The A-B-C’s of a Successful Newbie Blogger

Working on the building blocks of blogging is a daunting task especially that there are hundreds of blogs to read every day from different sources around the world. The most ambitious part as a starter is to make your first blog a headline that would stand out from the rest and have audiences anticipating for your next blog post. Here are some things to consider when starting as a newbie blogger for your amateur blog:

Make a screaming title – Sounds challenging, but it is a requirement. People will notice a blog when a striking red banner tells them to stop, look and read the rest of what you have written. Broadcast, shout and advertise your title. Consider a title or topic that talk about feelings, interests, trends and ideas that people can relate to and are written differently unlike others. Nobody misses a blasting label on top of the bill. Making that eye-catching title for your amateur blog will help make it become interesting for readers.
Organize your thoughts – Fuelling the body of your blog in a logical order will assure the worth of the time of your readers even if it is just an amateur blog. The thoughts must be contained, precise and flowing till the end. Avoid discussions that do not really go anywhere. A reader sometimes skips, or even breaks off from a nonsense part of the content. You need to know what to write next and it has to correlate with your entire points of view. The momentum and energy must be sustained.

Be creative – play with words and accessorize your thoughts. Remember, the goal is not to make your blog ordinary as a starter but it has to be highlighted. Visualize the design and how it will look attractive. You may be just new to rounding up ideas and putting them together, but you can always be ahead of everyone when it comes to originality and concept. You can add humor to make it more interesting. A dull and lifeless presentation is no excuse for an amateur blog.

Earn a comment – Be it a simple recognition or advice for improvement, getting comments from your readers is the icing on the cake for newbie bloggers. It shows that your readers have made it all the way till your last sentence and have something to say about your blog. It also implies that you have captured their interests and opens a big possibility that they will visit your next posting or invite friends to read your succeeding entries.
These tips may not promise a successful award-winning Pulitzer write-up, but working with these basics might help you put impact on your amateur blog.

Easy Steps to Install a Blogger Template

From time to time, you may feel the need to upgrade your blogger blog by installing a new template. The following procedures are the steps for the correct installation. It’s an easy step and will only take 10-15 minutes maximum of your time. It could get a little complicated along the way depending on the new template you like to incorporate, but you will surely go through it with just a little know-how knowledge about templates. It is highly advisable though, to back up your blogger blog before doing any changes just in case there are unforeseen errors.

Step No. 1 – Save a copy of your old template. The common mistake of bloggers changing their templates for the first time is not being able to copy or download the current template they are using. You can save it in your computer so that you always have an option to go back and will serve as your back up.

Step No. 2 – Upload a new template. Navigate on the edit section of your blogger page and click on ‘browse’, and then run through some templates that you have downloaded already. It could be in zip or rar file. Then click ‘open’, and hit the ‘upload button’. In most cases, you will bump into a prompt that says ‘widgets will be deleted’.

Step No. 3 – Save your widgets. These are page elements that you have on your current template and will be deleted after the changes. You don’t want to lose all those widgets after working so hard to arrange it on your old page. Click on the widgets, copy each code and paste it or save it in your computer.

Step No. 4 – Confirm and save. This is the point of no return. At this step, your blogger will run the changes including the deletion of your old widgets but not your blogger blog. You will get a message saying that the new template has been applied successfully.

Always remember to incorporate the codes of old widgets or page elements that you saved in your computer if you want to have them on your new template. To do this, just copy and paste the ‘.xml file’ to the text editor page. Click on upload. Hopefully, your blogger blog will be updated with the new template. Congratulations on your new blogger look!

Maximizing Blog “Searchability” through SEO

It is the most challenging part in blogging for most bloggers. Getting people to actually search and view their blogs to drive traffic. So how is traffic created in blogs? The answer lies in SEO – Search Engine Optimization.

Having your blog indexed by giant search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN in a good blog search result opens the possibility of your blog being viewed by a good number of people. With millions of web users around the world looking for answers in the internet and using these search engines, missing out on this idea of optimization makes your blog futile.
Another thing that a blogger must not miss out is the quality of information that has to be delivered. SEO and quality information should go along to increase your chances of being viewed by readers. Quality content and SEO should be in balance. Quality information means a good output of your article with the correct target people. It doesn’t have to conflict with focusing on SEO along.

Optimizing Search Engines requires a specific technique and you don’t have to be an expert to learn it. The secret here is not mainly in the topic but the relevance of your topic to the keywords that people are looking for. Suppose a reader is in search for blogs about retirement benefits, so instead of elaborating more on the topic, hit the keywords; retirement, plus benefits and put a lot of emphasis to it.

Another secret in optimizing blog search engines is to be linked to other relevant bloggers. Other bloggers become relevant when they are blogging a topic that touches one or two of your keywords. Notify them of your blog and get connected. The more connections you make the better chances of traffic. Imagine a person viewing a different blog and not even on your range, but being directed to your blog because of the connection. It’s simple but tricky.

Other bloggers buy links from sites with a good blog search engine rank. It’s not really the best of options but not a bad idea at all. You can also swap links with other site owners but this is a bit more complicated but very useful to divert readers to your page. There are a lot of ways to optimize your blog search, but only few are proven to create real traffic. So try out the suggestions for your blog and see if the results are there.

Blog Templates as Recommended by Bloggers

There are a lot of websites where you can find really good blog templates. Most bloggers want the ones that catch their readers’ attention. For some, they would like ones where they can place advertisements or Google Adsense units. Others would prefer a blog template that offers on-page search engine optimization.

Templates vary broadly in terms of features. They also come in different themes, moods and presentations. More often than not, the more artistic the template looks, the more thrilling and striking it is to the readers.

For newbies and developing bloggers alike, it may be worthy to check out blog templates found at madebymadeline.blogspot.com. Their designs are neat and not complicated. In fact, most of it are elegant. Most of the templates can suit different moods and occasions. It can also go well for blogs that channel a specific genre or various interest groups.

If you are looking for a more professional and conventional design, you can easily choose a variety of templates available at bloggertemplates.org. The home page is a bit messy at the moment since it is still undergoing reconstruction and only few blog templates are available for download. However, the choices are good and you can see variations.

If you are into sophistication and complexity with lots of detail on your template, but still user friendly, it may good to take a tour at btemplates.com. The site showcases a collection of different themes and backgrounds that might just be a hit with your blog readers.

Out of approximately 100 sites that offer blog templates, the three sites above fare well in terms of the impact of the design, backgrounds and themes, as well as overall functionality. The sites were also ahead in terms of loading time, efficiency, presentation, and search engine optimization.

All of these aspects should be present in a template since users are often indisposed to getting stuck in a very beautiful page that loads for eternity only to find some buttons lead them to nowhere. Finally, the sites that were mentioned offer blog templates that offer very important features like being reader friendly and widget ready, which makes it easy to use.

Blog RSS 101

To get a clear view of what a Blog RSS is, let me give a short overview of what is an RSS. The abbreviation of Rich Site Summary or sometimes Really Simple Syndication, RSS is basically a format in conveying a change in web content. It is very helpful for people who frequently use the web by keeping them informed of the latest content of their favorite sites. It is very efficient since it retrieves the information automatically, and eliminates the trouble of visiting sites the same way you did the first time.

Today, most bloggers have turned to RSS to maximize the relay of blogs to their readers. Let me elaborate on how a Blog RSS works. Suppose you want to syndicate your blog to websites. Normally you need to do all the trouble in distributing your whole posts by going to the sites one by one. In Blog RSS, you don’t have to go through each and every site to input the content the same way all over again. The sites that have your syndication code will automatically receive the information that you input once and the feed will do the rest of the job simultaneously. What’s more? As you update your blogs, it gets updated on the sites as well.

One good thing that bloggers love about Blog RSS is that feeds don’t get deleted by anybody and only you can do the deletion. So, you actually have total control over your posts. By providing the link to your feeds, you have already relayed the information to your readers. Just post the code on your website and that is it. You don’t even need to send out emails. Through Blog RSS, you have eliminated the hassle of spamming when you want to add a new content to your blog or update an existing blog. Even your web developer doesn’t need to do a thing.

Blog RSS is practically a good thing in the blogosphere. The bloggers, readers and the websites, even search engines are happy about this. It’s now being used in almost all medium of relaying information in websites. So, it’s time to crash out that campaign over e-newsletters or spamming. Switch to RSS feeds and make your blogs stay in the internet forever.

Welcome to How to Blog with BlogRoute.com!

Welcome to How to Blog with BlogRoute.com!

For people wanting to learn how to blog, BlogRoute.com can give you the best tips and ideas! Start your own blog right now with BlogRoute.com!