Blogging is, in general, an easy thing to do. At least the concept of blogging is easy. All you are really doing is writing about things you like. So, why does anyone really need blogging tips? Well, because removing an engine from a car is easy, but you cant lift it out with your hands. Learning to blog successfully is a process, it requires practice and understanding and it requires help. Tips for beginners are always useful, so I decided to offer you 5 basic blogging tips for beginners today, to help you get started.
Showing posts with label Blogging Resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogging Resources. Show all posts
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Saturday, May 19, 2012
How to Blog Successfully in an ever Changing World
Blogging is easy. At least it is if you have any interest in writing. You don't need any other special skills really...... If you just want to blog.
Blogging successfully is a completely different beast all together. But, what does that really mean? The idea of being a successful blogger will differ between individuals. But, in general the essence of what makes a good blogger is the same. A successful blogger is one who is able to keep up with the times in his or her own demographic. One who stays a little ahead of everyone else, in order to produce fresh posts that are different from anyone else on the blog. A successful blogger understands that there is more to blogging than just writing an occasional post. In fact, that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Blogging successfully is a completely different beast all together. But, what does that really mean? The idea of being a successful blogger will differ between individuals. But, in general the essence of what makes a good blogger is the same. A successful blogger is one who is able to keep up with the times in his or her own demographic. One who stays a little ahead of everyone else, in order to produce fresh posts that are different from anyone else on the blog. A successful blogger understands that there is more to blogging than just writing an occasional post. In fact, that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Using Social Networking to improve Blog Traffic
It is no secret. Facebook is a Phenomenon like no other has been seen on the internet. It has so twisted and weaved its way through ever bit and piece of the internet, there is no getting away from it. I, personally am not into the whole social networking as far as the social interaction is concerned. I am not that much of a people person and tend to find myself bothered by sites like Facebook. So, as of this time, I do not have a facebook account. And I have no intentions of starting a Facebook account. No real time or interest.
But from a blogging traffic standpoint, it can not be overlooked, nor can the other forms of social networking be overlooked. So, lest discuss this process a little bit.
Using facebook as an example first off. You have a chance with your facebook pace to let a large number of people know that you have a blog, and in turn you can direct a whole lot of traffic in one quick swoop, just by letting all your facebook friends know that you have a blog and would love people to check it out, through a simple status update. This is nice, this can be, if nothing more a huge ego stroke. And ego plays a big part in the continuation of your blog. Even if you don't look at it that way. You will become much more excited to do something if you are receiving some sort of positive affirmation of your efforts. It is human nature to do so. And there is nothing wrong with that.
I would like to make sure I am not confusing the reality though. You are not going to rank better in search engines if you occasionally mention your blog on your Facebook page. Google could care less. But it is short sighted to think it is not worth the effort then if you are not going to place well in Google from a link.
All along I have been preaching one thing over and over again. And that is awareness. Awareness is the key here. The coveted "Golden Ticket" you may say is in that awareness. Because what you HOPE will happen, is sooner or later, from that awareness you create, you will start to receive real, non-solicited backlinks to your blog. And these are worth more than any link you can build on your own. Not only to Google and the like, but to your overall traffic. Every time you get a random link from a new source you have opened up the opportunity to new viewers, new audience pools, and this alone my friend, is how you continually repeat the cycle. This is how you slowly but surly take your little blog to something that can be much more.
So. Now I think you get the idea I am going for. Creating awareness using social networking is a very powerful tool. Since I am not a Facebooker. I found other sites I use.
Twitter, is a wonderful option. It is very easy to build a large follower list. I am not sure how many followers I have at the moment, but I can tell you it is in the hundreds easily and I do not do anything to build my followers list. So, whenever I post a new blog post. I tweet that I have done so. It usually results in instant traffic to my blog. Or Awareness article, or Backlink Article. I will tweet any new property.
On top of that, I use Linkdin. It is a more business orientated Social Networking site. It really does not drive much traffic to my properties, mostly because I have very little interest in the site, and do not spend the time to build up a friend list.
And the last site I use is, PeopleString. Ok, it is pretty much Facebook with a twist. They pay you to use the site. They don't pay a lot. But like I have said before, I am driven by money. And every little bit will slowly add up. It all makes a little difference. People string is a social networking site, with a forum, and games, and message boards, with the twist being, they pay you a portion of their ad revenues, on a scale, depending on how much you use the site.
I am not here to get everyone to Join Peoplestring. Although, if you do use my referral link, it will improve my earnings (Hint hint). But What I am saying is, there are other sites besides Facebook, that can work equally well, if you give it time.
Twitter has been a wonderful tool for me. I use it all the time. I would recommend this one highly. Facebook also is probably the strongest tool out there for self promotion within your circle. And Peoplestring is a nice alternative for those of you who would like to try and earn a couple dollars along the way.
Again, it has not made me rich. Some claim that they make hundreds and thousands per month with the site. I have to casually question these statements. But who really knows.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners, please come back soon!
But from a blogging traffic standpoint, it can not be overlooked, nor can the other forms of social networking be overlooked. So, lest discuss this process a little bit.
Using facebook as an example first off. You have a chance with your facebook pace to let a large number of people know that you have a blog, and in turn you can direct a whole lot of traffic in one quick swoop, just by letting all your facebook friends know that you have a blog and would love people to check it out, through a simple status update. This is nice, this can be, if nothing more a huge ego stroke. And ego plays a big part in the continuation of your blog. Even if you don't look at it that way. You will become much more excited to do something if you are receiving some sort of positive affirmation of your efforts. It is human nature to do so. And there is nothing wrong with that.
I would like to make sure I am not confusing the reality though. You are not going to rank better in search engines if you occasionally mention your blog on your Facebook page. Google could care less. But it is short sighted to think it is not worth the effort then if you are not going to place well in Google from a link.
All along I have been preaching one thing over and over again. And that is awareness. Awareness is the key here. The coveted "Golden Ticket" you may say is in that awareness. Because what you HOPE will happen, is sooner or later, from that awareness you create, you will start to receive real, non-solicited backlinks to your blog. And these are worth more than any link you can build on your own. Not only to Google and the like, but to your overall traffic. Every time you get a random link from a new source you have opened up the opportunity to new viewers, new audience pools, and this alone my friend, is how you continually repeat the cycle. This is how you slowly but surly take your little blog to something that can be much more.
So. Now I think you get the idea I am going for. Creating awareness using social networking is a very powerful tool. Since I am not a Facebooker. I found other sites I use.
Twitter, is a wonderful option. It is very easy to build a large follower list. I am not sure how many followers I have at the moment, but I can tell you it is in the hundreds easily and I do not do anything to build my followers list. So, whenever I post a new blog post. I tweet that I have done so. It usually results in instant traffic to my blog. Or Awareness article, or Backlink Article. I will tweet any new property.
On top of that, I use Linkdin. It is a more business orientated Social Networking site. It really does not drive much traffic to my properties, mostly because I have very little interest in the site, and do not spend the time to build up a friend list.
And the last site I use is, PeopleString. Ok, it is pretty much Facebook with a twist. They pay you to use the site. They don't pay a lot. But like I have said before, I am driven by money. And every little bit will slowly add up. It all makes a little difference. People string is a social networking site, with a forum, and games, and message boards, with the twist being, they pay you a portion of their ad revenues, on a scale, depending on how much you use the site.
I am not here to get everyone to Join Peoplestring. Although, if you do use my referral link, it will improve my earnings (Hint hint). But What I am saying is, there are other sites besides Facebook, that can work equally well, if you give it time.
Twitter has been a wonderful tool for me. I use it all the time. I would recommend this one highly. Facebook also is probably the strongest tool out there for self promotion within your circle. And Peoplestring is a nice alternative for those of you who would like to try and earn a couple dollars along the way.
Again, it has not made me rich. Some claim that they make hundreds and thousands per month with the site. I have to casually question these statements. But who really knows.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners, please come back soon!
Monday, March 14, 2011
What are Awareness Articles?
There is another reason to enjoy awareness articles…..MONEY! And that alone drives me and what I do on the internet. It is a very strong pull for me and there are MANY opportunities to make income on the internet. Other than that from what you can make with your blogs. There are many sites that will pay your for your content. Usually paid per view from a unique party. And I have to admit, the income is not great. But it is still what it is and it is still something that should be considered. Because, not only are you making money from your work, but you ARE creating awareness of you, the author, and of any link you include in your article.
So, with this awareness article, you are not only creating a link back to your web property, but you are creating an awareness of yourself. And you are as important in this article as the link itself. Undoubtedly, the link will be a No-Follow link. And this of course means that Google will not give you “Credit” for the link, but what you can gain from this link is direct traffic to your blog, or Hub or whatever else you make link to it. And being that these sites sole purpose are to drive traffic. They tend to get a healthy amount of traffic, and they tend to naturally place well in search engines without a whole lot of work. This alone gives you a chance to make an impression.
The goal of these articles should be to create a spark or create interest in what you are and your writing style. You want these articles to be snappy. You are trying to catch people. Remember, that what you are trying to build is a web of links, you want them to spend as much time in your web as possible. Because sooner or later, you will attract permanent readers, repeat readers who will come back every time you write more. And this is really our goal. Whether it is income driven or just your drive to be recognized and for people to see you is irrelevant. You are just trying to capture a persons interests.
So, above I stated that there are many places that offer this kind of service to you. Some I have mentioned here before. Some may be sites you are well aware of. Some formats you may like. Others are not all that great. But, as with all things when we are talking about awareness. Variety is key here. Don’t be afraid to have multiple sites you write for. Work smart and create a similar article for every site and have them all posted. It will pay off in one way or another.
Well, what are these sites you might ask…
Here they are, in no particular order. There are others besides the ones I will cover, but I use these and find them to be very suitable for my needs.
Helium:
Helium has been around for quite a while now. I believe I have been a member of helium for years. They have a huge library of topics. And you are judged by your peers. Every article is judged independently. And the system they employ will require you to judge articles as well, if you intend on earning income from your own articles. You can just post and not earn income. That is completely acceptable, but if you do a little extra work, they will pay you per view on your article. The pay scale varies depending on how well you rank within a particular topic and what the topic is about, and it will not pay a lot. As an example, I have 30 some odd articles on Helium and I rank in the upper 75% and make a few dollars a month usually. It is not going to make me rich. Maybe if I had thousands of articles, I could say it may make me rich, but the shear volume needed to reach that level is beyond my comprehension really. I tend to right on a whim, it comes and goes in spurts. I just lack the focus to maintain a consistent writing schedule. But, in any way, helium is a well rin site that had a great reputation and should not be overlooked.
Bukisa:
Bukisa is relatively new. And lately service has been somewhat sketchy to say the least. They have had a lot of server issues. But, when they are running smooth this site is super easy and pays well comparatively. They have no specific topics, meaning you can write pretty much about anything as long as it falls within their rules. And you are paid on a set scale. Based on 1000 unique views. I make good money from Bukisa, I get lots of views, but that may be soley based upon my topics. I chose topics really well and they immediately ranked well in Google. Well, immediate in Google terms. It took a few weeks. Again they allow you to add back links and an author profile. But links are No-Follow. It is a site I would give consideration to if you have a hard time confining yourself to particular topics.
And the Third I am going to mention today is
Associated Content:
Ok. Something is amiss with Associated Content. You can still write for it, but it is now owned by Yahoo, and I honestly do not know how it even works now. Once I have the chance to investigate, I will let you know. Join if you want, I am pretty sure it will still provide a very useful tool. I am just not sure how at this moment, and do not want to wait on publishing this post.
So, there you have it, and understanding to what awareness articles are and how they will benefit you and your goals at becoming a blogger that is reconnized in the blogging community. These articles are not amazing link builders and they are not going to give you a great SERP by writing them, but they will start to create some constant online income. And in many cases that alone will give you drive to keep working at it. Becoming discouraged by lack of change from your efforts is all too common. I hit several road blocks along the way that made me want to quit. In fact I did quit a time or two. Feeling that the amount of effort was largely unbalanced to the result I was seeing. And even now. Close to two years in to my commitment to seeing this thing through, I am still not to a point to which I can retire and happily spend my time blogging. But I can see progress. And with time and effort you can too. Just give it that, time and effort, and a huge helping of patience. The internet works in a very slow and methodical manner. You will most likely not become an overnight success. But you can build it and find your success at some point.
Again, thank you for reading blogging for beginners. Talk to you all soon!
Saturday, March 12, 2011
How to drive traffic to your blog
I am gonna get right down to it. There will be no beating around the bushes and there will be none of me telling you that in order to drive traffic to your blog you are going to have to buy some sort of product from me. It is just not the way it is, and in fact. Driving traffic to your blog is more a test of patience than it is a test on your pocket book. At least in my mind it is. And unless you are some sort of Uber Blogger with the most wonderful idea in the world. Chances are your topic has been written about once or twice. And being that. Why would you start dumping money into an idea that is not “fresh”. It just is not worth the cost. Because reality is, your not going to make millions. Sorry. Some people may tell you if you follow them and click here and read this and sign up for this program you will also be able to make millions. But reality is, the market is saturated. New ideas are scarce and competition is unbelievable for almost any keyword worth a damn.
So what do you do? How do you drive traffic to your blog. WHERE IS THE TRAFFIC FOR YOUR SPECIFIC BLOG?
Very good questions my friend. Very good questions indeed. And the answer, of course is not black and white or cut and dry. The answer lies in this hazy area. So, even if it may seem that what I tell you is a little bit like beating around the bush. The reality is, it is reality. It is what it is.
As you see below here, I have created a basic tree of building blog traffic. You can see that at the top of the tree, Website is what I consider the apex. Not blogs. This is what it is. Although many of you will consider blog as the apex. That is quite okay. But not reality.
So, below the blogging portion of the tree. You will see that there are several categories. These are the categories that we are going to cover IN DETAIL! I am going to explain exactly what I do in order to build blog traffic using these methods.
So.....Let me stop rambling! Let's get started
- Link Building Articles
As far as I am concerned, this is and will always be the #1 most important aspect of building blog traffic. And there is more than one way to skin a cat and there is more than one way you should be skinning your cat. There are, in fact, dozens of ways to do this.
My number one most favorite way to build links through articles is HubPages. I love Hubpages. Google gives you huge mojo for Hubpage articles. Not only that but Hubpages are highly popular and have a wonderful community. And wait, there is even more! You can include your Adsense Id and include Adsense adds on your Hub. Hubpages does keep a portion of your Adsense revenue, but what you will usually find is, you will either be paid for your article or you will get true do follow backlinks. You will usually not get both. With Hubpages you do. Not only can you use Adsense, but you can also use your Amazon Associates Id and add, Amazon ads to your blogs.
This means that You can get multiple effect from your Hubs. You can write very Sales orientated hubs in order to sell product on your hub, and slyly drop a couple backlinks to your blog. It is not so much about the traffic you directly generate from the link, but more about the Juice Google places on that link, and how much that link will help you in SERP. Some blogs I built, I have placed well in Google with nothing more that a couple Hubpages.
Now Hubpages is not the only site that is like this. Info Barrel is another winner. Not quite as established, but still a great site. And it is very important to build variation to your backlinks. You do not want them all to be from the same origin. Your backlinks will be discounted if they are viewed as spam.
Another way to build links with articles is article submitting to article directories. Specifically I am going to suggest Ezine.com and Goarticles.com. These are the two that I use and the two I find to be the best. What article directories do is, allow you to submit articles to a general, public directory. In your article you are usually able to include a backlink and also include an about the author section. Once your article is submitted and accepted by the site, anyone can use your articles on their website or blog. This can be huge. This means that you not only get the high quality backlink from the Article Directory, but you will get a link for any site that uses your article on their site. You will not make any money for these articles. But, its not about making money. It is about building links in large quantities. And it is really a must for any highly competitive keywords.
In general. There is no exact science on what to link to. What you really want to create is a web. Something like I show in this illustration. Articles link to hubs and blogs, hubs link to specific posts and to the main Url of your blog. The thing to really be considerate of is, more links per article is not better. 2 or 3 links per article really should be your max. You will start to see diminishing returns on your links if you saturate your articles with too many of them.
I have to stop. I know you want to learn more about how to drive traffic to your blog, but, this post has already hit 1000 words. Nobody likes a chatty kathy. And I would like to save more for later.
For more about links you might want to read my article about internal blog links. That is a good topic.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners.
And I want to give thanks to Ed at Oldsputnick.com. His interest has inspired me into writing again. I appreciate that, even though he may have had no idea for what he was doing! Good luck Ed and good luck to all of you. And for anyone who would like personal help, please ask. I will always try to help.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Blogging for beginners - Free blogs or paid domains?
I received a comment the other day talking about the only way to really do well with blogging is through a custom domain. Or a paid blog, you may call it.
So, it got me to thinking, what is the real difference I have noticed between free blogs and paid blogs? Because I do also have blogs I pay for. But I really do believe that free blogs are not so shabby, especially for individuals who are just learning the process and concept of blogging.
So, whether you are blogging with the intention of making money or just blogging for the fun of it, I thought I would explain in a little bit of detail the pros and cons of both free blogs and paid blogs.
Take this blog for example. This blog would probably do very well as a paid blog. I have given it quite a bit of love in order to place fairly well in the search engines. And at times it does seem to be a bit of a waste of time to keep pumping hours and hours into a free blog. And why is that you ask, well, lets break it down really plain and simple like.
Pros of a free blog
1.) There is no financial strings attached. If you do something that negatively effects your blog, you really have lost nothing, except some time in order to try and fix what you have done.
2.)Wonderful place to really learn the art of blogging. Free blogs are a great place to test your technique. That means your writing style, and your SEO practices. You can use them to determine what works and what sells and what just completely fails. I have used my free blogs for just that purpose. And in the process, I have had some serious failures. I, in fact have one blog right now that has been slapped by google and taken right down....for, SPAM. They are calling it a spam blog. And although it may skate along that hairy edge of being legit and being a little questionable, none of my content on that blog would be something I would consider SPAM.
But I think that is a perfect example of the learning process you may face when beginning to blog yourself.
3.)Blogger and Wordpress. How you may wonder am I going to call these sites pros? Well, because they are power houses with huge communities, and that along can generate some traffic. And while having the Term Wordpress, or Blogspot within your url can hinder your place in the search engines. The reality is, people see these and respect these names. People who spend time reading blogs are very aware that there are hundreds and thousands of quality bloggers using these tools to start their own blogs.
And what are the CONS of free blogs
1.)You are under the thumb of a larger entity. Case in point is the blog I mention above. If I was under my own url with that blog, It would not be wiped out by google. They would pull my adsense account, but they could not just delete it. And that is a big deal. That blog had about 100 posts and tones of content that is now just gone. Hundreds of backlinks just wasted.
2.)Your URL is a sub domain of a bigger site. What this means is, search engines give it less value than if it was your own URL. A site called bloggingforbeginners.com is going to rank better on url alone than my blog, if all other factors are equal.
3.)Customization. This is a big one, artistic freedom with your content is really big when it comes to proper page layout and structure. And while both blogger and Wordpress offers a lot of options, they can never compare to the freedom you get with a custom URL.
So, what about a paid blog? How does a paid blog stack up to a free blog?
Reality is, there is no comparison. It is so much easier to build a successful blog with your own URL. One of my paid blogs already has a better page rank than this blog and it has only been around for two months and I have given it almost no attention as far as SEO is concerned. It just naturally ranks better.
1.)So, Number one Pro would be just that. Google gives more weight to a paid URL. It shows a level of commitment that is just not there when you use free blogs. This means that more time and effort will have to be placed in a free blog in order to rank it within Google. And this is big, because you will find that you will be spending more time trying to improve your standings in the search engines than you will writing content for your own blog.
2.)Worpress software. Wordpress is by far and away the best blog software out there. And it is free. They have such a large community of great programers and code writers that you will be able to find an limitless amount of templates and widgets for your blog. Everything you can imagine.
3.)Since of responsibility. This is of course going to vary from person to person. But if you are investing your own money into a blog, you will want to see it do well. And you will spend more effort in making sure it is as good as you can make it.
Cons of a paid blog
1.) There really is none, except maybe the fact that it is not free. That you will be paying for hosting and you will have to pay for a domain name. Sites like GoDaddy and Host Gator make the costs as reasonable as possible, but you will still be looking at a monthly investment.
Other than that. I really see no downside to owning your own URL. So, am I telling you to go out and get one? No. I am telling you to look at it all as a bigger picture. The way I look at this process is, The paid blog is the top of my food chain. but off that I have several smaller micro niche blogs, I have Hubpages, I have Bukisa articles and other article sites, and I link from all these places. Some go back to the main blog, some don't. But my goal and intention is, to create a web of information, because the longer my readers spend reading MY content, the more likely they are to click on something that in some way will make some money for me. And that is really my intention with the efforts I put into my blogs and other online properties. I try to provide value with the hopes that I will get something in return. Not asking for anything in return, because that is just not my style.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners. I have appreciated the increase in traffic. It has really been a breath of fresh air in a time when I have had trouble finding ideas for writing.
So, it got me to thinking, what is the real difference I have noticed between free blogs and paid blogs? Because I do also have blogs I pay for. But I really do believe that free blogs are not so shabby, especially for individuals who are just learning the process and concept of blogging.
So, whether you are blogging with the intention of making money or just blogging for the fun of it, I thought I would explain in a little bit of detail the pros and cons of both free blogs and paid blogs.
Take this blog for example. This blog would probably do very well as a paid blog. I have given it quite a bit of love in order to place fairly well in the search engines. And at times it does seem to be a bit of a waste of time to keep pumping hours and hours into a free blog. And why is that you ask, well, lets break it down really plain and simple like.
Pros of a free blog
1.) There is no financial strings attached. If you do something that negatively effects your blog, you really have lost nothing, except some time in order to try and fix what you have done.
2.)Wonderful place to really learn the art of blogging. Free blogs are a great place to test your technique. That means your writing style, and your SEO practices. You can use them to determine what works and what sells and what just completely fails. I have used my free blogs for just that purpose. And in the process, I have had some serious failures. I, in fact have one blog right now that has been slapped by google and taken right down....for, SPAM. They are calling it a spam blog. And although it may skate along that hairy edge of being legit and being a little questionable, none of my content on that blog would be something I would consider SPAM.
But I think that is a perfect example of the learning process you may face when beginning to blog yourself.
3.)Blogger and Wordpress. How you may wonder am I going to call these sites pros? Well, because they are power houses with huge communities, and that along can generate some traffic. And while having the Term Wordpress, or Blogspot within your url can hinder your place in the search engines. The reality is, people see these and respect these names. People who spend time reading blogs are very aware that there are hundreds and thousands of quality bloggers using these tools to start their own blogs.
And what are the CONS of free blogs
1.)You are under the thumb of a larger entity. Case in point is the blog I mention above. If I was under my own url with that blog, It would not be wiped out by google. They would pull my adsense account, but they could not just delete it. And that is a big deal. That blog had about 100 posts and tones of content that is now just gone. Hundreds of backlinks just wasted.
2.)Your URL is a sub domain of a bigger site. What this means is, search engines give it less value than if it was your own URL. A site called bloggingforbeginners.com is going to rank better on url alone than my blog, if all other factors are equal.
3.)Customization. This is a big one, artistic freedom with your content is really big when it comes to proper page layout and structure. And while both blogger and Wordpress offers a lot of options, they can never compare to the freedom you get with a custom URL.
So, what about a paid blog? How does a paid blog stack up to a free blog?
Reality is, there is no comparison. It is so much easier to build a successful blog with your own URL. One of my paid blogs already has a better page rank than this blog and it has only been around for two months and I have given it almost no attention as far as SEO is concerned. It just naturally ranks better.
1.)So, Number one Pro would be just that. Google gives more weight to a paid URL. It shows a level of commitment that is just not there when you use free blogs. This means that more time and effort will have to be placed in a free blog in order to rank it within Google. And this is big, because you will find that you will be spending more time trying to improve your standings in the search engines than you will writing content for your own blog.
2.)Worpress software. Wordpress is by far and away the best blog software out there. And it is free. They have such a large community of great programers and code writers that you will be able to find an limitless amount of templates and widgets for your blog. Everything you can imagine.
3.)Since of responsibility. This is of course going to vary from person to person. But if you are investing your own money into a blog, you will want to see it do well. And you will spend more effort in making sure it is as good as you can make it.
Cons of a paid blog
1.) There really is none, except maybe the fact that it is not free. That you will be paying for hosting and you will have to pay for a domain name. Sites like GoDaddy and Host Gator make the costs as reasonable as possible, but you will still be looking at a monthly investment.
Other than that. I really see no downside to owning your own URL. So, am I telling you to go out and get one? No. I am telling you to look at it all as a bigger picture. The way I look at this process is, The paid blog is the top of my food chain. but off that I have several smaller micro niche blogs, I have Hubpages, I have Bukisa articles and other article sites, and I link from all these places. Some go back to the main blog, some don't. But my goal and intention is, to create a web of information, because the longer my readers spend reading MY content, the more likely they are to click on something that in some way will make some money for me. And that is really my intention with the efforts I put into my blogs and other online properties. I try to provide value with the hopes that I will get something in return. Not asking for anything in return, because that is just not my style.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners. I have appreciated the increase in traffic. It has really been a breath of fresh air in a time when I have had trouble finding ideas for writing.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Keyword research tools and variables to consider for beginner bloggers
It is a problem I deal with every single day when working on my blogs. And that is keywords and keyword research. And although I have quite a bit of knowledge on the subject and I understand the principals behind it, even for me, I find it to be a struggle when deciding on keywords. Today, at blogging for beginners I would like to spend some more time on the subject. I know I have talked about it a few times, and I will continue to talk about it, until I feel I have completely exhausted the issue.
And for someone like me, someone who can ramble on and on about almost anything that I have a little interest in. This may take a while.
In particular, today I would like to delve a little deeper into good keyword research and some of the tools I implement in building a solid core of keywords to use as my jumping off point for my blogs. And really for any content I may be planning to add to the internet. Because keywords are not just unique to bloggers. They play a role in all forms of internet content. And should be a key factor in deciding on topics that you would like to talk about on the internet.
So, just to refresh everyone. Keywords are the words that search engines use to help classify your content. Keywords are the common words that internet users will type into the search engines in order to find specific information on a certain topic. Some keywords are searched more often than others, some keywords have MUCH more competition than others. And it is all a big balancing act between ad cost and supply and demand. While there is not necessarily a direct correlation between keyword competition and search frequency, there is almost always a direct link between keyword ad cost and competition.
Keywords like loan, and money are high ad dollar keywords, this means that these words are highly competitive and that chances of a blogging beginner cracking into page one on the search engines are really really slim. This leaves us searching for the perfect balance of competition/ad cost/and search frequency.
And one of the primary places I do most of this research is with Google's Adword Keyword tool. With this tool, you can see how many times a specific keyword is searched, along with what google charges for that keyword. For individuals who are trying to make money through advertising, these are important bits of information. Through those to pieces of information you can assume what sort of value that specific keyword will have to you if you advertise on your blog. The Google charge is not a representation of what you will earn per ad click, being a third party advertiser, you only receive a portion of that cost.
Basically, you want keywords with high ad rates, high traffic rates, and low competition. And that is much harder than you may think. Competition is fierce in most instances. Meaning something will have to be sacrificed.
There are options here though. If you would prefer the high traffic count at the cost of ad rates, look for that, if you would prefer low traffic volumes for the home run hits on your ad dollars, then you can go for that. But even at lower traffic volumes, if the keyword has value, you will have competition.
In most instances, for someone who is just starting out with all this. I would recommend you look for keywords that are highly searched but have little keyword value. Because this in turn usually brings less competition.
So, what do you really need to be looking for?
Usually keywords that are worth less than a dollar, and are searched between 500-2000 times per month is a good place to start. But even after you find these keywords, there are more steps to consider when deciding on keywords.
After you have found a keyword, google-it. This is going to give you some insight to your competition. What are we looking for here is, the total results of websites that appear on the page. This will vary greatly, from a few to millions, lower numbers are always good, as long as you followed the first step and found words that are actually searched more than a few hundred times per month.
The next thing you need to look at is the top 5 sites that appear in the results, because these are your primary competition. Can you beat these sites or at least compete with these sites? There are a lot of variables that will help you determine that.
First thing you will want to do is find out what each of the top five's page rank is. Remembering that anything above a 4 is going to be hard for you to compete with. Sites that are highly popular, or sites that have been around for a very long time, or Wiki's will always pose a serious problem when trying to compete for top spots.
After you have these sites page ranking, the next thing you will want to do is visit them. Take a look at the page and try to understand why it ranks so well, look for the keywords withing the content, read the page and just get an understanding of the approach that the page takes to the specific keyword. sometimes you will find that the site doesn't seem to be targeting that specific keyword at all, it just happens to be a very strong site and naturally will rank well for that specific keyword if it is included somewhere within the page.
The last step for right now that I want to talk about it checking the quantity of inbound links that the specific page has. The easiest way I have found to do this is with Yahoo's Site Explorer. With Site Explorer you can copy and paste the URL, and it will count backlinks. Remember, backlinks can be tough to come by, the higher number of backlinks a specific page has, the more backlinks you are going to need in order to be competetive. This number can vary greatly also, from a couple, to tens of thousands. So, be very wary of what you are getting into by choosing a specific keyword.
Another very nice thing that site explorer tells you, is where the links are coming from for the specific page. This gives you the chance to use some of those sites for backlinks yourself. so check them out, look to see if there is an opportunity to comment and add a link.
So, bottom line here is, "keyword research" is critical in the success of your blog. Going after the big dogs right out of the gate is going to lead to failure. No doubt about it. Find words that you feel you can handle and don't be afraid to start small and work up to the bigger words.
A common practice I try to use is, I base my blog's primary keywords around words that are searched more frequently, and from that, I write posts with keywords that are easier to achieve, in the hopes that I will pull readers through the back door of one of my older posts. It is a method I find to work, and one you may find useful also.
Well, that is it for today, I hope you enjoyed this blogging for beginners presentation and I hope to see you back soon!
And for someone like me, someone who can ramble on and on about almost anything that I have a little interest in. This may take a while.
In particular, today I would like to delve a little deeper into good keyword research and some of the tools I implement in building a solid core of keywords to use as my jumping off point for my blogs. And really for any content I may be planning to add to the internet. Because keywords are not just unique to bloggers. They play a role in all forms of internet content. And should be a key factor in deciding on topics that you would like to talk about on the internet.
So, just to refresh everyone. Keywords are the words that search engines use to help classify your content. Keywords are the common words that internet users will type into the search engines in order to find specific information on a certain topic. Some keywords are searched more often than others, some keywords have MUCH more competition than others. And it is all a big balancing act between ad cost and supply and demand. While there is not necessarily a direct correlation between keyword competition and search frequency, there is almost always a direct link between keyword ad cost and competition.
Keywords like loan, and money are high ad dollar keywords, this means that these words are highly competitive and that chances of a blogging beginner cracking into page one on the search engines are really really slim. This leaves us searching for the perfect balance of competition/ad cost/and search frequency.
And one of the primary places I do most of this research is with Google's Adword Keyword tool. With this tool, you can see how many times a specific keyword is searched, along with what google charges for that keyword. For individuals who are trying to make money through advertising, these are important bits of information. Through those to pieces of information you can assume what sort of value that specific keyword will have to you if you advertise on your blog. The Google charge is not a representation of what you will earn per ad click, being a third party advertiser, you only receive a portion of that cost.
Basically, you want keywords with high ad rates, high traffic rates, and low competition. And that is much harder than you may think. Competition is fierce in most instances. Meaning something will have to be sacrificed.
There are options here though. If you would prefer the high traffic count at the cost of ad rates, look for that, if you would prefer low traffic volumes for the home run hits on your ad dollars, then you can go for that. But even at lower traffic volumes, if the keyword has value, you will have competition.
In most instances, for someone who is just starting out with all this. I would recommend you look for keywords that are highly searched but have little keyword value. Because this in turn usually brings less competition.
So, what do you really need to be looking for?
Usually keywords that are worth less than a dollar, and are searched between 500-2000 times per month is a good place to start. But even after you find these keywords, there are more steps to consider when deciding on keywords.
After you have found a keyword, google-it. This is going to give you some insight to your competition. What are we looking for here is, the total results of websites that appear on the page. This will vary greatly, from a few to millions, lower numbers are always good, as long as you followed the first step and found words that are actually searched more than a few hundred times per month.
The next thing you need to look at is the top 5 sites that appear in the results, because these are your primary competition. Can you beat these sites or at least compete with these sites? There are a lot of variables that will help you determine that.
First thing you will want to do is find out what each of the top five's page rank is. Remembering that anything above a 4 is going to be hard for you to compete with. Sites that are highly popular, or sites that have been around for a very long time, or Wiki's will always pose a serious problem when trying to compete for top spots.
After you have these sites page ranking, the next thing you will want to do is visit them. Take a look at the page and try to understand why it ranks so well, look for the keywords withing the content, read the page and just get an understanding of the approach that the page takes to the specific keyword. sometimes you will find that the site doesn't seem to be targeting that specific keyword at all, it just happens to be a very strong site and naturally will rank well for that specific keyword if it is included somewhere within the page.
The last step for right now that I want to talk about it checking the quantity of inbound links that the specific page has. The easiest way I have found to do this is with Yahoo's Site Explorer. With Site Explorer you can copy and paste the URL, and it will count backlinks. Remember, backlinks can be tough to come by, the higher number of backlinks a specific page has, the more backlinks you are going to need in order to be competetive. This number can vary greatly also, from a couple, to tens of thousands. So, be very wary of what you are getting into by choosing a specific keyword.
Another very nice thing that site explorer tells you, is where the links are coming from for the specific page. This gives you the chance to use some of those sites for backlinks yourself. so check them out, look to see if there is an opportunity to comment and add a link.
So, bottom line here is, "keyword research" is critical in the success of your blog. Going after the big dogs right out of the gate is going to lead to failure. No doubt about it. Find words that you feel you can handle and don't be afraid to start small and work up to the bigger words.
A common practice I try to use is, I base my blog's primary keywords around words that are searched more frequently, and from that, I write posts with keywords that are easier to achieve, in the hopes that I will pull readers through the back door of one of my older posts. It is a method I find to work, and one you may find useful also.
Well, that is it for today, I hope you enjoyed this blogging for beginners presentation and I hope to see you back soon!
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Statcounters and Analytics for beginner bloggers
Today I would like to talk a little about statcounters and Analytics for blogs. As beginner bloggers you may have no concept of what this means, and I feel that these tools will give you important insight into how your blog is performing and why it is performing the way it is.
For me, I use Google Analytics, and I also use statcounter.com. I use both for a very good reason. I have some form of statistical OCD. I am constantly checking stats and keywords all day long. That is why I use statcounter. It keeps a real time tally on page views. Google's analytics also tracks page views and visits. But it only refreshes daily, this is fine for most, but being I like to keep a very close eye on when I get page views I use a free statcounter account that I can access through my blackberry browser, any time I want.
Ok, so what are analytics and statcounters really good for?
They track how many page views you receive, they track how traffic is finding you, and they track keywords if you are found through a search engine and they keep a running total of your total page views. Now, for some, to see the actual number of page views really has little importance. But for others like me, you will become obsessed with it.
First off, lets spend most of our time talking about Google’s Analytics. This account will provide you with in depth information on the visitors to your blog, but before you can get the information, you will have to set up a Google analytics account. This is very straight forward, especially if you already have a Google account. It will just be linked to your existing account.
Once you have your account, you will need to link the account to your blog. You will do this by providing Analytics with your blog name and URL, and Google will then give you a code to add to your blog. This part is a little bit tricky, because it is HTML and you will have to add it to your template code. So, just remember to make a copy of your template code before you alter it. You know, save early save often. After adding the code, Analytics will confirm that they have located the tracking code and within the next 24 hours your stats will start accumulating.
With Google’s Analytics, you will be able to see how many visits you receive, you will see how many page views, and you will see average time on the site. But that is not all, you will also see your traffic sources. You will see keywords used to find your blog, and you will see what pages within your blog are being viewed along with how many times they are being viewed. Now there is more information that Analytics provides, but you will learn that along the way.
The important thing here is to see how you are getting traffic, and if keywords are being used, what the keywords are. This gives you the opportunity to improve upon your most successful posts, by adding more backlinks or rewording the pages to optimize them for the keywords being used. This also gives you a chance to see the posts that are just plain missing the mark. And you can also spend some time correcting them in order to see better results.
Now for some, all this information that is provided by Analytics is not important. It will really depend on your overall goals. But, I would say that most new bloggers, or old bloggers are mostly interested in getting as many new visitors as possible and this tool is an excellent way to help you build a better blog. All beginner bloggers should set up an analytics, just to get a little affirmation, and to be able to determine if what you are doing is “hitting the mark” so to speak.
Statcounter on the other hand is more of a luxury for me. Being that I can see real time statistics for my blogs, I can get an idea if what I am doing makes an immediate impact or not. It lets me know if new blog posts are getting immediate recognition or if they take time to start seeing results. But either way, it is a free counter, and one that I would consider if you like to track your statistics. It also will require you to set up an account, and claim your blogs. And it will require you to add code to your HTML in order to track your site performance.
Even though these tools will not directly impact your blog performance. What they do is offer you the ability to look into how your blog performs and why it performs like it does. It will let you see that certain posts get much more attention and it will let you get and idea as to why they get more attention. It is quite often that keywords that are showing up in analytics are keywords that I didn’t even consider when writing a specific post. When that happens, I am left with the option of researching the keyword and determining if it is a keyword that I should promote within that post. Using it as anchor text in backlinks and optimizing the article to include the exact phrase that has been searched.
So, whether you start a blog purely out of pleasure, or with the sole purpose of generating high traffic numbers to increase your earning potential, Statcounters and analytics are must have tools for any blogger. Get them and use them. And the more you become familiar with them, the more that they will benefit you in your progression from beginner blogger to master blogger.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners, come back soon for more blogging lessons!
For me, I use Google Analytics, and I also use statcounter.com. I use both for a very good reason. I have some form of statistical OCD. I am constantly checking stats and keywords all day long. That is why I use statcounter. It keeps a real time tally on page views. Google's analytics also tracks page views and visits. But it only refreshes daily, this is fine for most, but being I like to keep a very close eye on when I get page views I use a free statcounter account that I can access through my blackberry browser, any time I want.
Ok, so what are analytics and statcounters really good for?
They track how many page views you receive, they track how traffic is finding you, and they track keywords if you are found through a search engine and they keep a running total of your total page views. Now, for some, to see the actual number of page views really has little importance. But for others like me, you will become obsessed with it.
First off, lets spend most of our time talking about Google’s Analytics. This account will provide you with in depth information on the visitors to your blog, but before you can get the information, you will have to set up a Google analytics account. This is very straight forward, especially if you already have a Google account. It will just be linked to your existing account.
Once you have your account, you will need to link the account to your blog. You will do this by providing Analytics with your blog name and URL, and Google will then give you a code to add to your blog. This part is a little bit tricky, because it is HTML and you will have to add it to your template code. So, just remember to make a copy of your template code before you alter it. You know, save early save often. After adding the code, Analytics will confirm that they have located the tracking code and within the next 24 hours your stats will start accumulating.
The important thing here is to see how you are getting traffic, and if keywords are being used, what the keywords are. This gives you the opportunity to improve upon your most successful posts, by adding more backlinks or rewording the pages to optimize them for the keywords being used. This also gives you a chance to see the posts that are just plain missing the mark. And you can also spend some time correcting them in order to see better results.
Now for some, all this information that is provided by Analytics is not important. It will really depend on your overall goals. But, I would say that most new bloggers, or old bloggers are mostly interested in getting as many new visitors as possible and this tool is an excellent way to help you build a better blog. All beginner bloggers should set up an analytics, just to get a little affirmation, and to be able to determine if what you are doing is “hitting the mark” so to speak.
Statcounter on the other hand is more of a luxury for me. Being that I can see real time statistics for my blogs, I can get an idea if what I am doing makes an immediate impact or not. It lets me know if new blog posts are getting immediate recognition or if they take time to start seeing results. But either way, it is a free counter, and one that I would consider if you like to track your statistics. It also will require you to set up an account, and claim your blogs. And it will require you to add code to your HTML in order to track your site performance.
Even though these tools will not directly impact your blog performance. What they do is offer you the ability to look into how your blog performs and why it performs like it does. It will let you see that certain posts get much more attention and it will let you get and idea as to why they get more attention. It is quite often that keywords that are showing up in analytics are keywords that I didn’t even consider when writing a specific post. When that happens, I am left with the option of researching the keyword and determining if it is a keyword that I should promote within that post. Using it as anchor text in backlinks and optimizing the article to include the exact phrase that has been searched.
So, whether you start a blog purely out of pleasure, or with the sole purpose of generating high traffic numbers to increase your earning potential, Statcounters and analytics are must have tools for any blogger. Get them and use them. And the more you become familiar with them, the more that they will benefit you in your progression from beginner blogger to master blogger.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners, come back soon for more blogging lessons!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
SEO tools for bloggers beginners or advanced
Today I am going to write a pretty quick post. It is really not my own at all, other than this, kranthi at blogger tricks has a post that offers tons of free to use SEO tools for bloggers. I have referred back to this post over and over again and I feel it is well worth mentioning. It has a meta tag generator, it has a favicon generator, page rank checker, backlinks checker, keyword suggestion tool, keyword density checker, website speed test, logo maker, nofollow link checker tool, and reciprocal link checker. Shoot there may be more there, but those are the ones I can think of.
Check these tools out, check his whole blog out, it is well worth the read. In fact, I have learned a lot myself from this blog. And it has helped me become a better and more efficient blogger.
As far as explanations for everything I mentioned up above, because I do realize some of you will have no idea what most of those items are, well, that will just have to come at a later day. I fully expect to go into detail the benefits of almost every single one of those tools purposes.
Be careful with some of them. Tools like the Meta Tag generator will require you to alter your blog HTML and may not be for everybody. Meta tags are not as important as they used to be, but they still do play a little role in building the best possible blog.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners and I hope you find blogger tricks as useful as I have!
Check these tools out, check his whole blog out, it is well worth the read. In fact, I have learned a lot myself from this blog. And it has helped me become a better and more efficient blogger.
As far as explanations for everything I mentioned up above, because I do realize some of you will have no idea what most of those items are, well, that will just have to come at a later day. I fully expect to go into detail the benefits of almost every single one of those tools purposes.
Be careful with some of them. Tools like the Meta Tag generator will require you to alter your blog HTML and may not be for everybody. Meta tags are not as important as they used to be, but they still do play a little role in building the best possible blog.
Thank you for reading blogging for beginners and I hope you find blogger tricks as useful as I have!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)