1. Name a website that every internet user is familiar with, even 80+ year olds!
2. Name the most visited website of the world.

You answered “Google”! Right? Congratulations, you are right!

The two questions above easily demonstrated how popular Google is.

And what is Google?

“I know! It's a  Search Engine.”

You are again correct. You are pretty smart!

The point I wanted to bring your attention was the popularity of search engines. They get a lot of traffic and in turn, send a lot of traffic to other sites. Obviously, most of this search engine traffic goes to the websites that appear on the first page of results.

What will happen if you get #1 ranking on Google for a popular search term? You will be a net celebrity in a day!

So, you should start optimizing your blog for search engines right away.

Wait!

Where are you going? I did not say “You should leave Blogging With Success and start optimizing your blog right away”. You will find a lot of good posts here that can help you in becoming a successful blogger! And besides, I would be really happy if you stay here on Blogging With Success and read this article and share it with your friends!

OK, back to search engines.

This post is about learning how search engines work and find the topic of your blog post.

“Why should I learn this? What benefit will I get if I learn how search engines work and optimizing my posts?”

You just said that, right?(My psychic powers told me!)

How Knowledge About Search Engines Will Benefit You

One of the most essential things when learning something is to find out how it works. If you know how a computer works, you can easily learned advanced topics like programming and troubleshoot problems. You know why teenagers (and below-teen agers) don’t have too much trouble learning computers? Because they are taught the basic functioning of computers in classes! So, we already know how the input goes to CPU and gets processed and then returned. Because of this, we can easily learn any new piece of software given enough time.

On the other hand, a middle aged man who has not learned basics in class will take a lot more time to learn how to use computer.

So, it would be great if you spend your precious 5 minutes on learning the search engines basics.

And the answer to second question:

How Optimizing Your Posts Will Benefit You

Remember my example about getting on first place on Google? Apart from becoming a net celebrity, you will get a lot of traffic and money(if you monetize your blog well).

If you optimize your posts for search engines, you are more likely to get a good ranking and more traffic.

How Search Engines Work

Any guesses how search engines work?

When I first found(a long time back) about Google and how it displays a lot of information, I thought it was a mass labour project where humans filter the results themselves. But clearly, this is not the case!

Why? Because internet is too big and even if everyone starts to search and optimize results, it would take ages! And then there are so many queries. Preparing search results for every query would be like answering every question of universe, which is well, impossible!

So, how do search engines actually collect all that information?

Well, they use Spiders!

Spiders are bots that “crawl” the web pages looking for information. This information is then sent to data center where super computers run super secret algorithms on it. This helps in determining the topic of web page.

After that, the super computers add lots of other things to mix, like number of links to page, outbound links etc. to come out with a score(just like a teacher). All this info is then stored in the big data centers.

When we ask search engine a question, it looks for all the related pages in the index(where all the information is stored, much like a store) and picks out the best matching pages. The process of picking out also involves taking into account the score assigned to that page.

This is a very simple look at the search engine working and the process is very complex but that is enough for now.

How To Optimize Blog Posts For Search Engines

To optimize blog posts for search engines, first thing is to find out what search engines emphasize on. Here’s a small list(not in order):

• Headings.
• Bold and formatted text.
• Specific keywords.
• Backlinks to the page.

Headings

By headings, I mean h1,h2 etc. These tags exist in HTML for a reason, to emphasize on some text. And search engines give priority to headings for finding keywords and what the age is about. H1 gets most attention while H6 gets the least.

It is best to make your post title H1 or H2 and the sub-headings H3.

Bold And Formatted Text

Bold and Formatted is also given preference by spiders. The same logic behind header tags exists here, author has highlighted some text to get reader’s attention. So, naturally, this text is important. And hence, search engines will pay more attention to formatted text.

Specific Keywords

Keyword = key + word

So, basically, a keyword should be some important word and possibly, related to the main topic of article. Right?

That is what a keyword is. Search engines will look for the words that are repeated again and again to determine the topic of the post. So, if you want to attract traffic for a specific keyword or phrase, it is a good idea to repeat it. But keep one thing in mind, do not repeat it too much!

Backlinks

Backlinks are one of the most important factors in determining the rankings of a page.

Just assume that buy a new house and when you shift, no one in the neighborhood seems to be interested in talking to you. Then one day, president of your country comes to your house to meet you. What will happen?

Your neighbor’s will be impressed and will treat you better. Right?

It’s same here with Search Engines. If you get links for high authority blogs, you will be ranked higher and get more traffic. It is a good strategy to use guest posting to get links from higher authority blogs.

How To Optimize Images In Your Blog Posts

Ever noticed the small “Images” link in Google and other major search engines?

Guess what, it can be a good source of traffic! All you need is to optimize the images well. Not only traffic, you can also get better rankings in normal results if you optimize with good alt text.

Adding Alt Text To Images

First, we should find out what alt text is.

Alt = alternative

Alt text is the alternative text that is displayed when images are not visible in browser.

And search engines use it heavily.

Why?

Because unlike real world spiders, their spiders don’t have eyes and they can’t judge what an image is about. So, they will analyze the text around images and the alt text to judge the topic of images.

Make sure to add proper alt text to your images.

Adding Title Text

Title text is the text that is displayed when you hover your mouse pointer over an image/link. Title is not as important as alt is.

The Mistakes To Avoid

While good optimization can push your article up in SERP i.e. Search Engine Result Pages, mistakes can push you lower or even get you kicked out!

The most common mistake is overdoing SEO.

“If h2 tags give my keyword importance, why not make all keywords H2?”

I know that you are smart enough to not ask this question and this is just a fictional logic! But you should keep in mind that fictional or not, logics like this will always fail.

Why?

Because people working for Google and other search engines are not fools. They know that there’s always someone who will try to outsmart the system. So, they will constantly upgrade their algorithms to make sure that no one uses under hand tactics!

Make sure you do not overdo SEO.

Second mistake is selling links. Selling links is not permitted by any search engine and if you sell and Google detects it, you might be punished. Some time ago, I sold some links at Blogging With Success and as a result, we got Page rank 0(although traffic is still there). We burned our hands but make sure that you don't!

Remember:

1. Do not add too much headings and sub headings to your posts.
2. Do not add too much links formatted text! It is bad SEO as well as HEO wise.
3. Do not repeat keywords too much!

That covers almost every basic you have to keep in mind.

Most Important SEO Tip

Most important SEO tip is to not give SEO too much priority. When writing your posts, do not keep SEO in mind at all. Leave SEO and other things for your editor hat(confused? Read what I mean by hats).

Free SEO Tip Sheet For You

Now, while I hope that you liked this post, I know that you can not come back to this post every time when you write a post. (Remembering is out of question as this post is 1500+ words long!)

So, I made a small tip sheet for you. It has all the important points and a checklist to make sure that your posts are well optimized until you make it your habit to optimize them.

To download it, you have to subscribe to Blogging With Success Updates via EMail. Please enter your name and email address to get started:

If you are already subscribed, then check your inbox for an email with subject [BWS]Blogging with Success: SEO Tip Sheet.

Do not forget to add a comment or share this post on if you liked it. Thanks for sharing it(in advance!)

" The decision to move from Blogger to WordPress is a bit like moving from an apartment to a house. You don't just decide today and move in tomorrow. This article series looks at the short and long-term planning it takes for a successful move." - part one of series
Now that you have a custom domain name, let's look at the next step in the series. You need to checkout WordPress for yourself and not just rely on what you read. As with moving to a new house, you want to get the feel of what it would be like living there -- don't you?  So you go to an open house, look at detailed photos and measurements. You even visualize your furniture in the new house. You start to dream about what you can do with the extra space and the backyard!

How can I experience WP before I migrate?

If you followed the first step in the series, you bought a custom name and use it on Blogger until you decide to move to WP. So how can you also use that name for any sort of self-hosted WP test? Well you can't point your name away from Blogspot until the actual migration move. But fear-not, there are ways around this.

Until now the best you could do is sign up for a free WP account just to learn the dashboard and test drive a few free themes. In that test environment, there are no ads, no plugins and no way to (easily) make free WP look like your current blog. But you can learn a great deal. So setup a free account at WordPress.com. I have one that I use to help readers with wp.com grab button code, called ubloghere.wordpress.com --- take a look. The default theme is TwentyTen, on both free and self-hosted WP! You can gain experience in setting menu options and writing posts, etc.

Since that's only a small taste of the power of  a self-hosted WP blog, we're offering temporary use of our web hosting space (separate subdomains) so you can install and test-drive self-hosted WP!  Using your 'private' dashboard, you can add other themes and plugins to see how your posts might look. A real test-drive!

Get your own self-hosted test blog

What will the test dashboard have?

1. Self-hosted space with basic WP already installed.

We will set up WP and provide you with Admin access. You'll start with the default plugins and the default WP theme, TwentyTen.

• For self-hosted you need to have a domain name point to the web hosting space. Since your name may already be linked to Blogger (as suggested in step 1 of this series) you'll get a sub-domain (see -  Wikipedia ). The blog name will be something like AllisonM.bloggingwithsuccess.net.

2. An informal help forum for all winners.

• We will enroll you in our development forum with a few others so you can learn from each other.  There you can also ask basic questions about WP.

What are the terms?

• Free use for 3 weeks, giving plenty of time to make a decision or develop plans further. You also know more about what questions to ask!
• You must agree to use for testing only, and have no more than a a couple of dozen posts and pages.  The test blog must be marked as not indexed by search engines.
• You are responsible for learning WP by doing it yourself, using the Codex help documentation or reading our tutorial and videos.
• You blog about your test drive experience in a guest post here on BWS or on your own blog.

How do I sign up?

• Subscribe to BWS tips
  by email delivery.

• Leave a comment below this post, indicating your interest and why.
  Please state when you subscribed.

As you can imagine, we have to limit the number of test rides at any one time. So we'll select two drivers by August 30, notify you and start the test drive setup for September 1, 2010! Selection will be based on your comment. We will put others on the 'waiting list.'  Please spread the word to your Blogger friends who might be interested!
UPDATE: This offer is closed at the moment --- no one signed up as of 9/1/2010. You may still leave your comments or questions in case we reactivate...

photo by Ramon, letmestayforaday.com

Happy Driving!

If you've used the free WP.com to test your blogger blog,  then leave a comment on your experience! Any questions are welcomed as always!

Okay, the WordPress developers are in no way interested in making it easy for you to create custom text widgets! They assume you're very happy to have theme developers provide those nifty widgets where we just indicate the number of comments to show, etc.

How is that? Well, there is no "Visual" mode in text widgets! Everything you put in a custom widget has to be plain text or html (the dreaded word for 95% of all bloggers). So most of us get by copying code provided by third parties like Twitter.  But this video post shows a foolproof method to see what your custom "text/html" widget looks like before you hit save.

So sit back and watch the "Build your own WP text widget in WYSIWYG editor  video."

-------------

After watching the video, you'll need this link to the online html editor.

Here's a quick cheat cheat for the editor icons, most of which you won't need.

In the video you notice the 'follow us' text is not on a new line --- just use the paragraph icon!

Please use comments to let me us how you create your custom clickable widgets in WP or Blogger.

Are you interested in making money blogging?

You can use it to pay bills, shop for things and even make a healthy living without all the tensions of a job.

And guess what, anyone can make money online. Yep, from 9 year olds to 60+ year old. All you need is knowledge and a good topic to write about(and some other things, but they are not that important as those two!).

Make Money Blogging

What Is Needed To Make Money Blogging?

You will need:

1. A Blog: Well, if you are looking to make money blogging, a blog is most important thing you’ll need.
2. Traffic: A lot of traffic is needed to make some serious money. Yep, you can sell things without much traffic but it is going to be more difficult!
3. Advertisers: Advertisers will pay you to keep their ads on your blog.
4. Payment System: A payment system allows advertisers and ad networks to pay you money. PayPal is most popular payment system, so better to get a PayPal account.

Different Ways To Make Money From Your Blog

Here are different ways to make money from your blog:

1. Cost Per Click Ads: You place ads on your blog and for each click, you get paid.
2. Cost Per Mile Ads: Just like Cost Per Click ads but you get paid for every 1000 ad views.
3. Cost Per Action Ads: You place ad/link on your blog and get paid whenever a visitor clicks that link and buys a product.
4. Pop Ups: The “evil” ads. They may be Cost Per Click or Cost Per Mile. They are automatically displayed in a new window when someone visits your blog.
5. Sponsored Posts: Advertiser pays you to write a review of his product. You get paid per post instead on the basis of clicks etc.
6. Selling Products: Selling own products is one of the best(and most hard) way to make money. You can sell you own ebook, software or even physical products.
7. Membership Program: Membership programs require constant work but can make a lot of money as the fee is normally monthly and will not stop like other methods.
8. Freelancing: Freelancing is not related directly to blogging but it is one thing that many people(we too) have had success with.

Make Money Blogging Series Will Continue

This is first post in “Make Money Blogging” series. I will be publishing more posts covering each of the above(and more) topics in detail. If you do not want to miss them, make sure to Subscribe To Blogging With Success updates.

How Do You Make Money From Your Blog?

Now it’s your turn, share with us and readers how you make money or plan to make money and any tips you have learned on your way.

Are you a blogger and want to make money from your blog? Then one of the first things you need(aside from blog and a readership) is PayPal account.

Why You Should Have A PayPal Account

PayPal is the most used Payment method online. You should register for PayPal because:

1. Security: PayPal is secure and it also protects your credit/debit card info and bank account info. Let’s suppose if you want to pay someone online, you have to share credit card details(usually) and a little security hole may cost you a lot! With PayPal, you never have to share your credit card details. Just link it once to the PayPal account and it’s done.
2. Speed: PayPal lets you pay faster. As I said in last point, you don’t have to enter credit card details again and again! Just remember PayPal password and email address and you are done!
3. Versatility: PayPal doesn’t hold you from paying people in other countries. You can pay in any of the supported currencies easily. If you want to pay someone in Euros, your dollars will be automatically converted to Euros according to latest exchange rates!
4. Users: PayPal has lot of users and most of the online workers and employees use it. Most e-commerce sites will accept it and almost every digital product can be baught with PayPal. And then, most ad networks(sadly, AdSense does not) pay via PayPal.

How To Register For PayPal Account

To register for PayPal, just follow the instructions in How Do I Get A PayPal Account?

Precautions

Once you have registered for PayPal, make sure to keep following precautions in mind(because everything’s not perfect! And so is PayPal!)

1. Password: Make sure to keep your password secure as in the hands of wrong person, it can be very dangerous. And if you have added a credit card, he will have access to it too(although indirectly!).
2. Scam Mails: There are many scammers who will try to get your personal details via mail. It is best to be aware of such frauds. If you use GMail, activating authentication icons feature in labs should help.

Do you have a PayPal account already or are you going to register now?

Image Credit: Impex Online.

We bloggers have a hard time managing time.

And for those of us who work/study, it’s even harder!

Recently, my “free” time ended(actually, reduced) as I have got admission in college and have to study a lot! So, I was thinking about time management.

And best idea that came to mind was making a “priority list”. It is good idea to rank the tasks according to their need. For example, my priority list for blogging right now is:

1. Writing Quality Content.
2. Social network profiles for BWS.(Currently, only Twitter!) and comment moderation.
3. Administrative Tasks like upgrades etc.
4. Theme Tweaks etc.

I am planning to add time to these as needed. For example, if I have 2 free hours in a day, I will spend 1 hour and 30 minutes on writing content.

How To Make A Good Priority List

It depends entirely on you. You will have to decide what your priority list should be like because no one knows your time better than you.

Ideally, writing content should be on the top as it is most important part and should get biggest chunk of your time.

Socializing and moderation are also important. You can easily automate your twitter by using the right twitter tools and there are good ones available for other networks too.

Have you made a priority list for yourself? How does your priority list look?

Look Before You Leap!

The old expression, 'look before you leap', applies to lots of situations, including WordPress, Plugins or Theme upgrades!  It's good advise to think about possible problems before upgrading. In so doing, you often prevent problems. This article uses WP 3.0.1 upgrade as an example.

The announcement at the top of your dashboard is very inviting and hard to miss. But resist updating until you take a look around. Here's what a friend said when I sent out a warning to some of our new clients:

Ha, it's odd that you sent me this. I just did the upgrade this morning on my site and it reset my whole theme.  So I spent the whole morning manually changing it back (grrrr...thanks WP!). Thankfully I keep backups on my computer...

Question from client: Should I upgrade to WordPress 3.0.1?

Reply:

Of course WP encourages you to upgrade to ensure you have the best protection. And WP is always making enhancements. However things can go wrong so you need a plan!  If the upgrade is not marked as 'critical', I like to wait a few days and see if there are annoying complications like plugin conflicts -- usually a Google search would bring such alerts to the surface.

1. View the list of files affected and you might recognize something that's critical to you --- e.g. I found they changed the Twenty Ten theme files (I recently customized those files for a client!). So theme changes would have to be re-done from your documentation/backup --- if you use a WP free theme.  Also be aware that quirks can arise with premium themes so be on the look out... You'll find the list here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.0.1

2. Backup your blog before you upgrade -- You may already have WP-DBManager plugin active so you can force a backup.
Look down the dashboard left site near bottom and you'll see 'DataBase' -- press for options and action. If inactive, then activate it and set your preferences.
You can also do a manual backup ---Ishan wrote a guest post with the procedures.
http://www.virginbloggernotes.com/2010/05/19/how-to-backup-a-wordpress-blog/

So upgrading is necessary at some point just keep your eyes open!

Backing up your site first

We use and recommend the WB DB Manager plugin for an automatic weekly backup. We receive and store attachments in our email inbox. Ishan also takes a manual backup monthly. But just before upgrading to WP 3.0.1 we took another one!

Twenty Ten Theme Upgrade to 1.1

Expect WordPress to continue to enhance this very popular free theme, Twenty Ten, as was done in the current WP upgrade.  I like the theme which uses the custom menu:

With the new custom menu feature, you can easily add tabs that link to external sites such as your own website or perhaps to an off-site forum that you have created.
- Custom Menus Arrive at WordPress.com

Twenty Ten now allows you to upload a custom background - either fixed or scrolling. Cool. It also has a widgetized footer (3 columns)!

That's why I used the theme to customize a non-profit site, AustinDancersAcademy. The custom menu has drop down pages arranged in the order the owner wanted. The theme allows a custom background color and I modified the styling to use the same color on widget backgrounds.

custom menu; background color on site and widget titles

I also took advantage of the  widgetized footer.

How to document your Custom Edit changes

The upgraded Twenty Ten theme will effectively erase the styling and footer changes after WP  is upgraded. Here's how I documented changes to make them easier to re-apply.

Use a notepad document and record just the changes. I like to add comments which I use a breadcrumbs. And, NO you can not just overwrite the WP 3.0.1 style sheet with a saved version you have on your pc!  Who knows what new elements were added and needed in the upgraded environment!

Here's my documentation. Notice the trick of  'display: none;'  which allows you to not show the theme's text header and tag line, etc. if you want a header with image and text in one.

STYLE.CSS ---

1. omit borders around header and top padding [using custom header]

/* This is the custom header image */

#branding img {

clear: both;

border-top: 0 solid #000;

display: block;

border-bottom: 0 solid #000;

}

#header {

padding: 0px 0 0 0;

2. omit site name, tagline and footer credits

#site-title { display:none;

#site-description { display:none;

#site-info { display: none;

#site-generator { display:none;

3. center all widget text & images

.widget-container {

margin: 0 0 18px 0;

text-align: center;

}

4. Widget bar color and padding changed to purple #D7B0FF

.widget-title {

color: #222;

font-weight: bold;

text-align: center;

background-color: #D7B0FF;

padding: 3px 0 3px 0;

margin: 3px 0 3px 0;

This is a video tutorial for creating the custom domain name link to your Blogger blog. Getting a domain name is part of any plan to Move from Blogger to WordPress. Here's how to redirect blogger posts to your new domain name. A custom domain name allows readers start to view your blog as more professional and you to take the name with you if you move to WordPress. In the meantime, enjoy the free hosting at Blogspot.

Click image to open in new window

Let us know how you feel about this video tutorial and if you'd like to see more!

Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is accessible by as many people as possible – Wikipedia.

Making your blog more accessible will help you get more readers which translates to success.

Here are 25 tips to make your blog more accessible for readers:

1. Large Fonts: Large fonts make it possible to read posts easily. You should not make it very big, anywhere between 12 and 14 points is fine.
2. Good Design: Good design is something you should focus before everything else. Nothing can be better than a well designed blog where the content gets attention.
3. Follow KISS: KISS stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. Do not make design complex, simple is better!
4. Dark Text On Light Background: Reading dark text on a lighter background is much easier and when selecting a theme for your blog, make sure it has dark text that’s readable on background.
5. Looooooooong Blogrolls: OK, blogrolls are great, they help you share your favourite blogs with readers, right? But there’s no use of blogroll with 30 links! Most people will find it, well long! So, keep it short.
6. Looooooooong Sidebars: I won’t say a word, you know how you feel when you see a long sidebar cluttered with all kinds of ads and links!
7. De-Clutter Sidebar: Clutter is irritating. Nothing can be more irritating than a sidebar that is cluttered with widgets, ads etc. Identify what’s important for you and keep only the best widgets.
8. Add Images To Articles: Images make articles look better and also attract focus towards important points.
9. Never, Ever Use Animations: Animations do only one thing well, distracting readers! Avoid animations inside articles.
10. Make Your Blog Fast: There’s no point in doing anything if you blog takes forever to load! Further Reading: How To Increase Page Loading Times Of Your Blog By 75%.
11. Use “Click Here”:  With every other blog having different design, there’s one thing that becomes a problem, finding links! In good old days, we had blue links and even most computer un-savy people could use them. So, if you have anything important to link to, try using “Click Here”. And by the bay, Click Here to subscribe to Blogging With Success so that you can get more tips like these straight inside your inbox!
12. Use Constant Link Color: Do not make every link of different color. It is best to have a constant link color across website.
13. Make Links Underline: Making links underlined will help to get attention to them.
14. Make Links Underline On Hover: Yes, it may seem odd to have links underline. And if you also think so, why not make them underline on hover? That would also be a nice effect! To do this, simple add this line to end of your style.css file in WordPress: a:hover { text-decoration: underline; }
15. Optimize For Slow Connections: Everyone in the world does not have a broad band(yet), so try to keep page size under 500 kb. Further reading: How To Decrease Page Loading Times Of Your Blog By 75%.
16. Avoid Auto Plays: Auto playing music is nothing but an annoyance. And videos, they are even more. Most importantly, they take up lot of bandwidth which may cause visitors on slow connections to move away.
17. Add A Text To Speech Converter: An automatic text to speech converter can help a lot of people who might have difficulty reading your posts. I found two services that can do this for you: Odigo and iSpeech.
18. Make Content Column Wider: Anything more than 3 columns is an overkill. And if you are going to get a magazine theme, it is best to make it simple and non-puzzling!
19. Make Search Easier: Do not forget to place a “search” widget in your sidebar. Even if you are using Apture, a search widget is helpful as many people won’t know how to use it!
20. Make Navigation Easier: Make sure that your old posts and other important info is easy to find. As Daniel Scocco says, “Every post of your blog should be no more than one click away”
21. Make Subscription Links Visible: When people want to subscribe, they will look for easy methods to subscribe. Ensure that you have “Subscribe” links on every page and they are visible too!
22. Get Rid Of Captchas: Captchas are very annoying! Sometimes, the text is very hard to read and this may irritate the readers. Yes, I know you may get comment spam but there are better ways to fight comment spam without affecting user experience!
23. Get A Favicon: A favicon helps readers to find your blog in a big cluster of tabs. So, get 10 minutes and make a favicon for your blog.
24. Test In Different Browsers: I have learned this the hard way. What looks awesome in my Opera browser is often horrible in Internet Explorer and when dealing with clients, this is very irritating!(Nothing can annoy more than a “Design does not look good” from a client using Internet Explorer 6!) It is best to test design in different browsers. A good tool for this is Browser Shots.
25. Use Contact Forms: Yes, I know that email privacy is important but putting a simple image of your email address is not very user friendly! Please add a contact form to give people a less annoying(wait, it’s not annoying at all!) way to contact you!

Using these tips, you can easily make your blog more user friendly. It’s not necessary to use all of these but those which are necessary for your reader base should be added as soon as possible!

What other tips do you have to make your blog more accessible? Do not forget to share in comments.

Ready To Steal?

It happens!

But you can't live like this forever! Imagine what will happen to your blog!

Your readers are waiting for a good article from your side and you are silent? They will go to some other blog fast, really fast!

You have to write!

Thankfully, there's a great way to write even when you can't find new ideas yourself!

Want to know about it?

OK, first, shut that open door. Now, look around to make sure no one’s looking! OK, bring your ears eyes closer.

So, the secret is,

Steal from other bloggers!

Wait!

Before you go out there and start copy pasting, let me clarify that I didn’t mean copy pasting posts! Heck, I didn’t mean copy pasting at all!

What I meant was that you should steal their ideas!

And you won’t find ideas in a safe locked in a safe inside blogger’s mansion! They put their ideas out their in wild(in short, on their blog) and still, we don’t spot them.

Welcome To The World Of “Openings”

No one is perfect!

Right?

And that’s the case with top bloggers! Yes, they write great posts, but not every post is complete in itself.

Every thought “If he could have included this or that, article would have been better"!” when reading an article?

Then congratulations!

You already know and have seen the “openings”.

I have always been a big fan of openings and lot of my posts are inspired by other’s post(sometimes from a single line in an article!). don't believe me, then take a look at my post How To Blog Again After A Long Absence. As mentioned in the post, it was inspired by Leo Babauta's post on Write To Done.

What In The World Are Openings?

Openings are just the incomplete points that blogger has left in his posts. There may be different reasons for existence of openings but the biggest one is that it’s not possible to cover everything in one post. So, bloggers usually don't go into much detail!

How To Spot Openings?

There’s only thing I can say, read read and read. The more you read, more openings you will find.

However, one thing I have noticed is that list posts are best places to find openings. For example, take a look at Daniel Scocco’s Email Marketing Basics: All You Need To Get Started. Daniel has 4 steps mentioned in it and but not gone into much detail!

OK, so what openings do you find in it?

Well, for me, the 4 points are an idea list and a full series can be written on it easily! The base is ready(ideas) and all that is needed is to add some advice and ideas and you will have your own posts ready!

Again, another list post is Leo Babauta’s The Elements Of Change. If I had a life change, zen type blog, I would have written following 5 posts from it:

1. Beating Inertia: How To Do It?
2. Beating The Resistance of Others. (Leo has already written on this, but hey, that won’t stop you from writing on this topic! And by the way, that post is also a list post!)
3. How To Find Joy?
4. Keeping The Joy Alive Once You Find It!
5. Why And How To Celebrate The Little Victories.

Of course, this is my take on it and you may get different ideas.

But the moral of the story is, when you don’t feel that inspirational, go out, read and steal from other bloggers!

Simple!