This is a useful guide to professional blogging and to competing with other A-list or top bloggers. All of the tips and advice I’ve collected during my blog-experience of already 7 years are combined in this page:
Domain
- Specify a short domain name.
- Specify several domain names which describe your blog.
- Use at most one hyphen in your domain name.
- Specify the main contents by using subdomains.
- Use google apps as many users will try and see what you’re using as mail hosting, calendar application etc. (Users tend to look for familiar applications).
- Create a favicon, so your blog sends out in the majority of blogs.
Content Management System (my recommendations)
- Use wordpress.com hosting with your own domain.
- Use self-hosted wordpress with your own domain.
- Use blogger hosting with your own domain.
Traffic/Readers/Visiters
- , read what other bloggers in your niche blog about and leave your referral behind.
- Create an AutoResponder for all of your emails, in which you invite other users to take a look at your blog or to just subscribe to your blog feed.
- Create an email signature containing your blog and your blog feed.
- Create offline address cards also containing your blog and your blog feed.
- Subscribe to as many linkdumps, link exchange websites and feed or syndication directories as you can.
- Don’t forget to create internal links (links to your own url within your blog) to increase your ranking, preferably link to older blog posts inside your new blog post.
- Create a blogroll and post it on your blog, click on a post every day and then click on some blogs within your blogroll , this way will leave your referral on the other blogs’ statistics behind.
- Always respect developers’ links added to your theme and so on, never delete them.
- Trackback/pingback to other blogs.
- When you receive an email to your blog, do answer.
- Try and help other bloggers, and remember help is free.
- Write a very good article and publish it in an e-zine directory.
Comments
- Be social and comment on fellow bloggers‘ their blogs, the more you comment, the quicker they will take a look at your website.
- Reply to comments on your blog to show comment appreciation.
- To show reader appreciation, you can allow your commentors to edit their typo’s in their comments.
- Do not pick fights with other bloggers deliberately.
- Do not require users to log in to leave a comment.
Widgets/Plugins
- Expose your blog and earn free targeted traffic to all of the blogosphere in your niche, by registering for free at blogrush.
- To get a recent reader widget and to get blog eposure you can register for free at MyblogLog.
- Allow your readers to enable google gears for your website via a plugin.
- Get a plugin to allow commentors to edit their own comments.
Design
- Don’t use adsense at your blog.
- Don’t pack your sidebar with too much images.
- Use a readable font size.
- Use a black font on a white background for your main contents.
- Avoid themes used by many other bloggers.
- Show on your fold what users can expect in your blog.
Usability
- Don’t have music automatically playing upon opening your blog.
- Have a contact page.
- Have an about page.
- Have a biography page.
- Use lists.
- Use subtitles.
- Mark your keywords bold.
- Allow your links to be open in the same browser window as the one of your blog.
- Don’t copy other peoples work.
- Proofread your posts.
- Write in paragraphs.
- Don’t use popups.
- Use tags.
- Use SEO.
BLOGRUSH IS closing down…. did u note that???