Learn To Blog With Mandy Allen

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a newbie or a veteran blogger this question always comes up when creating a new blog. Usually someone new to blogging would gravitate to hosting a blog themselves or get a free blog and as time goes by with experience they begin to ponder maybe paid blog hosting isn’t so bad after all. So what is better?

To answer this question, let’s first look at how a blog is created. Just like creating web pages, first, you need a software or script that will take your entries, format it and publish it to the web. The second component of a blog, is the web space, where the software should publish to, a home for the blog pages.

Knowing this information, let’s review the different ways to host a blog:

Full blog host.

This is where the blogging system or software is provided for you and your blog is also published to a web space provided by the host. Blogger, SquareSpace and Typepad fall into this category. It’s very much like creating a website with a site builder.

Hosted blog software but published elsewhere

This is where the blog software is provided for you but the blog pages are published to another website or web host altogether. By doing this, the software acts as a publishing system like FrontPage except it creates nicely formatted blogs. Blogger is probably the most well known for this. Yes Blogger can do both. Publish to their host or to yours. As a comparison, this is like using FrontPage to publish your website.

Blog software and blog are hosted on your web server

This is where you would install the blog script (software) on your web server – it can be any web hosting account. And when you publish, the blog itself resides on your web server also. To draw a parallel, this technique is like buying web hosting and then installing a content management system on it to help you build web pages.

If you’re new to building web pages or have built sites using site builders then you might want to go with a fully hosted blog. There’s very little technical stuff you need to know with these systems. If you can point and click, you can build a blog with a full blog host.

Having said that, just because you’re seasoned at building web pages doesn’t mean full blog hosts won’t work for you. In fact, if you have many blogs this becomes very appealing since you won’t have to worry about upgrading the blog script, people exploiting the script, making plug-ins work or what happens when your web host decides to disable part of your blog functions because there is a security hole. All you do is concentrate on blogging. After a while, blogging becomes more important than maintaining your blog and that’s the way it should be.

Hosted software but blog is published to your website.

This seems to be the best of both worlds. Atthe time of writing, Blogger is one of the best ways to do this but because of its popularity often you find the system too slow to publish or completely down just when you have a hot idea to share. The idea is good but you’ll also be depending on someone else’s availability to publish your blog. It’s much like using a friend’s computer to build your web pages and you know how that can go.

Finally, you have the option to use scripts.

This is also a very popular method. The flexibility it allows is very liberating because you can mould the blog anyway you want. You can even get a programmer to create custom plug-ins or customize the whole blogging system the way you want it. In short, you can do pretty much anything you want.

The down side, you need at the very basic, some knowledge of HTML or publishing web pages. Also the burden of upgrading, troubleshooting and maintaining the script is on you. If you have one or two blogs it’s not so bad but once you start having more, it can be quite tedious. You also have to consider all the other responsibilities of maintaining the script as mentioned earlier.

Armed with this information, you should be able to figure out which one is for you. If you’re still undecided, think of how you would do it if you’re creating a regular website. Chances are your choice method for publishing a website is also the best method for you to create a blog.

Tags: blog, blog hosting, blogger, blogging

Feb 16

Alternative Content Sources

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Blogs and websites that have rich content are always going to do better than those that don’t. I am sure you wondered where these blogs get their ideas, views and opinions. It is easy to write about something you are passionate about – but to do that most days of the week is extremely hard, since you would probably run out of things to talk about or you simply don’t have the time. So how do they do it? Where do they get their ideas? Do they get help from tools and other sources available on the Internet?

The best way would be to provide the content yourself, and this is of utmost importance if your goal is to try to create traffic to an affiliated link. You’ll definitely want to sell the idea about the services and products beforehand. What that will do is set the stage or the “mood” and give your recommendations authenticity.

Expounding on the uses of a particular service or product, with your own likes and dislikes, achieves this naturally. With an affiliate program, it is a good idea to have a personal anecdote that goes hand in hand with the product or service.

Using private label articles is a viable alternative. PLR articles are readily available on the Internet and you can always buy some that are connected to your central topic and then place them on your blog. One way of maximizing purchased PLR content is to cut it down into several pieces, thereby maximizing its content. It is always advisable to edit the content and make it unique to your blog to avoid duplicate content that may be contained in other blogs or articles.

However, putting in your own unique content is the best way to go. One way to find fresh ideas is to look for an appealing news article and then do a summary write-up based on it. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but you and your readers will find it the most rewarding.

If you feel that you just don’t cut it as a writer or you genuinely don’t have the time, then hire someone else to do it for you. There are many services out there that provide a “blog service” . This can include daily posts of unique, engaging content, and you can instruct these content writers as to where you want the links in your blog pointing to, so that any burden of cost in terms of hiring them should be offset by the gains in your increased visitor base, the marketing of your other websites and earnings from your affiliate programs.

Another option is to hire a ghostwriter. This is someone who will write an agreed number of posts or articles for you, for an agreed price, based on your own titles or keywords. At the end of the day the content is entirely yours and you know it will not be reproduced anywhere else. Some sources of content writers are Elance and Fiverr.com.

These are the best ways to generate content for your blog. It is advisable not to go down the the automated path. If you do decide to do that, you will probably have plenty of content – but the substance of the text is unlikely to increase traffic for you. Putting in some good, old-fashioned content work will yield better results for you. As the expression goes- “you get out what you put in….”!!

Tags: content sources, Elance, ghostwriting, PLR

1 comment

Jan 10

Why Use An RSS Feed?

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Blogs and RSS feeds are great marketing tools. A blog is basically a journal or diary that is kept online. It changes every time you add new content. An RSS feed is a little more involved. RSS (usually referred to as Really Simple Syndication) is a means to publish regular updates to web content. The content itself is known as the feed. In other words, RSS feeds are a great way to get information that changes often (for example blogs or even news headlines) out on the web to an amazingly large audience. For the reader you are always kept up to date with new posts.

So why should you use blogs and RSS feeds? When more people view your site, you will make more sales. Of course, the trick is to get the visitors to your site. While you sit there reading this article, there are search engines silently exploring cyberspace for new or updated web content. When you update your blog and use RSS feeds, your new information will be noticed by these tireless search engines and published across the World Wide Web.

Follow the example of hugely successful sites like Yahoo!, CNET, ABC News,and Amazon. Get on the RSS feed band wagon and share in the success. Join the masses of bloggers who are posting on personal and professional blogs. Write your way to success.

Blogging and RSS feeds have been made simple for even the most technologically challenged. If you have ever been frustrated by a static website that has little traffic try creating a blog and use the RSS feed. You’ll discover a brand new marketing technique that will astound you with the increase in profit your website will net.

Tags: blog, blogging, marketing tools, RSS feed

Dec 13

The Phenomenon Of Blogging

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Blogging Interest

When trying to research when the blog began, you may come up a little short. While it is widely known the blog is one of the most popular forms of posting on the web, there is really not a lot of history to it. Some will argue that the first blogger came to us across the television screen. The hit show Doogie Howser, M.D. always included a few shots of the teenage doctor typing in his computer diary, which many see as the world’s first blog. While it is not exactly clear whether Dr. Howser was posting his thoughts on his hard drive or the web, it is unlikely the character even knew what the word “blogger” meant.

According to the history books, the word “weblog” was copy written by Jorn Barger in 1997. A list of others followed him in creating their own versions of the original weblog.

Although there is not much information on the beginning of the blog, there is a lot of information leading to the fact that the blog phenomenon is growing rapidly and is not likely to downsize anytime soon. It seems everyone is blogging these days. With sites offering free blog space, why wouldn’t they? Everyone wants a chance and a forum to express their thoughts, and a blog allows them to do just that.

A blog, which is actually short for a weblog, is a lot like an online journal. It is a personal website (or posting space) that is updated frequently. With each posting, the blog is essentially updated. Blogs can include anything the blogger wants it to include. You can write about personal experiences, political views, gossip, books, television, music. There are really no limits on what you can write about on your own blog.

Today’s blogs are allowing bloggers to post photos or little profiles telling their readers more about themselves. Many blogs are so popular that readers will visit them each day in order to see what is new in the blogger’s life. These readers may or may not personally know the blogger, which makes the phenomenon that much more interesting and unexplainable.

The most notable thing about a blog is that it is the first online journal type that offers a place for reader comments. These comments can be helpful to the blog and draw interest to it, or they can be useless. Some advertisers are using blogs today to get their website link or product information out to more people. This can be annoying to bloggers, but the fact is that the advertisers are using other people’s blogs to advertise for free.

It is assumed that blogs are so popular for two main reasons. The first reason is simply because everyone wants to be heard. By posting your opinions, views, or experiences on the web, you are essentially being heard by anyone who reads your post. With more and more people reading blogs, you can count on more and more people reading yours as well.

The other main reason the blog is so popular is because due to amazing blogging software, it is so simple to do. When personal websites came onto the scene, everyone wanted one. The problem was that the good ones were very difficult to construct unless you had programming experience. Many people hired professionals to create their personal spaces.

Blogs on the other hand, are very easy to create. S oftware allows you to post your thoughts in a typing box and the system automatically updates itself when you are done. It could not be any easier.

The phenomenon of blogging is one that is so well loved it will likely continue to grow and grow.

Tags: blogging, blogs, research, the phenomenon of blogging

1 comment

Nov 24

Using Adverts For Blog Revenue

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Those who blog to earn some extra money often ask the question: ”Why is my advertising revenue so low?” There are people who think that blogs simply can not generate much money from advertising, however blogs can generate you the same amount of money, if not more, compared to any other website. One avenue of advertising income from your blog is PPC (Pay per click) sources of revenue such as google adsense.

Often one of the problems with blogs is that people tend to concentrate on wide markets. If you are running a personal diary kind of blog, the chances are that there are thousands of similar blogs around. The more competition you have, the harder it will be for you to make some cash. Instead try concentrating on smaller markets also known as niche markets. Not only it will be easier for you to develop the traffic, the CPC (Cost per click) should also be higher due to advertisers demand exceeding publishers supply.

You must also try to establish a unique selling point. You need to give your readers something that nobody else does. This should really help you to get returning visitors, and potential customers. You need the visitors, and you need them to click the adverts!

You should always try to channel your advertisements. This way you will be able to measure your ad block’s performance. One of the most important things is to experiment. Try different ad formats, colours and positioning. Run your setup for a few weeks, note the performance and then try something different. Even if you think you have found the optimum ad setup keep on trying to improve it. In most cases you can always tweak something to make your ad performance better.

Tags: advertising revenue, blog, blogging, performance

Oct 16

Using A Blog To Earn Money

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There are so many great advantages to using a blog to make money on the Internet. It is so much easier than any other form of money making Internet Marketing. For a start you do not need be an HTML expert.

One of the biggest problems people encounter when trying earn money from the Internet is having the HTML knowledge to design a website. Having a blog solves this problem. You do not need to know HTML coding to create this type of site.

If you update your content regularly the search engines will love it. They simply adore fresh content. The better your ranking, the better chance you have of a visitor buying from your site.

Having a blog also creates a built-in linking structure. Blogs automatically create links between old and new posts. This is really useful for search engine optimization. And you can keyword optimize your blog heavily to further enhance the serach engine results.

Every part of your blog template can be optimized. You can include keywords in your blog title, description, blog post headings, trackback links, comment invitations, archive titles, and category names. By doing this you can totally optimize your blog, and this will also increase the possibility of earning money from your blog.

You are creating an online community who will leanr to trust you and will be more inclined to buy from you. If your blog is on a specific theme, you can build a loyal readership and develop an online community. You can even take it a notch higher by tying it in with a forum or membership site. Ask for comments, suggestions, ideas and feedback, or invite reader participation. Pretty soon, your blog will be growing organically – even if you don’t write a lot! And you have a traffic for your site.

Getting readers for your content is good. Getting your content out where many more readers can see it is GREAT! Syndication (via RSS feeds) is built in to most blogging platforms, giving you a quick and easy way to get a wider readership for your blog posts, creating more opportunities to sell.

Tags: blog, blogging, HTML, online community, optimize, trackbacks, using your blog to earn money

1 comment

Sep 16

Track Your Visitors To Identify Trends

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There are many reasons to track the visitors that read your blog. Understanding who visits you blog will help you know what your readers are looking for. Successful blogging starts with interesting writing that will appeal to your readers. Learning more about them will enable you to write more appropriately.

Another reason you might want to keep track of the visitors that come to your site is to increase traffic. This is especially important for blogs that are for companies. Companies can use their blog for inexpensive advertising. Knowing who visits the blog site will help a company understand if they are reaching their target audience for their services or products.

A blog hit counter is one way to keep track of the amount of visitors that read your blog. Blog hit counters are usually small boxes at the very end of a web page that updates a number every time someone visits your site. Some blog hit counters can give site owners statistics, reports and graphs to illustrate blog activity. These counters can also show you where your readers are finding your site.

If your blog hosting site does not offer a blog hit counter feature, one can easily be downloaded or added to your page from another site. There are many free sites that offer counters for blog pages. Blog writers can register on the hit counter site, download the programme and installit directly into the blog template. This will give an accurate count of how many visitors you have to your blog. If you are not worried about keywords or detailed information about your readers, then a blog hit counter is the easiest way to track your readership.

If you want more advanced blog features, then you can add tracking options to your blog. There are several ways you can track your readers. One is by keywords and the other is a visitor tracker.

Keyword trackers are ideal for those who need to know what keywords people are using to locate a blog. This could be important for businesses that need to reach potential consumers. A good keyword tracker can also help you organize your blog to determine which keywords are most popular with readers. It can also help get your site listed on search engines. Keyword trackers can be downloaded for free in many cases. If your site relies heavily on readers, then a keyword tracker could be a good choice.

A visitor tracker works much the same way as a keyword tracker. The difference, however, is that a visitor tracker will provide you with information statistics about your blog visitors. Usually, this information is given in easy to understand graphs and tables. If you need to see where your visitors are coming from, then a visitor tracker can be quite beneficial. It is a little more sophisticated than a hit counter, but works about the same way. When a visitor enters your blog their information is saved onto the visitor tracker. When you are ready, you can log in and see exactly who your visitors are.

One other way that a blog writer can keep track of their readers is to include a comment section at the end of your blog page. Not all visitors will want to leave a comment, but this is a good way to gain feedback about your site. You will have a better understanding about the type of readers that frequent your site, but also understand the kind of content that they want to read.

Tags: keyword trackers, track your visitors

Aug 30

Gain More Readers On Your Blog

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A blog is simply a tool to use for someone who’s got something to say. If you like to write and engage others on subjects which you have some experience of, then it’s a wonderful medium that allows you to interact with people who share similar interests. Here are some great blogging tips that will help you to gain more readers:

Be topical.

Readers may or may not be interested in your topic, but if your message is rambling few will bother returning to your blog.

Refresh your content

Create a schedule and stick to it. Blogging requires time and effort, don’t create unrealistic expectations and be unable to deliver. An occasional lapse or holiday is generally understood but readers returning to find stale, out-dated content are going to find another blog with similar content. New blogs and RSS feeds are popping up on a daily basis. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and a community you don’t want to lose them due to lack of commitment on your part.

Clear Language Counts.

Blessed is the blog with a clear line of logic. Write without inside jokes, cliquey catchphrases or ambiguous logic. First time readers need to be close to your message. They are more likely to return to blogs that strike them positively. If the first read is confusing there will not be a second read.

Feed the Spiders.

Search engines take notice of active blogs and blog search engines are especially sensitive to activity. If nothing else, search engines are smarter today than they were yesterday and are only getting smarter. In constantly improving they are seeking to aggregate quality; quality blogs are updated several times a week, if not daily, as opposed to once or twice a month. I don’t mean to scare you but a big spider is watching, so dance for them.

RSS.

Think of RSS like a magic button in the blogging world, because that’s the effect it’s had. RSS feeds are a way to exponentially have your voice heard by those who are interested. These feeds are a great means to increase the distribution and readership of your original content.

Spell check.

Use the spell-check. It only takes a minute and can save you from looking like a hack.

Your blog audiences will be small at first. If you tough it out while maintaining quality, the readership will materialize. You will link to good, relevant blogs and, in turn, they will to you. While your voice may be unique, your niche likely isn’t and if your content is emitted smartly to the Internet those relevant readers will respond through readership and interaction.

Tags: be topical, gain more readers, RSS feed, search engines

Aug 08

Traffic Driving Methods For Your Blog

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There are many factors that make blogs much better than normal WebPages including the speed at which blogs are indexed, the ability to submit to blog directories & normal directories, pings and track backs. All these little things can help drive more traffic to blogs. Here are some great traffic driving methods that will help boost visits to your blog:

Create at least four keyword rich posts per day. Most of the top blogs, with literally tens of thousands of visitors per day publish an average of 30 small 100-150 word posts per day.

Submit to My Yahoo! When you submit your own RSS to My Yahoo it is indexed by Yahoo.

Submit to Google’s Reader. When you submit your own blog RSS to Google’s Reader the Google Blog Search will index your site.

Add a relevant link directory to your blog and trade links. Although it may take more time than simply submitting to a search engine one time, this method is perhaps the best way to drive traffic to your site. Use software such as Zeus to speed up the link trading process.

Use ping sites like ping-o-matic. Ping your site every time you add a new post.

Submit your blog to traditional search engines such as AltaVista, and MSN.

Submit your blog to traditional directories such as DMOZ. Directories (particularly DMOZ) increase relevance with Google. DMOZ is very picky, but what do you have to lose by trying?

Submit to as many RSS Directories and Search Engines as possible. This is a simple but repetitive process that can be done with software such as RSS SUBMIT.

Comment on other blogs. Do not just leave short, lazy comments like “I agree.” Leave well thought out replies that will force readers to wonder “who wrote this?”

Use track backs. If there is a blog that you refer to or quote and it is highly relevant to your subject, leave a track back. It increases your link popularity and may even score a few interested readers from the linked site.

Go offline. Use newspaper ads, public bulletin boards, business cards, even stickers to let as many people as possible know your blog exists.

Add a link to your blog in your e-mail signature block.

Use Groups (Usenet). Find a relevant group on Google groups, Yahoo groups, MSN groups or any of the thousands of other FREE group services and find like minded people and talk with them. Make sure you use your blog URL like it is your name.

Use Forums. Forums are one of the best places to go for advice. Go to forums and find problems to solve. Make sure you leave your blog name, but be tactful about it; some forums get annoyed with those who selfishly drop a few links to their own site and leave.

Tag your website. Sites like http://Del.icio.us and many others have a social feature that allows you to place your article under keywords or “tags” that everyone interested in that tag can see.

Although these are some of the most popular ways to drive traffic to your blog, do not limit your self to tips and lists. Use your imagination and you will come up with thousands of ways to drive traffic to your blog!

Tags: directories, Google, keywords, ping sites, search engines, tags, track backs, traffic driving methods, Yahoo!

Jul 26

Get More Page Views On Your Blog

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With Google Adsense or Yahoo Publisher, having people click onto more pages helps your revenue immensely, but how do you get them to read more than one page when they visit your website?

Create pages within the blog that contain reference material you refer to often in your posts. These static pages will also get crawled and indexed by the search engines and as you write posts about your topics you can refer people to these static pages as references to what you are posting about.

Use articles as static pages. You can reprint articles on any topic for free by visiting one of the many article directories like, then refer people to the articles that relate to the post you are making. You could even add one article as a new page every time you make a post.

Refer to other posts you have made on your blog or on another one of your blogs while posting. This gets the reader to click over to previous posts. You can even decide your posts by browsing previous posts and deciding which one to follow up on. Those archives are not to be lost and forgotten. It’s great content so use it.

Create a page that links to your favorite posts that are timeless. Browse your old posts, find posts that you want readers to find easily, then build a links page with those posts directly linked. Then add a link to that page from your front page. Call it favorite posts or similar and you will benefit from those that click through and follow those links.

Use the “more” tag. You write your post as normal, then decide where you want to stop the post so it has to be opened in a new page. You put the more tag in and readers have to click to a new page to read the rest of the story.

Write once per week special projects. These are a series of articles on a particular topic. You will be offering it once per week giving readers a week to comment on it, then have them hanging on for the next special post in the series. Each time add links to previous posts in that series.

Using your content from your other websites or blogs is also a great way to get more page views for all of them. Use the ‘target new’ tag and refer to material on your other blogs and websites. It will open a new window leaving the current blog open while they visit your other website or blog. You can quickly double up your page views while also introducing your readers to your other websites and blogs.

Make a list of 10 previous posts and add the links to those posts. Make a post in your blog about 10 things you want your readers to know and read in case they have not done so before. At your suggestion they will at least go and see if they have read those posts before, increasing your page views once again, plus it will bring old material to new readers. That also lets them know they should browse the archives for things they have missed.

Using that same list of 10 posts or a new one, visit other blogs on your topic. Find posts that talk about something similar to one of those 10 posts, then instead of adding a link in your signature to the home page, make a comment there and refer to the post that is similar and that contains helpful information to that blogger and their readers. You will also be increasing your link popularity while doing this. Do not spam the link. Make sure it actually contains useful information. Don’t be a spammer and you will end up with new readers and more page views for your blog.

Do not stop being creative. Use the tips in this article, plus invent some of your own ways to interlink your blog posts together. Create pages. Don’t just post and forget. Your content is valuable, use it. Do not make people search your blog. They are lazy and busy. Bring it to them. That is just good customer service.

Tags: 'more' tag, create pages, creative, get mroe page views, use articles