Blogging/RSS Information

By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a keypart of online culture. "Blog readership shoots up 58% in2004 6 million Americans get news and information fed tothem through RSS aggregators But 62% of online Americans donot know what a blog is." - Pew Internet & American LifeProject

Tip #1 - How and Where Should I Start?
You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting servicesuch as Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), or other similarfree services such as JournalHome.com, LiveJournal.com orBlog-City.com. The learning curve for using such freeservices allow you to spend more on developing your contentrather than worrying about the advanced areas of scripting,hosting, or programming.

Tip #2 - The Things You Should Decide to Write About
Although not a required prerequisite for you in order towrite a blog, it is highly recommended to try to find atopic to write about based on your level of interest andknowledge. The higher your level of interest, the easier itis for you to get your quality content posted on your blog.Always try to choose an area which you can enthusiasticallywrite about on a daily basis.Try to pay attention to a nichewhich suites you well. A niche is basically a targetedproduct, service, or topic.

Tip #3 - Always stay on topic.
Opinions are generally accepted but the content of the itemsin the blog should all relate to a general theme. Themajority of your readers will be interested in the contentthat relates to a specific defined theme or loosely definedarea of interest. Define a topic and try not to run too faraway from it. This will ensure that you create a loyalfollowing of interested readers.

Tip #4 - Information is king, be informative.
If you are attempting to create the impression that you areknowledgeable about a specific industry or sector, be surethat you stay current on news. Checking your facts beforeyou're giving out an opinion or a product review is always agood idea, your reputation is at stake. If by any chanceyou're utilizing other people's articles for you blogcontent, ensure that you follow the terms of usage definedby the author.

Tip #5 - Old news is not news, but old information can berecycled and made new.
While blogging everyday can bestrenuous and time consuming, it is important that theinformation presented is current and accurate. Information,articles or any other archived resources can be recycled /modified to add more substance to your content. As long asthey're relevant and informative, there's no reason why it'snot a good approach.

Tip #6 - Be disciplined and stick to a fixed postingschedule.
Realizing that blogging requires time and effort,don't create unrealistic expectations and be unable todeliver. If you have worked hard to develop an audience anda community you don't want to lose them due to lack ofcommunication. If time is not on your side, take advantageof tonnes of automatically updating contents which areavailable for your blog. Looking at the constantly updatingnature of RSS feeds, other RSS feeds from similar topic canbe inserted within your blogging post.

Tip #7 - Posting Frequency.
If your blog content is updated frequently, search engineswill tend to spider the pages at regular intervals. Updatingyour blog daily not only keeps your blog more interesting toreaders, but it also gives your blog fresh content on a dayto day making it more appealing to search engines. To keepyour blog traffic and retain your visitors interest it is amust to update your blog daily with multiple entries. Youshould try to update your blog everyday with at least 2 - 3or more daily entries, depending on your daily schedule.

Tip #8 - Quantity matters.
In order to attract the attention of search engines, youwill need to produce a relevant amount of content andinformation. A headline or simple sentence is not going togenerate the interest of readers or help with search engineranking. Be sure to archive old blog posts to develop alarge portal of similarly-themed content.

Tip #9 - Clarity & simplicity / Short & Concise.
Keep your posts and blog entries clear and easy tounderstand. Simplicity always produce better results at theend of the day.

Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication andpublication your blog entries should be short & concise (ifyou can help it). Should you insist on partaking on thelengthy road, try to maintain a clean paragraphing style,proper spacing, use different size, color and bold for yourtitles as well as the subtitles. Use bullet points, gostraight to the point and never run out of topic. Insertimages to spice up things if you're an avid fan of longposts.

Tip #10 - Utilize the "blockquote" and "code" tags.
Being one of the few most underutilized blogging formattingtags, these 2 items can help you on emphasizing certainpoints, in the most efficient and striking way. Formattingis simple and straightforward. Just get your message into a blockquote tag, and your message will apeardistinctively different from the rest of your text, thusgets more attention which it deserves. Take note that theformatting for these 2 tags differ from blog to blogdepending on how the owner defines the tag in the CSS(Cascading Style Sheets).Click the below link if you want to read more about CSS.
http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Tip #11 - Keyword-rich.
If the goal of your blog is to increase your visibility,include related keywords in the title of the blog. Use thetitle as a headline to attract interest. Each item postshould have a title that will attract attention but still berelevant to the post. The title should be no longer than10-12 words. Experiment with the titles if you must,possibly try to avoid general and ordinary titles. Try toinclude extraordinary and innovative titles to grab thereaders' attention.

Tip #12 - Spell checking and proof-reading.
It only takes a few extra moments and can save you fromhaving to make embarrassing explanations. The hazards ofInternet is that if you're too late to correct your mistake,most likely it's already been crawled by the search enginesand read by many. It is extremely essential to think / proofread carefully twice or even thrice, about what you postbefore doing so. Take note of your language and grammar.

Tip #13 - RSS Feeds
RSS to a blog is like fuel to cars. Mostly every single freeblogs or bloggin software out there will have an automaticRSS feed generating feature. Although it's most unlikelythat you'll find one without a RSS feature, simply leave itand find a new one, if you happen to come across one withoutit.

Tip #14 - The essence of the Internet - Traffic.
It's nosecret. You must have traffic to realize the definition of ablog.. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid andfree advertising, viral marketing, search engine marketing,RSS/XML feeds, word-of-mouth, submitting to numerous blogand RSS directories, etc. RSSBlogsubmit (http://www.rssblogsubmit.com) provides a submission servicefor your Blog & RSS feeds. You should always use your blogURL address in the signature of your email, forumdiscussions, message boards, or any other communicationmedia. Never forget to share your blog to your friends,colleagues, and any other invidious that you know of.

Tip #15 - Track Your Blog
Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticatedusually a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com,ActiveMeter.com, Extremetracking.com or Sitemeter.com willdo the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the html ofyour blog template and start tracking your visitors. Itsbetter to use a service which gives you advanced trafficanalysis, such as keyword tracking information, referralinformation, and search engine information. Visitors,returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standardfor any page counter service you choose.

Tip #16 - Make use of your Blog's statistical and tracking information.
Believe it or not, your visitors' informationfrom your tracking scripts will provide you pricelessinformation on how you can attract more readers. Keep noteon the keyword terms used from search engines which bringyou traffic. You can identify relevant closely relatedtopics which you can venture into and add more variety intoyour blog, yet staying very much in topic. Simply put, moretopic coverage and more variety = more traffic. You mayanalyze your tracking information further on how you canstrategize your blog's content. You can also apply somekeyword optimization strategies here.

Tip #17 - The essence of your Blog is your Audience, listento them.
Always interact with your readers who post commentson your blog. Reply with a brief thank you note or justsimply attend to their questions if they have any. It's aproven fact when there's a direct human interaction andknowing the fact that there's a "real human" at the otherend of the blog makes most of them coming back. If youraudience provide suggestions, comments or feedbacks, takethem constructively and inform them if you have any desiresof implementing such ideas on your next update. And ofcourse, don't forget to thank them for their ideas. If it'sa great idea, why not throw in a free gift? Mention theirwebsite in your blog?

Tip #18 - Create and increase the "Why Must I Return" Value to Your Blog.
Everyone knows the fact that Blogs get a huge level ofreturning visitors because of its constantly updatedcontent. Why don't you add more interesting items to thatreturn value by having fixed periodical posts / offers, e.g.Monday Top 10 Tips, Picture of the Week, Free Bonus of theMonth, Free Daily Wallpapers, etc. to give them the absoluteexcuse to return to your blog. As long as you canefficiently and appropriately increase that Return Valueconstantly, it is mostly guaranteed that you'll be gettingtonnes of repeated visitors, period.

An advance notice, prelaunch announcement or anythingsimilar to that also can act as a short term return valuestrategy. Encourage readers to comment on your such notices/ posts. Experiment and play around with this idea.

Tip #19 - Multiple blogs.
It never hurts to use multiple blogging accounts to attractmore people. You can even have multiple blogs withinBlogger.com itself, but you may also want to try differentfree blogging services such as JournalHome.com,LiveJournal.com, Blog-City.com, etc. Should you have theurge to have multiple similar duplicates of your blog justto gain more traffic, it is wise to avoid it as searchengines / feed directories might translate that as excessiveredundant information which simply brings you trouble, andyou're tend to get penalized, banned or even accused ofspamming.

Tip #20 - Digital Art, Creative Graphics.
Another proven fact - Monotonous and continous display of text will make yourreaders run away! Try to include non- advertising graphics,pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries, but try tokeep them at a limit. Too many graphics also mean slowerloading time and messy text and graphical combination. Youdon't want your blog to look messy. Most of the time,graphics can bring your blog to life. Pictures can makeboring texts interesting no matter how long it is. Graphicalelements are by far the fastest message delivering elementavailable on the net today. It may deliver various messagesby a split second of a look.

Tip #21 - Maintain a Personal Blog.
A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try toinclude personal experiences which relates to the topic ofyour blog entry. Stay away from the business style ofwriting. Write with a more personal style and use first-person narratives. Share product reviews and personalendeavors, instead of trying to make it sounds like you'reselling.

Tip #22 - Credibility & Popularity.
As thing progresses, things need to change in order to copewith the flow and nature of development. If your number ofreaders are reasonably huge, and still using a free bloggingservice to get your messages out, you may want to considergetting your own domain name and hosting plan to have a morepersonalized Blog.

Domain names and hosting plans are pretty muchstraightforward. Research is all what it takes to get thebest of all the available options. For the most highlyrecommended comprehensive listing of Free Blogging softwareout there, drop by at http://www.opensourcecms.com. This isby far the best place to drop by if you want to get yourresearch done about which blogging software to choose.Reviews, ratings, public votes, demos, etc are provided. Andthe best thing is, all of them are Open Source, which meansthey are totally free. Try going through the serverrequirements for each software before purchasing yourweb hosting.

Tip 23# - Customize the look of your BlogIf you happen to be using one of the Free blogging servicesout there, you might notice that most of us are using thesame template again and again for our blogs. It is wellunderstood that not everybody has the technical knowledge tochange the layout as how they want it to be, but if you havethe knowledge, by all means try to customize it and make itlook DIFFERENT. You can grab that extra attention, if you'redifferent in certain ways. Create that image for yourself.

Tip #24 - Blog and Make Money
Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blogtraffic is increasing then it is time to start thinkingif you want to turn your traffic into profit. Some of therecommended income generating sources are as follow :-

Google Adsense, Amazon Associate program (www.amazon.com),Blogads.com, Crispads.com, Tagword.com, Affiliate Programsand any advertising related text links can be your place tostart off.

Final #Tip - Conclusion.
Following these blogging tips should make your bloggingexperience much more rewarding. Blogging is generally doneout of interest and enthusiasm and sometimes for incomegenerating purposes. The flexibility of blogging will nevercease to expand. Through time, dedication, and persistenceyou will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging.

About the Author

John Teh is an internet blogger enthusiast, exposed to thefun and the extreme possibilities of blogging on the net. Get to know more about the author at his homepage.
http://www.rssblogsubmit.com