The number of subscribers your blog gets is the measure of your success as a blogger.If you have good no. of subscribers you are successful.This is why every blogger is quite serious of increasing the blog readership.Infact , you are reading this article because you also are quite serious to increase your blog subscribership.OK , I promise I will not let you down.In this post I will talk about some very good tips to increase blog readership/subscribership.I will not present you with a list of tips that other blogging guides do.Instead I will first tell you about the basics about how and why people subscribe and only then I will come up with my tips.


How and why people subscribe to a blog?


Most of the people surf the net because they are in hunt of some information.If your blog provides the information, they subscribe.But from hunting for information to becoming a subscriber, visitors pass through certain steps which you should understand to increase your subscribership.I have depicted these steps in the following picture-
The three steps that people pass before subscribing are-

1. Finding your blog or feed- How can a person subscribe to your feed if he is not able to find your blog or your feed at first place.
2. Reading your content- A visitor subscribes only if he/she reads your content and likes it.
3. Finding the subscription button- Once a visitor likes your content he will try to find out the subscription button to subscribe to your blog's feed.

The tips I am going to tell you in the following paragraphs revolve around these three points.


Tips to increase blog subscribership-

1) Make your blog and feed more visible-

While there are too many blogs including this one which tells you about making your blog more visible but there are very few which will tell you to make your feed more visible.A blog can be made more visible by search engine optimization, commenting on other blogs and forums, and networking with other bloggers.

To make your feed more visible-

1. Submit your blog's feed to feed directories- You can find a list of feed directories here. Just submit your feed url to all of these directories.This will make your feed more visible to others on the net.
   
2. Make sure autodiscovery feature is working- Autodiscovery makes it easy for feed aggregators and websurfers to automatically find your feed and subscribe to it.You only need to put a html code to enable this feature.The details for enabling feed autodiscovery can be found here.
   
3. Leave the link of your feeds url in forums and comments-I have seen many bloggers leaving their feed's url in their signature.I am not sure how much does it works because I don't do this but many bloggers tell to leave feed's url in the signature.

2) Produce original and quality content-

I am sick of telling this in almost every post I write.The reason I always talk about content is because it is the soul of your blog.Without content your blog is dead.Furthermore, Visitors will subscribe only when you provide a solid reason to subscribe.And the solid reason is the quality content.


3) Make the subscription button more visible to visitors-

Visitors can become subscribers only when they are able to find the subscription button on your blog.If you have placed the button in some corner of your blog which is barely seen then probably you are losing many many visitors per day.To make your subscription button more visible-

1. Use a large sized orange button for subscription. People are accustomed of watching an orange button for rss feeds.So, always use a large orange button and not of other colours. A different coloured button may go unnoticed.
   
2. Place button on the top of the sidebar and below each of your post- Again people are habituated of seeing orange button on the top of sidebar and below posts.If they wish to subscribe they will go on to see these places first.So, place it there.
   

4) Facilitate subscribing-

Apart from the tips I have discussed above you have to take care of other factors like, encouraging your visitors to subscribe. Explain RSS feeds to your visitors who don't have an idea what it means.And give some incentives to the visitors who subscribe.I have seen many bloggers giving away ebooks to the subscribers.Some bloggers profess to cut off the steps to subscribe to minimum.All these strategies work quite well.


Increasing blog subscribership is not an overnight process.It is an ongoing process. Focus on producing a quality content and make subscription easy.Encourage your visitors to subscribe and do talk to them every now and then and you will see subscribers rolling in to your blog.
All the best !!!!

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Image via WikipediaI will start this post with a small question. What is the use of huge traffic when it can't be transformed into readers or subscribers?For most of bloggers such traffic has little or no use.For transforming visitors into readers you need to grab their attention first.That is why getting hold of visitors attention is more important than getting visitors alone.In this post I will talk of ways to grab attention of your blog visitors.


I have been interacting with regular internet users for quite sometime and based on the conversation with them I came to know about following points-

• Most of the visitors are focussed on information and benefits while surfing.Everytime they reach a page they will ask a question- What is there for me on this page?,or How I will be benefitted by reading this page?
  
  
• Most of the internet users seek advice from professionals or experts of their field?

My point of telling all this is, if you are able to convince your visitors that you have useful information and you are an expert in your field, you will catch hold of their attention.Now, million dollar question is, How can I tell visitors that I have great information and I am expert? I find three ways to grab attention of visitors-

By writing a 'killing' title/headline-

If there is one thing on your blog that is always read by each of your visitors then it is your title.So,write title in such a way that it clearly answers the questions-

1. What information is there on your blog?
2. How visitors will be benefitted from this information?

If your title contains the answer of these two questions you will surely be able to gain attention of your visitors.

By using interesting images on the top of your post-

Sometimes images speak louder than the words. The role of an interesting image in grabbing attention is invaluable.

Just take an example-

I found this image on one of the blogs while surfing.Actually I stopped and read whole of the post after watching this because this picture looked so interesting to me.So, you can just see the value of images in grabbing attention.But to really get some purchase from images you have to place an engrossing and relevant image.


By blog design-

A beautiful , unique design can make your blog stand out of the crowd of millions.After talking to hundreds internet users I came to know that people on the net access the expertise of a blogger by the design of the blog.This is especially true if they have to make a decision in few seconds.

Although I feel it is insane to judge expertise of a person by blog design but since most of your visitors have this kind of attitude ,so, you have to live with it as a blogger.



Attracting your visitors attention is important as it will convert a lot of your visitors into readers and even subscribers.A great content has got no meaning if it is not being read and grabbing attention of your visitors ensures that your content is read.

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As a blogger much of your success depends upon quality of your content. You will be appreciated if you are writing original and quality content otherwise you will fail miserably.This is the reason why content is called king.In this post I will talk about ten powerful tips to generate awesome content on your blog.

I will not preach about making things scannable or making your significant point bold or other stuff that is widely discoursed in every blogging guide.Instead I will talk of some slap-up points to make your content better.


1) Recognize your audience-

Just ask yourself, Who your audience will be? Or, for whom you are writing? Whether you are writing for newbies or intermediates or savvys .Plan your content once you answer this question.


2) Use colourful verbs in place of tired overused verbs-

Verbs are like condiments. Just like condiments add flavour to food, verbs flavour the content.And once you flavour your content blog visitors will relish it.Let us take an example- Take a look at following sentences-

"The whole SEO is such complex that sometimes I get confused."

"I am perplexed due to intricate nature of SEO."

Both these sentences mean the same thing but in later case the verb 'confused' (no doubt an overused verb) has been replaced by more attractive verb 'perplexed'. Also, see the word 'complex' has been replaced by more appealing word 'intricate'.

Where can I get colourful verbs from?

Now this is a question which needs to be answered. Well just download a thesaurus from internet.They are available for free , just google it and get it. Thesauruses contain list of synonyms.What you have to do is to identify overused verbs and replace them with vibrant synonymous verbs.


3) Use active voice rather than passive voice-

The benefits of using active voice is that subject comes first and some worthless words are chopped off.Take an example-

"John killed Michael" (active voice)

"Michael was killed by john" (passive voice)

In this example, the subject 'John' comes first and and useless words 'was' and 'by' were cut-off by using active voice.


4) Write 'you' centred content and not 'I' centred-

Although it is not possible to use 'you' focussed content everytime but use it most of the times in your content.You focussed content makes your discussion personal with your blog readers.

Example of 'I' focused sentence- "I will provide you with latest information about blogging on this blog."

Example of 'you' focused sentence- "You will get latest information about blogging on this blog."
Now just judge which statement looks better to you.


5) Don't write useless sentences and words-

I have seen some bloggers talking about their pets, or girlfriend or running nose on their blog.Don't do this.These things doesn't matters to your visitors.Visitors come to any blog in search of information and not to know about your running nose.

Your every sentence should either be an information or an elaboration of an information.


6) Don't preach, demonstrate-

Preaching is like muttering a confounding theory without proofs of whether it will work or not.While demonstration is backed by some solid facts ,citations or images. Evidencing your facts makes you much trustworthy.So, make your points backed by some solid facts, citations and images from trustworthy sources.


7) Be personal while interacting through your content-

Write as if you are talking to your readers.Think how would you have talked with your friend on a particular topic? Use the same sentences as you have used while conversation with your friend.(often with some refinement)


8) Break longer sentences into two-

Longer sentences look clumsy and are often hard to understand. So, break longer sentences into two easily digestible sentences.


9) Be simple and clear-

If you close your eyes, can you visualize the idea behind every sentence? Is every sentence as tangible and concrete as possible? If you can’t wrap your arms around your message, neither can your readers. Rework sentences to ensure they’re clear and concrete.

If you’re struggling to explain a technical or abstract concept, grab a pencil and sketch it. This exercise forces you to simplify and distill your idea and may spark helpful ways to present the concept to your readers.


10) Be a ruthless editor-

Writers often fall in love with their own words.But be ruthless with your words.Cut words, sentences and even an entire paragraph if they are not needed or otherwise not in good shape.Sometimes you may have to delete your entire post and start afresh. But if you are not satisfied with your own writing your readers will not be either.So, just cut cut and cut untill you are satisfied.

Check for grammatical and spelling mistakes. Nothing hurts you more than a bunch of grammatical and spelling mistakes.So, be in the hunt of mistakes while editing your content.



Writing better content for blogs is a time consuming process and needs a lot of motivation. But once you are able to keep spirits up you can be a better writer of blogs. Earlier it takes much time to write a content but as you go on writing the process will become a bit easier and less time taking.

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Is your blog not getting the traffic you have expected? Are you getting occasional or no comments on your blog? Are you blogging without being noticed? If your answer to these questions is 'yes' then probably you have not mastered the art of commenting or haven't commented on blogs at all.


I myself have been a kind of blogger who doesn't care of commenting on other blogs because of time constraints. I started commenting only recently and I can see the results coming as a spike in my blog traffic. Also I have been able to come closer to some of the bloggers of my niche.


I have noticed that not all comments translate into traffic or relationship. But there are some specific types which bring in more traffic and buzz than others.Based on my own experience and after talking to some of the bloggers I have come up with a list of some tips to master the art of commenting which I will discuss in paragraphs that follows.


Be an eager participant rather than just a comment maker-

An eager participant adds value to the post and injects some useful thoughts into the post through his comments. And one who is just a comment maker will write one-liners like, "Great post" or "hey! visit my site example.com" or something similar having no value.These sort of comment do more harm than benefit in long run.It is better not to comment if you have no ideas or thoughts. Commenting just to make comments doesn't help in anyway.


Treat Your comments like very short posts-

Yeah !! Comments are not just thoughts they are actual content and may contain some valuable information like actual blogposts. Just think, if you have to write 5-10 lines on a topic on your own blog what those lines would be? Those 5-10 lines you think off is your comment.Of course, the information you deliver through those lines should be unique.

Remember the words that has come before your eyes million times- 'Content is King'. Producing quality content will boost your blog's reputation no matter whether you are pouring it in your blog or somewhere else through comments.


Don't cross the fine line between being critical and being harsh-

Different people have different views or opinions on a topic. As a blogger I would love to get some critical comments simply because they add a different angle of perception on topic. Most of the bloggers I know don't mind critical comments either.

But criticism should be constructive and should be done in a humble way. Don't bash the blog author with aggressive words.Be polite while presenting your angle.While criticising a point or post as a whole make sure you support your views with some solid facts and citations. A poorly supported critic may bounce back on you and hurt your reputation as a blogger.


Try to build relationship with blog author and readers-

Much of the bloggers success depends on his/her potential to build relationships.Although there are many techniques to build relationship but the best I reckon is to get a bit personal in your conversation.The more personal you become the more chances are there that you will get closer.Be helping and expect or demand nothing in return.


Make your comments stand out of others-

OK you have poured in a great piece of advice or information in your comment but what if it doesn't get noticed.The whole effort will go in vain. Most blog readers read a few comments and then skip others.This is particularly true if a post contains a large number of comments.Let us suppose there are 100 comments on a particular post.Now the readers will not be able to notice all of them if you are not making your comments stand out.

Most of the blogs allow certain html tags ,like, bold, italic etc. Just make your important points bold. Things written in bold can draw the attention of readers as they are easily visible stand out of the things written in normal text.



I think comments are the most potent way of building relationships and network, the most vital thing to become successful blogger. Unlike social bookmarking sites comments help you drive targeted traffic and that is why I think every blogger should learn the art of commenting.

If you have anything to add or otherwise anything to share on the topic you can let me know through comments.I will be more than happy to hear from you.

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RSS, (Really Simple Syndication) has become so popular today and is being referred to by internet users as "Pull" Technology rather than "Push" Technology.

It's difficult to imagine that anyone who logs on to the Internet has not heard of "Spam." Most, If not all Internet users are inundated with these
advertisements, that we did not ask for or request.

For those of you that may not be familiar with the term, rest assured we're not talking about canned meat here. LOL! Rather, it is unwanted advertising from people that we neither asked for or requested to recieve. Spam is "Push" technology. "Pushed" in your face and inbox, wanted or not.



Many believe this brand of "Push" technology is or will be, the death of email. Yet, as long as there are individuals and companies that continue to use the illegal spam process, email will be around for
a long long time. The irony being, companies are raking in millions, selling spam solutions, to people and big corporations, that are Not Working!

RSS, is the Total Opposite of the above "Push" technology. When subscribing to an RSS Feed, subscribers "Pull" information into their RSS Readers and can only be done so if someone voluntarily subscribes to a particular RSS Feed. If they find it's not the information they want, they can simply unsubscribe and never have to recieve another message from the owner of that particular feed. Hence the term "Pull" Technology.

Utilizing RSS "Pull" technology has become a popular source of income for webmasters that use RSS Feeds on their websites. Here's How:

Let's say, you set up a one page mini-site or you could even set up a Blog. A Blog would be a quick and easy
alternative.

You can then host ads from either Google Adsense or the New Yahoo look alike Google Ads. When someone visits
your page and clicks one of your ads, You Get Paid.

If you've followed along and done the steps above, you've created a good starting place. You're going to need to
make sure your pages are optimized properly. This will ensure you get your page ranked high in the search engines.
Like any site or page, the more targeted traffic you get, greater are the chances that someone will click your ads.
Which increases your Income.

Now, by using the power of RSS you increase your pages earning potential. When you add an RSS Feed
to your page, you convert it into an ever changing, dynamic web page. Bringing you an abundance of visitors who, in all probability will return to read it.

Especially if you add 10 or 15 RSS Feeds to your page. You will create a dynamic, ever changing, self updating page. Providing valuable content that readers will want to read, over and over again.


Any web page can be turned into a dynamic web page. Just use the free RSS creator software called "Carp" This is one of the most popular free versions and can be downloaded here: http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/

After you set the program up on your website and added the proper code to your website, then you will
need to collect RSS feeds that relate to the topic of your web page.

You've got your web page, It's topic is about writing articles. Go to Google News, Get their RSS Feed Code, Insert it into the designated Carp Coding, then make the necessary changes found below: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=writing+articles&ie=UTF-8&output=rss

Same with Topix.net, adjust the code like this: http://rss.topix.net/search/?q=writing+articles&xml=1

Once you've got your web page uploaded, It will automatically pull in fresh content from Google and Topix about writing articles.

Do these things for any web page and watch your search engine ranking soar and also your Income!

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One thing that can make you a distinguished blogger is your content. Look out in the blogosphere and you will find that every successful blogger generates high quality content consistently. Because it is content which builds enormous links , it is content that brings lots of traffic to your blog and, it is content and only content which skyrockets your blog readership .In short content is vital for your success as blogger.This is the reason why content is regarded as king.

Creating high quality content is a skill not every one knows. If you are a kind of blogger who is quite serious to generate rockstar content for your blog then this post was specially written for you. Before I start I would like to tell you that creating content requires a lot of motivation and work on your part. But if you are a serious blogger this doesn’t pose any problem for you.

To generate a blogpost of high value a blogger need to follow five points. These five points are-

1) Find topics people are interested in.

2) Research on topics people are interested.

3) Organize the points you have found during researching.

4) Write a very attractive title or headline.

5) Take care during writing content body..

Now I will take each of these points one by one and tell the things in great detail.Let us take the first point here.

Find topics people are interested in-

It is vital to choose a topic in which people are interested. Much of your success as a blogger depends on the people who read you. If they like you and your content, you are successful if they don't you are a failure.This is why a blogger has to respect the interests of the communities. But the question is how one could know what people are interested in? Here I will tell you some ways to get an idea about likes and dislikes of the readers.

1) Through polls- Polls are a very good media to get an idea about the likes and dislikes of people. Just run a poll on your blog and see what people seek from you. If you don’t have good amount of traffic on your blog then results of polls can sometimes be misleading. In such case take a look on the other blogs (with high readership) of same niche and see the poll stats of those blogs.

2)Through forums- Forum is site where people discuss their issues ,problems ,and questions and other members answer the questions.Forums are great place to see what people are interested in.Just look what questions are most frequently asked and the answers of those questions can be one of your posts.

As a blogger you must respect the likes of your audience or you run the risk of being neglected.

Research on the topic people are interested

Once you know the the topic/s of interest your next job is to research the topic. Just try to increase your knowledge base as much as you can. Note down any point which you would like to mention in your post. Forums are again great site to get some content for your blog. You can get some exciting ideas and points from forums. Read some other blogs , websites , journals and books to make your research perfect.

Organize the points you have found during researching

You get a very big list of points while researching the topic. Now the next job is to organize the points. Just rate the points according to importance or sequence (in which points should come) or any other criteria you think will fit best. Organizing the points is often missed by most of the bloggers. Although organizing your point is not that important if you have a short list of points but It would be nice to organize as it makes the task of writing a bit easier.

Write a very attractive title or headline

Although the title contains only a few words but it is the most important part of your content and so, a blogger must pay attention and spend some time on the headline of the content. The title or headline is often written in bigger font and in catching colour , so, it is first part that is noticed by the blog visitors. The title should be regarded as the advertising hoarding of your content.

But the question here is- What a title should be like? Well your title should -

1) Tell what your post is about

2) Contain your primary keyword ( For visibility in search engine)

3) Generate curiosity in reader’s or blog visitor’s mind (Most important)

Just ask yourself how you would describe your post if you have to do it in a sentence or a few words. The sentence you make can be your title often after some refinement. Similarly, incorporating your primary keyword in the title is quite easy to do.But what actually is tough ask is , generating curiosity in reader’s mind. I have some tips to do this although I am not sure if these will work every time.

Well there are variety of bloggers doing variety of things to make the title more intriguing. Many bloggers including me use words like ‘How to’ , ‘Tips’ and ‘Tutorial’ to make title more attractive. Others use the technique of shock, confusion and sometimes big claims. But sometimes these techniques bounce back on you when you don’t live upto the expectations.

Many times I use the actual question asked in some forum or a blog as my title. I have researched on some of the posts and found that the posts with such titles do better than others. You can see it yourself on your blog.

Take care during writing content body

While writing content take care of following points –

1. Be to the point yet descriptive.

2. Write paragraphs of 3-4 sentences. Long paragraphs can strain readers eyes and so readers on the net don’t like long paragraphs.

3. Write your most important points upfront. Readers spend very little time on one site instead they flick between websites like people flick between channels while watching TV. So, you have just a few seconds to convince the visitors. Keeping important points on top can make use of those few seconds.

4. Don’t copy sentences of other bloggers .If at all you want copy something then copy ideas and relate it in your own unique way. Don’t forget to give credit to the original blogger.

5. Try to write your stuff in a different way. Remember successful person don’t do different things they do the same thing differently. So, try to be different from others. Even if you are presenting the same stuff, present it in some different way as others.

6. Write simple sentences and avoid using jargons. Write for everyone rather than for some handful who can understand hefty language and jargons.

7. Try to throw a joke or two every now and then. This lightens the mood and make reading more enjoyable.

8. Make use of images and graphs wherever needed. Images and graphs help readers understand the topic you are writing on.

9. Be personal and original you while writing the post. Write as if you are talking to your readers. Just imagine how you would talk with your friend while discussing the topic and write the same sentences.

10. One last tip- don’t write when you are angry or frustrated or drunk.

Writing content is an art and only some people are gifted to generate good quality content but of course, if you follow these points you can sharpen the skill of writing on the blog.

If you have something or some point which you would like to discuss ,you are most welcome to discuss it through comments. I will be more than happy to hear from you.

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Image by Getty Images via DaylifeOne of the most important factor which can make you a successful blogger is your content.If you are able to produce quality content and you can do it consistently then there is no reason why you can't become a successful blogger.Furthermore, the quality of your content depends on what you do before writing your post.You select topic , you research and there are much more things you do before writing your post.Here in this post I am going talk about the things you should do before writing your post.



I would suppose that you have already selected a topic to write a post on.If you have not selected your topic ,I would suggest you to take a look at my post on selection of topic.Once you have selected your topic you would prepare yourself to write post.A good preparation involves following steps-

• Visit forums and see what questions people are asking on topic.

• Research and get answers of those questions.

• Organize your findings on the basis of importance.

• Research for keywords

Visit forums and see what questions people are asking on the topic you have selected-

This is important as if you are able to answer the questions which is hovering in other people's mind then there is all likelihood that they will appreciate your work just because you are actually answering their queries through your posts.Secondly, you get an idea about what should be discussed in detail and what should be left.


There is a very easy method of finding forums on your selected post through google search.Just type in "your topic"+ "forum" and you will get a list of forums in which people discuss their issues relating to that topic.


Make a list of questions people have frequently asked in the forums.This will give you a fair idea about what people are interested in.

Research to get answers of questions people have asked in forums-

Once you have a list of most frequently asked questions ,you should start your hunt for getting answers of those questions. Research the topic and get as many material as you can on the topic.Scan through some quality websites or blogs, read books and scholarly articles on the topic and make all efforts to get the answers of the questions you have listed.


Write down any point you would like to mention on a piece of paper or MS word document or a text file.Make a list of points that you would mention in your post.

Organize the points you have found while researching-

Most of the people using net don't read the full post but scan through the post. Furthermore, Things on the top of the post are more often read than on the bottom of the post.So, to make an impression and to bind your visitors with your post you need to keep your most important points on the top of the post.


Organize your points according to importance.But to organize your points you have to identify your important points first.In general, answers to the question most frequently asked are more important.Another good criteria is- little known things are more important than more known and widely discussed points.

Research your keywords-

Researching your keywords is necessary because keywords help people to reach to your posts or blog.There is no meaning of a great content when nobody is able to find it.So,researching your keywords before writing a post will be nice and fruitful thing to do.


Think of keywords or phrases which people might use to find you.Make a list of 10 such keywords or phrases and analyse them for search volume and competition.Then pick 3-5 keywords with high search volume and least competition.This is the basics of keyword research.



Writing a post in a blog is like appearing in examination.If you don't prepare well you are likely to fail.So, you must pay attention on the points I have mentioned above in order to keep your preparation tight.Once you prepare well you are able to create quality content.

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Today I was going through one of the posts on bloggerbuster when one of the posts there drew my attention.The blogpost was about the time of publishing the post.Although I knew that blog posting time does affects traffic to some extent but I have never researched on the topic.


According to the facts and research results written there the best time to publish on a blog is 10 am to 2 pm PST (Pacific standard time). This time correlates with the time when online users are most active in US.


If your visitors come from some other part of the world you can calculate the the best time to publish accordingly.These results are based on a research carried out by Jake Luciani and was done by analyzing about 10,000 entries from social bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious ,Reddit and Mixx.


While going through the research results I came across an astonishing fact.According to Luciani the worst time to publish your posts is on weekends between 3pm and 5 pm. Earlier most of the bloggers including me were of the opinion of publishing during weekends as less blogs are updated during this time.So, the facts coming out from Luciani's research came as a surprise for me.


But Luciani has supported his point with nice graphs and charts which you can find here.Further details can be found here.

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Many of you would have seen a "top posts" block in sidebar in many of blogs which you have seen.This top post block lists the link of some of the posts which are either most viewed or are most appreciated by the readers. In this post I will discuss about the benefits of having a top post block on a blog and how to make a top post block in your sidebar.


Benefits of listing your top posts in the sidebar-

Listing your top posts has got importance both for your SEO campaign and for readers who reach your blog.

1. The readers of your blog has the convenience of getting to your most rated or top posts from any of your pages on the blog. As a blogger you must take care of the convenience of your readers. And by making a list of top posts you actuallyfacilitate browsing between your blog posts.
   


2. Most of the surfers of the internet are lazy or are in haste. So, they will never make an effort to find good posts on you blog themselves unless you tell them what is worth reading on your blog.The best way of telling about your best posts is to list them in your sidebar as top posts.


3. Making a list of top posts has a great utility from SEO point of view. Once you place links of your top posts in the sidebar, your top posts get a sitewide link from your blog. This helps your best posts to climb up in the search engine rankings.

I think now you get the point that why it is necessary to list your top posts in your sidebar.But the question here is , How should you do that? Well in the following paragraphs I am going to answer the questions like, What method you should adopt to choose your top posts? What factors you should take into account to choose your top posts? How to decide that which posts should come first and which later in the lists of top posts?


How to choose your top posts?

Although there are many factors which you can take into account while choosing your top posts but original decision rests on you. What you think is more important in this regard. But some of the factors which you must take into account while choosing top posts are-

1. Number of views.
2. Average time spent on the post..
3. No. of comments on the post.
4. Your personal choice.

Number of views and avg. time spent on the post can be found through google analytics. If you don't have an analytics account I would recommend you to get one. Its completely free.Pageviews and avg. time spent on a post can be valuable parameter in selecting your top post. A post with high pageviews and more time spent can be your top post.


No. of comments on a post is another factor which you should cosider while selecting your top post.A post with more number of comments mean it is being read and appreciated and thus can be one of your top posts.


Most of the bloggers only consider stats such as views and avg. time etc. in deciding their top posts and easily forget their own choices. But I will recommend to include a post which you like in your top posts even if its stats are not encouraging.


You can use any of the above mentioned factors either solely or in conjunction to choose or select you top posts. I use all these factors to select my top posts and will recommend this method.



Should I use a plugin to make a list of top posts if I am a wordpress user-


There is a plugin for wordpress blogs which can make a list of top posts for you. Well this sounds good as you don't have to raise even your fingers to list your posts and the task is done with few clicks with the help of small piece of software.

The main drawback is that this plugin only considers pageviews in deciding your top posts which I think is not good.It doesn't cosiders avg. time spent on the page/ post or comments which I think are valuable parameters. Secondly, the plugin makes use of javascripts to lists your posts which means you will not get the SEO benefits as search engines are blind to javascripts.

My advice would be to refrain yourself from using this plugin and make the list manually with the use of html. This will give you a dual benefit.



So, now I think you will be eager to place a top posts block in your sidebar. Do consider adding top posts on your blog's sidebar if you haven't done so yet.I have just added a top posts block on this blog which you can see on right side of this page.

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Why do you blog? Do you blog to promote your business? Do you blog to support a product or a service? Does your blog have a narrow or broad focus?


Some people blog for personal reasons: they blog to promote a cause like the importance of cancer research. Some people blog to promote affiliate programs or to share their knowledge about a topic. Others blog to promote their home business, to differentiate themselves from the competition or to let people know more about the products and services that their company has to offer.


Regardless of why you blog, regardless of whether your blog is focused on one element of one service or around a network of products and services, you'll find that your blog needs one thing in order to be successful: content.


Without regularly updated content, your readers will not have a reason to keep coming back to your blog. Without regularly updated content, your readers won't be learning anything new from your blog. At that point, no matter why you are blogging, you'll start to realize that you are not accomplishing the goals that you set for your blog.


There are plenty of companies that will tell you what to do to find blog content. They will tell you that, in order to have a successful blog, all you need to do is visit article directories and repost content that's relevant to your blog. The problem is that, when you do this, you're still not offering your readers anything new.


The next group will tell you that, rather than visiting article directories you should look into purchasing private label rights for content. Private label rights content can be eBooks or articles that can be broken down, sold, relabeled with your name or title or that can be rewritten: when you buy the rights, you can use the information.


In theory, private label rights content is only a good investment if you purchase it as a framework, an inspiration for creating something new. Many people however, use the private label rights content as it is. They too, however, do not offer readers of their blogs anything new.


Even if everyone rewrote the content in the PLR articles they purchased, it would still not be original content. Think about it. 100 people buy the same article and each rewrites it a little. Do you think that each of the 100 articles will be significantly different from the others?


Plus, when your readers find only the same information they find elsewhere, you'll quickly find that they don't keep coming back to your blog. The only way to hang onto your readers is to offer them fresh relevant content. In order to provide the fresh relevant content that your readers are looking for, you have two options: write the content yourself or hire someone who will be able to write it for you.



While blogging enables everyone to be a writer, there will be times when you find yourself at a loss for words or too busy to contribute to your own blog. These are the times when you will benefit the most from having a content writer. Your content writer can create articles of the length you specify, using your topics and keywords and provide you with content that is yours and yours alone.



If you're looking for fresh content on a regular basis, there is an additional option. Rather than hiring a content writer to provide an article or series of articles, you could hire a blog content provider who will manage your blog, optimize it for search engines and readers and create fresh content daily.


The right blog content provider can work with you to create a blog that meets or exceeds all of your goals whether you're writing to promote a cause or a business. With fresh, relevant content each and every day, your blog's readers will have a reason to come back again and again.

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RSS has been around for more than 10 years but has only recently become popular. RSS provides headlines and summaries of information in a concise and standardized way.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (although versions before RSS 2.0 have been known by other names).


RSS feeds are written in a computer language called XML, a special mark up language much like HTML This means that they have mechanisms included that identify structures in a document. The structures define the content and how that content will be displayed within that document. RSS is what makes big news websites possible: RSS files are used to create a data feed which will deliver headlines, links or virtually any other piece of information to a channel viewer application, commonly called a news reader.


In simple terms, an RSS feed is a system that allows web content to be put into a standard format for viewing through an RSS feed reader. It allows the user to save time and effort by viewing recent content from many different websites, without having to visit the sites in question.


RSS Feeds or news feeds are growing quickly and have become a major part of the Internet but many users don't understand what they are. They allow people to see when their favourite websites have added new content without actually having to go to that web site, this can be done through simple, often free pieces of software named RSS readers.


Using RSS feeds is a great way to keep up to date with the latest posts from your favourite blogs and websites. You can use RSS feeds to get the latest news, weather,or movies, and be able to read them all in one place. RSS gives you the ability to have other websites have up to date, accurate information from you online in seconds. Headline news, technical articles, website updates, security alerts, or your favorite food recipes are just a few of the things that you can syndicate!


Many people set up RSS feeds to update in their My Yahoo, or Google page. You can also use them to keep informed with any groups that you belong to.


Rss feeds also can be used for online marketing very effectively.


If you want to promote your website, using RSS can get your URL listed with all search engines fast and easy. No more waiting weeks for your URL to get listed with search engines, RSS marketing allows this to happen almost immediately. This is certainly a good choice for new web pages that are looking to increase web traffic. Another awesome aspect of RSS marketing is that it can get your web page returned as the number one result for your web pages' most popular keywords.


For example, take a look at these results reported on MarketingStudies.net:
W. Atlee Burpee &nbspCo. (the garden seed people) saw their RSS strategy help them increase November sales by four times from just one trial feed featuring a 'seed of the day'.
USAToday.com reports that their RSS traffic is 'rising month after month by orders of magnitude', even though they are barely promoting their RSS feeds.


The need to provide fresh content is a challenge for most webmasters. Rss feeds are an easy solution to this problem. RSS feeds create a ever changing source of content syndication and need very little maintenance once set up. There are several advantages to using RSS feeds as a source of fresh content to your site.


Fresh content keeps your site visitors coming back and continually adds value to your website. It helps to establish you as an authority in your industry and makes people more comfortable buying from your site. RSS feeds greatly aids your site in obtaining higher ranking in the search engines.

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Your blog can be used effectively to get repeat visitors to your blog. As an internet home business owner, getting a person to visit your blog for the first time may already seem hard work, but what do you need to do to entice the same reader to visit your blog continuously. How do you get repeat visitors to your blog? It certainly is not hard work, but it does require a conscious effort from you to learn a few easy yet effective techniques to make this happen. If there is something that I can share with you, it is that if you can succeed in making your new blog visitors feel really at home, well half the work is already done.


First impressions Last

It is a common knowledge that the first impression of an event, a person, or an activity last forever. In internet marketing, this is still valid when your reader visits your blog for the first time. It is important therefore that your blog’s font size is large enough with a good and nice design. If you have a unique design, this is even better and it may lead to a certain branding that people can identity as yours. Remember always that your blog is being read by many readers, not just yourself, so how you personally like your blog to look like may not be that important after all.



Don’t Over Focus On Your Keywords

Many people tend to place too much emphasis on SEO in their blogs as they wish to get top search engine ranking for their internet home business site. It has been an acceptable practice that when you write to repeat your keyword or keyword phrases and sprinkling them throughout the article post. Although this is a good practice to follow and eventually your search engine ranking does improve due to this blogging technique, there is unfortunately a downside to it.

Your readers may eventually get a little bored with your posts and stop visiting your blog. You should therefore try to focus on a narrower topic but mix it with other content to attract your blog visitors, new and old. You should also consider content swap in which you exchange blog posts with other bloggers.

This offers your readers fresh content as well as present a different style of writing too. It is a first step towards getting your repeat visitors to your blog and ultimately to your online business opportunity.



Squidoo Lens, Blog and RSS Feed

There is a relation among your squidoo lens, your internet home business website and your blog. With squidoo, you can create a lens or a free page. This lens consists of various modules that you can choose from. Every module contains a different category such as text, eBay opportunities, Reader Feedback, RSS Feed, Your Tube videos etc. However, many marketers seem to neglect the RSS module.

Simply putting your blog RSS Feed address into this module allows your latest blog posts to appear in your squidoo lens. To create a good lens, it is important to choose a topic that is related to what your blog offers to your readers. It is easy to create a squidoo lens but it is important to make a good one so as to generate free targeted traffic and repeat visitors to your blog.



Blog Frequency

You really need to blog frequently if you want to see repeat visitors to your blog.. The more often you blog the better it is, but I would say you should blog at least weekly. You can also consider blog posts from other bloggers, which provide your readers some variety and a different perspective to your usual work at home business ideas.

You must remember that your visitors subscribe to your blog because they like what you have written, the service you provide and the internet home business ideas your blog offers. So if you don’t blog frequently they may be tempted to just unsubscribe. Remember that your subscribers contribute to your free targeted traffic to your blog, so not only do you need to bring in new visitors, but it is important also to keep those in your subscription list satisfied as well.



Value Readers’ Comments

Your readers’ comments on your blog posts are important and you should review and reply them as soon as they are received. A comment posted by your reader may arise as a result of his agreeing, disagreeing with you or seeking clarification on what’ your have written.


There are some very good techniques that you can use to encourage your internet home business readers to give their valuable comments on your blog. A good blogging technique that I have learned is to engage my readers’ feedback and responses. You can do this by asking a question in your post, usually towards the end of your post. Do remember that writing a blog post is a lot different than writing for a newspaper article, in which you present all possible scenarios of the topic to a very passive audience.


In a blog, you should try to encourage and engage the reader to provide comment and feedback and share his experience on the topic. Inviting participation like this is good for getting your traffic and your visitors. The reader may be interested to find out more about the topic and like to read up on the new responses that are received. Getting high traffic and repeat visitors to your blog in this way is common, if the topic is thought provoking, interesting ant the right blogging technique is used.

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Today, the internet is overflowing with content and there is a growing demand for articles on just about any topic ranging from cosmetics to construction material. However, not everyone can write a good flowing article and people often hire out freelance writers to write articles for them. This is probably why Article Writing in itself has become a fast growing profession that more and more people are taking to for earning a real income.

Here are 5 tips on how to write a great blog post:

1. Attention Grabbing Headline/ Title

It does not matter how well written your article is unless you have an eye-catching headline. Most of the time, when people are looking for information on the Internet, they tend to click on the catchy or inviting headlines instead of the boring and the mundane topic names.


2. Simplify Your Words

It is also important to remember that people who surf the internet come from various backgrounds and are usually looking for some information or the other. So in order to reach out to a wider base of readers, you must try to use simple words that are easy for everyone to read and understand rather than use big words that would confuse readers. Also, when catering to a wider audience, it is important to stay away from technical terms. For example PLR Articles maybe a common term for an Internet Marketer, but it is something that an accountant will know nothing about.


3. Use Short Sentences and Paragraphs

When surfing the web, the attention span of most people is reduced to 9 seconds, equivalent to that of a goldfish. In other words, people tend to be a lot more impatient when reading from a screen as compared to reading from a book. This is why it is important to keep your sentences and paragraph short, simple and to the point. Another way to keep your readers attention would be to use a lot of bulleted points.


4. Make Your Article Conversational

The best way to make your article likable is to break the ice with your readers by using conversational language. To put it simply, try to use the sort of language you are likely to use on an everyday basis. This should make your article feel more personable and your readers will take personal interest in your article because they feel you are talking directly to them.



5. Infuse Your Personality Into The Article

When writing an article, try to inject some of your personality into it as well. For instance, you could mention if you had any personal experience related to the article or if you particularly like something related to your content. You may even slip in a light joke or two to entertain the reader as long as it is funny and goes in sync with your article. Whatever you do, the basic idea is to let the reader know that there is an actual human person who has written the article. Doing so will eventually lead to forge a relationship with your prospects.



To conclude, there are always different approaches to different cases and though you may be able to use all the above mentioned tips in some cases, you can only use one or two of the techniques in most cases. And I am sure you will learn more about how to write a good article as you go along.

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Social bookmarking sites like stumble upon are proven way of getting more hits on your blog. But to really get much purchase from social bookmarking sites you have to constantly indulge your self in these sites and be active as long as you blog. But there is a shortcut with stumble upon which I will talk about in this post.

Before I start ,I must tell you that this is the unethical way of getting more hits on your blog but as such, you will not break any rules or violate any terms of services. The trick I am going to tell you makes use of a pitfall in stumble upon which you can utilize to get more hits on your blog.

Now get ready to discover the secrets as I am going to tell you the secret of getting more hits on blog in a stepwise manner.

Step- 1 –

Register yourself for stumble upon with five different usernames. Five is the minimum but if you have enough time you can make as many as 10 or even more accounts. But 5 will also do.

Step- 2 –

Add friends with all your accounts. So, if you add 50 friends with each of your five accounts you will have 250 friends and if you make 100 friends you will have 500 friends through your 5 accounts.

The friends you add should be interested in the niche in which you are blogging.This is important as it will give you the maximum results.It is easy to find interested members if you make the use of tag feature of stumble upon.

Step- 3 –

Just start stumbling your own posts once you have completed making friends. Add your posts to stumble upon through all your five accounts. The unique feature of stumble upon is that even 2-3 stumbles can bring thousand of hits on your blog.This is what this trick makes use of.

The posts you have stumbled will appear on the "pages liked by friends on your friends" page. And that will act as hits on your blog. Furthermore , if any of your friends like your post and stumble it then it will feature in their friends page and so on.

I think the working is quite simple and very effective to get more hits on the blog. Once again I would like to remind that this is unethical way as users are not liking your pages but it is you yourself who is adding your pages to stumble upon. But it doesn’t violates any TOS and rules of stumble upon or any other site. In fact stumble upon allows you to add your own posts and blogs unlike digg and other social bookmarking site.

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I am quite excited to announce that the my blog “Blogging guides : Blogging Advice to make money blogging” has got page rank of 3 in the latest update of google pagerank by google. Although pagerank 3 doesn’t sounds good pagerank for a serious blogger but knowing that I am part time blogger and till now I was not really serious for building links , I think this is a great achievement.

Well in this post I have decided to let you know , what I have done uptill now to get links for my blog.

1) I have submitted my blog to about 100 directories in a gradual phased manner.

2) Only occasionly I have commented on some blogs.

3) I have taken part in google groups and left my link beneath every comment I have made.

4) I have linked my blog to my other blogs which I use for researching purposes only.

5) I have internally linked my post wherever I get chance to link.

I think I have not made use many link building techniques like, link exchange , buying links and article marketing. I also need to be more active in commenting on other blogs and in forums which can boost my pagerank and search engine ranking.

Well now I have plans for building links for next three months which I think can implement. Now I have a per day schedule for my link building strategies. In one sentence I am really getting serious for building links which I was not earlier.

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As a blogger you might have faced the problem of not getting ideas to blog on every now and then. This is specially true if you are around for more than an year or your blog covers a small niche.Although the definitive solution to this problem would be to plan your blogging beforehand and to choose a bigger niche on which you can blog indefinitely but if you get this problem even after planning and good niche choice then this blog entry is written for you.


First of all I must say that don't panic when you have nothing to write or talk about on your blog.This is quite normal phenomenon and occurs with every single blogger sometime during their blogging career.


OK now I will talk about the tips any blogger should follow if he/ she runout of ideas to write a blogpost.


Read your own blogposts you have written months before -

There are very few bloggers who look back to their own posts. Think yourself , how many times you have read your own posts published months back ? Although this will take sometime but this can be fruitful to extract ideas to blog. Once you read out your own post , you get some points you have missed or some updates about the post.

The missed points or updates you notice can be the theme of one of your blog articles.Apart from getting ideas to blog , reading your own post gives you some opportunity to internally link your newer posts with the older ones.


Take a look into the forums and see what questions people are asking -

Forums are very very useful for bloggers as you are able to know what questions are irking people and if you are able to answer them through your blog your work will be appreciated.Just make a list of questions people have asked in forums.

After making a list of questions , see what questions has been answered through one of the blogposts and what questions has not been answered. The questions which has not been answered becomes one of the potential blogpost of your blog.


Read out other blogs of your niche

Many a times I have found ideas for blogging through one fo the posts of other bloggers of same niche as mine. The moment you get something interesting you may write the point on your blog with your own opinion the subject. Here I must say that you must copy the ideas not the word and opinion of other blogger. Be yourself while expressing thoughts on a particular subject.


Have a look at quality article directories

Sometimes I do take a look at some article directories and while browsing through the articles actually I discover some udeas to blog on.This works quite fine for me and I think it will also work for you. The plus point of article directories is that you get multiple articles on multiple subjects which are written by many authors all with their own style.

I would like to emphasize here that don't copy articles from article directories instead write yourself it is good not only for search engine optimization but also for long term success as a blogger.



In short , ideas are there scattered all over place no matter from where you tke it from but always think of ideas or subjects in which people are interested and be original yourself.I would once again repeat one of the things i have said earlier that planning and niche choice will help you not getting burnt out but once you do runout of topics you must take a look around yourself, I am sure something will click in to your mind.

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As I have already said in my previous post on link building by post exchange through smorty that link building is getting tougher and tougher for bloggers.In this post I will talk about ten powerful ways to build links. The ways or tips I will talk about here are working pretty fine and most importantly they are free (absolutely free rather!!)

So, without wasting your much of the time I am going to discuss all the points one by one. Here comes the first one-

1) Write quality content which stands out of the crowd-

This is the most powerful way of building links. If you are generating some good quality content and you are doing it consistently other bloggers will give away links to you without you asking for it.

Here I would like to make it clear that not all types of content will give you links. There are some specific type of content which will give you more links than others. In general an updated unique content or a controversial post will bring you more links than other types of post. But while writing a controversial post you must have some solid facts to support your controversial points or it may bounce back on you and your reputation will go down.

2) Tag your internal links with rel=”tag” attribute-

This is very little known technique of building links. The beauty of this tip is that you get oneway link by just adding a code in your internal links.To link to some page you use the code which looks something like this-

To build links you need to use the code like this-

Note that ,I have just added a small piece of code “rel=tag” (in red) to the existing one.

You might be wondering how does it works. Well working of this method is simple. Some of the services like, Technorati ,icerocket etc. allow you to tag your posts.The spiders used by them recognizes rel=tag attribute and indexes them on their pages and this indexed page of yours act as a live link for your blog which is one way and does follow.

3) Make some videos and upload them on sites like youtube-

Youtube can be used to build links for your blog as well as drive some trffic if your video is liked by the users. But here I will talk about link building only. Well once you start uploading your videos on youtube , you have to fill up some form before uploading. In the description of the video you may give a live link back to your blog.

The disadvantage of this method is that you are not able use an anchor text for your link.

4) Guest posts on other blog-

You can write guest posts on other blogs.This is a win win situation as the other blog gets content and you get links for your blog. So, try to persuade other bloggers to write a guest post on their blog.Also, the links you get will be contextual which according to google are more valued than other links.

5) Press releases-

I have not seen many bloggers doing this but believe me this is one of the most advantageous way of building links. If you have anything worth mentioning or announcing to the world then you must consider a press release.It also brings some popularity and some traffic to your blog.

6) Submit your blog to web directories-

Submit your blog to as many directories as you can. This is proven way of building traffic to your blog. There are many softwares available on the net which can submit your blog to many directories at once. But make the process gradual.It is better to submit your blog to a dozen directories at a time than to submit to 1000 directories all at once.

7) Article marketing-

Article marketing is writing some content which others can use on their site or blog with a link back to your blog through the authors bio. This is done through the article directories. All you need to do is write some good articles and submit it to as many article directories as you can. There are several article submitter softwares available on the internet. Just download anyone of those and submit your articles to several article directories all at once.

8) Comment on other related blogs-

Commenting on other blogs is a very time consuming way of link building as to get really profitable number of links you need to comment on hundreds of blogs and thousands of pages. But if it is done regularly on day by day basis it can really build some links for your blog in some months. If you are commenting to get links then you must make sure that links in comments are followed.

9) Be active in forums-

Forum is a place where people share there problems and get answers from other forum user. In most of the forums you are allowed to leave your signature with your blog’s address. So, the more active in forums you are the more links you will get for your blog. But this requires constant motivation for part time bloggers like me.