Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
How To Start a Blog ...And Actually Make Money From It
Citation preview
Starting a Blog 101(Why to blog, choosing a perfect blog topic, choosing a good hosting service, choosing a good domain name, which blogging platform to choose, setting up Wordpress, choosing Wordpress theme, SEO Tips and techniques and Guest blogging etc guide)
Starting a Blog 101 page 2 www.guideandnews.com
How To Start a Blog...And Actually Make Money From It
by Ehsan Ullah Khoshbakht
Table of content:Table of content ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2Copyright and disclaimer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3Introduction -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4Why The World Needs More Blogger? -------------------------------------------------------------------5
Chapter #1: How To Start
1. How To Choose a perfect Blog Topic? --------------------------------------------------------------------72. How To Choose a Best Web Hosting Service ---------------------------------------- --------------------93. How To Choose a Good Domain Name -------------------------------------------------------------------11
Chaptee #2: Setting Up
1. Which Blogging Platform To Choose? --------------------------------------------------------------------132. How To Set Up a Wordpress Blog? ------------------------------------------------------------------------14
Chapter #3: Wordpress1. How To Choose a Perfect Wordpress Themes ------------------------------------------------------------172. 20 Must have Wordpress Plugins. --------------------------------------------------------------------------18
Starting a Blog 101 page 3 www.guideandnews.com
3. Some Wordpress Security Tips To Secure Your Wordpress blog ---------------------------------------22
Chapter#4: Content Creation
1. Creating content – How To Improve Writing Skills ------------------------------------------------------252. Adding Images In Blog Posts --------------------------------------------------------------------------------263. Making Blog Post Popular -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------27
Chapter #5: Networking
1. Things I Did To Increase My Blog Comments ------------------------------------------------------------282. Networking – Why and How To Treat Your Blog Like a Social Networking Blog ------------------29
Chapter #6: SEO
1. 21 Crispy SEO Tips – All You Need To Know About SEO ----------------------------------------------302. Top 10 SEO Optimization Tips To Get 1st Rank on Google ----------------------------------------------35
Chapter #7: Guest Blogging
1. The Benefits of Guest Blogging ------------------------------------------------------------------------------392. Branding Your Niche When Guest Blogging ---------------------------------------------------------------40
Copyright and Disclaimer:
Copyright 2012, 13, Ehsan Ullahhttp://www.guideandnews.com
All of the content in this ebook belongs to the publisher and It's not allowed to copy the content (in parts or as whole) of this eBook without permission.
This isn't too big nor too small Ebook, It's normal eBook of 42 pages with complete guide on starting a blog for newbies.
I have made a lot of hard work and effort to give you proper, actual and reliable information on starting a blog, but
there's no guarantee that all the information, tips and tricks are up to date, valid or correct.
Some of the photos and images on this Ebook were downloaded from www.FreeDigitalPhotos.Net
Some of the links in this eBook are affiliate links, that means If you buy something using those links, I'll earn a small commission for that (Thanks so much for supporting my effort, you make this
possible). I will only recomment products that I'm currently using.
Starting a Blog 101 page 4 www.guideandnews.com
Introduction:
I would like to start with thanks for downloading the report:
Starting a Blog 101, How to start a blog and actually make money from it.
You have shown a lot of faith in my ability to help you start a widely successful blog by grabbing this eBook.
Now before we jump into the strategies and details on where to start a blog and how to take it to the next level, let me go over a few questions you might have.
Who Am I?
My name is Ehsan Ullah. You might have already read something on the About me page of my blog where I've shared all my story on where I began and where I'm right now.
If you haven't yet than maybe someone else told you about this eBook and you decided to check it out based on that recommendation.
Why I'm writing this eBook?
There's a simple answer to that question, and that is to give you A-z guide on starting a blog. I do answer a blogging answer everyday, so in this eBook I thought to put every information you need to know about blogging (A-z). Well, you don't have to ask me the same thing 10 times now.
Secondly, I know what works and what doesn't in blogging because It's what I think about, It's what I love and It's what I do on a daily basis.
What Else?
I'm sure there's everything in this eBook, but unfortunately there's no way to know what is your level of expertise with blogging. You might be complete newbie or you might be more successful than me. No matter in which level you're I urge you read the entire report because I bet you'll find lots of advanced information.
If you're newbie, than I highly recommend you read the entire report to learn all the basics on starting a blog.If you're experienced, than I must say you'll get a lot of advanced information that you've never considered before. So let's dive!
Starting a Blog 101 page 5 www.guideandnews.com
Why The World Needs More Bloggers?
Where does inspiration come from?To do something awesome, something great we need an inspiration.
We need more than calling. We need more then action. We need more than prayers. We need inspiration.
And inspiration comes from others, in un-wished and unexpected way.
I got an inspiration to write this post from a blog post titled, “The Amazing Bloggers”. Yeah! World needs more amazing bloggers. If you can do something great, something awesome that inspires people then world needs you, world is waiting for you.
Share your inspiration with others. People are waiting for you. Even I’m waiting for you to inspire me.
This reminds me a story of bible, where Jesus appears in front of his followers, the people who he’s trained and entrusted to carry on with his work.
There’s just only one problem- they are not doing it. They are afraid.
They have the skills and experience. But they lack the encouragement, to do what they must do.
So, Jesus does something strange – he said that, “Receive the holy spirit”. And then send everybody back to change the world.
And they did it. They changed the world.
You too can do what you wish to do if you find an inspiration.
If you can inspire people with what you say, what you do: there is still a place for you in this world. Still a place for people who thinks more creative, who do extra ordinary things, and also for misfit artist like me.
World needs more blogs:
Few days back, one of my blog readers shot me a mail regarding Startup.
He asked, “I want to start a new blog, but I’m worried that there is any place for me in the blogging world because I think world already have enough numbers of blog. So, there is no chance for me to stand out.”
Reply, “Yes, world still have lots of rooms for upcoming blogs, if you put value into people’s life, if you help people, if you care about your readers, if you keep on improving then there’s still a place for you. You can buy that place in few bucks. And as far as standing out in crowd is concerned, you can easily stand out by being you.
Be real you, because world don’t need any more duplicates. And uniqueness always deserves attentions.”
Starting a Blog 101 page 6 www.guideandnews.com
Great blog begins with intention:
Creating a great blog requires great motives. You can’t set out to do this with sole intention of filling your pockets. Blogging doesn’t work like that; people are smart enough to understand your ruse.
First blog has to provide value to its reader and then your fishy promotional messages.
Blogger’s job is to do the work, not expect the rewards. If you are doing your work with full potential and passion then you’ll receive your reward, not today but of course tomorrow.
So, wait for it. And keep blogging with passion and intention of helping people with your words.
Quality is superior then quantity:
There are lots of bloggers in the blogosphere doing mediocre work. The problem is they think that it’s pretty good, and they refuse to push it on next level that’s what makes it mediocre.
“Good” isn’t enough. If your work is not adding value – if it’s not remarkable enough to recommend- if it’s not inspiring people – then it needs some improvements.
You’ve to sit one more time to do some tweaks, editing to make it more compiling and sharable.
Always work on your work twice or thrice. Try to make it most incredible work that you can possibly do. And then present it in front of your audience.
Create something that worth promoting. Create something that you can’t talk about. Then sure millions of people will find it amazing and reward you for your hard work.
Go do something inspiring, something amazing:
What are you waiting for? It’s time to step forward. It’s time to begin.
The world needs better than mediocre. And so do you, your art. Keep going.
Remember: if you do something awesome then show it to the world, don’t afraid to opinions, failures. Because if you don’t make your work public then it doesn’t matters.
Your work, your art gets better as you keep going and people’s opinion, failure also gets turned into blessing, success as you grow.
So, never make any excuse to settle.
Just keep going, keep facing and keep growing.
My Final words:
If you think, you can inspire people, you can make their life easier then blogosphere needs you.
You’ll not able to get your rewards today or tomorrow but don’t quit.
Just don’t give no matter what happens, what comes in your way keep moving. Keep trying to do what you love to do. Where there’s love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.
Starting a Blog 101 page 7 www.guideandnews.com
Chapter #1: How To Start
1. How To Choose a Perfect Blog Topic:
“The journey of thousand miles starts with one step”Similarly your blogging journey starts with the right topic selection.
Choosing the perfect topic for your blog will decide whether you fail or succeed online.
The best way to choose the right blog topic is: taking some time to decide on the topic which are you are interested in.
I’ll show you few money making topics in this post to give you a better idea about present blogging scenario.
Let me clear few things before choosing the kick ass topic for your blog.
Why do you want to blog?
For money? For personal experience or for popularity? Or for writing about everything you do in your life?
In all cases you need to build a proper planning to create a successful blog.
One of the biggest blogging mistakes which almost 80% of the new bloggers make is that they aren’t able to choose the perfect blog topic for their blogs and that is the reason for their blogging failure.
People will only read your blog if you write useful and quality articles on your blog in a specific topic, so how could you write a quality article on the topic you aren’t interested and don’t have any knowledge on.
How to avoid choosing the wrong blog topic?
Most bloggers start blogging just for making money and they pick a topic which they know pays high commission or the niche they choose is current hot and high paying niche which can make them most money, but they don’t have passion about those topics.
This is the sure fire way to make your blog a failure because you are not going to stick with the topic and when you do not enjoy what you are writing about, then you better quit it.
There are many tips to avoid choosing the wrong blog topic
• Don’t choose a topic that is popular but you know nothing about • Avoid choosing a topic you see others are making money with • Do not choose a topic that someone else recommended it to you
Starting a Blog 101 page 8 www.guideandnews.com
How to choose the right blog topic?
In my opinion, you should focus on the topic in which you are passionate about, not the topic which is high paying and that has brought profits to others.
If you start a blog in your favorite topic it will help you when you need to come up with blog posts. You can share your own ideas and personal experiences about the topic in which you have passion and it’s gonna give you the reason to wake up at morning and continue sharing the things which makes you come alive and which you like.
If your blog topic is something in which you don’t have passion than you can’t write very good articles without crapping and copying others stuff.
How to find your passion?
It’s difficult for many bloggers to find their passion because it requires some serious brain storming, they can’t find the topic in which they are interested in. If you have any difficulty in finding a blog topic then don’t worry I will help you to find your one.
Just think about your daily life routine like what are you doing at free time playing games, cycling, watching TV, traveling, playing soccer and think about what type of blogs or newspapers you read most.
Few popular topics to choose a topic for your blog
• Blogging
• Internet marketing
• SEO
• Social Media, Online marketing, Foods, Celebs, Tutorials and Review etc.
If you are still stumped than ask your friends or family members what you are mainly interested in and what they think you’re good at? They might help you and say something like you are good at cycling or you help their computer problems. This is the way that I found my passion.
This is the way I found my passion, I like writing and typing and I spend more than 2 or 3 hours a day on writing that is why I’ve selected blogging niche.
So find out your passion and make your blog on that topic than it will not be a blogging for you, it will be a game for you which you will enjoy all the time.
Extra tip
I would highly recommend you to choose just one topic for your blog because If you blog about diverse topics such as news, technology, games etc, this will confuse your readers.
If you blog about just one topic then it will help your readers know what they can get from your blog.
Starting a Blog 101 page 9 www.guideandnews.com
2. How To Choose a Best Web Hosting Service:
If you have decided to create your own website and registered a good domain name, now in order to get your webpage to the internet you need to find a web hosting service.
Everyone who has decided to create a website of any kind had to deal with web hosting service.
There are millions of web hosting companies on the internet and many different web hosting packages are available according to the needs of the customers.
It is very daunting task for newbies to find a perfect web hosting service for their website because as I said there are millions of companies who advertise themselves to be the perfect web hosting company, but only few of them are REALLY perfect.
There are many things to consider before choosing a web hosting company, here I’m going share with you some tips that will help you decide on the best web host.
Check Support Quality:
Support becomes the primary factor in case of any problem, hence if it isn’t good, the any other factor obviously doesn’t matter.
Support is the most important thing you need when you come across any issues
I think the best way to check the quality of a web hosting company is to check there support quality. A good web hosting company is one who offers you all the required things and 24/7 live chat support.
Starting a Blog 101 page 10 www.guideandnews.com
Research First:
Make sure you do a good market research before choosing a web host service because there are many hosting providers available and they offer various plans that you can choose from. Each plan comes with different services.
You must search for a popularity of the service before choosing. You aren’t supposed to choose a web host because someone suggested it to you.
Customer Reviews:
The best way to check the popularity of the hosting company is to look for the customer reviews.
You should Google for a particular web hosting company and see what others are saying about them. Are their current or former customers are satisfied with them or no.
Performance:
The performance of your website depends on the service it is hosted on. It is up to you to make sure your website load faster. Make sure to ask their sales team to provide you their server hardware specs.
If your hosting provider uses outdated equipment, knock them off.
Blogging platform supported:
There are many low quality web hosting services which don’t allow us to install Blogging platforms like WordPress on our hosting, so make sure your hosting provider is blogging platform supported.
Cpanel Support:
The company must offer control panel or Cpanel because It is very easy to use and many options are available there like accessing to web FTP, setting up email, account information and sub-domains etc.
Extra support:
A web hosting provider must have a knowledge base blog filled with useful articles and tutorials.
They must also have a ticket board to solve the issues of customers in minimum response time and a forum to clear customers doubts.
Extra offers:
Some high quality hosting services offers some discount on their packages and free domain names for their customers. So make sure to choose a good web host company that has great features.
Bluehost is also most trusted web hosting service for Wordpress bloggers. Bluehost is reliable, trustworthy, knowledgeable and stable. Read my Bluehost Review more details on Bluehost.
Starting a Blog 101 page 11 www.guideandnews.com
3. How To Choose a Good Domain Name:Do you know what the first and most important step of being a successful blogger is?
Yeah, you’re right. It’s a good domain name.
These days domain name plays a huge role in everyone’s internet presence and it is the key to your success in blogging or any other online business.
In this post I’m gonna show you 10 awesome tips on how to choose a good domain name for your blog or website. I know this isn’t a new topic, but I’m sure the tips which you will read here will be something new for you which you never knew before.
How to choose a good domain name:So, Consider these 10 points before choosing a domain name for your blog or website.
1. It must be related to the topic:
Choose a domain name related to the topic of your blog. The worse mistake which some people are making when selecting a domain name is that they are registering their own name as a domain name and they are blogging about Technology or Marketing.
John Chow also described here that selecting his own name as a domain name was his biggest blogging mistake which lost him millions of dollars.
2. Search for a popular domain name:
You can easily collect the attention of people by choosing a popular blog’s similar domain name in your niche.
For example, if your niche is Blogging than the most popular blog in blogging niche is “ProBlogger.net”, now you need to search for a similar domain names like “ProBlogging.com”, “Pro-Blogger.com”, “Bloggingpro.com” and “ProBlogTips,com” etc.
I’m sure by doing this you will find a good domain name for your blog.
3. Make it easy to type and remember:
You will lose the value of your blogging, branding and marketing if your domain name is difficult to type and remember due to it’s length, spelling or any unremembered word.
Good domain names are easily typed and easily memorable, so make sure it’s short and easy to type.
“Onlinefurniture.com” rocks, “Online-cheap-furniture-for-sale.com” sucks!
Starting a Blog 101 page 12 www.guideandnews.com
4. Choose a .com available domain name:
If you want to start a blog for fun, branding, time pass or name recognition than you don’t need to worry about .com, .net or .org domain names, but if you want to be a successful blogger over long term than you should be worried about these elements and try to find .com available domain name.
5. Brainstorm the top keywords:
If it is difficult for you to find a good domain name than you have to brainstorm some top keywords related to your topic. You can do it using Google Adwords keywords tool. To do this, go to Google Adwords keyword tools, enter your main keyword or topic in the “Keyword or Phrase” box and hit “Search” button.
It will display a huge list of keywords ideas for that topic with the global monthly searches and local monthly searches.
You can choose one of those keywords which has a good number of monthly searches with low competition as domain name for your blog.
6. Use Hyphens:
Unfortunately if your first chosen domain name is unavailable than you can use hyphens between the keywords and see if they’re available. For example, If “Startingablog.com” isn’t available than you can search for “Starting-a-blog.com” available domains.
7. Keep It Short:
Do your best to keep your domain name as short as possible because the short names are easy to type and easy to remember.
8. Avoid Numerals:
I have seen many domain names using numerals, but you have to stay away from numerals when choosing a domain name because most time the second time visitors forgets the numerals and they only type the words, therefor they enter to another website.
9. Use catchy words with your keyword:
Grab people’s attention by using catchy words in your domain name. If your niche is Health or Fitness than you can use words like “Geekylifestyle.com” or something similar like this.
10. Use online tools to search a good domain name:
There are a lot of online tools which can help you to find a perfect domain name for your business, blog or website. Bust a name is a tool which I used ones and is an awesome tool to search for a good domain names.
Starting a Blog 101 page 13 www.guideandnews.com
Chapter #2: Setting Up
1. Which Blogging Platform To Choose?
If you want to start a blog for fun or for passion than you don’t have to worry about Blogging platforms, but if you want to start a blog to make money and willing to go for pro Blogging than you need to think about a right Blogging platform.
This is an old question which has been asked by every newbie who ever wanted to start a blog, but there’s still newbies struggling to find the right answer for this question which is “what Blogging platform is best?”.
There are many popular Blogging platforms available such as WordPress, Blogger, Joomla, Tumblr, Posterous and Typepad etc, but the best and most popular one is WordPress self hosted.
I first started my blogging journey with free Blogspot blog because I heard that WordPress is more complicated, but when I got to know more about Blogging and I heard about the benefits of WordPress from popular Bloggers, I moved to WordPress.
Why to choose WordPress:Here I’m going to share some benefits of WordPress over the Blogging platforms.
1. It is popular:
Ones I read an article on Daily Blog Tips that a guy from Royal Pingdom did a small research and found out that almost 50% of the top 100 blogs in the world are using WordPress as their Blogging platform and it will increase more in coming years.
2. Easy to use:
What’s really good about WordPress is that it is possible to start a run a blog for people who are not technical. Once you are up and running you can learn as you go at your own pace.
It enabled non-techie folks to start a successful blog and it makes normal people look expert.
3. Support:
Whenever you face any problem and need help, you can go trough Wordpress forum support and communities to find all the answers of your questions.
Starting a Blog 101 page 14 www.guideandnews.com
4. SEO Friendly:
One of the best thing about WordPress is that it is SEO friendly and it offers more options and easy ways to optimize a blog for SEO than any other Blogging platform.
You don’t have to be a “Techie” and don’t need to edit any HTML to make your blog SEO friendly, You can use SEO Wordpress plugins to do this for you.
5. Plugins support:
Plugins support is another great feature of WordPress. It makes life easier, It allows you to do anything that you want on your blog. For example, If you want to put a social share buttons below blog post, there’s a plugin which can do that job for you.
6. One click installation:
Now days most popular web hosting companies provide the ability to install WordPress on your site at just a single click.
There’s an icon on your Cpanel account called Fantastico Deluxe. Click on that icon, choose WordPress and give username and password you want for your WP admin, you’re done.
So, you know that WordPress is the best blogging platform, now check out how to set up a WordPress blog post.
Over to you:
I know the benefits which I mentioned in this post isn’t all, There are a lot of other benefits of WordPress over other Blogging platforms, but these are enough to force you to go for WordPress.
2. How To Set Up a Wordpress Blog Guide:
I have shared the benefits of using Wordpress as a blogging platform above.
I’ve also mentioned on that post how to install WordPress on your website trough your Cpanel, so in this post I’m not going to talk about installing WordPress again. Here I’m gonna share some tips and steps on how to set up a wordpress blog.
How to set up a WordPress blog:So, If you have registered a good domain name and selected the best web hosting service and installed WordPress, Now in this post we will go trough some steps that are essential to perform after install to set up a WordPress blog.
Starting a Blog 101 page 15 www.guideandnews.com
1. Manage Author:
After installing the WordPress you need to remove the admin account for better security and set up the author of your blog. Make yourself the administrator and if you want to add other authors that will be writing for you, give them contributor role.
To set up author go to your WordPress dashboard, click on Users > Add News and fill out the form. Don’t forget to remove the default admin account.
2. Change Permalinks of your blog:
When you first install WordPress and write your first post, you will notice that the default article URL is something like www.guideandnews.com/?p=420.
You need to change it to something like www.guideandnews.com/2012/06/09/affiliate-marketing-guide/ because the default URL structure is poor for SEO and it doesn’t tell the visitors anything about the page they’re visiting.
To make these changes go to your WordPress dashboard, click on Settings > Permalinks and choose the “Day and name” option.
3. Set up general settings:
You need to set up the general setting of your WordPress blog. First navigate to WordPress dashboard, Settings > General. Now fill out the form of general setting correctly
Site Title: The title of your blog’s homepage.
Tagline: The description of your blog.
WordPress Address URL: In this field you will see the default URL of your blog, you have to include “www” in the address.
Site Adress: Again the same address as above.
Email-Address: The email address of the administrator who is responsible of for all issues related to the blog, used to respond to blog comments and form submissions etc.
Membership: I have checked this box because I’m accepting guest Bloggers on my blog to register as a contributor. Do not check this box if you want a single author blog or you want to create a business website.
Time zone: Put the time zone of your area.
Date format and time format: Just leave these two fields on the default.
Week starts on: Monday.
4. Update ping list:
When you update your ping list, WordPress will automatically notify the following site update service
Starting a Blog 101 page 16 www.guideandnews.com
when you publish a new post.
To update your ping list go to your WordPress dashboard, click on Settings > Writing. Now scroll
down your mouse and check the Update Services, you see the default Pingomatic http://rpc.pingomatic.com in your update service box.
You should add the following ping list along with the additional services.
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
5. Upload your theme and activate it:
If you want to make a professional blog and don’t want to use the default WordPress theme than you need to buy a premium Wordpress theme or there are also tons of free WordPress themes which you can choose from.
If you have found your theme, now go to your WordPress dashboard, click on Appearance > Themes > Install Theme. Upload your theme and activate it.
6. Set up feedburner:
Integrating Feedburner is must for every WordPress blog because it adds feed optimization option, statistics and much more. Setting up Feedburner for your blog has a lot of advantages.
If you don’t know how to set up a Feedburner and need help than the Syed Balhi’s step by step guide to setup feedburner for your blog will surely help you out.
7. Activate Akismet:
When you install WordPress, there will be a plugin that will be automatically installed, now it’s up to you to activate it with API code.
The plugin will protect your blog from spam comments, so it is worth the time to activate it.
In order to activate the Akismet plugin on your blog, go to your WordPress dashboard, click on Plugins > Akismet Configuration. Now if you already have a API code just paste your code on the text box and click on the update options.
Starting a Blog 101 page 17 www.guideandnews.com
But if you don’t have Akismet account and API code and don’t know how to get one than how to activate Akismet on your site will help you.
8. Install and Activate the necessary plugins and set up a WordPress blog:
There are thousands of Wordpress plugins that can do anything you can imagine for your blog, but you have to install those plugins which are essential to your WordPress blog. Here’s 20 must have WordPress plugins list which I’m using here on my blog.
Chapter #3: Wordpress
1. How To Choose a Perfect Wordpress Theme:
Selecting of a perfect Wordpress theme is a frustrating process for almost every Blogger specially for newbies who just started Blogging, If you are having the same problem than I will help you find a perfect WordPress theme for your blog in this post.
When it comes to Wordpress themes, there are two main types of WordPress themes: Free WordPress themes and premium WordPress themes. The first process is to decide you want to use free theme or premium theme.
Recently a visitor raised an interesting point by comment on one of my blog post that the premium WordPress themes are not all good, there are many Free themes which offers tons of important features than premium ones, Do you agree? I agree with him because free themes are really great just because they are FREE!
If you want to start a personal blog to explore your personal interests than you can use free themes, but when you consider your blog as a business and your blog started growing than you should spend money on premium ones.
You know what they say look for the quality of a product, not price. Premium wordpress themes are quality themes which adds extra benefits on your blog, but free themes don’t even give the opportunity to fully control the theme.
Forget about using free WordPress theme:
All free WordPress themes include some kind of strange and encrypted code in the footer section which you can’t remove and if you try to remove it the theme will stop working, So as a website owner no one want to have any type of unknown code on his website.
Another disadvantage of free themes is that it makes your website load slow. Of course if there’s any encrypted codes on your site (You don’t know what type of code they are!) than you can’t even think of fast loading of your site.
Starting a Blog 101 page 18 www.guideandnews.com
Pick a Theme related to your industry:
Now you’ve decided to use a premium WordPress theme for your blog, So what next? The second and most important step of choosing a perfect theme is that you should find a theme related to your blog niche. e.g. If you have a news related blog than Newspaper WordPress theme is perfect theme for you or if you have a photography related blog than find a perfect theme which suits your blog content.
As you know my blog is related to Blogging and internet marketing etc, so I found SmartBlog theme was perfect for my blog and it has a lot of features.
Features of a WordPress theme:
Premium WordPress theme provide you with tons of great features. You must consider these before buying a premium WordPress theme from anywhere.
• Customizable Homepage Support: The theme must offer a custom homepage support because there are many possible used of WordPress these days, Most quality themes enables you to create a custom homepage and choose the individual elements you want to place on your homepage instead of your recent posts.
• Customizable Header: The theme which you’re considering must support easy customizable header without using of HTML and PHP code.
• Different Color Scheme: The theme must offer a different color schemes available. • Must be Compatible with every Browser: The theme must be compatible with every browser.
Your theme must be compatible with older browsers like IE 6 because most tech designers are ignoring internet explorer. There’s still a large number of people who use internet explorer and other old browsers, so make sure you look for browser compatibility.
• SEO Friendly: Must be SEO friendly and ability to set the titles and description for homepage and for every post.
So these are the most common features of a premium WP theme which must be considered before buying.
My Recommendation:
There are tons WordPress premium themes providers online, but I would highly suggest to go for Themes Junkie or Elegant Themes because these two websites offers all of the great features which I’ve mentioned above.
2. 20 Must Have Wordpress Plugins:
There are approximately 20,034 plugins in WordPress Plugin Directory at the time of this writing, which makes it very difficult to discover beneficial addition to your WordPress blog.
Starting a Blog 101 page 19 www.guideandnews.com
Due to it’s easy setup and use WordPress has proven itself a dependable Blogging platform, that is why I’m so madly in love with WordPress.
If you’re just starting a blog with WordPress, In this post I’m going to share with you top 20 Wordpress plugins that will help your WordPress blog perform like a charm.
I know these plugins won’t slow down your blog because I’m using these on my blog and my blog is still loading fast.
So here’s the list of top 20 must have latest and greatest WP plugins for your blog.
1. Akismet
Akismet is a plugin which is used my millions of WordPress users. It protects your blog from spam comments. So far Akismet has protected my blog from more than 110,000 spam comments.
Download Akismet
2. WP Super Cache
Most WP blogs is using W3 Tatal Cache plugin to improve their blog speed, but W3TC is too much for me, that is why I choose WP Super Cache because it’s much simple. It makes static HTML files to serve users.
Download WP Super Cache
3. All In One SEO Pack
This is must have SEO plugin for all WordPress blogs. It adds meta keywords, description and title tag to all of your blog posts and pages.
This is a best choice to handle SEO concern.
Download All in one SEO
4. CommentLuv Premium
CommentLuv is a superb way to encourage more comments and readers to your blog. It automatically inserts a link to commentator’s latest blog post when they comment to your blog and leave their website URL.
Most big WP blogs are using CommentLuv plugin on their blog. Here’s the top CommentLuv enabled WordPress blogs list.
Download CommentLuv Premium
Starting a Blog 101 page 20 www.guideandnews.com
5. Contact Form 7
This plugins is the easiest way to create a contact form for your blog. If you want to engage with your readers customers than you must have a professional contact form.
We must have a contant us page and contact form to our blog so our readers can communicate with us properly.
Download contact form 7
6. SEO Smart Links
SEO smart links is awesome WordPress plugin which provides automatic SEO benefits for your blog in addition to custom keywords list etc.
Download SEO smart links
7. Broken Link Checker
Broken link checker WP plugin will notify you about broken links and missing images on your blog content.
A blog with too many broken links will frustrate it’s visitors and also have a negative impact on search engine.
Download Broken Link Checker
8. Google Analytics For WordPress
If you want to add Google Analytics to your WordPress blog easily than this plugins is the best choice for you. It easily adds Google Analytics to your blog. You just need to add your Google Analytics ID in settings of this plugin.
Download Google Analytics
9. Secure WordPress
Secure WordPress is the plugin which beefs up the security of your WordPress installation by removing error information on your login pages. This plugins has a lot of great features which you can read on the plugins page by clicking on the download link below.
Download Secure WordPress
10. Top Commentator Widget
Showing your top commentators on your blog’s sidebar or footer is the best way to increase the number of comments on your blog and to connect with your blog readers.
Download Top Commentator Widget
Starting a Blog 101 page 21 www.guideandnews.com
11. WP Security Scan
WP security scan performs a security scan of WordPress installation of your blog.
Download WP Security Scan
12. Twitter, Facebook Social Share
This is a plugins which can add the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumpleUpon and Google+ etc social share box before and after your blog posts.
This is the best social share plugins among hundreds of others which I found till now.
Download It here
13. WordPress Database Backup
This plugins is the most easiest way to backup the entire database of your WordPress blog.
Download WordPress Database Backup
14. WP MashSocial Widget
This plugins allows you to add a beautiful subscription box in the sidebar of your blog. It allows you to add Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ and RSS feed subscription in it.
Download WP Mashsocial widget
15. Pretty Link Like
Pretty Link Lite is an awesome plugin which lets you easily cloak affiliate links or any other type of link.
It is the easiest way to cloak your affiliate links.
Download Pretty Link Lite
16. Login Lockdown
This plugin adds extra security to your WordPress blog by restricting the rate at which failed log-ins can be re-attempted from the given IP range.
It will let you know about the failed login attempts on your WP blog.
Download Login Lockdown
17. AntiVirus
This is the most effective plugin to protect your blog against exploits and spam injections.
Starting a Blog 101 page 22 www.guideandnews.com
This is another great plugin to secure your WordPress blog as a smart.
Download Antivirus
18. Instant Adsense
There are many WordPress users looking for perfect WordPress plugin to show Google Adsense ads between posts and sidebar etc. I have found this plugin the best solution for perfect Google Adsense placement.
Download Instant Adsense
19. LinkWithIn
I’m not using this plugin on my blog, but I know this is a good plugin which shows the related posts at the bottom of your blog post with thumbnails.
Download Linkwithin
20. Google XML Sitemap Generator
This plugin allows you to create XML sitemap for your blog quickly, no need to create sitemap file and upload it to your site.
Download Google XML Sitemap Generator
So, The above top 20 must have WordPress plugins are my best plugins and I’m currently using most of them on my blog.
3. Some Wordpress Security Tips:Some days ago when I published an article about 20 must have wordpress plugins, many readers asked from me for some WordPress security plugins or how to keep my WordPress blog secure from being hacked.
So, I though I would put a list of basic WordPress security tips along with some Wordpress plugins which I’m currently using to keep your wordpress blog secure.
It scares everyone if someone hacked their blog, especially if they spent hundreds of hours on building your blog.
If you want to run a serious blog than you must however take the security of your blog very seriously.
Starting a Blog 101 page 23 www.guideandnews.com
5 Basic WordPress Security TipsHere are some basic steps you can do to keep your WordPress blog secure from being hacked.
1. Keep WordPress Up to Date:
WordPress identifies the issues and updates their codes quickly and one of the good thing about WordPress is that it automatically notifies you in your admin dashboard when new version is released and you had to update it.
So, make sure you keep your WordPress up to date to make sure your blog is secure.
2. Keep your plugins up to date:
Another things which you can do to keep your blog secure is to keep the plugins which you are using in your WordPress blog up to date. WordPress will also automatically notify you in your dashboard when there are new updates for your installed plugins.
3. Be careful of plugins you install:
Before sometime I installed a plugin on my blog without checking it’s ratings and supports and that caused my blog being hacked from someone, but it was my good luck that I had a backup file of my blog.
Be careful of the plugins you install on your blog and always install plugins from WP plugin directory that has a lot of good ratings and supports. This is the best way to reduce the chances of vulnerability.
4. Remove the default admin account:
If you are still using the default admin account on your WordPress blog than create a new one and delete the old one for better security and make sure to attribute all posts and pages to new one.
5. Backup! Backup! Backup!
No matter how hard work you do to keep your blog secure from hackers, there’s still a chances of being hacked. If a hacker is determined to break in, he will be able to. If you have backup file of your blog, you can get back your blog after being hacked.
Backups are your best line of defense.
Starting a Blog 101 page 24 www.guideandnews.com
Some Plugins For Better WordPress Security
Here are some security Wordpress plugins you might want to know about.
1. Secure WordPress:
Secure WordPress is a great plugin which keeps your WordPress installation secure by removing error information on login pages, hides your plugins and it also hides the WordPress version.
2. Login Lockdown:
Login Lockdown is another security plugin which adds extra security to your WordPress blog by limiting the login attempts and by restricting the failed login attempts from a given IP range.
3. WP Security scan:
WP security scan is a plugin that checks your WordPress blog for security vulnerabilities and it suggests correct action which you have to take to make some changes for better security.
4. AntiVirus:
Antivirus is most useful WordPress plugin that will scan your WordPress themes, plugins, comments, posts and pages etc from malicious everyday. It is very easy tool which can protect your blog again malware and spam injection.
5. WP DB Backup:
As I said before, backing up your blog is the best security tip anyone can give you. WP DB Backup is a plugin which allows you to easily backup your core WordPress database.
Starting a Blog 101 page 25 www.guideandnews.com
Chapter #4: Content Creation
1. How To Improve Your Writing Skills:
It is no doubt that an effective writing is a blessing for every Blogger and people will love to read your content if they like your writing style.
If you have a freelance writing job or if you are a Blogger like me, taking it seriously and want to be followed by more readers than you must improve your writing skills first.
You need to engage your readers, encourage conversation, make them enjoy and keep them interested with your writing skills. If you are going to say that everyone else is saying, don’t bother saying it, because you will sound stale and trite.
You may already know that great content matters so much and every new visitors to your website will subscribe if they see your content useful. So here I’m sharing some great tips to improve your writing skills.
1. Read About Writing:
As many others already said that a good readers is a good writer. If you want to improve your writing skills then first you need to read about it. Read books, blogs, magazines, newspapers because reading will not only improve your writing but will also give you some facts which you can use in your writing. Try to read something that you can put into practice and straight away.
2. Write Everyday:
You need to write everyday in order to improve your writing skills because the more you write, the easier your writing will become. It isn’t easy to write blog posts in regular basis, so you don’t need to make a new post to your blog daily but joining other forums and groups with other bloggers will really help you improve.
3. Recheck and edit your writing:
Always recheck your post after finishing it instead of just clicking on publish button because rechecking and editing your finished post will make a huge difference in your post and by editing your post you will be spot more mistakes in your writing.
4. Use Compelling headlines:
You need to write strong headlines in order to get your audience to read your article. Using headlines that promises a benefit to readers has always been an effective technique among Bloggers wanting to gain peoples attention. List posts and “How to” posts is a great example of strong headline. Below are some examples of strong headlines which can give you ideas on killer headlines.
Starting a Blog 101 page 26 www.guideandnews.com10 ways to make your readers love your blog20 must have wordpress pluginsHow guest blogging on other sites can help new bloggers
How to choose a perfect Wordpress theme
5. Use short paragraphs:
Make things easier for your reader by writing in short sentences and paragraphs on your blog. It is will easy to scan and read by readers if you use short paragraphs.
6. Add Images:
Your post will be more better and easy scannable if you use images to your posts. No matter what you are writing about standards of specifications, an image worth thousands words, so remember to add an image to each of your blog posts.
7. Print out great posts:
Whenever you read any good posts, Give it your time and try to find out the importance of writing skills of the author and also print it out.
Take a look at writing style and try to find the thing which you can use in your own posts as a result of what you’ve discovered.
2. Include An Image To Each of Your Blog Posts
I don’t forget to include one image on each of my blog posts because I know the power of it. It gives the reader chance to click through that post even if they don’t want to.
Having an image to your blog posts will improve the look and design of your blog and make it more appealing. It will help you to capture the attention of distracted readers.
Starting a Blog 101 page 27 www.guideandnews.com
So make a habit of adding images to your blog posts every time you published a new one because images can be a good source of search engine traffic.
Most peoples don’t use images on their blog posts just because they can’t always find a suitable image for their post, another is that the time doing a thorough photo search is not realistic.
So the main question for those Bloggers is that “Where do you find images for your blog?”
So if you wanna know where to get images for your blog than you must checkout istockphoto.com. You can also get Flickr creative common photo pool.
3. How To Make Your Blog Posts Popular:I have written more than one hundred articles on Blogging topic on my blog just to help my readers to be a better Blogger and stop making more silly Blogging mistakes.
I think Blogging without any goal is biggest mistake and secondly, the plan to achieve that goal and if you want to achieve that goal than you must work hard on your blog.
Your blog posts pays important role in your Blogging success, So here I’m going to share with you how to get your blog post more popular:
• Edit your post before publishing:
Spelling mistakes can really damage your chances of success so always re-check your blog posts before publishing it.
Rewrite sentences or paragraphs that are repetitive or badly phrased and don’t rely on your spell-checker to pick up every typo.
• Call to action at the end:
The most common mistakes which most Bloggers makes is that they end their blog posts without giving their readers any clue about what to do next.
You could ask your readers to subscribe to your blog, leave comments and buy your product in final few lines of your blog post.
If you don’t have call to action in your recent posts than go back and add something.These two methods is great way to make your blog post popular.
Starting a Blog 101 page 28 www.guideandnews.com
Chapter #5: Networking
1. 5 Thinks I Did To Increase The Comments On My Blog:
Blogging is the greatest and easiest way to connect and share your passion on a particular topic in which you are interested in with all over the world.
If you have started Blogging and added some quality articles and information to your blog but no one is reading and commenting to your blog without your own friends and family members than I can give you some tips to receive more traffic and comments to your blog.
Blog’s popularity and traffic is based on blog’s comments and anyone who visit your blog first time will determine your blog’s popularity with it’s comments. So you should have a lot of comments to your blog posts and If you don’t know how to get a lot of comments than I will share with you my steps which I did to receive comments to my blog.
1. I started commenting on other blogs: Whenever I found something related to my blog, something related which I benefited from and something I know about (something means blogs!) I leaved meaningful comments. I bookmarked those blogs and I revisit them regularly because It will get me a link back to my blog.
2. I asked for comments: As you can see in most of the posts in my blog I have asked my readers to leave comments below related to the post. It’s like telling someone a story then saying “So, what do you think?”
3. I used a CommentLuv Plugin: is a Wordpress plugin which let’s the commentators to add links to their latest blog posts along with their comments. As you may seen that many big blogs is using CommentsLuv plugin now because It is great way to increase your blog comments.
4. I care my readers: I always reply my readers comments on my blog posts (I also reply to peoples questions and solve their problem on others blog’s comments). This shows that you care for the readers input and the readers will come back to my blog to ask questions because they know I will reply them frequently.
5. I made it easy to comment on my blog: Make it as easy as possible for visitors to leave comments to your blog posts. Having complicated equations and CAPTHAS to keep out spammers can create unnecessary hurdles for your visitors.
2. Why And How To Treat Your Blog Like a Social Networking Blog
Social networking is something which let us find like minded people from all parts of the world who likes what we do and who are doing the same thing like us. Social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and Google plus gives us the opportunity to connect and share with the people on the earth, but have you ever thought of creating your own blog like a social networking blog in which you treat a post as a separate profile and your friends are commenting
Starting a Blog 101 page 29 www.guideandnews.com
and sharing it who are trying to interact?, There are many advantages of treating a blog like a networking blog.
Why to treat a blog like a social networking blog:
Let’s discuss about some advantages of treating a blog like a social networking blog. Do you know how much time are you spending on Facebook a day by reading, liking, sharing and commenting on peoples update? or how many hours a day are you spending on Twitter?, You can’t figure out the time you spend on these websites because these websites became a part of your life. But instead of wasting your time on Facebook and Twitter if you spend that time in your blog by adding more value to it, reading the comments and replying them and building a relationship with your readers than you can easily take your blog to the next level.
But please don’t take me wrong. I’m not saying to completely close social networking websites. I’m using social media websites for my blog promotion and some other personal reasons, but I’m not spending more than one hour on these websites. Another reason of treating your blog as a social networking blog is the that if you treat your blog readers as a friend than soon these readers will become a loyal reader of your blog. They will subscribe and always visit your blog.
How to treat a blog like a social networking blog:
Commenting is the quickest way to make your blog a networking blog. If you reply to the comment of your reader in a friendly way than they’ll feel that they are among themselves. You should give the people a community on your blog where they can share their views and ask their problems. Your main target should be giving a social networking experience to readers on your blog.
Starting a Blog 101 page 30 www.guideandnews.com
Chapter #6: SEO
All You Need to Know About SEO:
The internet is full of search engine optimization wisdom. If you are reading this, you are probably aBlogger or website owner, but whether you are a blogger or website owner, Search engine optimizationhas become a large part of our lives.
As many of us know the importance of SEO in 2012 after Panda and Penguin updates by Google. Nowevery blogger on the blogsphere is taking SEO seriously and all of us have known that without havingsufficient knowledge about SEO, we can not be successful in Blogging.
Becoming a professional SEO optimizer is not just an easy job, because to have the title of optimizeryou will have to research on the internet and will practically implement things on your own blogs, youwill have to read hundreds of articles on SEO and maybe you download E-Books to know more deeply.What works for you and what doesn’t work, You yourself will be coming to know while reading searchengines’ algorithms.
I am just telling the facts I myself have faced many errors in my Blogging career. As I am stillresearching and can not entitle myself an optimizer. I am still a learner like you. But what have workedfor me and what haven’t I know and am going to share with you.
How to become a Good learner of SEO in 2012
Internet itself is a treasure of information. Now a days, as information are shared widely and mostfrequently. So you don’t need to go somewhere else for learning SEO or anything else you want tolearn.
To become a good learner of SEO you just need to search on Google because it is the head of all thisfuss. On one hand, It is playing with webmasters for last few years and on the other hand it is helpingwebmasters as well.
So if you search for following keywords on Google: “Learning basic SEO Tips, SEO Tips 2012, SEOFor Beginners, SEO For Websites, Best SEO Tips etc” then you will find a lot of sites where you canread about SEO tips and latest tricks, However, there are some well-known and recognized websitesand blogs where you can read existing articles on SEO’s topic and make an email subscription forupcoming updates.
So making subscription on such websites is so useful. You will receive the latest SEO changes fromthem straight on your inbox, also there are hundreds of videos tutorials freely available on YouTubeabout SEO. For now I’m going to share my crispy SEO tips here with you.
Starting a Blog 101 page 31 www.guideandnews.com
21 SEO Tips 2012 for Beginners & Advance Users:
1. Select a proper niche:
This is the very first step towards your website, whenever someone decides to establish a website orblog he/she must have the main theme/idea of the site in their minds.If you don’t have the selected topic then first find a topic and then read other tips. The topic for yourwebsite should be your own niche, niche means you have full knowledge about the topic your going towork on.
2. Keyword Research:
After selecting a topic for your website, you will need to select some keywords for your website as it isan important part of SEO.For this purpose you can use a very powerful and interesting tool provided by Google and it is called“Google Adword Keyword Research Tool“.By using this tool you will come to know about most searched keywords on your niche. You can selectthe popular keywords for your blog in just few minutes.
3. Selecting Target Audience:
As you may have seen many companies on the web who are advertising their products on differentwebsites for catching the right audience who might be interested in the product they are offering.To catch the right audience is a very essential part of any business and thus it applies on blogging aswell, Because the people who are not related to your niche or product won’t make relationship with youin person.
You need to expand your business to the right ones because a long term thinking always bring the bestresults. For selecting your target audience or target country where your site’s visitors may be locateduse Google insights for search.By using Google insights you can find out which keyword is searched mostly in what country orregion. So you will feel comfortable to know the facts.
4. Buying a Good Domain Name
This is also a very sensitive part of your website, in the eyes of SEO experts it is better to have theprimary keyword in your domain name.
Choose a domain name which is directly related to your niche. I mean to say, if you’re going to start awebsite about 2013 fashion trends then you must think about including Fashion word in Your Domainname. If it is possible include both 2013 and fashion in domain name URL.
However, it doesn’t matter if domain is not available in .com extension; you can choose .net, .org etc.
Starting a Blog 101 page 32 www.guideandnews.com
5. Selecting a Platform to design your website
Now this is once again important part; I would say that the design of a website catches theconcentration of a visitor at the first impression.
If design is boring or complicated then the visitor goes away from it and doesn’t enter the site anymore. So you should carefully select a design for your website.
If you want to start your website with WordPress then select a very simple and attractive theme andmake it user friendly and eye catching. And if you are a user of Blogger like me then you can make agood design for your blog. Whether you use Blogger or WP, always keep the visitor in mind if they arenavigating your site easily or not?.
6. SEO Tips With Creating Great Content
The above tips were the basic tips, now the advance part of SEO begins. All SEO Experts, Analysts,Optimizers, companies are agree on this point that content is KING and Will Be.So make it sure you are a productive person and making some difference in the world. Search Enginesloves fresh and unique content. So each of your article should have its own beauty and uniqueness.
7. Write Long Articles
If you’re going to start a blog related to writing articles then you must write long articles. I mean to say,if you start a blog on current issues or on Blogging Tips etc then you should at least write 400+ wordsper article. It will increase your keyword density limit which is 4% to 5%.
8. Write Attractive & Optimized Post Titles
Now this part comes, You should write best titles for your each post you publish. Same as we talk incommon with each other, whenever we start a conversation we start it from a sentence and if thestarting sentence is describing the full story then all of our friends hear our story with fullconcentration.Same applies for search engines, if your title is attractive and explains the story at the beginning thensearch engine’s crawler will instantly recommend your full story for indexing.
9. Correct Usage of Headings
I am not an expert of writing articles, but as common you should use headings carefully and correctly.Don’t use headings randomly. Make a clear article scratch for both humans and search engines. The H1tag always comes first or at the starting of an article. Use H2 after H1 and H3 after H2. Headingsshould be given place in an article with good sorting.10. Write Meta Description For Each postIf you are using WordPress for blogging then there is a plugin called All SEO in One Pack which has
Starting a Blog 101 page 33 www.guideandnews.com
option for search description below every post.
So you should write a good description for each of your blog post. This description is only for searchengines so you should clearly tell the search engine that what is the article about.If you are using Blogger then while writing article at left side of your post body you can see a searchdescription box for every post. You should write a description of maximum 150 characters.
11.Include Images in articles
As you may have heard about this sentence “An image has 1000 words to say“. Therefore, includingimages in your articles is very useful.At least one related image should be included in each of your article to get more exposure from searchengines. Now a days, Web search and images searches are close to each other.
12.Optimize Images
Having images in articles is good idea, but having optimized images is better. To optimize imagesoffline just give them some good names. Some images have useless names by default like img,kkk093433 etc.
You should give them some good names according to the image’s fact and article. If image is aboutBlogging tips then give it an appropriate name like “Blogger Tips”, “Blogger Best Tips” etc. In HTMLthere are two attributes about images which must be used to optimize images more beautifully.Add alt attribute to each image and give each image a title. the syntax of alt and title is below:
<img src=”your image” title=”3 words title” alt=”3 words text about the image” />And thus images become visible for search engines.
13.Include Videos in Articles
It is once again a good technique to include videos into your articles. Make a YouTube channel andwhen you get free time, make video tutorials about your website’s niche and include them in yourarticles time to time.Now a days, YouTube is the another popular place from where you can get a good amount of trafficback to your website through your videos.
By making video tutorials you get two advantages, one on YouTube; where you make a community foryour videos and they can visit your website by following the given link in your video’s description. andyou can make your article more precious by including videos in it.
14.Be Bold
Be Bold while writing articles. If you feel that some words or a sentence of your paragraph is moreattractive then make all paragraphs bold with <b> tag. Sometimes you can use the underline tag tohighlight the special words of your paragraph.
Starting a Blog 101 page 34 www.guideandnews.com
15.Be Smart
Don’t use too much bold text in a paragraph, more then 4% keywords in an article is not allowed bymajor search engines.
Google Penguin has been released only to penalized those sites who are over-optimizing their sites. Sonever spam, don’t use massive keywords and massive links in your articles.
16.Submit Your Blog to Search Engines
After posting at least 20 pages on your website, you should then start submitting your website todifferent search engines.
First submit your site’s URL to Google, BING and Yahoo Manually. Then Submit Your Site’s URL toother popular search engines such as Ask.com, Search.com and Go.com.
17.Submitting Sitemaps to Search Engines
Sitemap is another great way to submit your entire website to search engine for indexing. It is veryessential part of off-Page SEO.
If you are using WordPress then you can use plugins to make sitemap and to submit it to search enginesby using their webmaster tools.
If you are using Blogger then you can easily create your sitemap by searching this keyword on Google“Blogger Sitemap Generator”. If your blog (On Blogger) having pages more then 1000 then makemultiple sitemaps and submit them to Google Webmaster Tools.
18.Connect with Social Media
Your blog will be popular in short time if you are also popular on Social Media Websites. Submittingyour site to the most popular social network websites will definitely make difference in traffic.
You should regularly submit your every post at least to Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest andDigg. They number of links you collect from these social networks will increase your page rank aswell.
19.Create Quality Backlinks
As many of you know this is the most important part of Off-Page SEO. Backlink means you have a link(Relation) outside your website on the web, which is indicating back to your site.
Starting a Blog 101 page 35 www.guideandnews.com
So the number of dofollow backlinks you have for your website will decide your existence on the web.You can create backlinks by following below tips:
• Commenting on Dofollow Blogs• Guest Posting on Other Blogs• Submit Site to Blog Directories• Article Submission• Forum Submission
20.Interlinking within your website
Interlinking means you are linking your pages within your website. If you are writing an article aboutany topic then you may have published some articles earlier on that topic.
So if you have pages related to your recent article then must link them twice or thrice within the currentarticle. Make sure you are inter linking anchor text is also relevant.
21.Summary
The summary of this article is to help you better understanding the SEO (Search Engine Optimization)basic practices.
2. Top 10 SEO Optimization Tips To Get 1st Rank on Google
Right SEO optimization tips is what newbies wants to know about and are spending lots of time onsearching about it, so in this post I’m going to share top 10 SEO optimization tips to clear your doubts.
Getting targeted traffic from search engines is what most newbie blogger dreams about, but is not aneasy task. I’ve also seen some newbies who think that writing user friendly content is all.
They’ve heard that blogger needs to write for people, not for search engines. That’s good too, but you should also try to make it search engine friendly.
If you want to convert your blog readers into profits, you need to get organic traffic to your blog.Optimizing your post for better SERP ranking is good and won’t annoy the readers.
I’ve implemented the steps on many of my blog post and I got good rank for that post on Google withspecific keyword.
So, here are the top 10 SEO Optimization tips you must know about to get 1st rank on Google.
Starting a Blog 101 page 36 www.guideandnews.com
1. Targeting a long tail keyword
To make your content more search engine friendly and user friendly, you’d probably need to target along tail keyword for your post.
Getting on 1st page of Google with keyword “SEO Tips” was quite difficult for me, so I’ve chosen“SEO Tips 2012″ because of low competition.
The competition in long tail keywords is low and It will be quite easy for you to get good ranking.Do a quick research for your keyword and be sure to check that the keyword must have good monthlysearches on Google.
You’ll get long term organic traffic by targeting a long tail and low competition keyword.
2. Perfect Keyword Placement:
Perfect keyword placement is must in order to let search engine bots know about your targetedkeyword. You need to include the targeted keyword in following phrases:
• Title: The page title is the most important SEO factor. Including the main keyword in title of thepost is must to make it SEO friendly and to get good ranking.• Meta Description: The meta description is what which often appears as the text snippet belowyour listing, so It will also help you to get good ranking If It’s included the main keyword.• SEO-friendly URL: You should also include the main keyword in your URL, for exampleguideandnews.com/2012/10/06/seo-optimization-tips. It will also help you to notice searchengines about relevant keyword.
3. Write quality and unique content:
The next step is to write unique and quality content for that keyword. Other than perfect keywordplacement you also need to write unique, long, quality and search engine friendly content too.If you’re trying to sell the same product that 100 other bloggers are doing than you need to make yourcontent stand out.
Google and other search engines loves unique content that describes the real value and is helpful forpeople.
Starting a Blog 101 page 37 www.guideandnews.com
4. Build Backlinks
Backlinks are the order of the day in current SEO technology and every effort should be made to seekbacklinks from reputable sites.You must know that quality of the backlinks matters most to get better ranking in search engines, notquantity.
The relevance of the link is very important and search engines will penalize you If your blog hasexcessive number of irrelevant backlinks. Below are some effective link building methods:
• Guest Blogging: Guest blogging is one of the most effective link building method after theanimal update from Google (Panda and Penguin). You should try to guest post on top PR5 toPR7 blogs in your niche. You might want to read my post on how guest blogging on other sites can help new bloggers.• Dofollow commenting: Commenting on blogs in your niche that allows Dofollow attributedlinks on their comment section is another effective way to improve your keyword’s SEOranking.• Forums participating: Participating in forums is also a good link building tactic If youparticipate on high PR and high traffic forums. Read top 5 reasons why forums are important for bloggers.
5. Use main keyword as anchor text:
Use your targeted keyword as anchor text when you’re guest posting on any blog. This helps tells thesearch engine bots what the page is all about.Don’t overdo it tough too many backlinks with same anchor text tends to look spammy.
6. Social media promotion:
In today’s SEO world without social media promotion you can’t expect your blog to get good ranking.Promoting your post on social media sites is another way to get your blog in less time. Sites like
Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are being used as part of search engine ranking for Google and Bing.Pinterest, Delicious and StumbleUpon are also some of the social media sites that you won’t want tomiss, but be sure that every social media site you use, the first rule is don’t spam!Be an active member and build relationship with other bloggers on social media sites.
7. Optimize your image:
Using an image for your blog posts is good thing, but be sure that the number of images must be kept aminimum.If you’re using an image on your blog post, It can generate tons of traffic from Google image search.Here are some ways to optimize your image.
Starting a Blog 101 page 38 www.guideandnews.com
• ALT Text: Alt text is a text that search engines use to understand the image. If the image isrelevant to the post topic, you can include your main keyword as alt text.• File name: Pick a descriptive file name for your image before uploading it to your blog becauseIt will also help for your search engine rankings.• File size: If you have a large image, make sure use a free image edition program to make yourimage a desired size because when you have large image, and input height and width tags onthat image to make it smaller, It will slow up your blog.
8. Video Content:
Also surround video content on your blog because the search engines look at the surrounding content todefine the usefulness of the video for the query.
Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video websites like Youtube, AOL and MSN etc.
9. Use SEOPressor Plugin:
SEOPRessor is a mandatory SEO WordPress plugin . If you’re serious about blogging and want tomake money from your blog than you must use a revolutionary plugin called SEOPRessor.
The plugin will do everything on your blog which an SEO expert can do like optimizing your blogpost, images and keywords. It is a must have WordPress plugin!
10.Be Patient:
Being patient is must because SEO isn’t one time event, results often take months to see, but If you useright techniques and do it right way, you’ll be able to see yourself beating other competitors.
So these were the top 10 SEO optimization tips for newbie as well as experienced bloggers.
Starting a Blog 101 page 39 www.guideandnews.com
Chapter #7: Guest Blogging
1. How Guest Blogging on Other Sites Can Help New Bloggers?
If you are a new blogger in a competitive niche, it’s pretty difficult to start ranking in Google andbecome popular Blogger. Even if your blog is better than every other blog about quilting, it will still behard to become a popular website unless you branch out.
Branching out can be anything from running an advertisement in a quilting magazine to commentingon other blogs, but today I will talk about the advantages of guest posting.
Guest posting is when you write an article for another website in your niche. At first, it may seem likevolunteering for the competition, but it actually helps you both out in the long run.Most blogs that accept guest posts will have some sort of guidelines and how to submit posts, but ifthey don’t, it never hurts to find out.
Here I’m going to share 5 ways how guest blogging can help you reach your Blogging goals.
1. SEO / Link Building
The first major reason most people write guest posts is for link building and SEO purposes. When youwrite a guest blog, you can include an author byline, which basically describes yourself briefly andprovides a link to your own blog.
Google will see this link and assume that your blog has authority information on it. This can help youeven more if the blog you are guest posting on has a high Page Rank.
2. Gaining Visitors / Loyal Followers
The main reason I write guest posts is to gain visitors and loyal followers. A visitor is somebody whovisits your blog via the link in the author byline, reads a couple of posts, and then leaves.A loyal follower is somebody who visits your site, loves it, decides to bookmark it, and returns weekly.Either way, it is still a great way to increase traffic.
3. Get Feedback
If you are a new blogger, I would suggest blogging on a popular blog to gain feedback. If you aretrying to run a quilting blog, it would be great to post about a quilt on a popular website to see whatother people think.
You will most likely get some comments on other posts, so make sure to return every once in a while to
Starting a Blog 101 page 40 www.guideandnews.com
answer them. By answering comments, you show that you care and that may lead to loyal fans of yourwebsite.
4. Gain Blogging Clients:
If you are looking for a way to make money outside of your own blog, you could always use guestposting as a way to gain clients. Many people looking for freelance bloggers will search websites thataccept guest posts.
If you include information about being a freelance blogger in your byline, you will most likely begetting some emails offering you a job.
5. Build Up a Portfolio:
If you are a freelance blogger, not only can guest blogging help you gain clients, but it can also helpbuild up a portfolio. In the online world, portfolios are the equivalent to resumes, and show yourprevious work.
If you can show potential clients that you wrote a guest post for a Page Rank 6 blog and generated over50 comments, they will probably want to hire you.
As with any job, remember to give your best effort. All of these tips above (except link building) aredirectly related to the quality of content you submit.
Even though it is not your blog, work hard to write a great post, eliminating all errors.
2. Tips For Branding Your Niche When Guest Blogging
Don’t you know how important it is to define your niche before attempting to guest blog on another blog?
When I say define, I’m simply cautioning you to know your subject matter. If you seek exposure and more traffic for your business brand, say a blog about goat cheese for instance, you’d naturally be on the lookout for blogs dealing with farming, pig farms, harvesting and manufacturing dairy products.
If you’re not sure where to look for such blogs, just go to Google search and type in keywords that could lead you to other bloggers interested in promoting your niche. Blogging blindly is something a lot of new bloggers do oftentimes, because they haven’t done their homework on practical and simple blogging basics dynamics, which is fine if they blogs for pleasure and not for profit.
Starting a Blog 101 page 41 www.guideandnews.com
Maybe you’re a blogger who blogs for the heck of it, while waiting for that big celebrity model break heading your way and you could give less than a goat’s bleep about becoming the next “Pro Blogger” like a Darren Rowse or Daniel Scocco.
So, say you’ve studied the market and found a home for your guest posts. Now it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty of how to brand your niche and climb the ladder to success as a entrepreneur and a Blogger.
1. Know your product:
What can you bring to the table that your competitors can’t? What’s your platform? I offer my readers insights on how to live an authentic lifestyle based upon years of living, learning and applying intuitive life skills to everyday experiences.
2. Share your truth:
There’s no one else out there like you. Your business is an extension of you. You become what you believe and your business should reflect this positive.
3. Target your audience:
You wouldn’t submit a guest post on how to leave your job on CareerBuilder.com or about a piece on women fashion to a man’s website for suits?
4. Offer freebies to your new readers:
Introduce new readers to your website and unique products by offering them something in return for taking time away from their busy day.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling infomercial hosting a new brand of Twinkies, or offering important informational empowerment exercises. Readers expect and deserve takeaway value as a token of your good customer service sense.
5. Provide contact information for follow up:
Make it easy for potential clients to find you. Follow guest posting guidelines and provide a link back to your blog and business website.
The most important component in making a connection with your guest posts is to thank the host for their acceptance of your post in the comment section of your guest post or via personal email. Blogging etiquette reinforces your professionalism.
Starting a Blog 101 page 42 www.guideandnews.com
Final thoughts:
So that's it!
You've read 8 chapters and complete guide on how to start a blog and make money from it.
Hopefully you've picked lots of things that can help you to start a successful blog and actually make money from it.
I love blogging and I think It's the best way to make money online.
But, It's not easy!
Don't let people tell otherwise
I've given you a complete guide on starting a blog and making money from it which can help you in anyway. If you have any blogging question, feel free to land on my blog and get your blogging questions answered.
Now It's up to you!
Take action now and don't get discouraged when you encounter obstacles. Keep pushing till you become a successful blogger.
I wish you all the best of luck...
Ehsan Ullah Khoshbakhthttp://www.guideandnews.com
![[Viver de Blog] eBook 101 Frases Marketing](https://img.pdfslide.net/doc/110x75/577cc9c61a28aba711a49501/viver-de-blog-ebook-101-frases-marketing.jpg)
