13 Steps to Successful Blogging

Written by Ant Onaf


Continued from page 1

7) Multiple blogs

Use multiple blogging accounts to attract more people. This means you should have a blog with JournalHome.com, Blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, Blog-City.com, tBlogs.com, etc. The more blog accountsrepparttar better. You can copy/paste from 1 blog to all others. Having different blog accounts is like having a publication in different newspapers. This enables you to attract more visitors and this also increasesrepparttar 143744 chance that 1 of your blogs will be inrepparttar 143745 search engine results for your focused keywords.

8) Short & Concise

Aside fromrepparttar 143746 lengthy article a week for syndication and publication your blog entries should be short & concise (if you can help it). Sometimes there are exceptions torepparttar 143747 rule and you have no choice but to blog lengthy entries, but try to avoid this as much as possible. You do not want your blog entries to become hours of reading. Visitors like to easily find information and skim through your entries. It is good to be detailed and provide useful information, but do not include useless information or run away sentences that veer away from your topic.

9) Digital Art

Try to include non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries. Not too much. Once a week is fine. Graphics can sometimes bring your blog to life. Of course,repparttar 143748 content ofrepparttar 143749 blog isrepparttar 143750 most important aspect and you do not want to overshadow your content with graphics, but displaying graphics can add a bit of spice torepparttar 143751 blog. Be choosy about your graphics and make sure they fit your entry topic. You should add content withrepparttar 143752 graphic, at least a caption. Original graphics, photos, pictures, and art is recommended.

10) Keep it Personal

A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include personal experiences which relates torepparttar 143753 topic of your blog entry. Stay away fromrepparttar 143754 business style of writing. Write with a more personal style and use first-person narratives. Do not write any of your entries as sales letters, instead share product reviews and personal endeavors.

11) Interact With Your Visitors

You now haverepparttar 143755 traffic you deserve. You should begin interacting with your visitors. Create a regular theme such as: "Monday Money Tip" or "Picture ofrepparttar 143756 Week" which entices your readers to look forward to each week.

Give your readers advance notice about a product, service, or topic which you are going to review and then talk about later. Ifrepparttar 143757 President was scheduled to give a speech then in your blog you should state that you "will discussrepparttar 143758 speech and give your opinion afterrepparttar 143759 speech airs. Comments will be appreciated".

Try your best to find exclusive information that not many have. Do not disclose any confidential or secret information which is deemed illegal or can potentially get you into trouble, but try to getrepparttar 143760 scoop before everyone else does. Such as: If your blog was about Paris Hilton (the socialite) and you had a blog entry about "Paris Hilton Getting Married" then it would be interesting to your readers if you had a actual picture of Paris Hilton engagement ring. Give your best effort to dig and searchrepparttar 143761 internet for exclusive information and you will possibly come up with something useful. Your readers will appreciate this and they show their appreciation through word-of-mouth referrals. Imagine how many readers will tell their friends, family, and others about information they only can find at your blog.

12) Make Money

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking about turning your traffic into profit. You should use contextual advertising, like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising is usually text links which userepparttar 143762 content of your blog to publish targeted ads on your blog. The payout is usually based on a pay-per-click model, meaning for ever click an ad receives you are paid a small percentage ofrepparttar 143763 profits. In addition to contextual advertising it is good to also use graphical advertising such as: BlogAds.com, Amazon.com, MammaMedia, or General Sponsored Advertising.

13) You're a Professional

You're a professional now! What are you still doing with that free blog hosting service? It is time to upgrade to a domain hosted solution. You need to get a web host and choose a domain name for your blog then check its availability. Selectrepparttar 143764 blogging software you wish to use, such as: Squarespace.com, WordPress.org, MovableType.org, etc. When you have your new blog domain setup and ready for traffic then it is time for you to announce your move on all your previous blog accounts. Your last entry torepparttar 143765 blog should be a "move" announcement. The title should be "Moved" andrepparttar 143766 blog entry should state something like "Old Blog has been moved to New Blog please follow and bookmark this link for future reference: http://www.YourNewBlogDomainName.com". This way all returning visitors and new readers should not have any problem finding your new blog domain.

Atrepparttar 143767 level of a professional blogger you may want to team up with 1 or more other bloggers. This will create a more interesting and more powerful blog. The old saying "two heads is better than one", more authors mean more advertising and exposure because each author will have a vested interest inrepparttar 143768 blog. The idea of a team blog is to make it profitable and rewarding for all authors, while continuing to targetrepparttar 143769 blog topic and keepingrepparttar 143770 blog interesting for visitors.

Following these blogging techniques should make your blogging experience much more rewarding. There is no guarantee that your blog will become popular or a household name, butrepparttar 143771 effort should at least put you one step closer. Making money online is not an overnight experience like many may think, but making money online is definitely a foreseeable possibility. As well, growing popularity onrepparttar 143772 web is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with allrepparttar 143773 royalties of blogging.

Ant Onaf is the owner and founder of www.JournalHome.com. He is an online internet marketer, content writer, and IT consultant. Ant Onaf has years of IT-related experience and Internet-related experience. His ingenuity, dedication, and passion for technology, internet marketing, & writing have made him a monumental icon in the World Wide Web. His blog can be visited at http://www.journalhome.com/AntOnaf


MOD_REWRITE for Dummies

Written by Bobby Handzhiev


Continued from page 1

RewriteRule ^(.*).html index.php?task=$1

What does all that mean? This is a rewrite rule which allows you to make your URLs looking as "static". In this example categories.html will be "translated" to index.php?task=categories. So you no longer need dynamic URL to list ther categories, but can write categories.html

But what do all these strange characters mean? - ^ character marksrepparttar beginning. I.e. you tellrepparttar 143666 server that it should not expect anything before it. - (.*) - This combination isrepparttar 143667 most often used and it means literally "everything". So everything you type before ".html" (i.e. your fake file name) will be passed as: - $1 - This is a parametter, saying whererepparttar 143668 first mask should be put. If you have more than one masks (masks are everything which you use to represent dynamich text or file names) you can use $2, $3 etc. You'll seemor einrepparttar 143669 following examples.

So, if you have categories.html it will be translated info index.php?task=categories, services.html into index.php?task=services etc...

What if you have more than one parametter? First, you should use some characters as delimiter:

RewriteRule ^(.*)-(.*).html index.php?task=$1&language=$2

Here how you can also pass task and language. For example: categories-englist.html will be translated into index.php?task=categories&language=english.

IMPORTANT: If you first write RewriteRule ^(.*).html index.php?task=$1 The second one may not work. You need to always start fromrepparttar 143670 most complicated rule torepparttar 143671 simplest one.

Make it Better: The rule (.*) is too general and often may prevent you of making more complicated rewriting rules. So it is recommended that you "limit"repparttar 143672 rules into something more concrete. Here are a couple of advices:

- Userepparttar 143673 "OR" operator. In our e-shop example we have only few possible "tasks" passed to index.php. Lets say: index.php?task=categories index.php?task=category index.php?task=product index.php?task=services

What will happen if you want to use your static file about.html? It will be rewritten into index.php?task=about and won't work. So you can userepparttar 143674 OR operator and limitrepparttar 143675 rewriting only torepparttar 143676 cases you need:

RewriteRule ^(categories|category|product|services).html index.php?task=$1

This tellsrepparttar 143677 server to rewrite only ifrepparttar 143678 file name is categories.html OR category.html OR product.html OR services.html

- Using "numbers". You can easy limitrepparttar 143679 rewriter to rewrite if it meets only numbers at a certain place:

RewriteRule ^category-([0-9]*).html index.php?task=category&id=$1

With ([0-9]*) mask you tellrepparttar 143680 rewrite engine that onrepparttar 143681 mask place it should expect onlly numbers. So if it see category-english.html it won't rewrite to index.php?task=category&id=english, but to index.php?task=category&language=english (because ofrepparttar 143682 rule we have shown above - RewriteRule ^(.*)-(.*).html index.php?task=$1&language=$2.).

Complete example: Here is how will lookrepparttar 143683 final .htaccess file for our imaginary e-shop:

-------- Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^(.*)-(.*).html index.php?task=$1&language=$2. RewriteRule ^(categories|category|product|services).html index.php?task=$1 RewriteRule ^category-([0-9]*).html index.php?task=category&id=$1

The author is Senior Deveoper in PIM Team Bulgaria and Consultant in SEO PIM Team


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