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Essential Tips for New As Well as Old Bloggers

Posted by ishansharma001 • 11/07/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: blogging help, earning, Help, SEO

Here are useful tips for bloggers:
1. Stick to Schedule: Sticking to schedule is very important. Once you build a schedule, it will become like a habit and you will find it easy to post. It is not necessary to post everyday, just find a good schedule and then follow it.

2. Avoid Too Many Ads: Too many ads may put visitors away. Have ads at important areas like near posts and navigation bar. If possible, rotate them. Regular visitors tend to become ad-blind but at the same time do not add too much ads.

3. Use Article Marketing: Write quality articles around the web. Try to keep the quality equal to if not more than your blog posts and mention your blog address in your bio. At first, traffic may seem very less but soon, it will grow.

4. Organize Contests: Organize contests for your blog's promotion. This method is best if you offer some money too. Dollars attract more people than anything else!

5. Leave Comments on Other Blogs: Comments are a good source of traffic. Leave comments on other blogs. These days, most blog services let you enter your site address. So, if you leave something really useful or interesting, you can get good traffic.

6. Respond to Comments: In starting, when people leave comments on your blog, they should not feel like writing on a dead blog. Respond to their comments personally. This will help you retain the regular visitors.

7. Add your Profile: Add your profile or atleast some information about you. This is very important for new blogs. People should know something about you.

8. Use Contact Form: Contact forms are a good way to interact. While giving your e-mail address may send you spam, contact forms keep your e-mail address private and at the same time let users respond. One such good service is Kontactr ( www.kontactr.com )

9. Give Full RSS Feeds: Readers do not like partial RSS feeds. Give full RSS feeds. You can always monetize the feeds.

There are 51 of them, here: www.webupon.com/Blogging/51-Essential-Blog-Tips.245265

User Comments

11/07/08

MrCheeseburger

Wow, thanks, these are very helpful.

[reply]
1. 11/07/08
  
  ishansharma001
  
  I have an entire blog dedicated to Blogging Tips and Help, it's a team blog, so there is lot of good content. We have recently launched it but have quite a hand ful of interesting articles! Blog is www.bloggingwithsuccess.net
11/07/08

ishansharma001

What's your advice? Reply here!

[reply]
11/08/08

kerenfathi

Thank you!!

[reply]
11/08/08

cranelegs

wish i had read this a year and a half ago. it would have saved me a year and a half of learning the hard way. very good list (although i'm not a fan of the contests; tried it once or twice and just didn't amount to much more than a headache).

good job!

[reply]
1. 11/10/08
  
  blackzero85
  
  It's not too late. ^^
11/11/08

usws

Ugh, things like contests tend to attract 'fakes' who don't really care about anything but the prize (but if it's all about page views and impressions.. then it's fine i guess). Contests stop = they stop coming. Unless you've got really good content of course. And the same people would probably always win if your traffic doesn't increase. Haha!

[reply]
11/11/08

IZEA

Nice tips. Even for more experienced bloggers, reviewing lists like these are a good refresher.

[reply]
12/01/08

avideogameplayer

Nice. Glad to have some helpful tips...thanks alot!

[reply]
12/01/08

TheWickedOne

Thanks for the good tips man! I am a new blogger :]

Once again thank you.

[reply]
12/07/08

lawmacs

good advice is always helpful especially for the newbies like myself

[reply]
12/07/08

crosswords4fun

Thanks for the great advice, much appreciated!
Catherine

[reply]
12/07/08

lordiwanttobewhole

Good advice! Thanks.

[reply]
12/07/08

avecchioni

I have no idea what a partial RSS feed is, or when exactly I would give my RSS feed to somebody. I use it for services like autopinger dot com. . .when I ping after a post. Does anyone recommend a good resource for legitimate blog competitions/ contests (to enter)?

[reply]
1. 12/07/08
  
  timethief
  
  All wordpress blogs have RSS feeds. On wordpress blogs we can set our RSS feeds to either "summary" ie. a partial feed that provides and excerpt only and not the full post, or to "full" which will provide the whole post.
  
  You are using a wordpress blog Cutline by Chris Pearson. Here's where to go to set your RSS feeds -> Dashboard -> Settings -> Reading
  scroll down to
  Blog pages show at most ____ posts
  Syndication feeds show the most recent____ posts
  For each article in a feed, show
  Full text __
  Summary __
  Make your choices & scroll to the bottom and click "save changes"
  
  All wordpress.com blogs have pingomatic built in. You can find the settings here -> Dashboard -> Settings -> Writing
  scroll to the very bottom of the page and look for Update Services
  When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services. For more about this, see Update Services on the Codex. Separate multiple service URLs with line breaks.
  codex.wordpress.org/Update_Services
  
  When it comes to contests I'm sorry but can't help you. I don't participate in any contests and I don't have any on my blogs.
2. 12/07/08
  
  ishansharma001
  
  There is a full list of such blogs here:
  aboutblogcontest.blogspot.com/2008/10/contest-blog-list.html
  
  RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. You do not need to give those to anyone. People subscribe to them. everytime you write a post, a new RSS feed is sent to people who have subscribed to your blog.
  
  Partial feeds have just a preview of article and you have to go to original blog page to read full content. A good example is the Original Discussion by me, I mentioned some of points and mentioned URL where you can read all those tips. If I had written all 51 tips here, It would be like a full feed!
  
  Which pltforem do you use? Timethief has already told you about Wordpress. If you use Blogger, I can explain it.
12/07/08

GinaKina

I've heard this before, but I think the best advice is number 6, respond to comments. At first I didn't want to for some reason, then I read that somewhere, and it makes me feel more connected to my readers, and I *think* it makes them want to come back more. At least I hope it does!

Honestly, I still don't understand feeds though, haha.

[reply]
1. 12/07/08
  
  ishansharma001
  
  Yes, Replying to comments increases your interaction.
  
  And about Feeds: here is Wikipedia page about RSS feeds: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)
12/08/08

Aoi

Comments are dialog, and lots of fun. Or, you can start a bit of a skirmish or even all-out war with another blogger via comments, one which can bring a lot of traffic to both blogs.

[reply]
12/08/08

s32i4health

Helpful tips,thanks a lot...

[reply]
12/14/08

jmanguba

GREAT tips!

One question, what do you mean exactly when you say Full RSS Feeds?

- James, www.jmnbasource.com

[reply]
1. 12/15/08
  
  ishansharma001
  
  I meant that you should enable the Full Feeds option in your blog platform as Timethief said. Here is Wikipedia link to RSS: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_