13 Steps to Successful Blogging

Written by Ant Onaf


Blogs can be a very marketable and very profitable tool if used correctly. Profiting from blogs is just a matter of grabbingrepparttar attention of an audience and not doing any actual salesmen selling. In this article you will learnrepparttar 143736 13 most essential steps to successful blogging.

1) Where to start?

You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Journal Home or Blogger. Starting with a free blog hosting service allows you to begin blogging instantly without having any advance knowledge of scripts, hosting, or programming. It allows you to focus on your content and notrepparttar 143737 internal maintenance ofrepparttar 143738 blog. The best benefit of starting with a free service is, inrepparttar 143739 case your blog doesn't become successful you do not lose any money or are you left holdingrepparttar 143740 bill. The great thing about a blog is that they are organized in chronological order, your latest entry is displayed first. When your blog traffic grows greatly and you are ready to upgrade to your own domain then you can simply make your last blog entryrepparttar 143741 announcement of your "move". Simply add a last entry stating that your blog has "moved" and typerepparttar 143742 new blog URL address. Which directs visitors to your new blog site, keeping your following, without a major inconvenience to anyone. Upgrade as you need to...but only when you need to!

2) Niche

A niche is a targeted product, service, or topic. You should first decide on a product, service, or topic which interest you. Choose an area which you can enthusiastically write about on a daily basis. You can use keyword research services like Google Zeitgeist or Yahoo! Buzz Index to find popular searched topics. It does NOT matter if your topic is popular as long as there is a audience for your topic andrepparttar 143743 topic is precisely focused then your blog should be successful. Anything can be considered a niche as long as it has a target audience no matter how large or how smallrepparttar 143744 audience is. A blog about your cat can be a niche or a blog aboutrepparttar 143745 species ofrepparttar 143746 cat family can be a larger niche market, if there are people who are interested in hearing about your cat orrepparttar 143747 species ofrepparttar 143748 cat family...you can even choose to build your audience for a market which an audience does not exist, but first you must build your blog.

3) Update Daily (nothing less)

This step is a must and not a suggestion. Updating your blog daily not only keeps your blog more interesting to readers, but it also gives your blog fresh content on a day to day making it more appealing to search engines. Not updating your blog on an occasional holiday or one day here and there is understandable to most, but missing days at a time or weeks is unacceptable and will most likely result in your blog being unsuccessful. To keep your blog traffic and retain your visitors interest it is a must to update your blog daily with multiple entries. You should try to update your blog everyday with at least 3 or more daily entries. The best way to accomplish this is to set aside 1-2 hours a day for tending to your blog and adding new entries. It may even be wise to schedule a set time which you dedicate to your blog each day. Give yourself work hours and treat your blog as a job, what happens if you don't come to work for days or weeks...you lose money or worse you get fired! Same applies here...if you don't update your blog for days or weeks you'll lose visitors.

4) Traffic

It's no secret. You must have traffic to profit from blogs. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid advertising, free advertising, viral marketing, search engine marketing, RSS/XML feeds, and word-of-mouth. You should always use your blog URL address inrepparttar 143749 signature of your email, forum discussions, message boards, or any other communication media. You should submit your blog URL address to search engines and blog directories. You should submit your RSS/XML URL feed to blog ping services like Technorati, Ping-O-Matic, and Blogdigger. You should confidently share your blog with family, friends, co-workers, associates, and business professionals when it relates. Many blogs can be considered as a collection of articles, for this purpose you should submit your blog entries (those that are valuable and lengthy articles) to content syndicators like GoArticles.com or ArticleCity.com. Once submitted your articles can be picked up and published by others. The trick is to make sure you include your Blog URL address inrepparttar 143750 "Aboutrepparttar 143751 Author" passage. What this does is create link popularity and backlinks for your blog, when someone picks up your article fromrepparttar 143752 syndication then publishrepparttar 143753 article on their websiterepparttar 143754 "Aboutrepparttar 143755 Author" passage is included with each publication andrepparttar 143756 link you included is followed, crawled, and indexed by search engines. Imagine if your article is popular enough or controversial enough to produce 10,000 publications acrossrepparttar 143757 web. The search engines is bound to find your site in no time with that many publications and credit you a authority onrepparttar 143758 topic, in return increasing your rank on search engines. The small effort of writing a well written article is rewarding. You should try to write at least 1 full length article every week for syndication and submit your article to at least 10 article syndicators.

5) Track Your Blog

How do you know if your blog has traffic? Just because no one is leaving comments doesn't mean your blog isn't growing. Many visitors do not leave comments but they are returning visitors. I know it sounds crazy but with blogs people are more interested in what "you" have to say! Many visitors do not comment their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd time. Some do not comment at all, but are active daily visitors.

Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated usually a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com or Active Meter will dorepparttar 143759 trick. Install (copy/paste)repparttar 143760 code intorepparttar 143761 html of your blog template and start tracking your visitors. Its better to use a service which gives you advanced traffic analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral information, and search engine information. Visitors, returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standard for any page counter service you choose.

6) Listen to Your Audience

When usingrepparttar 143762 proper page counter you should begin to see how others are finding your blog and if through search engines then which keywords are being used to find your blog. If constantly your blog is being found by 1 or more keywords then focus your blog around those keywords to make it even more powerful. When writing entry titles and entries userepparttar 143763 keywords as often as possible while keepingrepparttar 143764 blog legible and interesting.

Choosing A Web Designer: A Plan To Guide You Through The Minefield

Written by Robin Porter


Choosing a web designer can seem like a daunting task. They come in all shapes and sizes – from freelancers working at home to glossy new media agencies, and there is as much variation in prices and service as there is in size.

So how do you chooserepparttar right one for your business?

Select Your Marketplace

Firstly, decide what market your would like to select from: local , national or overseas.

If you would feel more comfortable meeting your designer, and running through your project face to face (maybe it’srepparttar 143735 kind of project that needs to “evolve”) ,and your ethos is “quality of service” rather than “Pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap” then a local web designer is for you. They can usually provide better back up, and be able to meet face to face to discuss your project and iron out any problems should they occur.

If you are a bit more budget conscious, then it makes sense to select from a “wider pool”. Getting quotes from designers across your country will usually obtain a more competitive quote. What you lose in face-to-face service is made up for in cost savings, and all butrepparttar 143736 largest web projects can usually be sorted out via telephone and email these days.

Forrepparttar 143737 extremely cost conscious and value for money orientated (some would even say “brave”!) there isrepparttar 143738 overseas market. If you know exactly what you are looking for and can explain your project thoroughly and clearly in writing, then there are huge savings to be made. But what you save in price is invariably countered by having to do a little more work on your side – particularly when it comes to communication!

Finding Web Designers

To find a list of local web designers consult your Yellow Pages (or equivalent) or do a web search for “web designer “ + “your area”. Looking further a field, you can do a web search or check out directories such as www.recommended-web-designers.co.uk . For overseas designers, go to web sites such as www.elance.com or www.rentacoder.com,repparttar 143739 latter offeringrepparttar 143740 benefit of escrow and arbitration services.

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