How to Blog: Blogging Tips and a Complete Guide to Blogginghttp://www.techlila.com/how-to-blog/

Understanding how to blog correct ly is important. We shall provide some blogging t ips and acomplete guide to blogging for those new to this form of online interact ion. If you want to blogseriously, or even to make money as a professional blogger, this guide explaining how to blogeffect ively and prof itably will be of signif icant benef it to you.

Most bloggers are interested only in running an online diary this was the original purpose ofblogging. However, with the development of content management systems that extended thepotent ial of such online diaries, many people discovered how to blog and make money. Googleintroduced Blogger and eventually WordPress became a competitor with its own free blog,operated from its .com site.

Ult imately, WordPress offered its CMS to those wishing to host their own sites, this being madeavailable from the .org site. These blogging t ips and guide to blogging will be centered on self-hosted WordPress blogs that are run professionally. That is, their fundamental purpose is tomake money.

You will learn how to host WordPress on your own domain. WordPress can be installed by virtuallyone click from any web host ing service offering cPanel or any other easy installat ion service suchas the Fantast ico software auto-installat ion service. It can also be installed manually f rom theWorPess.org website.

Here are the steps involved in sett ing up your own blog online. This will explain how to blog usingWordPress, this being the most popular CMS system online.

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HOW TO BLOG: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO BLOGGING

1. CHOOSING A NICHE

You must have something to blog about. If you are using your blog professionally, then you mustchoose a niche. This will not always be your personal interest or passion. Armenian basketweaving might be an interest ing past ime, but you will be unlikely to make much money from it . Youare even less likely to get many visitors to your blog, other than other basket weavers.

Forget your own interests to an extent and go for something that can make you money. Youmust st ill have an interest however, or you will f ind it dif f icult to write about the subject every day.The underlying need is for your niche to have large numbers of people who are interested in it .You must be able to sell products and services on a regular basis in order to make a living fromyour blog. For more information read our art icle: How to Choose a Prof itable Niche for Blogging.

2. NICHE FOCUS AND KEYWORD SELECTION

To get your blog started, you must choose an aspect of your niche that has the potent ial for asignif icant number of visitors. Keyword research can help you achieve this by f inding the searchterms that are used most in your niche.

2.1. Keyword Tools

If you can ident ify what people are looking for online, and then meet that need, you have a betterchance of success than if the topic of your f irst post referred to some obscure aspect of yourniche. There are several good keyword tools online, but for this purpose it is best to use the freetrial of fered by Wordtracker.com.

2.2. Using Wordtracker

Wordtracker is one of the most established keyword research tools available online. Go to theWordtracker.com website and sign up for the free trial. Enter your generic keyword into the searchbox. We shall use create a blog, how to blog and blogging t ips as an example here.

Click Search and you will f ind something like this:

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What you see is a number of keywords related to the keywords use. The terms used above thelist are:

2.2.1. Searches

Number of searches for that keyword carried out by real people (not robots) over the past 30days.

2.2.2. Competition

Direct competit ion for the keyword on a scale of 1 100 (so lower is good).

2.2.3. IAAT

In Anchor and Tit le is the number of competing pages with the KW in the Tit le tag for the pageand also in anchor text used in a backlink to the page from another website. It is a good indicat ionof the competit ion for the keyword. The lower the better.

2.2.4. KEI

The Keyword Effect iveness Index is the relat ionship between search volume and competit ion.The higher this f igure, the more prof itable this keyword is liable to be.

2.3. Finding a Good Keyword

To f ind a good keyword from this list , check the KEI column. The higher the better. What you arelooking for is a balance between a high KEI and a high Searches result .

While the top result , create a blog has the highest demand (searches) it also has second highestcompetit ion. How to create a blog site might seem st ilted, but it is st ill used by a number ofpeople 1,599 searches every month. Create a blog has 4,185 searches/month, and is alsocontained within the top KEI term.

It would appear from these results, that for this keyword (create a blog), the best choice would bethe term How to Create a Blog Site. You could use this as a t it le for a page, for example, withcreate a blog as your primary keyword. A combinat ion of highest KEI and highest Searches.

For the actual competit ion, go to Google and use the keyword in the search box in this form:create a blog using the quotes. This provides the number of competing web pages using thisexact keyword. Heres what we get:

764,000 results is a reasonable target to compete against. Some bloggers are competing against764 million or more!

What this keyword research has revealed is that if you want your blog to cover the blog creat ionniche, then how to create a blog site is an excellent name for your blog.

2.4. Domain Registration

If you then go to www.domainsbot.com you can f ind what domains are available using thiskeyword. We found this for create a blog:

http://www.google.comhttp://www.domainsbot.com

So, in this example, create-a-blog.co and create-a-blog.me are available for registrat ion while f iveothers are for sale. Keep in mind that this is simply an example, and you will get better or worseresults for your own choice of domain name.

If you have opt ions, then use namechk.com to f ind the availability of you being able to use thedomain name as a handle on social networking sites. Namechk will list those social sites wherenobody is using your preferred domain name as a handle (not website name, but in their username). You are better to use an opt ion with most availability in this regard, all other factors beingequal.

You could also manually check for Twit ter handles or Facebook page user names. It is alwaysbetter if you can use your chosen domain name as your handle on social sites that permit this.

Use your favorite registrat ions site, such as GoDaddy, to register your preferred domain name.You are now ready to set up your blog. You can often get discounts on domain registrat ion. Visitour domain names coupons sect ion for gett ing such discounts.

3. CMS PLATFORM: FREE OR SELF HOSTING?

The content management system you use can be either f ree or self-hosted. Here is an

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explanat ion of each.

3.1. Free CMS Platforms

The two most popular f ree plat forms are Googles Blogger and the WordPress plat form availablefrom WordPress.com. You can run your blog from these plat forms without having to pay for webhost ing. However, the funct ionality of your blog will be severely limited, and this is not arecommended opt ion for a professional blog.

3.2. Self -Hosting

If you intend blogging professionally you should install WordPress onto your own domain. Asexplained earlier, this can be done from cPanel or any other control panel of fering Fantast ico. Ifyour web host ing service does not of fer this facility, then go to WordPress.org and follow thedownload and installat ion instruct ions. It is also possible to have this done for you at a price check online for a WordPress installat ion service.

To summarize: if you want to blog seriously and to base your business around your blog, then itis essent ial that you select a self-hosted blog. If all you want is to use your blog as a hobbywithout a great deal of customizat ion, then Blogger or the free WordPress.com service should beall that you need.

4. Web Hosting Services

In order to run your blog from your own website you must f irst have your own website! We havealready explained brief ly how to choose and register a domain name. Now that you have yourdomain name registered, you must now select a web host ing service.

The web host provides you with space on the World Wide Web so that your blog can be found onthe internet. It also provides the storage space for the f iles that run your blog, and usually acontrol panel to enable you to administer your website.

You are highly advised to choose a web host ing service that provides a control panel of feringemail services, t raf f ic analysis, HTML and text edit ing facilit ies, MySQL databases and an easyway to install WordPress. These features will all make your life a lot easier.

If you want to access the best possible web host ing service to meet your needs, then it isimportant that you take the correct advice. Check out our reviews of the web host ing servicesthat should best meet your needs. Also visit web host ing coupons sect ion for discounts on webhost ing.

5. BLOG SETUP: HOW TO SETUP YOUR BLOG

We shall now assume that you intend to set up a professional blogging site and use it as aprof itable business. Once that you have your domain name and web host service organized, youmust now set up your blog.

5.1. Domains

If you have select ing a host ing service that uses a cPanel control panel, then uploading

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WordPress to your site is easy. You have the choice of a single or mult iple blogs. You can use yourprimary domain name or an add-on or subdomain for the blog. Heres the dif ference:

5.1.1. Primary Domains

Your primary domain is the domain name that you init ially registered with your web host.Depending on your host ing service, you can use that domain as a plat form for your blog or formult iple other virtual websites. Services offering cPanel, such as Hostgator and BlueHost, allowyou to register unlimited add-on domains or subdomains.

5.1.2. Add-on domains

Add-on domains are separate domain names that you must purchase, but that can be run asdif ferent websites with their own URLs from your main domain. For example, if you purchased thedomain name mydomain.com and loaded WordPress to the root directory of that domain, yourblog URL would simply be www.mydomain.com.

If you then registered another domain name, such as techlila.com, you could park/point thatdomain onto your main domain as an add-on domain, the f iles for which would be held in aseparate directory. You could install WordPress onto that directory, and run the blog as aseparate website, www.techlila.com.

5.1.3. Subdomains

A subdomain also runs from its own directory, but is not a website in its own right. If you chooseto run a subdomain, you do not have to register another domain name. Simply choose a directoryname this can be the same name as an exist ing website while an add-on domain cannot be.

The subdomain is also run from a directory on the main domain, but this directory is notresolvable online as a www site. Let s say you choose SEOTips as a subdomain. You do notregister SEOTips.com, but simply use it as a directory. Your URL would then beSEOTips.mydomain.com rather than SEOTips.com see the dif ference? Add-on domainsalways look more professional than subdomains.

It is recommended that you setup your blog either on your main domain or on an add-on domain.Then it will have its own dedicated URL. Website URLs that are obviously subdomains might notbe taken seriously by serious internet marketers or other bloggers. Unless you intend runningmore than one blog, install WordPress on your domain. If you want to run mult iple blogs, use yourmain domain as a plat form for your add-on domains and install WordPress on each of these.

5.2. Setting Up Your Blog

If your web host ing service uses cPanel, login to your account and you should be on the cPanelcontrol panel.

a) Scroll down to software/Services the click on Fantast ico (or Fantast ico Deluxe).

b) To the lef t you will see a number of opt ions: go to Blogs and click on WordPress.

c) On the main panel, click on New Installat ion.

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d) You will see Install on domain if you have more than one domain registered, i.e. add-ondomains, you will see a drop-down menu that you must choose from. Choose the domainon which you want WordPress installed.

e) If you see Install in directory leave it blank unless you want WordPress installed in adef ine directory but if so, you will be having to read this guide!

f) Create a User Name and Password for your Admin you may be asked for these eacht ime you login to manage your blog.

g) Create an admin nickname, enter your email address and then the name of your blog, e.g.myblog.com you can also add a descript ion which is advised for SEO purposes. However,if you decide to use a third-party SEO plugin such as Yoast, this will be overwrit ten.

h) Click Install WordPress and that s it done.

Once you have installed and set up your blog, you can then get down to the interest ing stuf f .

6. THEMES, PLUGINS AND GRAPHICS

6.1. Choosing Themes

There is a very large select ion of WordPress themes available for you to use for your blog. Thetheme def ines the basic architecture and structure of the blog. Choosing the correct theme canmake all the dif ference between success and failure, so you must choose carefully.

The theme is fundamentally what your visitors see when they visit your blog. It not only comprisesthe look of your blog, but also the way that you are able to customize it and present it on theinternet. Some themes look great online while others are more funct ional than pretty.

You are strongly advised to choose a theme that is relevant to your niche if you can f ind one. Ifnot, do not worry, because most themes are suff icient ly adaptable and customizable to enableyou to design a blog that will impress all your visitors and potent ial clients.

While some themes are free, paid themes are generally worth the expenditure. This is part icularlythe case if you intend blogging professionally. While it is important to understand how to blogprofessionally and prof itable, you will require the security of a professionally designed theme thatoffers the support and updates that f ree themes tend to lack including those provided by theWordPress plat form itself . Read this art icle, if you are confused about f ree and paid WordPressthemes: Free WordPress Theme or Paid WordPress Theme?

A discussion of themes and how to choose them is an ent ire subject itself , so we shall not dwelltoo long on them here. However, before reading further you are recommended to check out ourpost on blog themes.

6.2. WordPress Plugins

Plugins are software applicat ions that extend and expand your blogs funct ionality. They enableyou to add specif ic features or capabilit ies to your site. For example, the Yoast SEO pluginenables you to easily ensure that the basic concepts of SEO are applied to every page and poston your blog.

Akismet is a WordPress plugin that can detect spam comments and allow you to check them

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before publishing, while others generate simple contact forms on your web pages or posts. Youcan get plugins that publish your blog posts to your Facebook t imeline, or that automaticallygenerate XML sitemaps of your blog and submit or ping them to search engines. Another pluginpings your new posts to social bookmarking and networking sites.

Every professional blogger will use a number of plugins to provide as much funct ionality as theyrequire. Plugins will also be used to ensure that you are making the best possible use of yourreaders by helping you collect their contact details and keep in touch with them.

Here is a list of plugins that we recommend you consider for your own blog. Any professionalblogger should know how to use these to their best advantage. If you are unsure, the contactcan be by email or using your blog Comments box.

6.3. Graphics

6.3.1. Header Graphics

Graphics should be used for a reason, not just to prett ify your page or post. The main graphic onmost WordPress blogs is the header. It is not necessary to use the large headers provided by yourchoice of WordPress theme. You can replace these with a header of your own, so long as youst ick to the dimensions provided with the theme.

It is possible to change the header dimensions from the funct ions.php f ile, though you must alsomake a change to the style.css f ile. Unless you understand WordPress programming, you are bestto ask a friend to do this for you or even pay for the customizat ion. Otherwise use graphics thatf it the protocol required.

The header you choose should represent the theme of your blog. If you prefer just a simpleheading without a graphical header, then there are many free and paid WordPress themes thatyou can use for this. You will also get support in customizing the theme to meet your exactrequirements.

6.3.2. On-Page Graphics

On-page graphics can be uploaded from your hard drive, DVD or USB st ick to your Dashboard viathe Media link. They can then be placed on your pages or posts from the Add Media tab on thevisual and text views of your post. You can physically move graphics to where you want them. Donot use graphics unless they have a purpose. They can be presented in the form of photos,drawings, charts, graphs and so on, but should be relevant to the subject matter of your blogpost.

6.3.3. Graphics SEO

Make sure that your graphics are properly opt imized. Search engines cannot see graphics f iles,and you must tell them what this item on your page is. use the Alt at t ribute to explain this, notonly to search engines, but also to readers if your graphic fails to resolve for some reason.

Within the statement, add alt=image descript ion before you complete theHTML linking code. The image descript ion should contain a keyword relat ing to the post. You canalso add a Descript ion tag, etc.

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7. BLOG CONTENT: CONTENT is EVERYTHING!

Content and its quality go hand in hand. If content is King then quality is Queen. A low-level ofwell writ ten content will do just as well as or even better than a high level of badly writ ten content.You should aim for well-writ ten highly relevant content for best results. There are no shortcutsworth taking.

7.1. Content Creation Software

Avoid content-creat ion software like the plague! Google is aware of content creat ion softwarethat scrapes the web for port ions of art icles, and is now hunt ing it down. Penguin and part icularlyPenguin 2 have been programmed in part to detect rewrit ten and scraped content. Any website orblog content that has been generated by software is systematically being shut down the pagesare being delisted. So write your own blog content, or have it writ ten professionally.

7.2. When to Post

You should post at a frequency suff icient to keep your readers interested. The more readers youhave, the more frequent ly you can post. if your blog is new, then you may have to wait some t imebetween posts to gain interest. Use art icle market ing and social networking to at tract visitors toyour blog.

If your niche relates to a subject whereby certain events must be reported, then these events willdecide when you must post. Current af fairs, entertainment and sports blogs come under thiscategory for example. You might have to make a large number of posts unt il you build up a goodfollowing, but if you dont post enough meant ime, and miss a major event, then a) you will misspotent ial readers about that event, and b) you might lose exist ing followers because of it .

7.3. How Long Should Your Posts Be?

The length of your posts will depend on the topic and what you have to say. Sometimes a shortpost, straight to the point, will be appropriate, while at other t imes a post on a topic such as SEOmight have to be considerably longer.

However long your post, you must grab the attent ion of your readers immediately. You must keepthem interested. Research shows that people on average read only about 20% of the text on apage. However, that percentage increases as the post becomes shorter or the reader has acommitment to the topic.

If you are using a blog post to review software applicat ions, for example, then there is lit t le pointinart if icially shortening it . Readers will have a commitment once they start reading, because theywill want as much information as possible before making the decision to buy. The same is t rue ofinformational art icles and posts. However, if you are simply blogging to catch attent ion then ashort blog followed by a call to act ion will be more product ive.

7.4. Monitoring the Blogosphere

It is important for any professional blogger to monitor the blogosphere. That is, to check outwhat others are blogging about in general or about any specif ic niche or topic. You will not onlyf ind out what other people are talking about in your niche, but also f ind some useful names and

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contacts. You might f ind some new information, but are also likely to discover potent ial sourcesfor guest blogging.

7.4.1. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a powerful way to get relevant backlinks to your site, and reciprocal guestblogging is even more powerful. This is part icularly t rue if your guest blogger is an accepted expertin the niche. Guest blogging also keeps you current with what others are writ ing about in yourblogosphere.

A guest blogger can not only improve your search engine ranking, but also get you more readers those who are fans of your guest blogger. The backlinks are also useful when you guest blogon another site. Once again, you also get extra exposure to readers. If you impress the readers ofthe blog on which you are guest ing, then you may capture them as regular visitors to your ownblog. Read our art icle to know more about: The Right and Wrong Way to Guest Blog.

7.4.2. Keeping Current

It is important to keep up with new developments in your niche or sphere of blogging act ivity (yourpersonal blogosphere). Regular websites are often updated only a few t imes a year, but blogs arecont inually of fering new information. A blog can be more up to date than a newspaper, andcertainly more than a weekly magazine!

7.4.3. Monitoring Tools

You can use any of a number of tools to monitor the blogosphere. There is a good select ion offree and paid tools available online, such as Trackur and GroupHigh that can be used monitor theblogosphere for keywords and brand names. Google Alerts is a great f ree tool, and Talkwalker isanother good free monitoring service.

7.5. Choosing Your Post Topics

If you can choose a unique topic that has a good following, then that would be perfect. However,blogging has been popular for so long that there are few, if any, of these lef t . The #1 rule forchoosing a blog topic is that it must interest you.

However, you must not be so passionate or opinionated that you cannot take crit icism oradverse comments on your personal beliefs. Your visitors will make comments, and if you reactbadly to those you disagree with you will soon have no readers. It is good to be passionate, butyou must be able to argue properly rather than abusively.

The best niches are those with lots of followers. Sure, there might be a lot of competit ion, butthere will be that in most popular niches these days. One t ip is to hunt out aspects of the nichethat others have neglected look for an aspect of your niche that you could make your own.

Another aspect of your niche is whether or not you can make money from it . If you want tobecome a professional blogger, you need a source of income. That might be a service you canoffer, a product you are able to sell or perhaps you could run a health blog and sell af f iliate healthproducts. Lots of competit ion, but if you are good at communicat ing with people and writ ing in a

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f riendly fashion, then who knows

So to summarize, look for

Something you know about or are passionate about.

A topic with a good following.

Something you can discuss intelligent ly rather than aggressively.

A growing topic.

Something you can write about.

A niche with an unf illed gap.

Something you can monet ize.

7.6. Post Titles

Post t it les are a very important component of your blog. This is not the SEO Tit le you use inYoast or any of the other SEO plugins, but the visible t it le of your blog. This is what visitors willsee as soon as they click to your landing page or blog post. If this does not immediately catchtheir interest they are likely to simply leave.

The most important t ip is to write for humans. Yes, you should also include your main keywordclose to the start and search engines will reward you for the keyword, but readers will punish youif the t it le has been writ ten for a machine. One reason for Google introducing the LSI (LatentSemantic Indexing) algorithm was to enable you write naturally, and the spiders to st ill understandthe theme of your page.

Here are some more t ips on writ ing blog t it les:

Make it eye-catching, but totally connected with the topic of the post. Readers should notbe confused and expect content other than what is writ ten.

Grammar and spelling are very important in spite of what you may have read elsewhere.People are not as easily fooled as they once were, and bad grammar and spelling are nowregarded with suspicion.

Capitalizat ion is important. Do not capitalize every word. A good rule of thumb is to avoidcapitalizing stop words such as the, a and to.

Never over-exaggerate: The Best Ever and Make $1,000 overnight are exaggerat ions. Ifpeople knew how to make this money overnight they would likely keep it to them and theirfamily.

Numbers can help such as 5 Killer t ips to Improve Your Traff ic or 7 Easy Steps to Set upa Family Blog.

Boring t it les get you nowhere revisit your t it les and spice them up. 5 Killer Traff ic Tips toExplode Your Blogs Popularity is better than Five Ways to Get Traff ic to Your Blog.

Never copy somebody elses post t it le. Not only is this poor blogging et iquette, but theywere there f irst so you will of ten rank behind them.

Your t it le is important to humans and to search engine spiders. If you know how to writeeffect ively, you will be able to achieve both at the same t ime. If in doubt, write for your readers

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and not the machines.

8. ATTRACTING READERS and TARGET AUDIENCE

8.1. Def ine Your Target Audience

You cannot be all things to all people. In order to be successful within your niche you should focuson become the best you can be in a certain aspect of your niche. To do this, you must def ine yourtarget audience.

What service are you providing, and for whom are you writ ing? It is important to understand thatthere is a dif ference between def ining an audience and providing for it . Ask yourself if there is anarea of your niche that is being ignored or missed by other blogs. Look around the forums andother blogs.

8.1.1. Unf illed Gaps

Are there any issues that appear to be raised that are not being adequately answered? Are thereany apparent gaps that you can f ill? Many of todays popular technical developments came aboutas a result of good market research and information on what people needed.

Take Apple. The iPad was designed as a device that could be used by those not needing the fullfunct ionality of a laptop, but wanted a simple way to access the internet. Steve Jobs admit tedthat an even greater market was recognized if this facility could be built into a cell phone so theiPhone was born. The iPad then became a commercial product when larger screens weredemanded for portable devices.

8.1.2. Market Research

You can carry out your own market research in your chosen niche by visit ing forums and otherblogs. Check out the quest ions being asked and suggest ions being made. Listen to your friendsand ask them: If there was one thing you would like to see developed/changed in (your niche)what would it be?

Check all the responses and act on these to provide them with what they want. Your quest ionscould be slanted to ask for what type of blog on the niche, or what aspect of the niche isunderserved by exist ing blogs. Are you answering your readers quest ions when they visit yourblog? If you are unsure, then ask them. What are their quest ions and why are they visit ing yourblog?

Whatever method you use, it is important to def ine your target audience. Ideally these should bepeople seeking out aspects of your niche that are not yet being adequately represented in otherblogs. There may be many dif ferent websites on the topic, but no blogs and you have anaspect of your niche that you can make yours.

8.2. Attracting Readers

There are many ways of at tract ing readers. Do not depend init ially upon SEO and potent ial highsearch engine rankings. These take t ime to establish, and while you should certainly work on your

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search engine opt imizat ion as a plan for the future, you will need a short-term strategy for yourf irst visitors.

You can get people involved with your blog in a number of ways, including:

Sett ing up a Google+ page relat ing to your blog.

Sett ing up a Facebook Page on the topic of your blog.

Set up a LinkdIn prof ile.

Set up a Pinterest prof ile.

Include a link to your blog in each of these prof iles, and regularly update your pages withfresh information.

Be act ive in Facebook groups and Google communit ies.

Set up accounts to social bookmarking sites such as Technorat i, Delicious, Reddit andStumbleUpon.

Use art icle market ing to create backlinks to specif ic posts and attract incidental readers.

Include a contact page (with Captcha) on your blog.

Include a subscript ion form on your sidebar to collect readers contact details and generatea subscriber list .

There are more, but these can be very effect ive methods of at tract ing and retaining new readers.

9. ESSENTIAL PAGES

There are certain pages that are essent ial components of your blog. They are essent ial fordif ferent reasons, such as Google will not approve a website or blog for Adsense unless itpublishes an acceptable privacy policy.

Each of these pages should be presented as a clickable link on each blog page or post. This is agood way to use a footer that appears on every visible page on your site. Let s look at each ofthese essent ial pages and how to create them.

9.1. About Us

Your About Us or About page should provide readers with information about you and/or yourcompany. If your blog is a personal one, where you are ident if ied with it rather than a corporatebusiness, your readers will want to learn more about you. It is your blogs version of a FacebookProf ile.

State who you are and explain your experience in the niche and why they should listen to you. Ifyou have any relevant qualif icat ions and diplomas, provide details along with any otherinformation relevant to your status within the niche. Include some personal information, such asyour photograph.

The About page is also a good plat form for backlinks to any other blogs or websites you have.You can include a list of these on the page preferably with the hyperlinked site name or thenaked URL.

https://plus.google.com/+TechLila/https://www.facebook.com/techlilahttp://www.linkedin.com/company/2880426http://www.pinterest.com/namaserajeshhttps://www.facebook.com/about/groupshttp://www.google.com/+/learnmore/communities/http://technorati.com/http://delicious.com/http://www.reddit.com/http://www.stumbleupon.com/http://www.techlila.com/contact/

9.2. Contact Page

Although you may have a contact form published on certain pages or blog posts, it is alsobenef icial to provide a Contact page on your blog. How many t imes have you searched for acontact link on a website so you could ask a quest ion or make a statement?

This page should at least provide an email address, and then any other contact details you wishto offer: phone number, snail mail address or contact form. If you offer a contact form then youremail address should be unnecessary.

9.3. Disclaimer

If your blog relates to f inance, health or af f iliate market ing, it is essent ial to include a disclaimer.Make sure you use one that is legally phrased. Check out some disclaimers on other web pagesand clone one of these, or employ a lawyer to construct one specif ically for you and your blog.

Even if you are blogging on a general topic, it is a good idea to include a general disclaimer stat ingthat anybody using your site or the information provide on it does so at their own risk, and thatyou accept no liability whatsoever for any health condit ion or loss, f inancial or otherwise, arisingfrom use of your site or blog.

9.4. Privacy Policy

Your privacy policy should state who you are and def ine the terms used in the policy. It shouldthen state what information you collect, how you collect it and what you do with it . It should alsostate the rights of the reader, and provide details of how they can go about request ing a copy ofthe information you may hold on them.

Google views this as an obligat ion, and a privacy policy can help your rankings. Make sure youstate the URLs of the websites to which this policy applies, and an address from which a copy ofthe held information can be requested plus any monetary charge made for administrat ioninvolved in generat ing the requested information.

9.5. Terms and Conditions

Finally, if you apply any terms and condit ions to the use of your blog, you should list them on aseparate page. You should also state any penalt ies applied for not observing them. Largenumbers of people have lost their Adsense accounts, for example, for not reading and observingGoogles Terms and Condit ions (Or Terms of Service as they are also known) for the Adsenseprogram.

10. EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION LISTS

Visitors or readers of your blog are dif f icult to at tract, so once they reach your site you should doyour best to keep them there. The obvious way is to provide interest ing and useful information,but what then? Are you going to hope that they return? Stat ist ics show that the vast majority ofvisitors to websites and blogs visit once only never to return for more!

One way, and by far the best way, to keep in touch with your visitors is to persuade them tosubscribe to a newsletter or short email course. They must provide their email address for these,

http://www.techlila.com/importance-of-list-building-to-bloggers/

so you can keep in touch with them whenever you have something new to tell them.

10.1. Professional Email Addresses

It is important that your email address is professional and related to your business. Your web hostcontrol panel should offer the opt ion of creat ing several email addresses for your business suchas admin@. . . or support . . .

One of our email addresses, for example, is admin@techlila.com this looks far moreprofessional than a generic Gmail or Yahoo mail address. Not only are the lat ter more prone to beattacked by spammers, but a professional email address shows that you are a genuine companyand not just an individual t rying to make quick bucks online.

10.2. Autoresponder Services

Another way is to of fer them a gif t in return for their contact details: an eBook, report or videothat you will send them once they provide you with an email address. The best way to set up suchoffers is by means of an autoresponder and subscript ion form. You can use GetResponse,AWeber, MailChimp or any other autoresponder service to manage this.

Autoresponders enable you to design your opt-in form and write emails in advance to bedelivered at pre-programmed t imes and dates. They collect the names and email addresses andcreate lists that can be use for future contact. They also deliver the gif ts.

10.3. Offers and List Management

To explain how they work, let s take an example of a blog in the SEO niche. You can offer readersa 14-part course in basic blogging SEO, to be offered in 14 emails over a period of 4 weeks oneemail every 2 days.

The visitor f ills in the registrat ion form, and the autoresponder transfers the details to a BlogSEOdatabase. It then sends the f irst part of the course to the reader. Every 2 days it sends anotherpart of the course unt il all 14 have been delivered.

Meant ime, you can send broadcast emails to all people on the list , making product or serviceoffers, and bringing their at tent ion to the content of your new posts. You will be cont inuallygett ing new members added to your list , and you can contact these individually or all at once withnew information on your niche, your blog and your products.

By now you should appreciate the benef its of email subscript ion lists. Your visitors are no longerlost when they leave your site, and you have a host of people interested in your niche and yourblog that you can contact whenever you wish. Some people have lists of hundreds of thousandsof names and email addresses or even more.

When you create a new product, or have an aff iliate product to of fer, simple broadcast emaileverybody in your list and you have a host of people who are interested in your products beingoffered them perhaps at discount prices if they buy now! You may have heard the famoussaying: the money is in the list. That might very well be true if you can build a large responsivelist .

11. CONNECTIVITY

http://www.techlila.com/refer/getresponse/http://www.techlila.com/refer/aweber/http://www.techlila.com/refer/mailchimp/

Connect ivity refers to your relat ions with other bloggers and social network users. If you canconnect well with others in your niche, then you can benef it f rom reader-sharing and crossmarket ing of products. You sell or advert ise my product and I will sell or advert ise yours. Thebenef its of this type of relat ionship cannot be overemphasized.

Here are the more common ways of connect ing with other bloggers online:

11.1. Social Media

There are many ways to connect with and communicate with other bloggers using social media.Social bookmarking sites such as Technorat i and Delicious are more useful for developing asound linking structure than enabling you to rapidly access websites and other blogs that haveinterested you.

11.1.1. Social Networking

Services such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twit ter enable you to connect with otherbloggers in a more direct manner. You can follow other bloggers in your niche, and include them inyour Google+ circles. By keeping yourself up with what they are current ly blogging about, you canmake sure you dont fall behind.

11.1.2. Optin Lists

Another good way to keep up with your contemporaries, or even competitors, is to register withtheir opt in email list . You dont have to do this through your blog email address if you prefer toremain anonymous. You can easily create an anonymous Gmail or Yahoo address using apseudonym, and receive their newsletters.

11.1.3. Personal eMails

Sending an email to other bloggers is a good way of forming a relat ionship. It is less impersonalthan simply commenting on their blog, and might be suff icient to set up a good workingrelat ionship between two people seeking the same thing readers. Such relat ionships can bemutually rewarding, and can sometimes lead to a business relat ionship.

12. SITE ANALYTICS

It is very important to understand how much traf f ic your blog is gett ing and where it is comingfrom. Google Analyt ics is an extremely valuable tool. Among the more important information itof fers are:

Total Visits: The number of people visit ing your blog. This can be compared with previousmonths or years to enable you to assess whether or not your promotions are having the desiredeffect.

New Visits: Google analyt ics informs you of the number of new visits to your blog as opposed toreturning readers. It is as important that your exist ing readers return to check out your new postsas it is for new visitors to keep coming. If your new visits are about the same as your total visitors,

http://technorati.com/http://delicious.com/https://www.facebook.com/http://www.linkedin.com/https://www.pinterest.com/%E2%80%8Ehttps://twitter.com/%E2%80%8Ehttp://www.google.com/+/learnmore/circles/http://www.google.com/analytics/

then you will have to work on your content to persuade visitors to come back.

Bounce Rate: This relates to the visitors who leave your blog very short ly af ter f inding it . A highbounce rate relates to a poor landing page. This gives you something to work on, while withoutusing analyt ics on your blog you would never have had this information to help you improve.

Popular Pages/Posts: This data lets you know what content is most popular with visitors. Thisinformation enables you to focus on the popular type of content and to avoid that whichinterests fewer people.

Source of Traff ic: It is always useful to know where your visitors are coming from. You can f indout which promotional techniques are effect ive and which are not. Are you gett ing traf f ic f romsocial sites, and if so which. Is your art icle market ing working for you? Where should you befocusing your advert ising and market ing?

Goals and Conversions: There is a facility within Google Analyt ics than enables you to set upGoals and show you the posts leading to most conversions. Examples are the posts thatpersuaded people to register with your newsletter or buy a product.

Landing and Exit Pages: Analyt ics can show you the most popular landing and exit pages onyour blog. You can work on the exit pages to keep your readers on your site.

Google Analyt ics is a very powerful tool, and no professional blogger can afford to do without it .It is f ree to use and easy to set up, so make sure that you take advantage of all this great f reeinformation. Checkout our post to learn how to install Google Analyt ics in WordPress.

13. HOW TO INCREASE TRAFFIC

Many of the aspects of how to blog that we have discussed so far relate to gett ing traf f ic to yourblog. These include social networking, social bookmarking and opt-in subscript ion lists. However,there are three specif ic techniques we should discuss here that have the potent ial to signif icant lyincrease your traf f ic if done properly.

These are guest blogging, art icle market ing and local market ing. Local market ing works best forblogs based on local services such as hotels, restaurants, auto dealers and so on. Here are somecomments on each.

13.1. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging has already been mentioned in the passing. Fundamentally, it involves making aguest post on another persons blog that is related to yours. Please note, however, that if youare guest blogging, do not include your blog URL in the post. Google is now looking for yourGoogle+ link rather than a web page URL.

Link your name to your Google+ prof ile, so when a reader clicks on your name to f ind out moreabout you, they will be sent to your Google+ Prof ile. Make sure this provides meaningfulinformation, including your blog URL and your email address.

To get involved in guest blogging, ident ify a blog related to your niche and simply ask thequest ion. A lot can be achieved by a direct quest ion by email, or even better via a phone call.You could offer a reciprocal arrangement, whereby you each guest blog on each others blog.

http://www.techlila.com/how-to-install-google-analytics-wordpress/

This is a powerful means of gett ing more traf f ic because your audience is already interested inyour niche, and may react well to being offered an alternat ive source of information. Read ourart icle to learn: The Right and Wrong Way to Guest Blog.

13.2. Article Marketing

An alternat ive to guest blogging to is to write art icles on the topic of your niche and submit themfor publicat ion in art icle directories, ezines and blogs. A good art icle, of fering suff icientinformation to be useful, should be of around 700 1,000 words in length. It must be well writ tento be listed by Google, and you can either write them yourself or have them writ ten by aprofessional art icle ghostwriter.

Published art icles can provide you with a number of benef its, so ignore those that claim this to bea dead market ing technique. It is anything but. You can get PageRank juice though the backlinksfrom the URLs published in your author resource sect ion. You can get clicks to your blog fromthese links, and people also copy such art icles to be used as content on their own websites andblogs complete with your links.

13.3. Local Business Marketing

Using the Google local business service you can have your blog listed at the top of the searchengine results pages for those people carrying out a search from your geographical area. Googlecan tell the area from the IP address of the computer carrying out the search, and customize theresults to be local to that computer.

This is an extremely valuable service for those who offer local services. You can even have yourpremises pinpointed on a local Google map of the area. This applied to blogs offering localservices as much as to websites. You can do this f rom your Google account. Also generate aGoogle+ page and include your blog URL in your Google+ prof ile.

14. HOW TO MAKE MONEY FROM BLOGGING

Although some people run a blog for fun, most serious bloggers do so to make money. There areseveral ways to make money blogging, ranging from Adsense and aff iliate market ing to CPA andselling advert ising space on your blog.

Many professional blogs earn enough to make a good living for themselves and their family.Others are not so fortunate, but st ill make enough from part t ime blogging to enable them tosupplement their regular income for a very comfortable standard of living. It is very important,however, to make sure you can make money from blogging year in year out before giving up theday job.

Here is more detailed information on how to make money from blogging.

15. BRANDING YOUR BLOG

There is a lot of advice online about how to brand your blog. This process should have startedwhen you selected your niche and your domain name. Your blog name need not be the same asyour domain name this is a fact that many people fail to understand, although the two shouldbe related.

http://www.techlila.com/guest-blogging-right-and-wrong-way-to-guest-blog/http://www.techlila.com/articles/google-pagerank/http://www.techlila.com/blogging-full-time-vs-part-time/http://www.techlila.com/how-to-monetize-blog-monetizing-blog-for-profit/

Take a close look at your blog and try to dist inguish how it is dif ferent f rom other blogs on thesame or a similar topic. What is it intended to do what is its object ive what message is it givingto the reader? How should people feel when they read it and why should they use your blograther than any other using your main keywords?

Nobody said branding was easy advert isers can spend many thousands on TV ads to get theirbrand known. You could try formulat ing an advert ising slogan or maybe a mission statement. Oneway to begin your branding process is to use the slogan or part of your mission statement asyour blogs tagline. Many people ignore the tagline, yet this could easily be the basis of yourbranding process.

Once you understand yourself what your blog is really about, and how you can dif ferent iate itf rom others, then you can begin branding it and gett ing your brand known web-wide. If you arelooking for some ideas for the focus of your blog, go to www.wordle.net if you enter your URLinto this service, it will create a word cloud of the important vocabulary on your blog. This shouldgive you some ideas.

16. BLOGGING SEO

Search engine opt imizat ion (SEO) is threaded throughout this document. It begins with thekeyword research you should carry out to select your domain name and carries on into themarket ing techniques you employ. Here, we shall touch brief ly on keywords, linking strategies andauthorship before direct ing you to our comprehensive Complete Guide to SEO for WordPressBlogs.

16.1. Keyword Research

There are many keyword research tools available online, including Wordtracker that was explainedin Sect ion 2. Your keyword select ion for each page and post should be carried out fundamentallyas in that sect ion. Each page and post on your blog should have its own keyword, and beopt imized only for that keyword.

Do not dwell on keyword density (KD) because that is relat ively unimportant in this era of LSI(latent semantic indexing). Google can give a blog post a high-ranking for a search term that doesnot appear even once in your text, let along const itute 2% of the word count!

Although KD is no longer very important, we dont recommend using 0% KD. You should followthe convent ion of using it in the t it le, f irst and last paragraphs, once in a H2 heading and thedescript ion, and then only when it is natural to do so.

Write naturally, as you would if you were explaining the post content verbally, and you will getgood results if your verbal descript ion is good irrespect ive of your use of keywords. However, it isst ill good pract ice to use a theme or principal keyword within the SEO plugin you use. Werecommend Yoast, although All-In-One SEO is also good.

Find more about keyword research here.

16.2. Linking Strategies

Your linking strategy should be designed to provide links to and from other web pages that are

http://www.wordle.net/http://www.techlila.com/articles/wordpress-seo/http://www.techlila.com/how-to-blog/#using-wordtrackerhttp://www.techlila.com/how-to-blog/#niche-focus-keyword-selectionhttp://www.techlila.com/popular-useful-seo-plugins-wordpress-seo/#yoast-wordpress-seohttp://www.techlila.com/popular-useful-seo-plugins-wordpress-seo/#all-in-one-seo-packhttp://www.techlila.com/good-keyword-research-to-rank-article/

related to your own page. Treat each page or post as a separate ent ity on your blog, so that youare linking to and from pages and not the ent ire site.

Use your main blog URL in your Google+ prof ile, and link your name to this prof ile wherever yourname is published and links are permit ted. In fact, you can use your Google+ prof ile as yourmaster prof ile, and link back to this whenever asked for a prof ile. Not all sites will allow this, but doso when it is permit ted.

Otherwise, you can arrange for your backlinks to be provided from a range of dif ferent webpages. Examples include art icle directories, PDF directories, social bookmarking and networkingsites such as Technorat i and Facebook, video sites such as YouTube, guest blogging and linksfrom a wide variety of other websites.

Check out our publicat ion Complete Guide to SEO for WordPress Blogs for a comprehensiveexplanat ion of SEO for bloggers. This guide also explains Google authority rank or authorship.This is an important new metric or algorithm recent ly introduced by Google that many people st illneither use nor understand.

In fact, it is becoming more technically demanding to conform to Googles algorithm updates andnew parameters used for calculat ing rankings. So much so, that many people have to resort topaid SEO services to retain the rankings they already have. This publicat ion explains how to keepyour blog Google-friendly without using expensive technical expert ise.

17. REVIEW ANALYTICS AND REVISE

Once you have your blog up and running, check its performance using Google Analyt ics orwhatever traf f ic analysis software you use. Run it for a couple of months and then if you are notgett ing the traf f ic you need or expect, make a change.

This could be a change of content, a fresh landing page or a change to the look and feel of yourblog (graphics or presentat ion of navigat ion links). Whatever change you make, make itnot iceable, but make only one. Do not make more than one alterat ion to your blog because youwill not know which one was responsible for any change in your traf f ic or other stats.

The change in your analyt ics might be posit ive or negat ive it doesnt matter. If posit ive you keepthe change you made and if negat ive you revert back to the original. Whichever it was, you arenow ready for the next change and so on unt il you have opt imized the performance of your blogas much as you can.

18. HOW TO BLOG SUMMARY

If you follow the above advice, you should f inish up with a successful blog in a prof itable niche.However, nothing is def inite, and if you dont get the volume of readers that you would like thenyou should check that you have missed none of the above blogging t ips. No guide to bloggingcan cover every eventuality, and if you are st ill unsuccessful then make sure that your niche hasenough traf f ic potent ial for what you want.

It is possible for your niche to have too lit t le overall interest, or for the competit ion to be too highfor you to succeed in the short-term. It is to avoid these two possibilit ies that you should bepart icularly painstaking with your keyword research and choice of niche. Never give in, becausemany of todays successful bloggers struggled when they f irst started.

http://technorati.com/http://www.facebook.comhttp://www.youtube.comhttp://www.techlila.com/articles/wordpress-seo/http://www.techlila.com/how-to-install-google-analytics-wordpress/

Follow all of our blogging guides and guides to SEO to be certain that you are doing all that youcan do to learn how to blog prof itable. If you follow our blogging t ips, then you will maximize yourchances of success and more than likely follow all those others that have made a success oftheir professional blogging business.

How to Blog: Blogging Tips and a Complete Guide to Blogging {9058 Words}HOW TO BLOG: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO BLOGGING1. CHOOSING A NICHE2. NICHE FOCUS AND KEYWORD SELECTION2.1. Keyword Tools2.2. Using Wordtracker2.2.1. Searches2.2.2. Competition2.2.3. IAAT2.2.4. KEI

2.3. Finding a Good Keyword2.4. Domain Registration

3. CMS PLATFORM: FREE OR SELF HOSTING?3.1. Free CMS Platforms3.2. Self-Hosting

4. Web Hosting Services5. BLOG SETUP: HOW TO SETUP YOUR BLOG5.1. Domains5.1.1. Primary Domains5.1.2. Add-on domains5.1.3. Subdomains

5.2. Setting Up Your Blog

6. THEMES, PLUGINS AND GRAPHICS6.1. Choosing Themes6.2. WordPress Plugins6.3. Graphics6.3.1. Header Graphics6.3.2. On-Page Graphics6.3.3. Graphics SEO

7. BLOG CONTENT: CONTENT is EVERYTHING!7.1. Content Creation Software7.2. When to Post7.3. How Long Should Your Posts Be?7.4. Monitoring the Blogosphere7.4.1. Guest Blogging7.4.2. Keeping Current7.4.3. Monitoring Tools

7.5. Choosing Your Post Topics7.6. Post Titles

8. ATTRACTING READERS and TARGET AUDIENCE8.1. Define Your Target Audience8.1.1. Unfilled Gaps8.1.2. Market Research

8.2. Attracting Readers

9. ESSENTIAL PAGES9.1. About Us9.2. Contact Page9.3. Disclaimer9.4. Privacy Policy9.5. Terms and Conditions

10. EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION LISTS10.1. Professional Email Addresses10.2. Autoresponder Services10.3. Offers and List Management

11. CONNECTIVITY11.1. Social Media11.1.1. Social Networking11.1.2. Optin Lists11.1.3. Personal eMails

12. SITE ANALYTICS13. HOW TO INCREASE TRAFFIC13.1. Guest Blogging13.2. Article Marketing13.3. Local Business Marketing

14. HOW TO MAKE MONEY FROM BLOGGING15. BRANDING YOUR BLOG16. BLOGGING SEO16.1. Keyword Research16.2. Linking Strategies

17. REVIEW ANALYTICS AND REVISE18. HOW TO BLOG SUMMARY