5 General Blogging Tips for Beginners

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.

Big Heads don't Belong Here

Blogging for beginners has been around for some time now.  It is well aged, so to say, and I have to admit, I was beginning to just assume that the blog was going to carry itself.  I figured I was never going to take the local "problogger" out of the top spot and was very satisfied that Blogging for beginners was sitting quite comfortably at number 4, and had sat there for some time.

In a way I had myself a bit of a enlarged head.  I figured I would just leave the blog alone and move on to other projects.  Well.....  I have been proven to be incorrect.  Somewhere along the line, Google decided that Blogging for Beginners no longer deserved the position it held for almost two years, and I see now that my work is never done.

Blogging for beginners, please help me name my blog!

Okay, okay.  If you really want to know this, I will teach you in the ways of developing a name for your blog.  I cannot outright give your blog a name, I don't want that kind of responsibility, if your name fails you, I do not want to be held responsible.  But, I can help you understand, I can give you some of the principals I use to name my blogs.  It is really nothing so fantastical, it will just take some knowledge and study. 

This is a beginner blogging tip.  It may seem inconsequential, but it has value.  Your blog name offers a key location to creatively pack as many keywords into a single phrase as possible without being grammatically correct.  All you need for it, is to sound catchy or make it easy to remember.

Of course, for some out there, you can take the easy approach and use your name as your blog name.  Problem with this is it really does nothing for you in the search engines, unless you happen to have some good name recognition, and more than likely, if you are hear, learning how to blog, you do not have that yet.  So, that brings us back to the real process of giving your blog a name.

What I mean is this. Depending on your blog topic idea, you will most likely have 3-5 primary keywords that you intend will generate the bulk of your search engine traffic.  These keywords and the traffic they will drive are directly related to your blog topic idea, and the amount of effort you put forth to ranking well in search engines.  So, here, we are not going to talk about actual traffic numbers.  only that you should have your set of primary keywords already established before you name your blog.   If you ahave not yet figured your keywords out you may want to check out this post.  Understanding Keywords and Phrases.

Anyway, this process of building your blog name is aplicable to any size of the blog you intend to create.  Whether you are expecting one visit a day or ten thousand visits a day, you will determine your blog name by the same process.

Now, look at your list of keywords.  Find the primary "action" words within that list.  And try to use as many of them in your title.  And if you can pepper in some of the lesser important words as well.  Using filler words to make sense out of the new blog name.  The goal here is for the search engine to place you in as many of the search queries as possible through the name of the blog alone.  Don't get too carried away, the name is not a short story within itself, you will have the chance to give a brief overview of your blog in most blog platforms that you use.  But, make sure you use as many as reasonably possible, and if the same word appears in all of your primary keywords, you really only need to use it once. 

That is pretty much the trick.  It may be easier than it appears by my poor excuse for an explanation, so, lets make an example.  This is an example I use for many things because I have no intention on using this for a blog of my own any time in the near future.  Lets use fishing.  Lest say you want to start a blog about fishing.  So lets begin how I would begin.

I open googles adword keyword tool. and type "fishing" in the word or phrase box.  And I would click the only show ideas closely related to my search terms.

You will learn a few things about the keyword fishing.
1.)It is searched over 9million times per month locally.  (always use the local number as a point of reference)
2.)It has low competition, relative to the amount it is searched.
3.)But this is the important part, you are going to get a list of relative keywords below this one.


This is where you are going to refine your idea for your blog.  You will want to find about 5 keywords below that will be your primary focus of your blog.  You will most likely choose keywords that have less monthly searches, in fact I would recommend that you find a couple that are below two thousand monthly searches and have a low competition.

Here is what I have chosen.

1.)Fishing Buddy
Low competition
22,200 monthly searches

2.)Carp fishing tips
Low competition
1,000 monthly searches

3.)Take me fishing
Low competition
5,400 monthly searches

4.)Fly fishing tips
Low competition
4,400 monthly searches

Ok, so I ignored my suggestion here about picking a couple keywords with less than two thousand searches, but I instead looked at the words and how I would use them.  I would stay away from keywords that incinuate that I am going to sell a product like fly fishing hats or free lures or anything like that, your competition is much more ruthless in those markets.

I also have Carp and Fly fishing listed, but I am not really sure if they are related in any way.  This is for illustration only.

Now with my words let me see what I can come up with......

1.)Take me fishing, Buddy - Fly fishing tips from a average Joe

And as far as a URL, I would try to go with something like BuddyJoeFlyFishing.whatever

So, with this, I have three of my four keywords within my title.  I think that is solid.  Does this help you name your blog?  Okay, there are some more steps involved in choosing keywords, but this is not an article about keyword research. 

I am sure, that for anyone who needed help with their blog name that this will give you a fairly decent idea as to what is involved with naming your blog.  I know that this blog does not follow those lessons, but I started this blog at a time before I really considered the importance of my blog title.  I assumed I would be able to add on new keywords to the blog as I went, but I think I would have been better suited with a name that included more of my primary keywords. 

Thank you for reading blogging for beginners.

Can blogging be a successful home business?

Cents add up to a successful home business

It is a really good question to ask. Can I successfully blog to the end of a strong home business?

Personally, I have not yet succeeded.  I have tried and tried.  Probably not hard enough yet.  And because of this, I continue.

Blogging is not always the easiest path to take, for sure.  But, I have to believe the possibility of a successful business.  I have to because I am so heavily involved.

I know,  I seem to be all negative.  It is by design.  I am giving all the nay-sayers fuel for their fires.  It is important to give everyone what they want, right? In fact, the less people that attempt to become a blogger is all the more space for me to succeed. I do like a little competition.  But,  there is plenty out there.  So, no, blogging cannot be a successful home business.

Now that I've got that out there, and probably ran off about half my readers, lets us get down to business.  So-to speak that is.  I do believe in Blogging as a business.  I do and I will find my own success with this business.  With time.  I see rewards now, and I am slowly, but surely building a place online.

You want to use blogging as a home business?  What do you need to do then? How can you be successful? And how long is this going to take?

Here at blogging for beginners, I have covered a lot of issues.  I have tried to teach all I can.  About how to blog.  And I have always done so, even though I know I am doing nothing but creating more competition.  But there is a certain benefit that comes with competition.  It requires you to work harder, write better, and focus.  All good attributes for a successful business.

Truth is,  you can create a home business from blogging, and truth is, it can even be successful.  But truth is, you have about the same chance of success as you do in creating any personal, or home business.  Its not a great rate of success.  Blogging is by no means a slam dunk.  You have a very large audience, but you have to be able to find ways to get that audience to find you.  That is the tricky part.

The great thing about the internet and about blogging is, you can just keep adding to the pile.  Every post you write, article you submit and backlink you create, can add value and income to your home business.    So, in a way, its all about quantity.  I may fail a little bit in the quantity area right now.  I do a lot of writing but I still cannot say I have a successful home business in blogging.

But it is possible.  There is a tried and true formula I follow and in doing so, I always generate more income every day.  The increases are measured in cents instead of dollars though and that is what makes blogging so frustrating sometimes.

So, what is MY system?  Well it is nothing so special.  I do whatever I can think of to create my own web within the web to snare people.  And in the process, I try to use revenue sharing sites to do that.  Hubpages and Bukisa. Redgage, and yousaytoo, to name a few.  Every single one of these sites offer some sort of revenue sharing, along with helping my link building.  It is through these properties I am able to supplement my income and create a constant stream of money coming in. I do use sites like Ezine and GoArticles to, but more sparingly.  In situations where I have trouble ranking for certain keywords.

Even though I fancy myself as not just a blogger, but a writer.  All the writing required ca. Be wearing.  I am constantly working on articles and stories and descriptions of stories, in order to create a larger presence on the internet.  This is the key.  You can try your hand at easy backlinks and backlink generators and the like, but you will find the results less than pleasing.  And chances are your sites will not just grow in popularity on their own merit.  People have to find you.  And that requires your constant attention to detail. 

If you start a Niche blog about a very specific topic, and even if your competition is nearly non-existant, you will nevertheless be required to make sure the search engines are aware of you if nothing else.  And this too requires you to write and to build quality backlinks to your blog.

So, bottom line to my ranting for the day.  If you have decided that you want to try to make blogging your home business, and if you want that home business to support you.  It is going to require a lot of time and a lot of effort.  If you have a product other than knowledge to sell, your efforts may produce better results.  but for those of you who will base your income on ad revenue, be ready for a very long journey.  You will need thousands of page hits and you will need to have hundreds of URL's that are all collecting income in order to find financial freedom.  This is the truth, this is not me trying to scare people away anymore.  This is cold hard reality.  You cannot expect that just because you write and write and have a steady stream of readers, that you will find success.  You have to expect that you will constantly need to build up your readership, find new places to grab your readers and find better topics to write about.  All along, perfecting your own SEO and internet marketing techniques in order to generate the income stream you will need.

It will not be easy, it may not even always be fun.  But, if you succeed, it can be one of the most rewarding things you ever do.  To know that by sharing nothing more than knowledge, you can generate a worth while income and live happily.  I personally cannot think of a better feeling of satisfaction.

So, read and read and learn all you can.  read every single page here at blogging for beginners.  And then search for more information and make educated and knowledgeable decisions and maybe, just maybe you can create your own successful home business.

A Blogging Beginners Guide: Automatic backlink generators...LOL

I have decided, that today I am going to use this blog to give vent to some frustrations.  I figure, that in a round about way this is a blogging beginner guide.  And in another round about way, it is about the so called, AUTOMATIC BACKLINK GENERATORS.  So, hence, the post title.

The reality is, I am pissy.  I am sick and tired of every Tom Dick and Darren out there in the blogging world peddling their NEXT GREAT GIFT to the blogging industry.  Letting unsuspecting people like you and me, drop dollar after dollar on these great new breakthroughs on "how to build a better blog." 

Stop it!  Stop letting them take your money, stop it, stop it, stop it.  And Stop, for the love of all that is holy, using these automatic backlink generator services.  Because they are nothing more than a waste of time.

So, I am not here to call out every service or "blogger" by name.  I may even sound a bit like a spoiled child not getting my way.  But I can, without any question in my being, state for a fact, that anyone trying to sell you something, does not have your best interests in mind.  None of them really could give a damn, whether or not YOU succeed. 

All they are really trying to do is wet your appetite.  If you completely succeeded, who the hell is going to go and buy their next product, or "Upgrade" to the pro package.

Nobody

Maybe I have gone about this all the wrong way.  I have really tried to make a point of not "Selling" you products, in my effort to Make Money online.  Maybe it is my fault for not cramming a book or two down your throats, in the attempt to line my own pockets.  But it has been something I have been against since the beginning. 

Since I first started blogging here at blogging for beginners, I have made a conscious effort  of bringing you information without any real catches.  True, I have occasionally dropped in a referral link with the hopes of catching a couple referrals to some of the services I have subscribed to over the years, but for the most part, I have steered clear of that.

And where exactly has it left me??

It has left me wanting a whole hell of a lot more, I have to admit. 

So, really, what does this all mean for the average blogger, or to the folks out there who would like to start blogging, and to make money blogging, but don't know where to begin?

Would it be terribly disappointing if I told you that I didn't really know?

It feels like to would not be that far off.  I have spend my dollars on books, and I have tried my hand at a hand full of the automatic backlink generators, and have basically ended up exactly where I started with this little experiment of mine.  I have no more links than when I began.  Truth be told, I have a few less since I stepped away from the hard work backlinking I have always prescribed to.  YUP!  You heard it right, and when it gets right down to it, that is why I am so pissed off today. 

Easy Backlinks?  Ha!  I laugh at anyone who throws that term around.  It is a load.  Completely.  Its so easy to be a successful blogger, when you are hiring others to do the work for you, when you can throw countless dollars at a problem to make it go away.  And you think THEY are going to share that wealth of knowledge they have been so fortunate to be blessed with?  No.  Why would they.  Why would they want competition?  All they want is more dollars.

Ok, so now I am just bitching, I know.  And you know what, it feels kinda good.  It is nice to not be so PC for a change. It is just really, really frustrating, and I do believe that anyone out there who has tried blogging in a fairly competitive market, with a very small budget, knows exactly what I am talking about. 

I do have to give a hand to the big giant search engine.  Over the years they have set a lot of rules in motion to help curb individuals who use unseemly methods to build countless numbers of backlinks.  But, in the process, they have created a situation that makes it ever more difficult to build a presence on the internet for smaller people, like you an me.  I know it is in order to stamp out all the riff raff and I completely appreciate that.  BUT!  It has made my job so much harder.  And it has left me wondering, to what end?

I appreciate the fact that along they way I may teach some people a thing or two, but what I really, really want to do is to quit my job!  And that is just never going to happed at the rate that I am going.

Maybe I am just not that good at this.  Maybe.

But what I really believe is, I am good at this, I have a lot of stuff to say, and I just have to work harder at getting those words into the hands of the individuals who really need it.  Having it just float out there in limbo is doing nobody any good what-so-ever. 

So, I have until October 6th, working on this secret little experiment I have been working on, using methods and services that I have, up until recently avoided.  And if I do not see progress by 1 month after I stopped using these so called "methods"  I will unceremoniously get on this blog and start blasting these people, one after the other.  And I will do so with a friggin smile on my face.

So,

What has been the point of this little rant?

Mostly, all I am really trying to tell you, is.  It is more than likely a losing effort, if you are relying on others as your primary means of building backlinks.  Automatic backlink generators have not proven anything to me yet.  I will give them more time, but I do not have very high hopes. 

And the people who are willing to sell you something in order to help you are more than likely only going to spew out what you can find for free on the internet.  The idea that any of them have a new thought is fairly humorous to me.  In fact, if you have a specific question, please feel free to ask me, right here at blogging for beginners, and I will attempt to tackle the question.....FREE OF CHARGE!

I am done now.

Thank you for listening. :)



Oh, and look for my E-book, coming soon! See, I peddle too.  Actually, there is no book in the works at this moment.  I have other things to do.

Blogging for beginners: Blogging tips from a now seasoned veteran

I have now been an official pro-blogger for about a year and a half.  I have spend countless hours scouring the internet and any other source imaginable for any possible blogging tip or trick you could even begin to think of.  And for the most part, I have given many of them a test, to see what works and what does not.  To see if there are any blogging shortcuts.  Any way to convince the search engines that I deserve first place is SERP amongst the most competitive keywords.  And Amazingly enough, I have nothing to report, other than write, write, write, write, until your mind hurts and your fingers bleed.  then write a little more.  Then backlink, backlink, backlink, until everyone under the sun is completely annoyed by you.
This may or may not get the job done.  Real "Pro-Bloggers"  don't do that much work anymore.  A real "problogger"  does not need little blogging tips or tricks to take their blog to the next level, because they succeed at this point by sheer numbers.  They may or may not write anymore, many of them are now nothing more than a vessel for guest bloggers to post on their site.  And they use a team of well trained individuals to strategically place links all over the internet.  And they have this down to such a science, that the chance of us, lesser bloggers to achieve their success in their particular niche is virtually impossible.

I know, I spend an awful lot of time nay-saying on this blog.  Telling you how you can't do this or that, that you will never succeed with this or that.  And I do not mean to squash anybody's hopes or dreams here.  I am just dishing truth.  This blog, the one you are reading, blogging for beginners, is just over a year old, it has something like 50 blog posts on it, and it does fairly well, for an array of search terms.  But, none of the very most important search terms.  And it never will.  And as long as certain "pro blogger" individuals are up and running, I can confidently assume that I will never hit number one in the terms I started this blog for.  And I am ok with that.  With time comes a form of complacency maybe, but also the reality of what it would really take.

And that brings me to my number one blogging tip for all who stumble upon this blog.  Every topic, niche, keyword, or keyword phrase has a scalable amount of success attached to it.  And there are enough tools out there in the world web, to figure out how much effort it will take to achieve certain levels of success.  To work as hard as you can, and to be a realist about what you are doing. To not get disappointing, because you sometimes need to let a blog age and marinate before it will actually start to build steam.  And to cut your losses if no success comes.

I have started built and walked away from dozens of blogs.  And at this point in time, I have learned to accept the fact that some ideas will work while others will wallow and fail.

I have learned that passion about a particular topic helps.  But logical keywords choices well outweigh passion.  And for every niche or keyword that has a PROBLOGGER, will also have about a million other bloggers following in his or her tracks to pick up the scraps. 

So, to all you budding bloggers out there.  If you have not been able to figure out my cryptic blogging tip from this mess of a post.  I can sum it up to a single statement.

Do your Keyword Homework

And write to entertain.  Not just to teach.  Writing can be a colorful and magical painting if you choose your words write and if you write them with style and grace.  I am not telling anyone to do or to write like I do, because I really do not know how much my style is enjoyed.  you all may find me annoying, I really do not know.

As some final author notes.  I am still looking for guest bloggers.  I am surprised that I have not really had any interest.  Maybe I am overvaluing myself, but I feel that guest blogging is a really good way to build awareness. 

And also, I am working on a very large and involved project, I hope you will all check it out soon.  I is going to be something a little different than anything I have ever done before.  It is called the Books of Lineage.

Thank you for reading blogging for beginners, and I hope you have found something about blogging tips in my random ramblings. 

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!

What are Awareness Articles?

So, what exactly is an awareness article?  Some may call it by a different name.  Some may even think they are a waste of time.  I mean, the reality is, they are not going to improve your position in Google, and for many, that is all they are really looking for.  Personally, my belief is, awareness is awareness, and the larger web I can create, the more likely new people are to find me.  So, this is why I find awareness articles important.

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!

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

1. 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.

How to blog like the pros

Today blogging for beginners would like to talk about problogging, and how to blog like a professional blogger would.  This is a bit of an oxy-moron you could say, because a lot of the really big, professional blogs consist of more than one person.  In fact they often will have a team in place to take care of the blogs activities.  They have writer; they have marketers and SEO gurus all playing their parts to generate the big and powerful blogs that you can find all over the web.
But don’t get down, not all great blogs are this way.  There are a log of really quality blogs and bloggers out there who run solo.  And you can too.  It will just require a lot of attention to detail and a lot of different abilities for you to create a highly successful blog.

Now remember, success is relative.  Take some of my blogs for example.  This one, is not yet a success.  But I have been working vigorously to get it where I want it to be, and even if it is not showing up in the quantity of content I have on-site, it has paid dividends, I am starting to see my ranking for specific keywords going up and up.  This site is only going to get stronger as I add more content and more backlinks to the content.  This site will generate income, I am pretty sure of that.

I have a blog about a video game on the other hand, that I would consider a success.  And being that I am happy with the progress of that blog, I am able to focus more on other blogs.  That blog sees about 100 page views every day.  So, it is not a huge amount, and with some effort I am sure I can increase that number ten times over.  But, there is something to be said about letting a blog marinate, and age a little bit.  Allow it to generate some natural popularity and links.  It is something that plays a strong hand is rankings for some search engine.  Besides that, the site is about a free video game.  And the nature of the type of traffic that this site gets is cheap.  They don’t want to buy anything usually; they are playing a FREE ONLINE GAME.  So, I use the blog to funnel the traffic to places like Bukisa, where I am paid just for traffic, not for selling anything. 

I also have a blog about making money online.   This blog is something I never really expected to see huge traffic numbers, so, I would consider it a success.  Its primary purpose is to generate referrals for some of the programs I am involved in, in order to generate some income.  So, it does its job.  The problem with this blog is, making money online is a monster niche to try to break into, so most of my traffic comes from highly focused lontail keywords and phrases.  And quite honestly, I am ok with that, because I have a much larger project I am about to launch that will be going after the big guns on keywords like this….Shhh, you will hear more about this in the future I am sure.

Wow, did I just get off on a tangent.  Anyways, you are here today to learn how to blog (like the pros) and I will give you some of what you are looking for now.

The thing that a lot of people will tell you on this topic is content is king.  Content is important.  I am not exactly sure on this, but I am convinced that search engines like Google will not even give you the time of day if your blog only has a few pages of content.  Maybe in some niche markets it would, but in most of the markets I play in, there is no way.  In fact, it is my belief that you really should not even start to try to build backlinks aggressively until you at least have a good 15-20 posts.  And at least 5-pillar type posts.  But once you reach this level, this is where you really have to know how to blog.  This is where the work comes into play.

After you have a decent amount of content, and Google has responded by indexing your site.  I would take some time to find out how well you place in the search engines (Google-all others are of minimum importance) So, Google yourself using your keywords that you are targeting, and see how you rank.  Under normal circumstances, if I cannot find myself within the first 300 results I give up…I know I am not doing well and will need to really focus if I want to place.

After you know where you rank, you will want to take a look at the competition.  Particularly the top 10/first page.  And what you will want to look at, particularly is, the Page rank of the site, The URL, The inbound links, and the actual content of the page listed in the results page.

So, let me explain each one of these in more detail, because these are important how to blog lessons.

The Page Rank
The page rank of the site does not dictate where the site will turn up in the search engine results page for particular keywords.  But a site with high page rank will rank easier for keyword terms, than a site with a lower page rank, meaning the site has already established popularity, and can generate high search results for a high number of keywords with very little SEO for that particular keyword.

The URL
Why is the URL important? Because if it is the Root URL for that particular site that shows up in the results page, it will be more difficult to beat than if it is one of the pages within the site.  The term is more likely to be one of the sites primary keywords.  And will more likely have a large number of quality backlinks behind that keyword.

The Inbound links
And how do you check this.  Well there is no exact method to learn how many inbound links a site has, personally I use Yahoo'’ Site Explorer to get an idea as to how many links a site has, and figure I have to beat that number.

Actual Content
This is important, sometimes you will find that there is no real good reason that the page is showing up in the results page, other than it is a strong site and mentions your keywords within the content, but really has nothing to do with your keyword.  IF this is the case, you job just got much easier, with the ability to create highly focused articles about particular keywords, you can easily overcome these pages.

So, after you have determined where you rank with your primary keywords or phrases, which I am hoping is a list of about 5 keywords or keyword phrases.  And you have a handle on your competition; you can put a plan in action.  Now what should that plan consist of you may ask.  Well, I am gonna give you a general idea of what you will want to do next.  Now, every topic and blog is not created equally so you will have to modify this basic approach based upon your site and abilities, but here is what you will want to do.

Add your blog to blog directories.  Technorati, MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog, are just a couple, but you can find more.

You will want to be active within your blogging niche community and comment on blogs, and include your link.  While many people will tell you that you can generate a lot of backlinks through Blog Commenting, I feel that these backlinks carry very little weight with the search engine.  And they should only be a complement to your other backlinks you can create that will be high quality.  But, none the less, they should be included in your strategy.  If you can find a blog for a .edu or .gov site, it will carry much more weight.  But that is something for another day.  Sorry, can’t give you all the goods today!

You will also want to start writing article for Ezine and GoArticles.  These backlinks are priceless, and will have the ability to generate an endless number of backlinks, not to mention the sheer fact of getting a backlink from a highly ranked website like Ezine or Goarticles.

After that, I would recommend finding a forum or two (the highest page ranked) within your niche and set up an account that will have your site link within the signature.  And start posting, answering posts and just generally being active within that forum.  This method can generate a lot of backlinks quick.  They are not as quality as the article backlinks, but solid. 

Ok, so this is not all the answers to how to blog like a professional.  But this is a start.  These are the steps and concepts you will want to consider when you are trying to build traffic, and these will take you quite a long way.  This will not be my only how to blog article on this topic.  But seeing as I am up over 1500 words with this one, I have to call it quits for today. 

Thank you for reading blogging for beginners and I hope you come back soon.

Blogging for beginners – Improving Your Blogs’ SERP

It has been a while since I posted here at blogging for beginners.  I have been spending some time link building and working on improving blogging for beginner’s SERP results.  And I have to say that I have made definite improvements.  And while I am not where I need to be yet, I have made some good strides.

Today I wanted to talk a little about the process involved in improving your own blogs SERP.  SERP stands for search engine results page. 

Before I began the process of improving SERP, Blogging for beginners did not rank well.  And although I still would not consider my work a success, It is a work in progress.

Some of the steps I have taken to improve my SERP, which has gone from ranking at position 712, for “Blogging for Beginners”, to 169 is listed below.  It is important to remember that SEO is a very inexact science, and for me to say I have a solution for you that I could call set in stone would be irresponsible on my part.  But what I can do is explain some of the steps involved in building awareness of your own blog.

1.) Blog commenting
Although we have talked repeatedly about blog commenting and about the fact that it does not necessarily improve your page ranking, it can in many ways effect your blog traffic, and it can improve your SERP.  I use blog commenting regularly, Daily in fact.  I am not a comment spammer though, I will only comment on a couple blogs a day.  I will take a list of my keywords and I will use those within a well thought out comment on other individual's blogs.  Some of them will be DoFollow and others will just be plain’ol NoFollow blogs.  Do not get caught up with the DoFollow comments.  While they are nice.  You will want a nice balance of both forms of Blog Commenting.

2.) Article Submittion
In my mind article submission is one of the best ways to build awareness.  I submit articles to Go articles and Ezine articles primarily, but they are not the only sites I use.  They are just some of the stronger, and you receive the best bang for you buck when using these as your article submission sites.  I try to add at least one article per week per site.  Each article includes at least one backlink and also includes an author resource box with a link.  Article submission should be high on your list of things to do when you are trying to improve your blog traffic.

3.) Forums
I participate in one forum right now for Blogging for Beginners.  And I will try to participate daily on the forum.  And in my Forum signature I include a link back to my blog.  So, every time I post a new question, or answer existing questions, I receive another backlink.  This is a way to generate a lot of backlinks fairly quickly, along with showing readers that you have knowledge about the topic.

4.) Social Bookmarking
Although I do not go crazy with social bookmarking, I do add some bookmarking.  I use a few different social bookmarking services.  Delicious, JumpTags, Mixx, and StumbleUpon are some of my favorites.  Don’t go crazy with these.  People will start to view your bookmarks as spam and the sites can penalize you from this.  As far as I can tell, Google does not consider these backlinks as valuable links, but they can generate traffic quickly.  I have had a lot of luck with Stumbleupon.  But if you are expecting these links to turn into profit, it will not likely happen.  I am sure I will talk more in depth later about social bookmarking myths and unreasonable expectations of them.

5.) Hubpages
I love Hubpages. For my bigger posts, I write a corresponding Hubpage.  Hubpages rank well and they can generate really good traffic without much effort.  And on top of that they have the added bonus of allowing you to add Google adsense and Amazon associate ads to your hubs.

6.) Paid to write content
Paid to write content will generally not allow DoFollow backlinks.  But, they do offer the ability to generate income through page views.  Along with the fact that they will often rank well and will often generate a lot of traffic.  Sites like Bukisa and Helium offer another way to generate passive income along with generating quality and focused traffic to your blog.



7.)Internal Blog links
Internal blogs links are critical.  Very similar to Backlinks, these links allow your readers a better way to navigate your blog along with giving search engine spiders a chance to craw pages they may otherwise miss.  Using your Keywords for the particular post as your anchor text is a must here, and the link should be relative to the link.


8.)Optimizing Old Posts
Something I try to do regularly is go back through my older posts and optimize keyword density, along with adding new and relative information in order to improve the post.  This is an excellent way to create search engine awareness.

9.) Social Networking.
Honestly I have to admit, I do not participate in Social Networking with the accepted giants like Facebook and Myspace.  The only social networking sites I am a member of is PeopleString and Linkedn.  I am not active with linkedn but I am with peoplestring.  And that is mostly because Peoplestring is a social networking site that shares its’ ad revenue with its’ members.  As long as you are an active member you can generate a small amount of income monthly.  And if you have not noticed.  One of my primary reasons for being so involved online is to generate income. 

So those are the primary methods I use to improve my blogs SERP.  I believe that if you implement these methods you will start to see blog traffic improvements and you will start to feel like what your doing is working.  I know quite often, even for me, I feel discouraged by my progress with my blogs.

But through a lot of effort, you can see your blog improve. 

Thank you for reading "blogging for beginners", and please come back soon!

How to Create a blog - Video Tutorials

Today I am slacking off.  I am going to attach some video tutorials of how to create blogs on different platforms.  Take a look at them, they may help you out.

Here is a Wordpress How to......


Here is a quicky for Blogger






I know...I am lazy today. I have been too busy!!!

Thanks for reading blogging for beginners

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!

Blogging for Beginners - Weekly recap

Here at blogging for beginners, I expect to give lots of beginner blogging lessons every single week.  And being so, I would like to try to revisit my posts once a week.  To make sure you are able to read everything.  For the past week on this blog, we covered quite a few topics.  And below is a quick overview of the topics and links to them so you can easily check them out.  In the weeks to come we will talk about other topics and I will elaborate on the topics I have already started.  Giving more details and ideas for you to become a productive blogger.


I hear very often that it is easy to blog, and that is why there are so many blogs and bloggers out there on the Internet, and while I do agree with the idea that it is easy to blog.  It is NOT easy to be a blogger.  And to be a professional blogger is even harder yet.  All to often Beginner bloggers start a blog, go all out for a week or two, and then end up abandoning their blogs.  Just because of lack of ideas or loss of interest, so, yeah, there are a lot of blogs out there, and there are a lot of blogs that have been left abandoned.


It is a sad state to witness but it is reality.


So, now that I have gotten that out of my system, let’s quickly talk about what we have already talked about;


Search engine indexing for blogging beginners
For this post we discuss what it takes for search engines to index your blog.  There are several factors and methods that you can implement to assist the search engines in knowing you’re out there.


Blogging for Dollars – Brought to you by blogging for beginners

A very hot topic for many is blogging for dollars, here we touch on some of the basics involved with blogging for dollars or making money with blogging.


Using Longtail keywords for blogs

Here we elaborated on understanding keywords by talking about very focused, long tail keywords.  And how to effectively use them in order to be picked out of the bigger sites.


Building internal blog links brought to you by blogging for beginners
Building internal links is very important for site navigation along with search engine optimization.  We talk a little about the causes and effects internal linking will have on your blog.


Writing a blog post – part 2

Writing blog posts are one of the most important factors in blogging.  Without solid and useful content, we do not have a blog.  Here we talk a little more in detail about the inner workings of writing good blog posts


In the weeks to come I will be discussing in more detail the importance of quality post that are posted frequently, I will be talking in more detail about keywords and how to generate long tail keywords.  Also backlinks and some of the lesser known places you can find solid backlinks.


We will also be talking about social bookmarking and how it effects your backlinks, we will be talking about search engines and how they function, and we will be talking about making money through blogging.


Of course there will be more than that, those are just a few ideas I have on my mind at the moment.


I hope you find this blog helpful, please comment if you have questions or ideas.


Thank you for reading blogging for beginners.

Writing A Blog Post – Part 2

Suggestions for bloggers
Originally uploaded by kentbrew

I have already talked about how often you should write a blog post. But for my last post of this week, I would like to re hash the issue in a different way. I would like to talk about different ways you can write your blog posts. I would like to cover some options that will help in breaking up the monotony of writing a blog post every single day that looks basically the same as the post from the day before.

Take it from me, it gets BORING! I maintain several blogs, all of which need daily attention, and the thought of keeping up this pace for 6 months, a year, even more is rather daunting to say the least. So, lets cover some of the options in writing a blog post, some of which I am sure you have thought of, but others may be a refreshing change.


The key here is, breaking off from your normal routine is OK to do occasionally, but don’t break your focus. It is extremely important to stay on target and to follow certain principals when maintaining a blog. Adding fun things here and there are nice, but it doesn’t pay the bills… So to speak.

So, what are your options?


1.) First and foremost you have your basic, every day blog posts. They are important, they are the vehicles that bring people in and bring people back. But how can you write daily blog posts about the same keywords? What I try to do is, stick with my primary keywords. In general, for most blogs, that will consist of 1-5 primary keywords. For this blog I concentrate on two. “Blogging for Beginners”, and “Beginner lessons for Bloggers”. But from those two keywords is where everything I do is rooted. You do not have to rewrite the same basic blog post over and over again 100 different ways. It just won’t work, people will lose interest, and you will lose interest. But what keywords can you pull from your primary niche. In more cases, there are hundreds of branching keywords that you can use that will all relate back to your primary keywords. Writing a blog post is a perfect example of a topic that is directly related to blogging for beginners.


2.) Second type of blog post would be a pillar post. To most of you this may be a new term. So, what is a pillar post? A pillar post is a big daddy of a post that is aimed at offering lots of information all surrounding your primary keyword. In many ways this post will wind up being a pillar post for me. It is going to be long, it is going to be informative, it is going to carry my primary keywords, and it is bullet pointed. Which is a whole different topic within itself, but just for general information, readers’ LOVE bullet points, they love numbered out reasoning, they love top ten lists, top five, whatever you can come up with. They are always drawn to that form of blog post, and chances are, if you provide your readers with great pillar blog posts, you will get links to those posts. That is always a positive sign that what you are saying is useful, and impressive. It is important to sprinkle in large and informative pillar posts occasionally. It is also important to spend sometime generating backlinks to your pillar posts. Do not just focus on backlinking to your root URL.


3.) Random, off topic posts is something that can be added from time to time. In general, I would not recommend you have more than one off topic post for every five targeted posts. Your readers are coming to your blog for a specific reason and if they are inundated by a bunch of off topic blog posts, they will leave before they take the time to dig for useful reading. Writing a blog post that is off topic is more for your own mental well being. It can become tiring to constantly write about the same basic premise, sprinkling in something fun and whimsical can be refreshing, mostly for you, but your readers may appreciate it also, it offers a window into you, and gives them a chance to relate on a different level.


4.) Picture posts are something some people will do from time to time. There are certain bloggers out there who have made it a career to post random pictures from around the internet and commenting on those pictures. Adding the occasional picture post that can be related to your keyword topic can be another way to break up the monotony of daily posting. And readers LOVE pictures. And as a side note, ADD PICTURES TO ALL YOUR BLOG POSTS! Don’t go overboard with it, but there are not a whole lot of individuals who are not more receptive to the visual stimulation you get from pictures. In fact, a wall of typing can be intimidating, some people may not even spend the time to read your post if it is 1000 words long and has no pictures. I personally do not spend much time making picture posts. I am trying to cram as much information into my posts as I can, and quite honestly, decorating my blog with pictures is not a strong trait of mine. I am Just am more of a meat and potatoes kinda guy. Also, same as the off topic posts, do not make this a habit unless you are going for that type of blog. Too many pictures and not enough content are not always search engine friendly. Make sure that you write a blog post or two, or 5, or 10 between your picture posts.


5.) Quiz or game style posts are something I am new to. Blogthings.com offers all kinds of little quizzes that you can add to a post in order to add some reader interaction. Don’t get carried away with these either, using blogthings will drive your readers away from your site through a link. That is not really what we are going for, but reader interaction is a good thing.


6.) Writing a post about other bloggers within your market seems counter productive in many ways, you are sending them to your competition in many ways. And while this is true, This type of blog falls in the same category as a bullet point style blog. And since your readers are looking for a specific type of information, sending them to other sites that will provide that information will be endearing to them. They will look at you as an authority in finding the information they need, and that will drive them back to you in the long run.


7.) And finally, contest posts. Offering contests are a sure-fire way to help your blog traffic. People love competition. And they love the opportunity to win something. These posts can be tricky, because not all topics lend themselves to this style post of offering. But if you can squeeze one in, you will most likely reap rewards. That is of course if your blog is already generating regular traffic, if nobody sees you, they will not be looking for something like this. It will become a lost posting.


So, there you go, some options for writing blog posts. There are many other variations of these forms of blog posts but those are something we will cove on another day. Today, as beginner bloggers, we will cover the basics, because at blogging for beginners, we are all about the basics. And in many instances, I question whether or not my content is basic enough. In fact, if you are looking for specific information, please feel free to comment I will work on posts that may revolve around what my readers are looking for. I am here to please and inform as best as possible.


Thank you for reading this beginner lesson for bloggers, and I hope to see you back again at blogging for beginners…. See how I got those keywords in one last time. Keep up the good work and DON’T GIVE UP!

How often should you write a blog post?

It is an age-old question.  How often should you write a blog post?  And the answer is not completely cut and dry.  While I do prescribe to the method of posting once a day.  I often fall or fail at that.  It is very common for me to only post once a week.  Sometimes even less, it really depends upon my schedule.  Commonly, what will happen with me is I will let my traffic and the style of blog dictate how frequently I will write a blog post.  Some of my blogs will function just fine if I only post once every couple weeks.  These blogs are unique though.  They are not about topics that require new content to remain relevant.  While it is true, that if I posted to them daily, search engines would probably treat them better, they perform ok, and with the amount of content I am already publishing every day, it is a breath of fresh air when I do not need to give them constant attention.

But what does this do to my blog?

Consistency is really key when writing blog posts.  When starting, beginner bloggers will be best rewarded if they post at least once a day.  It is not a must, but it will help you in the long run if you can get into the habit of posting at least once a day.  The more content that is constantly being fed to your blog, the better chance you have of search engines reconizing this.  And until your blog gets indexed I believe it to be crucial to write a blog post a day.  Sometimes even two blog posts a day.

For me, I take a free form approach.  For all my blogs I try to get to about 50 posts before I slow down.  I post daily, sometimes multiple posts a day, until I hit my 50 post mark, then I will back off a little bit.  Start focusing on generating backlinks and internal links.  Spend some time optimizing my keyword density, and just some overall house keeping.

But even when I slow down my posts.  I always try to post once a week, at least for my blogs that are in more competitive markets. 

Case in point.  This blog will probably be a blog that I will remain highly active in for some time.  Of course there will come a time when the blog will be highly populated with content, and I will start slowing down, but that could be a while.  I am full of ideas and topics right now.  So much so that I find myself writing multiple posts a day right now.

So, let me recap, since again, I am finding myself rambling.

Blogging lessons for beginners – "how often should you write a blog post?"

Write a blog post every single day.  If you have days where you can write two posts, by all means, feel free, if you are feeling really frisky and have three posts…Save the third for the following day.  You don’t have to of course, but you will have days where you just don’t feel like writing, it will come in handy if you have some posts stored up for those occasions.

What are backlinks? Blogging for Beginners basic understanding of Backlinks

What are backlinks?
Backlinks are links to your website that are located on other websites around the web.  They can be generated by you or by others who may wish to link to your content.  They provide search engines and individuals an easy way to locate your blog on the internet.

Why are backlinks important?
Backlinks are important because, search engines use backlinks.  When a search engine is crawling the Internet and stumble upon your backlink, it is an open invitation for that search engine spider to crawl your site.  Opening up the possibility for your site to be indexed.

But that is not the only reason backlinks are important.  They serve several purposes in increasing your blogs traffic.  Not only does that backlink provide awareness for search engines, but it also offers awareness for any individual who happens upon it.  Giving them the opportunity to “Check it out”.  This is an instant traffic generator.  It is a way to increase focused traffic to your blog.

On top of that, Search engines use quantity and quality of backlinks to factor into the SERP and page rank.  The actual value of backlinks to a search engine is well beyond my ability to calculate, but they use a very unique algorithm in order to determine page relevancy. 

So, with that, we can determine that backlinks are important, but how do we generate backlinks?
This is the time consuming part.  There are many forms of backlinks. So, let me cover a couple of your options in creating backlinks.

1.)Blog commenting – I just talked about this in my last post, about the importance of blog commenting, this is an easy and proven method in generating backlinks on sites that are relevant to your own. 

As a side note, it is important to try to generate backlinks on sites and in content that are within your own niche, id does play a factor, search engines will give unrelated backlinks less weight in calculating Page rank.

2.)Within your own blog – As I mentioned before, you will first off, want to make sure your title includes a link to your home page, this creates a backlink, even if it is devalued due to the fact that it comes from within the URL, it still is a backlink.  Also, include backlinks based on your keywords that you will include within your articles.  Some may call these links internal links or inter-linking, they too add to your backlink count, along with offering your readers a way to find other articles within your blog.

3.)Content – There are several content sites on the web that you can write for besides your blog.  I recommend it highly.  Become a member with sites like Hubpages, Bukisa, Ezine and Goarticles.  There are of course many more options to choose from here, these are just a few.  And with sites like Hubpages and Bukisa, you have the added benefit of earning money online, along the way.

4.)Account Profiles – Under most account profiles you will set up on line, they offer you a space to add your personal website URL.  Never forget to add it!  It is an easy backlink.  I am not sure how much real value this backlink adds, but every little bid does count!

5.)Social Bookmarking and Web 2.0 – Social bookmarking and social networking sites offer an excellent place to include your backlinks.  Although some social bookmarks frown upon self-promotion and view it as a form of spam, the occasional bookmarker will not hurt.  This along with any social networks you may be involved in, offer the chance to generate a lot of traffic, at little time cost to you.

6.)Naturally occurring – These are the best possible backlinks you can get.  Problem is, they are not something you have much control over.  In order to get naturally occurring backlinks, you will need other individuals to link to your site, through their own content or websites.  Again, this is going to be controlled by the quality of your content.

So, there you have it the blogging for beginner’s guide to understanding what are backlinks.  I hope this helps you in your blogging quest!

Understanding Keywords and Phrases for Beginner Bloggers

Understanding Keywords and Keyword phrases is a very important factor when we are talking about online content.  Although quality content is king, if we do not correctly use keywords and keyword phrases, we will be left without any pages views.  For some of you that will not matter, but for the majority of Bloggers out there, it is of paramount importance for us to be found and read.  And found for the correct niche topic.

So what are Keywords?
Keywords are describer words that search engines will use in order to properly categorize your content within the search engines result page.  What this means is, words like Football or Fishing, or a billion other possibilities are basic keywords.  And if your Blog has a specific niche, you will need to be conscious of the fact that some of these keywords will need to be in your content.

Then, what are keyword phrases?
Keyword phrases, also known as longtail keywords are statements, questions or other groupings of words to help describe your Blog or website.  Phrases tend to be much specialized or focused.  For example, Fishing is a very broad term, but river fishing is much more focused, and river fishing for beginners, is even more specific.

So why use keyword phrases?
If you try to search the term “Fishing”, some very heavy competition is going to show up.  Competition that a beginner Blogger is not going to be able to compete with.   But a term like river fishing for beginners, there is a word with much less competition.  One that a Blogger is going to have much better luck with ranking well in search engine results.

So, how do I find Keywords and Phrases?
Google just so happens to have a very useful tool called Adwords Keyword Tool.  With this tool, you are able to punch in your basic keyword, and from that, Google is going to generate for you, how many times that keyword is searched, and will also give you a whole list of alternate keywords and short phrases, with their traffic values.

So, how does this all work?
Ok, so you now have a basic understanding of what keywords and phrases are, but how are you supposed to use this information?  It is tricky.  I will explain how I usually use keywords as best as I can.

When I start a new Blog, I have a specific topic in mind.  Let’s take this blog for example.  This blog is about blogging.  But the keyword Blogging has way too much competition; I would not be able to compete with that.  So I narrow it down.  I make my blog about blogging for beginners, there is much less competition there.  So, I make sure that all my posts draw some focus to the fact that the overriding factor here is “blogging for beginners”, or, my alternate keyword “blogging lessons for beginners”.  So, The majority of everything I write about here will go back to those basic keywords.

But every post is not going to be called Blogging for beginners or blogging lessons for beginners, that would just be ridiculous.  But it will always come back to that.  In this post, I have focused on “Understanding Keywords and Phrases”, and those are my primary keywords for this specific post, all the while referring back to my primary keywords for the entire blog.

Does that make sense?  It was not something I just learned overnight, and it is not something that people really explain in detail.  For one reason or another, since we are all on the Internet competing with each other in one way or another, some tricks are not completely explained.  Understandable, but it makes it very difficult for beginners to learn what they need to know in order to become productive.

So…What did I learn today?
You learned that understanding your goals and Niche topic is very important when establishing keywords.  That there are tools available to us in order to find good core keywords for our blogs, and for out posts.  And you have learned that it is important to include your keywords within your content, in order for search engines to know how to classify your blog.  If you’re writing about fishing you do not want to somehow show up in off roading or something. 

I hope this helps you and gives you a basic understanding of keywords and phrases.  And come back soon to get more blogging lessons for beginners. (See I squeezed it on one more time, and it’s not too forced)