-mail list is rocking with subscribers, the blog is full of activity (comments) and the basics of the Premium section is ready, it’s time to put a price tag on it and open doors to your Premium section. This phase is important but its success largely depends on the amount of followers you built in step 2 and your relationship with them.

The idea is to let everybody and their friends know that you’re going to offer something to the world and that they can benefit greatly from it.

5. Automate The Website

Once you have some members and everything is running, you’ll have to find a way to automate the marketing (affiliates, for example) and content delivery (using software). Some websites, like the ones based on a step-by-step course are easier to automate because they don’t need to be fed new content regularly.
The most important is that you keep new members coming, compensating for the members that leave.

Are You Making These Five Common Blogging Mistakes?

2011-06-20T18:14:00.000+07:00

It’s hard, though, to remember everything. It’s hard to always get it right. Today, I’m going to go through a few all-too-common mistakes that bloggers make when posting. None of these are hard to fix. But, for your readers, they can be deal-breakers.

Are you making any of these mistakes?

Mistake #1: Writing Posts With No Point

If you’re blogging seriously –aiming to make money, to promote your business, and/or to gain a readership – then every post you write needs to have a point.

Too often, I see blog posts that aren’t going anywhere. They’re like journal entries: this is what happened to me today or this is what I’m thinking about. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that – if you want your blog to be a personal journal. If you’re hoping to reach a wider audience, though, your posts need to have a point.

That means that each post should:

Have a clear topic, reflected in a compelling title
Deliver something valuable to the reader – whether that’s entertainment or information

Mistake #2: Posting Inconsistently

A lot of bloggers start out posting daily – and then end up letting weeks go by without a post.

You don’t have to post every single day. Yes, many large blogs do but when you’re getting started, you can post once a week or even once every two weeks.

What’s important is that you post consistently. Figure out a comfortable writing routine that works for you: maybe two posts each week. Ideally, you want to give yourself a bit of slack, so that you can get ahead and “bank” posts for busier times.

Mistake #3: Forgetting to Proof-Read

When you’re rushing to get a post out – or when you’re getting really into your writing – it’s easy to go so fast that you hit the wrong key, or accidentally type the wrong word.

Your readers won’t expect your posts to be flawless – but they will be put off by constant typos and spelling mistakes. If your posts look sloppy and slap-dash, this reflects badly on your content: you might be an expert in your subject, but readers won’t have much confidence in your words.

After you write a post, take a few minutes to read it through. Even better, swap draft posts with a fellow blogger: it’s often easier to spot other people’s typos than your own.

Mistake #4: Ignoring Formatting

Every so often, I’ll come across a blog that looks like a dull mass of grey text. The blogger might have written a brilliant post – but I probably won’t read it (and the same goes for other readers).

Make your post look attractive, so that readers don’t get put off before they’ve even begun. Use subheadings, bold text, lists, and short paragraphs to improve readability: the more white space, the better.

And if all of that sounds like too much work, at least bump up your font size. This one tiny change can make a huge difference.

Mistake #5: Publishing Without Promoting

Your blog could be full of laugh-out-loud anecdotes and brilliantly-valuable information … but that’s no good if readers never find it.

When you publish a post, don’t just sit back and think that you’ve finished. You need to promote that post – which could mean Tweeting it, mentioning it on Facebook, emailing it to any friends who might be interested (don’t overdo this), asking a few other bloggers to link to it, entering it into a blogging carnival, mentioning it in your guest post bio… and so on.

8 Ways to Make Your Readership Trust You

2011-06-20T18:10:00.001+07:00

In the early days running a website or a blog was much easier than it is now. If you had a .com domain and a nice looking design you had trust. Webmaster didn’t have to put in too much effort in showing off who they are and why they are the right solution to people’s problems.

Nowadays, blogging had become more and more about networking, building relationships with your visitors or potential customers. You need to put yourself before the content. You need to let people know there is a real person behind the blog they are reading. You need to showing off your face and interact with your readers to gain trust.

During my experience as a blogger I have found various methods that can help you build a trusty relationship with your readers. Most of them can be implemented right away with very little work, while others take much more time and effort but the results are worth it.

1. Introduce yourself

The first and most important step is to introduce yourself to your audience. Build a compelling “About” page and make it visible. Don’t hide it out in the footer or I don’t know where. Have a link pointing to it in the sidebar above the fold and author bio box bellow each blog post.
I also recommend adding some pictures or videos of you. Remember that a potential customer will rely on YOU not on your blog posts.

2. Answer to comments and e-mails

Answer the comments people leave on your blog. Answer their questions or let them know if you agree or not with their opinion. This will make them feel that somebody is taking note of their opinion. Occasionally, you can also e-mail them directly or comment back on their blog.

3. Offer freebies

People love to get stuff for free. This will make them loyal to you and realize that you are not trying to rip them off. You could offer free e-books, coupons, WordPress Themes, services and so on.
This is also a good way to get some promotion and increase your subscriber list as well.

4. Get on social media

You want to be where your customers are and these day people are on Facebook, Twitter and other few socializing platforms. These two tools can bring in lots of benefits if used wisely.

5. Blog about yourself

This is a good way you can take the “About” page even further. You can write about your personal life every now and then but don’t overdo it. Even though it probably won’t be the main topic your readership is interested in, these types of posts are fun to read and will improve your personal relationship with your readers. Don’t be afraid to let people know how your summer holiday was or what you had for breakfast.
Get personal with your visitors!

6. Do Q&A sessions

Another great way to build a trusty relationship with your readers is to do regular Q&A sessions. Offer your consultant services for free from time to time. This will not only turn them into loyal visitors but also make them aware of your knowledge and your professional advices.

7. Offer your own products/services

You will eventually want your readers to buy something from you. Build yourself of portfolio of services and start selling them. Make sure to interact with your customers a lot while working with them via conference calls, video conferences, and email.

8. Attend events

One last thing you want to add to your list is attending events. You don’t need to be a speaker or attend big events at first. Just pick a couple of smaller get-togethers in your niche and interact with the people there. Once your online business starts to grow you can attend bigger events, build relationships with more customers and partnerships with bigger guys in your niche.
This is my “To do” list for building a trustable name for a blog, I am sure there are other methods that worth mentioning and I must have left out, so feel free to add your stuff.