Guide To Blogging

Tips and advice to get your blog up and running
December 24th, 2009

Must Have Tools For A Webmaster

Must have tools for a webmaster

There are some must have tools for webmasters. And these are the tools that you will see in the computers of each and every experienced webmaster. If you are new to these things, then you might not be having these tools installed in your system.

Let’s start with the web browser. One of the best web browsers at the moment is Mozilla Firefox. It can be downloaded for free. The tools that we are going to mention here are actually plug ins of Firefox browser. When you install these plugins, your browser will become a much more intelligent browser than it was earler when it was with no plugins at all.

Appointed page rank Checking plug-in

A appointed page rank checker can be integrated into your firefox web browser by installing any appointed page rank checking plug-in. You will see a lot of such plugins and you may choose any one of them to install in your web browser. The primary aim of installing a appointed page rank checker is to view the appointed page rank of sites that we open in the web browser. So, you can download and install any plug-in that does the above job.

Alexa Rank checking Plugin

How would you be knowing by seeing the design of the site whether its a reputed website or not? It can’t be founded that way. But if you are with the traffic details of the site- then you’ll be getting an idea about the popularity of the site. This is an extremely useful tool since you will come across a lot of sites as a webmaster and finding good ones from them won’t be easy without this cool tool. So, like we said above, you can download and load any plugin that does the above job - ie, displaying the alexa alexa rank of sites that we’ll be opening in our firefox web page browser.

If you are having the above two tools, then you will able to filter out the good ones that are with decent traffic and appointed page rank from the rest of the sites. This way, before ordering something from a site, you’ll be able to make out whether it is a good one to use your credit card or not.

Want to find out more about Wordpress Unplugged, then visit Randy’s site on how to choose the best Wordpress Information Wordpress Unplugged

If you liked this post you can buy me a coffee :-)

December 24th, 2009

Make Money Online Selling Signature Links

Make money online selling signature links

If you have been to a webmaster forum like DP, v7n, Netbuilders etc, then you will surely be knowing what is a custom. For every post that we make, we’ll be able to promote our custom links. So, if the total number of our post count is one thousand, then our signatures will be seen in one thousand places - in other words those custom links would have got one thousand backlinks!

Backlinks are one of the key aspects that decide the page rank of a site. And for increasing the page rank, webmasters buy custom links from others members. At DP, a maximum of four links can be placed in the custom space. So, at DP, through every post, you can promote 4 custom links. And if you want to make some money out of it, then you may sell custom spots.

How much will we be getting by by selling custom spots in webmaster forums? The price is decided by the reputation of the certified member and through the number of blog posts the certified member has made. According to the current situations, if you are with 3000 blog posts in DP, then you will be getting about $15 from one custom spot. And if you are selling all the four custom spots, then you will be getting $60 per month. And if you post in forums regularly, then the next month, you will be getting more depending on the number of blog posts that you will be with then.

But, if you make unnecessary posts in forums, then you’ll be banned within minutes! Keep that in mind. Moderators of the forums will ban you the same moment, if you are found spamming the forum. So, do things this way. Only make a post, if its gonna benefit someone. This way, you’ll might be getting reputation points also. So, there is double benefit in posting useful posts. Even if you are not with huge number of posts, still you may get a decent amount by selling your signature spots. And that’s, if you visit the forum regularly and help others with useful posts. This way, you’ll be noted by others and hence the chances are high that you’ll be getting more offers than others.

Want to find out more about Wordpress Unplugged, then visit Randy’s site on how to choose the best Wordpress Information Wordpress Unplugged

If you liked this post you can buy me a coffee :-)

December 23rd, 2009

Bloggers Blog For Different Purposes

Bloggers blog for different purposes;

some may be due to their interest, some as their job or for business. No matter what the purposes are, WordPress Plugins are universal as they are suited to almost every purpose. For those who have blogs for business purposes, below are the WordPress Plugins available to enhance your business blog.

The first plugin is the Business Directory which enables you to set up a mini directory on a page of your blogging page pages where you can list relevant resources for the information of you and the site viewers, advertisers, community or affiliates. You can invite them to submit a simple advertisement listing on your blogging page. These listing include information such as the name of the company, a short description on what they do and contact information.

The next plugin that is worth a though is qTanslate plugin. This is especially important for those who are targeting site viewers from different parts of the world with different languages. Some of the features include easy switching between languages, build-in languages such as English, Chinese or German, one language for each URL and automatic download of .mo files.

Look around and you will find that there are some bloggers who are including related entries to their blog page posts, usually at the end of the posts. This is an effective way to keep your viewers on your blog page even longer as they will usually take the time to read the related entries. Moreover, this is a good way to promote your blog page as some may decide to come back to your blog page after reading a few articles and like the contents of your blog page pages.

Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator is another useful plug in for WordPress users. It is important as it generated a sitemap file on the server and which Google can read. This plug in will ensure all of your posts are indexed properly, enabling search engine crawlers to find out what are the available pages, recent changes and crawl accordingly.

For bloggers who are using videos on their blog page posts, EasyTube - YouTube plug in is one useful plug in. With this plug in, you need not bother with the troubles cause by HTML codes. It works simple by tagging the URL of the YouTube video in your WordPress. Furthermore, you can adjust the dimensions of the video or set autoplay to videos.

Backing up your blogging pages is essential, and thus WordPress Database Backup is essential. It allows you to back up not only the major database tables, but also other tables in the same database. Backing up regularly is important for bloggers as we do not know when will the server crash, resulting in loss of data.

There are certainly useful plugins for you to use on your blog page to enhance your blogging pages. It is not only for you as the blogger, but also for the convenience of the viewers and most importantly to attract viewers and make sure they are coming back. After all, one of the important purposes of a blog page is to attract traffic to read your articles.

Want to find out more about Randy Roedl, then visit Randy’s site on how to choose the best Wordpress Information Randy Roedl

If you liked this post you can buy me a coffee :-)

December 22nd, 2009

Finding the Best WordPress Themes For Your Blog

If you run a blog, the theme that you use to present it to your audience speaks volumes about your personal style and personality. Because your blog’s style will establish the mood for the entire site, you need to consider your options carefully. If you’re looking to find the best Wordpress theme to suit your blogging needs, you need to keep certain things in mind.

Think about the type of blog you’re attempting to present to the world when you’re trying to figure out the best Wordpress theme for you. You might want to use a theme that is simple to customize, such as Thesis Themes, or you might want a theme that’s already been pre-made for you. Once you choose the kind of blog you’re going for, have a look around at the Wordpress themes that suits your specific needs.

Decide what types of features you want to have in a theme. If you want to optimize your site for search engines, there are themes out there that will make this task really easy for you. Make a list of the features that are important to you for your blog and then search for themes that fit your criteria.

Sometimes money can be an issue as well. Sure you can find free themes, but if you want to step up your game and go for the best, you’ll probably have to pay. Themes carrying a price tag are usually much better in their selection of features and options for customizing.

Are you an experienced blogger? If you aren’t, you might want to decide on a theme that eliminates your need to code anything complicated.

The best WordPress themes for your blog will be the ones that are really easy to use and that do the best job possible at making your blog easy to read, easy to navigate, and easy to customize.

Having built many websites using Wordpress, Gina has worked with more than just a handful of Wordpress themes. She also contributes articles to WebBriefcase.net where you can sign up for a free report on How to Make Your Own Website: The 5 Step Blueprint.

If you liked this post you can buy me a coffee :-)

December 22nd, 2009

WordPress Plug ins

WP Plugins

also known as extensions, are used to extend WordPress functionality and give your site more oomph. In this article, I will list a few basic plugins that will improve your WordPress in, well, basic ways.

First up is the Bad Behaviour plugin by Michael Hampton, which blocks automated spam. It is at heart an anti-spam program that uses a different method of tackling the problem, which is to scrutinise the messenger and delivery method of a message, instead of looking at the message itself. Interestingly, almost all comment spam are delivered by automated bots; so if you use this plugin, you would be virtually free from comment spam!

Have you ever gotten frustrated that the search capability of your Wordpress is limited to the boundaries of your posts? Download the Search Everything plugin! Dan Cameron and other contributors have come up with a plugin that extends Wordpress’ search capability to pages, tags, excerpts, comments, etc. Best of all, you can adjust the defaults and get a tailored search, just by clicking a few check boxes.

Do you have a lot of images on your site? Shutter Reloaded is a plug-in that uses the Lightbox effect - a script that is used to overlay images (images, etc) on the existing page - for your images and picture galleries. Shutter is unique because it doesn’t use an external JavaScript framework (MooTools, Prototype), and therefore is very light - read: fast!

Imagine if you’re at a certain page, say a page on gardening and would like to read other related to pages. Instead of having to exit that page and Google ‘gardening’, you could actually use related to articles, a plugin by Rob Marsh, SJ, which is a list that displays related to articles and/or pages. ‘How?’ you may ask. Answer: It calculates similarity based on a page’s content, title and tags.

Subscribe To Comments is a plugin by Mark Jaquith that allows your commenters to decide if they would like to be notified of new comments on your Wordpress page. When you install this plugin, commenters will see a check box that they can tick if they wish to be notified via email of new comments on the page. Do it; your commenters would be pleased!

Last but not least, backing up your database is extremely important, if a bit of a hassle. Wordpress Database Backup by Austin Matzko, is an automated and on-demand backup program that saves you the hassle of doing it manually all the time, as it’ll send copies of your database to your inbox at regular intervals. However, it must be noted that Database Backup does not save files (pictures, videos, etc), only database (posts, comments, etc).

These basic plugins will make a lot of difference to your WordPress page, convenience and safety-wise. All of them are plug-and-play, work well with WordPress 2.7, and most importantly are licensed under the GNU GPL. Oh, and they’re free! What are you waiting for?

Want to find out more about Randy Roedl, then visit Randy’s site on how to choose the best Wordpress Information Randy Roedl

If you liked this post you can buy me a coffee :-)

December 22nd, 2009

Anyone can be a publisher an editor a writer

Online blogging makes it all possible. There are ample of blogging software in the cyberspace and they all offer the same service, which is a portal for us to express our ideas. Well, in a tough market, one would have to find his way to surpass his competitions. This is where Plug-ins come in! Plug-ins are usually used to further enhance and extend the functionality of your blog page. As one of the leading blog page service, WP offers more than hundreds Plug-ins, with some really brilliant function and some not-so-useful features. Eventually, it is still up to the blogger to decide which Plug-ins are useful and which are not.

Extra protection is always welcomed. Akismet is one of the wellknown Plug-Ins offered by WordPress, where it filters all the spam submitted comments against the Akismet web service, ensuring that this is no junk in your web blog. Very useful and effective against those dreadful bots!

While with Get Recent Comment, you will see a sidebar featuring all your latest or tradeback comments. You will have complete access to the appearance, whether to show the comments by corresponding post or simply by date. The plug-in also allows you to filter unwanted pingbacks, ignore unwanted comments and etc. Plus, it works as a widget too.

Then, there is Google sitemaps which allows blogger to complaint XML-Sitemap of their WP blog page with Google sitemaps. Google sitemaps supports all pages generated by WP, including the custom ones. All major search engines that carry sitemap protocol such as Google, YAHOO, MSN Search will be notified of every update you make to your WP blog page. Doesn’t it sound really high-tech?

Flexible Upload, a WP plug-in that intend to enhance basic upload functionality. Blogger can resize their pictures to a specify the size and also affix a watermark signature in all the pictures. And then we have WP Super Cache, a plug-in that will help in speeding up your WP blog page efficiently. This plug-in works by generating html files, which are served by Apache without having to go through relatively troublesome PHP scripts.

Advertisement on blog page is nothing but a common norm. Simple Adsenser intends to provide an effortless method to insert Goggle AdSense code into your WP blog page. You will have a widget displaying all the ads in your sidebar, along with a Google Search box. Simple Adsenser is most definitely the first plug-in that allows you complete control over everything related to Adsense.

twitME, an absolutely convenient plug-in that lets blogger automatically post their new posts on twitter website. Besides, WP-GravatarWOrdpress Popular Posts will show the most popular posts in your blog page by listing it out on a sidebar. Blogger is free to customize the widget according to his liking. The lists go on and on. At the end of the day, it is still up to the blogger, whether to enhance their WP blog page with Goggle Sitemap or WP Super Cache, or perhaps both. We all know how cool it is to have a blog page that have more than just words.

Before you buy this Program, make sure you check out Wordpress Unplugged for the Ultimate in Information from the makers of Wordpress Unplugged

If you liked this post you can buy me a coffee :-)

December 21st, 2009

Benefits Of Running A Challenge On Your Blogging Page

Benefits Of Running A Challenge On Your Blogging Page

There are numerous benefits as to why you should run a challenge on your blogging page and we’re going too look at all of those benefits throughout this article. The most obvious reason is too increase your traffic and reader interactivity with your blogging page. Before you can benefit from running a challenge on your blogging page you’ll need to know how to run a successful challenge.

The first thing you need to do is organize your contest which is one of the most important steps. Make sure you have everything organized from the actual contest to the prizes and don’t leave anything out so that there are no surprises once you begin the contest. One thing you need to remember is that once you start your contest you need to fulfill the contest or else your blog readers will be very upset and usually never come back to your blog. Some will even bad mouth your blog so never start a contest without finishing it. I would recommend you buy the prizes for your contest once you have it planned so that you have them ready for when the contest is over.

Once the contest is planned out and you’re organized enough to run it you will need to start drawing in people to enter the contest. You need to get the word out about your contest to as many people as you can and with the social networks online today it shouldn’t be hard. You can use the social networking websites and any forums based around your blogs niche for finding people to enter your contest. You should start finding people to enter the contest well before the actual contest so that this way more people will have the chance to hear about the contest and join in on it.

When you run a challenge on your blogging page the prizes don’t need to be anything huge either to draw in big traffic it should be related to your blogging page though. For instance if you have a video game blogging page then you’ll want to get some video games as prizes as this is directly related to your blogging page niche.

Now that you have some idea about running your own contest on your blog we’ll briefly look at the benefits of running a contest on your blog. There are plenty of benefits for running a contest on your blog and here are some of them.

* Increased Readership * Increased blogging page Activity * Exposure from other Blogs * Traffic Spikes during challenge

The main reason to run a Blog contest is to get people on your blog page and once there on your blog page then you need to convince them through your content that they should stay. If they stay then you’ve done your job. You should run a few small contests on your blog page to see how well they do and see if your return visitor increases at all. If your visitors do increase start running larger contests to see if you can’t keep the same conversions.

I run contests on my blog all the time and usually have one at least every month. This keeps the readers on my blog active and interested with what’s going on with the blog. Sometimes the prizes can cost next to nothing, but it still generates lots of traffic and comments. Try running some contests on your blog and see if it helps increase your current readership.

Want to find out more about Randy Roedl, then visit Randy’s site on how to choose the best Wordpress Information Randy Roedl

If you liked this post you can buy me a coffee :-)

December 21st, 2009

Blog Link Building

Blogging page Link creating

Bloggers absolutely need to obtain backlinks on their blogs or they won’t ever result too much and there will be hardly any traffic. Ideally as your Blogging page ages you should be getting search engine traffic and if you’re not then it’s probably due to not having enough backlinks pointing to your Blogging page. You should not only work on getting backlinks for your homepage but also for important Blogging page posts and pages. These are called deeplinks and help a lot when you’re trying to rank in the search engines. All of the search engines use different methods for ranking sites but one of the main techniques used is through backlinks. If you have a lot of relevant backlinks on the topic of your Blogging page pointing to the posts and pages then you’ll generally have good search engine rankings. If you have only lousy links that aren’t even on topic with your Blogging page then you will need to begin looking for some better ranking links so that you can then begin ranking better. Many forums can offer good link opportunities but you can also use many techniques to find high page rank links to get backlinks on.

You should start building links for your blog as soon as you begin posting on it and make sure though that you only use natural methods of building backlinks and none other or else you face the risk of getting banned by the search engines. Article submissions, social bookmarking and directory submissions are all things you should do in the early existence of your blog. Make sure you spread your time out amongst these different options so that you build links in many different areas. You should also become active on blogs in your niche so that you can begin gaining some reputation. It doesn’t take long for the owner of a blog to notice someone commenting daily on their blog and in most cases as long as you’re not spamming the owner will usually begin talking with you. This can result in future joint ventures and having relationships with the other bloggers in your niche is vital to the success of your blog.

There is never a time that you shouldn’t be looking to build links to your blog, but over time you’ll get help from that through link bait. This is where you post a good article or report on your blog and people link to it and post it on there blog. This can gain you hundreds of backlinks a day and is the most effective method to one way link building. Blogging is a ton of work and you haven’t already notice this then you soon will as you start building backlinks and having to post daily to your blog.

Try exchanging links with other bloggers in your niche, but make sure you don’t crowd your Blogging page up too much with other individuals’s links. Try spreading the other individuals’s links across different pages so that it doesn’t eat away at your page rank juice. Only exchange links with blogs that are the same calibre as your Blogging page and don’t accept a link exchange with a Blogging page that isn’t updated.

Over time link creating becomes easier and takes a lot less time but in the beginning you need to set-up the blogging page to ensure it will do well in the search engines. Creating links is part of ensuring that traffic from the search engines is steady and this is why every serious blogger needs to allocate the right amount of time each day for creating links.

Want to find out more about Randy Roedl, then visit Randy’s site on how to choose the best Wordpress Information Randy Roedl

If you liked this post you can buy me a coffee :-)