Archive for the ‘Blogging Tips’ Category
by Jonathan Bailey on January 11th, 2012
Almost every blogger wants to improve their writing and no blogger is perfect at it. However, the only way to truly get better at writing is to either keep working at it, writing every day for years on end, or to study it intensely in a classroom.
But if you don’t have time to either go back to school or wait for practice to improve your work, there are actually a few things you can do right now, in a matter of minutes, that can drastically improve the quality of your writing.
So, if you’re looking to create better written blog posts tomorrow, here are just a few things you can try to help spruce up and clean out your blog writing habits. Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
Tags: blogging, editing, editor, improve writing, writing
by Amanda DiSilvestro on January 11th, 2012
Somewhere along the way, business owners have been fed the mentality that asking for help is a bad sign. Many think that if a company needs to ask for help, it is undoubtedly in trouble. Fortunately, this is untrue in many situations; needing the help of others can mean that your company is growing. This works just as well when you think about blog help. If you run a blog, you are the owner of that blog, and if all goes well it will turn into a very profitable business. For this reason, the blogging industry is really no different than any other industry—when you need help, you need help.
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Categories: Blogging Sense, Blogging Tips
Tags: blog help, growing blog revenue, hiring a blog manager
by James Johnson on January 10th, 2012
There seems to be this sense of urgency among new bloggers when it comes to writing guest posts. On the one hand the more posts you write the more exposure you receive, on the other hand if you spend all of your time writing guest posts you’re own websites content suffers. While I fully endorse attempting to receive as many in-links as possible during the start of your blogs young life It’s also important to realize that quality will almost always trump quantity.
I’m often asked how our readers should go about choosing which sites to submit guest posts to and the answer is actually quite simple. If you’re going to write you should write what you know about and target your own vertical/niche. So exactly how do you go about doing this? Here are some simple steps you can take to prepare for submissions and when investigating potential guest post destinations.
1. Understand the Vertical you Plan to Target
If you’ve just started a technology blog it wouldn’t hurt to understand exactly what type of technology you plan to target, for example if you plan to focus on advances in web hosting technology it would make more sense to target other web hosting reviews and web hosting technology blogs. If however you have started a gadget blog you will want to focus on gadget blogs and specifically you will want to target gadget blogs that focus on your same subjects (tablets, smartphones, Apple products, etc). The reasoning behind this thought process is simple, if links pointing back to your website come from hyper-focused blogs that match your own goals you’ll receive more authority when Google realizes those websites target the same keywords as your own blog. Before guest posting write 15-20 articles and then examine your keywords for each article, determine what your focus is early on and then target partnerships with sites that share your focus by conducting a quick Google search of your keywords and noting any sites that regularly appear for your search terms. Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
Tags: Guest Blog Posts, Guest Blogging, Guest Posts
by James Dunaway on January 9th, 2012
Building a finance blog is easy. Building a popular finance blog is a lot harder. The Internet is full of them, big and small, and while it is simpler than ever to create one, it is getting harder to be noticed in the sea of sites available – especially in a niche where many will turn first to official financial sources like the Wall Street Journal or MSNBC.
But difficult doesn’t translate into impossible, by any means. You don’t have to worry about competing in the beginning. Instead, what you have to be focused on is knowing how to generate a high traffic site by taking baby steps toward that end. That can be done in several key ways that are less complicated than you might think.
Accept That It Can Take a While
Time is the key ingredient to any blog’s success. You can’t just expect to put up a couple of posts and have everyone flock to see them. There is content to build, and there are connections to make, reblogs to receive andmarketing tactics to try. Even just leaving it there while you continue to add more content will work, but again, it all takes time.
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Categories: Blogging Sense, Blogging Tips, General
Tags: blogging, blogs, finance, finance blogs, how-to, tips
by James Johnson on January 3rd, 2012
Simply explained an “A-List” article is a post that features information from various articles you have posted on your website.
Some websites exhibit these lists on a daily basis, for example Engadget loves to write “what you missed today” posts. Other websites like to offer weekly and even monthly A-List type posts.
Regardless of what A-List time schedule you choose to keep a properly organized A-List article can help increase SERP on your past articles and allow your readers to better engage with your sites offerings.
Here are a few simple tips that can help you create a quick and effective A-List type post.
1. Title – It’s All About The Keywords and Linking
When writing a short summary of each article you would like to highlight It’s highly recommended that you place your targeted keyword directly by the start of the linked article. If you’re original title already uses the keyword close to the start of the title (you should be doing this anyways then you can simply link the title to your article.
As an example if I was focusing on “Bounce Rate” for a post on BloggingPro.com I might use the following link: Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
Tags: A-List, In-Links, Link Lists
by Jonathan Bailey on December 28th, 2011
It’s getting to be that time of year: The holidays are done, the calendar is preparing to roll over to a new year and everyone is looking for a fresh start. Even if 2011 was a great year, upon reflection, there is always room for improvement and the New Year, though really just another date, is a powerful moment psychologically and a great chance to start.
So, whether, you’re looking to get in shape, save money or start a new hobby with the new year, you may want to look at adding a few resolutions aimed at helping you grow your blog and online presence.
Best of all, these are resolutions that are simple and easy to keep, meaning that they may stick around long after you’ve abandoned some of you other well-intended changes.
So, if you’re looking for easy ways to improve your site in 2012, here are just a few suggestions you can commit to right now. Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
Tags: blog editing, blog promotion, blog writing, editing, new years, new years resolutions, writing
by James Johnson on December 27th, 2011
Your blog is only as good as the content you create, I’m sure by now you’ve heard it a thousand times “content is king” and while it’s true that naturally written content with plenty of information will help you score better with Google, Yahoo and other search engines, the real king of a good website is “user engagement.”
While websites use to be able to rely on static content that very rarely left the website, these days that’s simply not the case. When attempting to have your content read, ranked and distributed you really need engagement, thankfully there are some really simple writing and blogging devices we can use to increase your websites overall engagement.
1. Ask For User Engagement
You’ve just written a 2,000 word investigative piece on New York City corruption and while you’ve received a few thousand hits on the piece there’s still no comments to be had. So where exactly did you go wrong? It many cases bloggers simply don’t ask their readers to engage. At the end of my posts, whether there about New York City politics or a new gadget from Sony I always ask a question that was either unresolved in my post or that I believe will generate left/right chatter from groups that don’t necessary agree with one another.
Admittedly simply asking questions at the end of the post mostly helps sites with a regular reader base since those people are already more invested in your blog. Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
Tags: User Engagement
by James Dunaway on December 24th, 2011
You run a blog, and it is great. While it used to be a simple hobby, usually seen more as a personal journal on the web than anything of practical use, there are endless opportunities that come along with today’s blogging system.
All of this includes a great deal of exposure, even if you are just starting out. Changes in search engines have brought the smallest of blogs onto everyone’s radar.
Most of your concern is going to be divided between content and marketing. These two factors will dictate whether or not you are being followed by a large-enough number to make it a business. If you are a freelancer of any description, it could also be what makes all the difference between getting and not getting that dream project. It is your livelihood at stake. Read More
Categories: Blogging Sense, Blogging Tips
Tags: blogging, editorial calendar
by Amanda DiSilvestro on December 22nd, 2011
A big part of blogging is informing the public, but a bigger part of blogging is showing your originality. Whether it is your own blog or a blog where you’d like to guest post, your articles are helping to build your personal brand. If you know anything about branding, you know that standing out with something unique is important. When dealing with your personal brand and the way people view you as an individual (as opposed to a company), it feels so much more important to be unique with different article ideas. Unfortunately, the millions of blogs make this goal seem unattainable.
Writers block is common even for the most creative people in the blogging community. It seems as though every article idea is already out there for people to read. However, this is not something that should discourage you from writing. The truth is this: You’re blog will be unique simply because you are writing it. That right there makes it different. In other words, you can take a generic article idea and make it your own using different language and even different information.
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Categories: Blogging Tips, General
Tags: article ideas, blog reviews, Blogging Tips, Book Reviews, contests, polls and surveys
by James Johnson on December 20th, 2011
Bloggers “sell themselves” to their readers every single day, they do so by being honest about their opinions and writing factual articles that serve the niche for which they write, however despite the ability of bloggers to sell themselves to readers they often do not sell themselves well to advertisers, company’s looking for product reviews and even other bloggers. The biggest pitfall in this area comes from a lack of a decent media kit.
What Is A Media Kit
In it’s most basic of terms a Media Kit is a page on a website or a file that can be sent to potential advertisers that explains why they should be willing to pay for ad space, product review and other types of advertising on your website. Read More
Categories: Blogging Tips
Tags: Advertising, Media Kit, Site Advertising
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