A few months ago, I wrote a guest post here called How to Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger. Today, I’ll go into some more detailed advice to help you speed up your site even more.

If you’re a blogger, you already know about the importance of blog loading speed, and the role it plays in search engine rank and marketing your blog. But if this is new territory for you, here are three quick reasons why you need to speed up your blog:

1. Google includes website loading speed as an important metric in their ranking algorithm. If you want your blog to rank high in the search results, you need to make sure your blog loads faster than others.
2. It can increase the quality of your blog’s user experience and engagement. Having a good-looking blog won’t make your readers’ experience better if it takes ages to load. You need a theme that loads fast and is well coded.
3. It can help you decrease your bounce rate, and we all know that the lower your bounce rate, the better your chance of driving engagement and generating leads.

Before we get started, check out these five tools you can use to measure your WordPress blog’s loading speed.

1. Optimize your database

One of the very first things that a blogger needs to do is optimize your blog database and delete the post revisions. You can use phpmyadmin to clean up the database, but if you don’t want to play with phpmyadmin, you can set up WP-Optimize instead.

Make sure to remove all the unnecessary tables, old post revisions, and spam comments from your blog’s database. You can use the Better Delete Revision plugin to remove those post revisions, too.

2. Use CloudFare

CloudFlare is a (free) service that makes your blog faster, safer, and smarter. In other words, CloudFlare supercharges websites. It is a CDN service that will protect and accelerate your website, and doesn’t interfere with the WordPress Caching system (W3 Total Cache).

This plugin keeps your blog safe from the Hacking attacks, spammers, and bots by challenging them with a CAPTCHA system whenever it doubts a user’s authenticity. With this tool, you’re easily able to block the spammers’ IPs and websites with just few clicks.

3. Use the P3 plugin

P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) is one of the best plugins for those wanting to see a performance report of their blog. It comes with a lot of great features, but primarily, it can show you what plugins are slowing down your blog.

It creates a profile of your WordPress site’s plugins’ performance by measuring their impact on your site’s load time. Often, WordPress sites load slowly because your plugins are pooly configured, or because you’re using so many of them. By using the P3 plugin, you can home in on anything that’s causing your site’s load time to slow.

Note that this plugin uses the canvas element for drawing charts and requires Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, or IE9 or later. This plugin will not work in IE8 or lower.

4. Disable hotlinking

Hotlinking is when other sites link directly to the images hosted on your blog from their blog posts or pages. This makes your server load high and decreases the loading speed of your blog.

It is very important to disable hotlinking. To do so, add the following code to your blog’s .htaccess file. Make sure to back up your .htaccess file before you begin to make any changes.

#disable hotlinking of images with forbidden or custom image option
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourdomain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourdomain.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?feeds2.feedburner.com/yourdomain [NC]
#RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ ñ [F]
#RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg)$ http://www.yourdomain.com/stealing.gif [R,L]

Make sure to allow your feeds to display the images, however.

5. Limit front page posts

Limit the posts that are shown on your home page. Never show the full posts on the home page, because this will make your site very slow to load. Imagine you have more than eight posts on your home page, and all of them are of 600 words or more—it will likely take a significant amount of time to load the home page.

You should use the excerpts on the homepage and most other pages, instead of showing full posts. To use the excerpts, find the below code in your index.php and other pages that list posts, like archives.php, category.php, and so on.

Replace that code with this:

More resources

For more ideas on speeding up your blog, see:

• 8 Things You Can Do to Speed Up Your Site and Get More Traffic in 2012
• How to make your blog load faster than ProBlogger
• Speed Up Your WordPress Website: 11 Ways to Improve Your Load Time

These are simple tips that can help you to make your blog load faster than ProBlogger. What others can you share to increase blog speed?

Dev is a part time blogger and blogs about WordPress Marketing at WPKube. Hit him up on Twitter if you need anything, Dev will be quick in responding and helping you out.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Make Your Blog Load Faster than ProBlogger: Part 2

• How many active blogs? 45.2% of ProBlogger readers have one active blog, 24.3% of you have two, and 11.6% of you have three blogs. Interestingly 8.7% of ProBlogger readers don’t yet have a blog and 1.6% have more than 10!
• How long have you been blogging? There’s a real spread here. The most common response was 1-2 years (17% of responses) with the next most common responses being 2-3 years (15%), and over 5 years (15%). As you’d expect, the numbers of people who’ve been at it a while have increased as ProBlogger has been going longer.
• How old are you? The most common age range of ProBlogger readers is 31-40 years of age (29%). Next most common was 41-50 (24%), and 21-30 (19%). I hear a lot of people say that blogging is a young person’s thing. Not necessarily: among our readers, only 2.5% of respondents indicated that they are 20 or under.
• Gender. We’ve seen a shift here. While previously just over half of readers were male, this time we saw 56% of readers indicating that they were female. What I did find particularly interesting was that we were able to track responses based on where people were referred to the survey from (email, Twitter, G+, etc.). G+ referrers were almost 70% men and blog readers were 60% men. All other referrals were 60-70% women so there were some real discrepancies there in terms of gender.
• Blog platforms you use. Just over half of those surveyed use WordPress.org. 21% use WordPress.com and 17% use Blogger. The other 12 or so percent were spread out considerably. Interestingly both MovableType and TypePad usage had declined since the last survey.
• Challenges and problems faced. The biggest challenges readers identified as having were finding readers, monetization, and finding time to blog. Not a lot of change here from last time although the “finding time” response was a bit higher.
• Monetization methods. 65% of respondents are trying to monetize their blog (a little lower than last time). Interestingly, the methods of monetization have changed a little. More people are selling their own products, more are doing paid reviews, and less are using ad networks and affiliate marketing, and selling ads directly to sponsors. The most common form of monetization, though, was affiliate marketing (35% of responses).
• Blog design. There was a real spread of types of blog designs being used by ProBlogger readers – but the most common type was buying premium templates. This was one of the big shifts from the last survey to this one—with more and more quality services now existing to design and sell you a great blog template (like my friends at Studio Press, who do all my own blog design) I guess it’s an option that will only grow over time.
• Email marketing. Perhaps the most surprising result for me in this census were the responses to a question asking readers if they have an email newsletter or do any type of email marketing. Around 60% of you don’t collect any email addresses from readers, or do anything with email. As I’ve written on many occasions, email and newsletters are central to my own approach. Email not only drives traffic to my blogs, it helps me make money. I cannot imagine my own blogs without email. If there was one tip I’d give on how to grow a blog it’d be to get serious about this in 2012!

Thanks to everyone for participating in this year’s census. The above info, plus your thousands of suggestions, have given me (and the team behind ProBlogger) a lot of great ideas.

In fact in the coming months, you’ll see a shift in how we run ProBlogger that’s based upon what we heard in this survey. It will impact the topics of posts you’ll see here on ProBlogger, as well as our approach on numerous other levels. Thanks for making ProBlogger more useful!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

What 60% of ProBlogger Readers Don’t Do that’s Central to My Blogging Success

If you visit your favorite blogging tips and marketing tips blog today, you will come across a lot of tips, ranging from tips on writing well to tips on building an audience.

The reality is that a lot of new blogs spring up every day, and the majority of these blogs are bound to fail right from the beginning. It’s not because there is something wrong with their approach, but because they fail to neglect something really important: their wellbeing.

Do you know that blogging is not only a physical challenge? It is also a mental challenge.

There are a lot of things we bloggers go through every day that no amount of practice will help make easier, but by focusing on being okay in every aspect of our lives (mental, emotional, physical, etc.) we’ll find those challenges easier to deal with.

In this article I’ll be touching some subjects bloggers hardly discuss online, and I’ll be giving tips to help you deal with them.

Dealing with criticism

Do you know that one of the major dangers of being a blogger is being exposed to criticism? If you’re still a new blogger you might not have noticed it yet, but in over two years of blogging, I have seen several clear examples of blogging criticisms. In fact, I have seen bloggers been sent death threats, and I have seen several bloggers quit because of that. Why? Because they chose to give value to the world through their blogging.

If you think blogging is a bed of roses, or if you think everybody will be your friend, then you need to think twice. There are hateful people online hiding under the cloak of anonymity. There are also people who are ready to vent their anger on you as a result of some personal problem they’re facing. The best way to deal with this is to be prepared, and to get ready for the worst at any time.

Blogging has a great emotional connection to it, and a lot of bloggers these days are starting to pay the price of being celebrities. You need to realize that there are people that will come and vent their hate against you for no reason whatsoever, and you should be ready for them.

I’m not trying to say you should fight back. Instead, I’m telling you not to take it personally. You need to realize that their reason for criticizing you isn’t because you’re the problem. You should also know that not all criticisms are bad. Naturally, there are healthy and unhealthy criticisms, and it is your duty to be able to differentiate the healthy criticisms from the unhealthy ones, and to improve where necessary.

Dealing with failure

Another problem you have to deal with as a blogger is failure. It can get really tough when you plan to achieve something in six months and can’t achieve it in one year—especially when you see another blogger getting better results with what looks like little to no effort in the same time span.

The first tip I have for you is to try to avoid jealousy. You need to realize that failure is part of the game, and that we all have our own challenges and our ways of dealing with them. Don’t be jealous of another blogger’s success. Jealousy is always unhealthy. Instead, take a look at what that blogger is doing, what approach he or she is taking, and start viewing the person as healthy competition.

It’s also very important not to allow your fear of failure prevent you from trying. You need to realize that failure is part of this game, and that not everything is bound to work. If you’re afraid of failing, you will have a hard time succeeding. Your first step is to eliminate every fear of failure within you, so that you can easily try new things no matter what the outcome might be.

Eating well

Do you know that the food you eat can have a great impact on several aspects of your life, including how you think and solve problems, and how you react to emotional challenges?

Have you ever woken up and found it difficult to work hard or get motivated for the day, even though you had a normal sleep the previous night? While sleeping and resting regularly is great, it is very important for you to realize that the food you eat will to a great extent influence your physical activities.

Most things we do as bloggers require us to think and plan effectively, and we also have to deal with the results emotionally—whether good or bad—which is exactly why it is important for us to eat good food to help ourselves be more effective. In other words, eating junk foods makes you dull and emotionally weak, and as a result you will only create poor work that brings bad results. The results will also deal you a massive blow since you’ll likely be emotionally weak.

If you’re emotionally strong, you can easily turn even the worst of problems into a lasting solution, so being careful with what you eat should always be a priority as a blogger.

While you might think you will make a lot more money and get fast results by “saving time” by eating junk foods, you’ll often discover you find it difficult to focus and concentrate because you aren’t in the right frame of mind to do quality work.

Improve your diet, and you’ll be amazed at how much your blogging will improve.

Exercising regularly

Do you know that regular exercise has a lot of benefits, including helping you gain energy and making you more emotionally stable?

I have observed carefully what I can do on a day when I exercise compared to a day when I don’t. I’ve noticed I can get two times more work done if I spend around two hours a day exercising compared to when I don’t.

Are you in a bad mood after waking up in the morning? Do you want to get some serious work done in any given day? Spend at least one hour exercising every day, and you will be amazed at what you can achieve.

To be honest with you, exercising isn’t that easy if you haven’t done it before, so start with ten minutes a day, and then scale it up till you can do one hour a day. Trust me: you will want to do more of it when you see the benefits.

I think, as bloggers, we have a lot more to worry about than our content and marketing ourselves, and we also have to be taking regular measures to ensure we’re physically and mentally active. The above are a few tips that can help you! I’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments.

John is an expert weight loss blogger who teaches people how to lose weight on WeightLossTriumph. He also gives the best nutrisystem coupon code and medifast discount code on his blog.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Why Most Bloggers will Fail, No Matter How Hard They Try

Are you “brushing off” the work you need to complete? Or are you able to “brush it off” when it’s finished, ready to launch into the world?

I’ve had experience brushing off the things that needed to be done—and I’m sure you have, too—but I’ve also had the satisfying feeling of being able to put down my tools and say, finally, “I’m done.”

I’m referring to that point you eventually reach, after many long hours and sleepless nights, where there’s no more you can you can possibly do to improve your project, no more tweaking or adding or altering—it is done, as perfect as it can be.

But this “feeling,” this goal I invariably set for myself prior to embarking on any project, is sometimes fleeting, lofty, and quite unreachable.

Sometimes it’s a matter of scope—the project is too large to possibly accomplish by one person. Other times it’s the lack of direction: we don’t know where to go with our blog—or our business. But still other times it’s just a matter of not understanding clearly our expectations, and the time it takes to complete them.

The right expectations

I was thinking recently about my experience as a Boy Scout during my grade school years. I enjoyed pretty much all of the events, camping trips, and fundraisers we did, but there was one annual event we participated in that was held in much higher esteem than the rest. My father and I, once a school year, would begin that journey every young man so impatiently awaits for the rest of the season—the coveted Pinewood Derby competition.

A “Pinewood Derby” is a small (about 8 inches by 3 inches), four-wheeled vehicle powered by gravity and graphite-rubbed plastic wheel bearings. The cars, two at a time, would be raced down a track made of wood. It sounds simple, but for young American boys everywhere, it was the raison d’etre for joining and paying your dues to the Boy Scouts of America.

Every year, my dad and I would start dreaming about what style and shape to cut, design, and paint my car. We would shoot for the most aerodynamic, stylistic, and awe-inspiring design that would still be allowed in the races (there were, of course, weight and size restrictions!). One year was a “hot dog” design that almost took home the gold, while another year was a failed attempt at a Camaro convertible with a spoiler.

We would start the project most years by planning, blueprinting, and marking the rectangular block of wood with cut marks in pencil (did I mention my dad’s an engineer?). Only after planning, sanding, cutting, and sanding some more could we even begin to think about putting on the cool pewter attachments—engine blocks, headers, and so on. Finally, after letting glue dry, sanding once more, and then waiting a few more days, we would apply the paint to the finished product.

With me as Creative Director and Dad as Chief Technical Officer and Director of Engineering, the product, no matter how poorly it actually performed in the races, would be something prized and rewarding for both of us—it was something we would, literally, “brush off” when we’d finish, take it inside to show Mom, and then put on the trophy shelf after it had served on the racetrack.

One year was different, though. Dad was either out of town during the initial months leading up to the Derby, or I’d just decided I was old enough to get started myself. I had my wood block, access to power tools, and plenty of sandpaper.

Rather than waste time with the planning, creative process, and initial sanding, I decided to jump in get started making my dream car. I’d also decided to start about a week before the competition.

Needless to say, the car was shoddily built. It was sticky to hold, as the paint hadn’t really dried well, the pieces constantly fell off (we had to bring a hot glue gun to the event), and it gave everyone splinters (I said this was part of the car’s built-in defense mechanisms). I had mostly “brushed off” the steps that he’d taught me were necessary. Dad wasn’t overly excited about it, but he knew a lesson was in store for his oldest son.

Sure enough, I realized (though much later in life) what the lesson was: while each stroke of the sandpaper and each slow pull of the paintbrush wouldn’t make a marked difference on the outcome, it was the step-by-step process we went through to ensure every piece of the puzzle was in place that created the final wooden racer.

In short: the whole was much bigger than the sum of its parts.

Embrace the process

That year, I’d skipped out on a lot of the process, and because of that, I couldn’t “brush off” my work and show it off to my friends and fellow scouters.

For my fellow bloggers, here’s the takeaway:

• Don’t cheat the system: If you’re trying to start a blog, and you know that blogs need great content, don’t spend money on a ton of ghost-written PLR articles that sound exactly the same.
• Don’t cut corners: If there’s a “standard process” that others in your niche have gone through—maybe they spent most of their early years doing nothing but churning out guest posts and commenting on blogs—don’t think there’s a “secret way” to reach the same level with much less work.
• Don’t “brush it off”: Don’t brush off the little things. Every comment, every guest post, and every tweet that you send is an ambassador for who you are—what you are—online. I don’t know you from Adam, so if I visit your blog and see posts written at a second-grade reading level with nothing but AdSense everywhere, what do you think that tells me about you? Come on, get it together!

Okay, okay, there’s always the exception that proves the rule.

If, by chance, you do blog for money only—and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that—then you’ll have systems and procedures in place for that as well, and they need to be honored. The same rules apply:

• If you find that most money-making blogs are earning their income because of their massive amounts of content, why would you think you could do better only writing three or five posts per week? Spend some money on some well-written posts to fill out your site, and spend your time building your business.
• If you run a business of any kind online, don’t cut the corners or “brush it off,” or you’ll most likely give people splinters. There’s a reason Internet marketers spend so much time cultivating and building their email lists. Why would you think you’re special and can just buy a billion email addresses for $50 bucks?

Don’t skimp

Don’t skimp on the details—they’re what are going to set you apart from every other teenaged marketing “guru” out there, and they’re also going to give you more experience in much less time. As so many business experts and professionals have said, “fail often.” Don’t be afraid to fail—just know that it will be a failure that will help you “brush off” a project (in a good way!) in the future.

“Brush off” your project or business now, and you won’t be able to “brush it off” in the future. Don’t “brush off” your project today, and you’ll be able to “brush it off” and show it off tomorrow.

Get it?

Nick Thacker is interested in learning and writing about ways to live better–his website is Life Hacks for Living Well, and is a repository of tips, tricks, and resources to getting what you want out of life, in a better way. You can subscribe to his feed directly by clicking here.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

“Brushing it Off” Vs. “Brushing It Off”

If you’ve been blogging for any amount of time, you’ve heard that content is king. You’ve been told that everything else—design, SEO, in and outbound links—those things are a bonus, but the real thing you need to focus on is your content.

And it’s true, content is king, because even an SEO-optimized blog with a beautiful, user-friendly design and a parade of in and outbound links will fail without great content.

But although content is important, there’s something more—something that only you can bring to the table, something that only you have to offer that will really make your blog shine. A secret ingredient that will make your blog unforgettable.

You.

Your voice matters

The fact is, if you’re looking to build your blog on completely unique content, you’re going to run out of ideas very quickly. Chances are anything you want to talk about has already been covered by at least a dozen other bloggers, and it’s not because you’re unoriginal or a terribly unimaginative person—it’s just because there are only so many things to talk about.

The question you need to ask yourself is: what keeps readers coming back to your blog, when they could go elsewhere for the same information?

Can you guess what the answer is? I’m talking about that secret ingredient again. Your voice, your take, your worldview—those are the things that make you memorable. Those are the things that make you stand out in an ocean of blogs.

You have a gift

You have something priceless, a gift that you were born with, a gift often taken for granted: no one can think or speak or write the way you do. The way you put words on the page, how you interpret the world—those are treasures that can’t be taken away from you, treasures you should cherish.

Maybe you’re like me and you write about writing. Guess what?—there are hundreds of writing blogs out there. But there’s only one you.

Maybe you blog about technology, or education, or sports—it doesn’t matter what niche you’re in or what you’re writing about, what matters is you.

Take a look at the last few blog posts you wrote and read them aloud. Do they sound and feel like you, or could anyone have written them? If the answer is the latter, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity—you’re forgetting to be you.

Yes, content is king. Without something interesting to talk about, your readers won’t come—but without inserting yourself in your content, without weaving in your thoughts, your opinions, your voice into your blog, your readers won’t remember you. They’ll go to another blog with the same content and a better voice.

Don’t be just another blogger. You have something incredible and special and entirely unique because you are the secret ingredient. Isn’t it time your readers see it, too?

Ava Jae is a writer, artist and X-men geek. You can find her weekly musings on her blog Writability, follow her on Twitter, or check out her Facebook page.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

The Secret Ingredient to a Successful Blog

If you’re a blogger, do you know how to stay on the right side of the law? Do you know what you need to do to keep the FTC from knocking on your door or to keep from getting a dreaded cease and desist letter?

Fortunately you don’t have to be a lawyer or law scholar to understand the laws that govern blogging, particularly in the U.S. In fact, you really only have to understand six basic laws. Let me explain…

note: I’m not a lawyer, so do consult one if you are unsure about any blogging-related laws.

Law #1: Do you have to disclose paid endorsements?

One of the most important developments in the blogosphere when it comes to U.S. law is that bloggers must be open with the fact that they are being paid to use, promote, or review a product.

This all started back in 2006, when the Federal Trade Commission, recognizing that bloggers were displacing traditional ways of advertising that could open up dishonest business practices and conflicts of interest, issued a letter that recommended all bloggers need to be open and honest with their endorsements and reviews.

How open and honest do you have to be? It’s really pretty straightforward if you think about a few things:

• Label information clearly: Wherever you have content, make it perfectly clear which information is editorial and which is advertising.
• Come clean with affiliate relationships: This could mean labeling links that drive to your Amazon affiliates, or building a page that explains all of your affiliates and relationships (see Chris Brogan’s About page for an example).
• Do not claim to be an objective third-party when you are not: You also should explain your relationship with a company when you are talking about them. For example, “Company B, whom I work for, is about to roll out product X.”

To date not one single blogger has been sued over the issue that I know of. But, nonetheless, here is the FTC’s FAQ on the topic.

Law #2: What should I do when someone steals my content?

If you are creating compelling content, it’s bound that somebody will take it and uses it on their site. Sometimes they do it without knowing that they are breaking the law. They may even give you credit and link to your website.

What should you do? Well, it depends.

If you want to protect your work, you should simply send them an email and let them know that what they are doing is called copyright infringement. If you are dealing with an understanding person, then they’ll probably apologize and take the copy down.

If you’re dealing with somebody who doesn’t care what you think, then you’ll need to weigh the cost of pursuing legal action. Typically it’s a very difficult thing to do and will be very expensive.

You can usually discourage people from taking your content by putting a copyright symbol on the footer of your website so it appears on every page.

So when is your work considered to fall under copyright law? Interestingly enough, according to the U.S. laws, it occurs the moment you publish it. So even if you don’t have a copyright symbol, you are still protected.

What exactly is protected on the Internet? Just about everything, including:

• original copy
• links
• images
• podcasts
• videos
• code (HTML, VRML, and other unique markup language sequences)

Still, should you care if someone steals your content? Some bloggers like Leo Babauta do not. He actually encourages people to take his copy as long as they give him credit for it. He calls it his uncopyrighted policy.

Why would he do something like that? He considers the value of spreading his work through this method to be worth more than protecting and defending his rights.

Law #3: Is deep linking legal?

It may come as a surprise to you that there are some doubts to whether deep linking is even legal.

Deep linking is where you write a blog post and then link to another website in that post. However, you don’t link directly to the homepage: you link to a page buried on the site.

For example, one of the sources I used while researching this topic was from a Canadian lawyer who explored some U.S. court decisions on the topic. That link that I just provided does not go to the lawyer’s home page, but to an interior page.

From the perspective of a blogger, it makes more sense to link directly to the page that you are referring to than it does to link to the home page, and then hope the reader can find the information you are referring to.

What’s interesting is that some people have claimed that deep linking is a form of trespassing. One of the most famous U.S. cases was between Ticketmaster and Ticket.com back in 2000.

Ticketmaster’s argument was two-fold: Ticket.com tried to pass off one of their pages as their own when they didn’t link to the home page but an interior page, making it a copyright infringement.

The other argument was that deep linking bypassed the prescribed path a website owner wants its users to go, amounting to trespassing.

It’s not surprising that Ticketmaster lost on both claims.

No other case on this topic has been brought to the court since so it seems safe to say deep linking is a legal practice.

Furthermore, it’s such an accepted SEO practice that there is no reason you should worry that someone might sue you if you deep link to their site. In fact, most people encourage the practice since it brings exposure to their site.

Law #4: Can I use any image on my blog?

The short answer is “no,” because you do not have permission to use just any image. The concern here is that you might use an image that’s not your own, and inadvertently pass it off on your own.

How should you legally use images? Here are four approaches:

• Link to the owner: One practice is to simply put a link below the picture to the owner of the image. This will not be sufficient in many cases, though.
• Buy royalty-free images: You can also simply buy royalty-free images and not have to worry about copyright.
• Use Creative Common images: Another great source to look for free images is to visit the  Creative Commons photos on Flickr. These photos do not have copyright restrictions, but are usually based upon a few Creative Common attributes, like “share,” “modify,” or “non-commercial use.” No matter the attribution type you use, it’s still a polite to link to the original Flickr page. This way, people who visit your site know who owns the image and they can easily find more of their work.
• Ask for permission: Of course if you find an image you like on someone else’s website, you can always ask them for permission to use it.

Law #5: Who owns user-developed content?

When it comes to reviews, comments or copy on message boards, you do not own the content: the original author owns it.

How could that be? The same law that protects the copy on your blog is the same law that protects people who write something on your site.

A great way to deal with this issue is to have very clear terms on how you will manage user-developed content. In your site’s terms of use, you should spell out a few things:

• You are at liberty to do with the comments as you please.
• You will not manipulate them or delete them without having a good reason to.
• You will remove them if someone requests (this is really up to you).
• You will require a minimum amount of information so you can avoid anonymous comments.
• You will delete all comments if and when you expire your blog.

If these terms are stated clearly and openly, you shouldn’t have much of a problem when it comes to the law and user-developed content.

Law #6: How do I have to protect people’s private information?

Privacy on the internet is a huge issue. People are worried that their identities will be stolen, their bank accounts will be drained, and the government will watch their every move if they don’t protect their privacy. Naturally, people want to feel comfortable when they are on your blog.

People online are also worried about spam. For example, they don’t want to share their email address with an email newsletter provider because they’re afraid it will be sold to a handful of marketers.

What is your responsibility when it comes to your user’s information? Of course if you run an ecommerce site, you need to protect their information with secure pages.

But what if you are simply collecting an email address?

A good guideline is to have a clear privacy policy on your website. It could be as simple as “We promise never to rent, sell or share your email address.” Or it could be more elaborate, with an entire page dedicated to it. It just depends on how much information you collect.

Conclusion

As you can see, the law is pretty straightforward when it comes to blogging so if you familiarize yourself with the above situations, you shouldn’t have to worry about getting into trouble.

What other laws do you think are important for bloggers to know about?

PS: as I said, I’m not a lawyer, so do consult one if you are unsure about any blogging-related laws.

Neil Patel is the co-founder of KISSmetrics and blogs at Quick Sprout.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

6 Laws Every Blogger Needs to Obey so they Don’t Get Sued

Everyone is looking for the best strategy for growing a blog. Is it SEO? PPC? CPV? Guest posting? Twitter? Facebook? CommentLuv? Networking? Attending conferences? Writing great content?

The list goes on—I could fill a page if I had to, and I’ll bet that you could, too.

Every one of these strategies will work for some people, and some of these strategies will work for most people.

But there’s only one strategy that I know of that will work for everyone, and unlike all the other strategies, I didn’t learn it from other bloggers or internet marketing gurus.

I learned it from my parents.

Image copyright TrudiDesign - Fotolia.com

Why “thank you” is such an effective strategy

There are actually two reasons why it is very smart strategy to say “thank you” as frequently and creatively as you can.

You see, when you thank someone in a meaningful, heart-felt way, you are communicating that their words and actions have had a positive impact on your life. In their own way, they have helped you to achieve what you have achieved, and become what you have become.

This does two very important things:

1. It makes them feel useful. We all long to feel useful, whether we have five followers or 500,000. We want to know that our work and actions have meaning and value to others, and this is even more true for people who have been successful, and for whom money no longer needs to be the primary or sole driver. By saying “thank you,” you are telling someone that they have made a difference to you, and that will make them feel good.
2. It makes them feel invested. When we contribute to something, we care more about how things turn out. By thanking someone for the positive influence and impact that they have had on your life and career, you will make them feel a little more invested in the outcome of your endeavors—and more likely to want to support you as you work towards your goals in the future.

So in short, by thanking people, you make them feel good, and make them want to help you a little bit more in the future. Plus, it’s just basic courtesy.

So … what should you thank people for?

Don’t wait for the grand gestures

Don’t pester people for big favors, and wait for grand gestures that will never arrive. Instead, look at where you are today, and take careful stock of the people who have helped you to get to where you are.

Their help could be big, like the teachers and mentors that have guided you along the way, or it could be smaller, like the blogger whose example you are following, or the author of an article that gave you an insight into what you should be doing in order to succeed.

Here are just a few of the things that you could thank people for:

• reading your blog, and leaving a comment
• subscribing to your list
• linking to your content
• tweeting about something you wrote
• writing something that inspired you
• teaching you how to do something that you didn’t know before
• making time to answer your question when they didn’t have to
• being courteous and helpful in their interactions with you
• introducing you to someone or something of value.

This is just a start, but I think it gets the point across. The masters of social media are experts at thanking people for all of these things, and lots more—in fact, for many of them, it is the cornerstone of their strategy for building an engaged audience!

Say it in a way that counts

The way you actually go about expressing your gratitude matters. Remember, you want to communicate that a positive impact has been made in your life, and if that’s the case, then don’t you owe it to them to put some thought and heart into it?

For starters, the worst way to say thank you is with a generic comment to the effect of “Great post!”  A comment like that doesn’t communicate why you thought it was great. What impact did it actually have on you? What did you learn?

If you want to convey authentic gratitude, then these are important things to express.

The other reason why a “great post” comment doesn’t cut it is that your “great post” comment will probably be added to several dozen others that are almost exactly the same. If you want to make an impression, you have to do it in a way that stands out from the crowd. For example, you could:

• send the person an email saying that you appreciate their work (without asking for anything)
• mention their work in your own writing, and link to it (try to always link to a post, rather than the homepage of a blog, so that they get a pingback and see it)
• send them a small gift when appropriate (like a book that you think they’d enjoy, relating to something that they’ve written about)
• introduce them to someone who can help them
• praise them publicly, for example on your blog, or on Twitter (make sure to @mention them!)
• send them a handwritten note expressing why you are grateful.

These are just a few ideas, and I’m sure that if you take a few minutes to brainstorm (or search on Google), you’ll find a lot more. The key is to stand out, and communicate in a noticeable way that you are genuinely grateful.

Of course all of this has to be genuine, and not just a manipulation…

The right thing and the smart thing are the same thing

The world of social media can sometimes be touchy about actions that are seen as self-serving, and things get even more complicated when there is an up-side to doing the right things.

I mean, shouldn’t you be thanking people just because it’s the right thing to do? Isn’t it just manipulation if you thank them because you’re trying to get something in return?

The answer to those questions, of course, is yes—you should be thanking people because it’s the right thing to do, and if you’re just thanking people when you don’t mean it, and you’re simply trying to get something out of them, then you’re a manipulative jerk.

That’s not what I’m suggesting at all.

On the contrary. I’m saying that you have genuine reason to grateful to a lot of people, and that thanking them is the right thing to do.

The funny thing about business, though, is that often the right thing and smart thing are the same thing!

So make a list of the people to whom you have genuine reason to be grateful, and say thank you.

Who can you thank today?

So who has helped you recently? And how can you make them feel good about the special thing that they’ve done for you?

My list would be pretty long, but here is just a starting example, to get you going:

• I’m grateful to Brian Clark, who gave me a shot with my first guest post.
• I’m grateful to Jon Morrow and Corbett Barr for all of the help and advice that they have given me.
• I’m grateful to all of the people who responded to our Semi-Local Business Survey.
• I’m grateful to more bloggers than I can list here for their friendship and support.
• Of course, I’m grateful to Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark, Mitch Joel, and the 27 other superstars who contributed to my book, Engagement from Scratch! How Super-Community Builders Create A Loyal Audience and How You Can Do the Same!
• And most importantly, I’m grateful to you for time and attention in reading this post.

What about you? Who can you thank today? And how are you going to do it?

Danny Iny (@DannyIny) is an author, strategist, serial entrepreneur, expert marketer, and the Freddy Krueger of Blogging. Together with Guy Kawasaki, Brian Clark, Mitch Joel, he wrote the book on how to build an engaged audience from scratch.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

The Best Blog Growth Strategy is to Say Thank You … a Lot!

Of course when I return home, everyone always asks, “What was the best thing” or “What did you learn this year?”

Here’s what I learned

The thing that I always learn when I go to Blog World (or almost any other conference, for that matter) is simple: DO IT!

This year I decided to take a different approach to taking notes at BWE. Whereas in the past I’ve tried to capture much more of the words and ideas of presenters, this year I decided only to write things down when I heard something I needed to implement.

So instead of page after page of notes to wade through, I ended up with a rather concise list of action items—things I knew would not only be nice ideas but which would help lift my blogs up a notch.

As I sat in LAX waiting to board my flight back to Melbourne, I gazed over the list of action items and realized that much of what I’d written were things that I already knew I should do, but were things that I’d either put off, been distracted from doing or had not yet done well.

Here’s the thing: blogging isn’t rocket science

While when you just start out, there’s certainly a learning curve and it can take a while to get your head around some of the more technical aspects of blogging, a lot of what it takes to build a blog is pretty much common sense (note: common sense doesn’t equate to it being easy … it’s also a lot of work).

However the problem with “common sense” is that things that are common sense are often the things we take for granted—they’re things that we get comfortable with, and don’t always actually do.

Not only that, but the common sense things are often overlooked in the pursuit of “secrets” or “advanced tips and techniques.”

I spoke with one blogger at BWE who told me that they were dissatisfied with the event because it was all too basic. They commented that they “knew it all” already and wanted speakers to reveal their “real secrets.”

When I unpacked this with him a little and we looked over his blog together, it became apparent that while he may have known a lot of what he’d heard at BWE already, he’d not done much of it. For example, he told me he was sick of people talking about setting up an email newsletter. However, when pressed, he admitted that doing it was still on his to-do list.

He knew he should do it, but he was so busy looking for the next new secret technique that he’d failed to implement one that was tested and proven.

What have you been putting off?

Of course, most of us have been overlooking or putting off something.

For me, there was a list of 20 or so things. For example, I sat in one session with Amy Porterfield who talked about Facebook, and I realized that while I’m using Facebook much more effectively than in the past, there are still five or six things that I need to do to take my Facebook strategies to the next level.

I also realized that I need to rework some key pages on my blogs, rethink some aspects of my blogs’ designs, and so on.

What about you? Most ProBlogger readers didn’t get to BWE this year, but that doesn’t stop you implementing what I learned. Take ten minutes to consider the action items do you have that perhaps you’ve been putting off, but which you really need to take action on.

If you’d like to share them in comments below to help make you a little more accountable to them, please do!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

The Most Important Take-Home Advice from BlogWorld Expo LA [#BWELA]

I followed this year’s U.S. presidential election pretty closely on T.V. and also volunteered for one of the candidates. Over I time I began to notice some parallels between running a successful campaign and a successful blog.

I don’t plan to ever run for president – but I would like to have a more successful blog. I would also like to share what I learned and hope that it will be helpful to other bloggers.

Image by BohPhoto

1. You need a story

Both of the presidential candidates and their running mates had a story. John McCain was a P.O.W., Sarah Palin, a hockey mom. Joe Biden was from Scranton, Pennsylvania and stuttered as kid. Barack Obama’s story is that he is the “son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas”.

The details of the stories don’t really matter. What matters is how they /framed/ their story – their story had to be everyone else’s story – a story people could relate to.

John McCain was a guy who loved his country and was willing to do whatever it took to defend it – just like many Americans have done or would be willing to do. Sarah Palin, a mom with many of the same concerns of other American moms across the country. Joe Biden had many obstacles growing up – but overcame them and is still a down to earth guy that people could relate to. Obama’s story is a little more complicated – most of us don’t have fathers from another country, etc. But as he said – his story could only happen in America and that while “we may have different stories we hold common hopes”.

He even had a flyer that said: “His story is our story – an American story.”

It’s the same way with blogging. You need a story (I’m still working on this myself) – it has to be uniquely about you, but it still has to be something your readers and potential readers can relate to. It has to somehow be their story too.

An example is Wendy Piersall – her story is about “one little mom who wanted to start a blog as a hobby” and now has grown to 14 bloggers that are “willing to do what it takes to make a great living while also living a great a life.”

Many people can relate to her story – struggling with finding a successful career path and juggling that with raising kids.

Each of the candidates did a good job of telling their story and framing it so other people could understand and relate to it. That isn’t enough to win an election, just as it’s not enough by itself to make a blog successful. But it’s a good start for letting people know who you are so you can begin building relationships with them.

Once you share your story on your blog you give your readers a chance to share in a part of your life – your struggles and successes can be theirs too. And once you build those relationships, the resulting community that forms can share their struggles and successes with you also!

2. You need a community

Obama had a huge number of people volunteering for him – millions – literally millions across the country. The volunteers created a grassroots effort that helped to get the word out about him being a great candidate for president. They helped to recruit even more volunteers and convinced even more people to vote for him.

Together the paid workers, the volunteers and other supporters created a huge and powerful community. Huge communities of enthusiastic followers attract even more people.

He not only had an offline community – but an online community as well.

His website had groups you could join based on geography, political issues and many different interests or hobbies. You could find groups in your own local area or based anywhere in the world. You could add people as friends or search for old friends. You could have a blog at his site. You could find out about offline events through his site. In short – his site brought people together to promote a common goal.

Communities are created by lots of individual relationships between many different people with similar interests. In Obama’s case, his community’s common interest was in him and in helping him win the election.

Blogs are similar. You need to create a community of readers.

One expert on building blogging communities is Liz Strauss who specializes in relationship blogging. She is great at creating a blogging environment that makes people feel welcome and encourages them to participate. As she says on her blog: “You’re only a stranger once”.

This is very vital to making a blog successful – identify a common interest of your readers, invite them in and let them participate in the conversation.

Another thing I noticed when I was volunteering – I was always welcomed by the other volunteers and paid people. They always appreciated any effort you made, so matter how small. Liz does this too – whenever you stop by her Tuesday Open Comments Night – you always feel appreciated.

Probably the most important thing to remember about blogging is this:

“… massively successful blogging is about establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships“

Establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships is a big part of why Obama won the election – and is also why the top bloggers are so successful!

3. Pay attention to the numbers, but don’t take them too seriously

It was difficult to keep from checking all the polls everyday for this election. Some days it looked good, but you could never feel too confident. The next day things could change. And you never know until the actual day of the election how it will turn out.

Obama even warned his supporters about getting too confident and that he still needed them working for him on Election Day – and every day leading up to it.

With blogging it’s easy to get caught up with checking your subscriber numbers, your Page Rank, Technorati rankings, etc. But in the end, those numbers don’t mean that much.

Subscribers can unsubscribe just as fast as or faster than they subscribed in the first place. And many subscribers don’t actually read all the blogs they subscribe to. Page Rank doesn’t contribute as much to the Google algorithm as it once did, etc.

There’s nothing wrong with checking these numbers and being aware of them (what blogger wouldn’t want to be able to display FeedBurner numbers like those of Darren Rowse: over 66,000 subscribers!) – but what really matters is real people – not numbers.

Who are your readers? What are they looking for? Are you meeting their needs?

To build the community I wrote about in Part II – ask yourself: “Am I making my visitors feel welcome? Have I created an environment that encourages them to participate?”

Always, always keep working to improve your blog. Don’t let yourself get too confident or complacent. Work on your content. Tweak your design. Reach out to and build relationships with other bloggers. Keep your current readers engaged. Always look for opportunities to attract new readers to your blog.

But do take a break now and then! I realized after a while that I needed to take a break from watching all the polls and election coverage on T.V. It’s too overwhelming after a while. It’s good to walk away a bit and get some perspective.

It’s the same with blogging. Sometimes you have to take a break for a little while. Do something else. Read a book or talk to people offline. It can help to get you recharged – before you completely burn out – and to come up with new and creative ideas to write about!

4. Everyone has an opinion

Everyone has an opinion and has the right to express it, in politics and in everything else in life. When I was out doing door to door canvassing I was quite often surprised by some of the responses I got. Some supportive, some not and some just way out there about issues you never would have thought about that would leave me scratching my head in disbelief.

Sometimes I would come up to a house and think I had a pretty good guess at which candidate they were supporting and be completely wrong. Sometimes I would guess right.

On a blog if you want to create a community you should let people express their opinions in your comments sections even when you don’t agree with them. Of course if the comment is threatening or filled with hate speech you should moderate it. But as long as the person is polite, differing opinions can be enlightening and stimulate more conversation and are sometimes quite entertaining!

If the conversation gets too negative – try to turn it around and make it into a positive. When people booed as Obama mentioned McCain at a rally he told people not to boo – just vote.

On the other side of things – you the blogger, are expressing your opinion whenever you write a post.

Both politicians and bloggers need to really believe in themselves and the ideas they are promoting. If not, people will see through what you are saying and it will be more difficult to be successful.

If fact if you aren’t getting much of a response with your blog it may be that you are not being opinionated enough. According to Kelly McCausey guest posting at Remarkablogger:

“All else being equal, if you’re not getting the traffic you want and the income you want … you’re probably not being opinionated enough.“

Some rules she included for being opinionated apply well to both politicians and bloggers:

Accept that you will alienate someone.

Step up and justify your opinions.

Expect and respect opposing opinions.

I’m pretty shy and am surprised at myself that I was brave enough to knock on the doors of total strangers and express my opinion in favor of Obama. Yes, some people were rude – but I kept knocking anyway. And yes, I had Obama signs stolen from my yard three times – but I kept putting more out there anyway. And yes some people will disagree with what you write on your blog – but keep writing anyway!

Some people will never agree with you – on politics or what you blog about, but that’s ok – don’t let it stop you or slow you down!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

What I learned about Blogging from the U.S. Presidential Election

Audacity is one of my favorite words, as I believe it encapsulates one of the best ways to approach blogging, and in my humble opinion, a wonderful attitude to life. Here’s a simple definition:

1. Fearless daring; intrepidity.
2. Bold or insolent heedlessness of restraints, as of those imposed by prudence, propriety, or convention.
3. An act or instance of intrepidity or insolent heedlessness: warned the students than any audacities committed during the graduation ceremony would be punished.

As you can see, the word suggests an approach that is willing to circumvent ‘the done thing’ in favor of gaining what is most important to you. It’s a unique word in that it has both positive and negative meanings!

As you’ll know, people are often criticized for being audacious, which is a good way to stop people being audacious. Humans generally feel uncomfortable when people act outside the norm. Of course, most successful people make a habit of doing just that. And the same goes for successful bloggers.

It’s conventional that people:

• Don’t ask for more than is offered to them
• Don’t try to talk with people who are better known or higher status than they are
• Don’t admit their failings and mistakes
• Don’t celebrate success publicly
• Don’t try things that could fail badly
• Don’t change their mind once it has been made up
• Don’t give up, no matter whether circumstances and goals change
• Don’t question what everybody else does
• Don’t ask others for help (just think about how often we begin such a request with a pre-emptive apology)

With the above in mind, let’s look at the behavioral patterns of most successful bloggers. Of course, the same could be said about successful entrepreneurs, sportspeople, scientists, musicians or anyone else who excels at what they do. Audacity links them all together.

They DO negotiate higher rates and better deals. They DO say no. They DO understand that they have a lot of value to offer, and that the value they provide is worth something. That’s why audacious people earn more and can sell more expensive products and services: because they are confident that what they provide is worth it and don’t sell themselves short.

They DO communicate with experts and learn from them. If their first efforts to open a dialogue fail, they try new and creative ways to get the conversation started. They realize the best way to learn how to do something is talk to people who’ve done it before. They also know that, because most people assume that experts will be impossible to get a hold of that very few people actually try, making the chances of success much better than they seem. (If I assumed Seth Godin or Darren Rowse or Brian Clark or Leo Babauta would be unwilling to talk, I never would have talked with all of them, nor would you be reading this blog post!).

They DO come to terms with their weaknesses, admit when they have made mistakes and failed to follow their own advice. It takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable in this way, but you can’t work around your weaknesses until you openly acknowledge them. Best of all, readers feel more strongly connected to you because you become a more relateable figure.

Photo by .Luc.

The DO make their successes public. So many bloggers trying to be ‘authorities’ are afraid to clearly outline the reasons why they know their stuff, usually afraid that it will be seen as boastful. In fact, people really want to know whether they’re receiving advice from a reliable source. How often have you come across a ‘make money online’ blog only to wonder whether the blogger behind it was making any money at all?

Too many would-be experts with amazing successes never achieve the recognition they deserve because they are confined to omission and under-statement because we are encouraged from a young age never to toot our own horn. Of course, ‘toot your own horn’ eventually comes to encompass any good we might speak about ourselves and our achievements, often leaving readers in the dark. There’s a difference between saying “I’ve done this and you never will” and “I’ve done this and I would love to help you do it to, with what I learned along the way.”

They DO try things that might well fail. Because what if they don’t? And if they do, will it really be so bad? Few great successes come without risk. In fact, the amount of possible risk and possible gain usually travel hand in hand. Successful bloggers are always experimenting and most of them have failed spectacularly more than a few times but these aren’t the things we focus on because that failure has been accompanied by wonderful successes.

They DO discard ideas that they once believed but now doubt. They DO have changes of heart and changes of mind. They don’t stick with one method or opinion doggedly because it is now theirs. They try to avoid assumptions as much as is possible.

They DO give up. They don’t stick with obviously failing models until they’re driven into the ground. They don’t doggedly pursue the same goals even when new goals seem more important or attractive. They don’t let the cultural imperative to ‘finish what you start’ trap them in unrewarding pursuits.

They DO question what everyone else is doing. They never assume that anything popular must be good. They don’t assume (without thought) that popular beliefs are correct, or that popular courses of action are the best ones. They temper the wisdom of the crowd with their own observations and research.

They DO ask others for help. They DO admit to others when they have no idea. They’d rather take five minutes to email someone who is bound to know the answer to a question than spend six days searching for the right information on their own, just to have to avoid admitting a gap in their knowledge. They ask dumb questions and aren’t afraid to seem stupid once in a while.

Does the above list resonate with who you are, who you’d like to become, or who you feel you’re steadily becoming? To be a successful blogger and entrepreneur (if you’re making money with a blog, that’s what you are), to seize opportunities and make your own opportunities, you need to start living and blogging with audacity. It’s not a dirty word. In fact, it’s an excellent guiding star for any entrepreneurial blogger.

***

I want to take a moment to welcome Darren back from Blog World Expo and to thank him for letting me take care of ProBlogger this week. It’s always a joy to write here. Thanks for having me!

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Blogging With Audacity

The winner (chosen randomly) is CatherineL who submitted this tip:

“Be human – Your readers want to learn about your mistakes, as well as your successes.”

Congratulations Catherine – I’ve just emailed you to get your address details.

Thanks to everyone who entered. There were over 200 tips submitted and among them were some real gems. I personally found the exercise to be a lot of fun to read through this afternoon – there’s some great tips in the mix.

If you have some spare time you might find reading through the comments worthwhile.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Blog Tips – Twitter Style Competition Winner

In this latest batch of blogging tips are some fantastic examples of blogging tips which I really hope you’ll enjoy.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the project. A special shout out to the team in the 31 Day Project who did the Chocolate Challenge – sounds like they had a sweet time of it.

Here are the last batch of blogging tips – make yourself comfortable and enjoy!

• Make Your Template Unique by Michael Martin
• Blog on the Air by Jerky Beef
• A Blogger on Blogging – Chapter 4: Easy Way to Confuse Your Users by Vlad H
• Notebook and Pencil by Martin
• Valid XHTML: Ampersands in Links by Martin
• WordPress Link Love – Follow On Plugins And Tweeks by Rob Malon
• Making a Favicon for Your Blog or Website by Tallfreak
• Why your “About” page is going to become more critical on your business blog by Krishna De
• 5 Blogging Tips to Maximize Pageviews Per Visit by Blain Reinkensmeyer
• The Nine Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers by Etienne Teo
• 10 Popular Firefox Addons for Better Blogging by Etienne Teo
• 5 Ways your Blog can GainTraffic From Media Power by Etienne Teo
• Get More RSS Feed Subscribers! by Matt Harzewski
• Hooked on Phonics Works for Me: How Learning to Spell Can Make You a Better Blogger by Kev at Special Kind of Stupid
• How To Find Hidden Links In Your Site by Courtney Tuttle
• Top 7 Sign’s You Are an Obsessed Web Stats Whore by Sarah Pacopac
• 5 easy ways to get bookmarked on delicious and become hot by Mohsin Naqi
• The First Months of Blogging May Break or Make You by Jan
• 5 Essential OSX Blogging Tools by Simon
• Using Outbound Links to Improve Your Blog by Steven Snell
• WordPress Plugin of the week – Redirection by Blogmunch
• Wrap Your Brain around Viral Marketing by Suzanne Atkinson
• How To Get Your Blogger Blog’s Categories Indexed By Search Engines (Again) by Bloggeroo
• Adsense Isn’t Enough To Make Money Online by Taylor
• Rabbit and Turtle Race in Blogging by Ken Xu
• Break Your Blog Out of the Box with Mailing Lists and Cliff-Hangers by Fred Black
• Don’t Starve Your Readers or Give Them Indigestion by PabloPabla
• Better Google ranking by DPeach
• Fact errors, libel and blogs: How to cope by Glenn Abel
• What you need to know about outgoing links? from SEO perspective by Vijay Shinde
• 7 Ways to Turn Your First Time Visitors into Returning Visitors by Kreah
• Blog Design – Open Your Eyes by Snoskred
• Blog Hints – Refer To Yourself In The Third Person? by Snoskred
• Creating Content from Everyday Life by Pearl
• 10 Reasons Why Blogging is like Sex by kuanhoong
• blog migration series – Choosing WordPress plugins by blogmunch
• Visualize Your Success by Pat B. Doyle
• What do YOU think is the best time of the day to post articles on your blogs? by Mark
• Golden Pencil’s Mission Statement by Anne Wayman
• Are Your Blog Posts Actually Useful? by Matt Jones
• How To Load WordPress From A Static PHP Script by Jeremy Steele
• 5 essential blogging tools by Shawn Wallace
• How I Added a Sparklet to my Lists by Suzanne Atkinson
• 7 Ways To Give Writer’s Block A Severe Beating by Jason
• 7 Ways to Brand Your Blog by Jordan (MamaBlogga)
• Easily Fix Broken Links & Prevent Your Visitors Getting Lost by Chris Lodge
• 5 Steps For Effective Uses of Lists In Your Blog Posts by Sly from Slyvisions.com
• Group Elements of You Website by Dan Cole
• Demystifying Blogger Template Editing by Sephyroth
• Writing Dirty by Skellie
• Raving Lunatics of the Twenty-First Century by Chris
• The Social Network That Makes you Money with Google by Shawonne Womack
• Avoid The FUD By Following These Three Simple SEO Tips by George Manty
• 50 Types of Links for Bloggers and How to Make Them. by Vin
• Increase Traffic Create a Google Gadget by Vin
• Hot Tips On Blogger Profiles. by Vin
• Branding For Small Business And Bloggers by Steven Bradley
• Analysing The Problogger Group Writing Project by Rhys
• 7 Ways to Lower the Buying Hurdle by Mason Hipp
• Does Valid Code Help Your Blog? by Michael Martin
• How Does Being Social Help Your Blog? by Pat B. Doyle
• A Simple Way to Create a Re Direct Link by Ian Fernando
• WordPress Duplicate Content: You Control the Horizontal, You Control the Vertical by Widgett Walls
• Learning about blogging on my bike by Christine Martell
• blog migration series – cpanel orientation by blogmunch
• SUPERCHARGE your blog! What guidelines do you follow to make your blog successful? by Mark
• Affiliate Programs 101 – Blog And Make Money by Shine With Grace
• How To Get Others To Listen To You by Mohsin Naqi
• Social Media Marketing: The Secret Weapon of Small Business by Mason Hipp
• Ten Writing Errors That Makes Your Blog Less Good by Simon
• Text-link-ads: all-in-one blog advertiser / monetizer by Joe
• 1 Quick Tip to get 1850 Visitors to Your Blog by Jake
• The Importance of Comment Policy by Ken Xu
• 5 Stupid Ways To Sink Your Blog! by Ted Demopoulos
• Stop frustrating your Readers! by Bob Walsh
• Reach out to your online friends by Bob Walshb
• Do it on Fridays – cherry pick a mega list post by Bob Walsh
• 9 Essential Tools for Bloggers by Steven Snell
• Another Money Making Blog or Blog About Blogging? by PabloPabla
• Made A Mistake In A Post? Remember to Ping Feedburner by Matt Jones
• Actively Changing Your Layout by Dan Cole
• 1 EZ Tip to Beat the Rush and Make some Bucks by Jake
• Use 25 Expert Techniques to Have a Successful Blog by Yuri Filimonov
• How to : Time based Adsense by Ben Gillbanks
• How To Find Profitable Affiliate Programs And How To Display Them On Your Blog by Pat B. Doyle
• Update Your Permalink Structure by http://wolftales.ath.cx/webmasters/update-your-permalink-structure/
• Supporting Blogging through other Revenue Streams by Simon
• How do you REWARD your COMMENTERS and those who have BACKLINKED to your blog? by Mark
• What can Bloggers learn from Babies? by Simon
• Blogging for Business: Understanding the Two Types of Audiences by Aaronontheweb
• What you gotta ask yourself is, Do You Feel Lucky, Punk? by Mark
• What Your Readers Don’t Need To Know About You by Mohsin Naqi
• Why I Use the WordPress Default Permalinks by Pat B. Doyle
• Don’t Fall in the Expert Trap – Strive for Genuine Authority by Jan
• 10 Tips for Good Commenting Practice by Tejvan Pettinger
• Blog Tools and Services That Bloggers Need To Use by Sly from Slyvisions.com
• 31 Day Blogging Challenge — Day 27 – 31 by Sue Waters
• And The Winners Are…..The MiniLegends! by Sue Waters

Don’t for get to check out our Blog Tips for Beginners.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

98 Blog Tips for a Lazy Sunday

There is some seriously good reading in this lot on a huge variety of blogging related topics. Thanks to everyone for going to the effort of participating. Don’t forget that if you want to participate to follow the process outlined in the project’s introductory post. You can see the full list of all of my tips and reader tips at the central 31 Day Blogging Project page.

Here are the most recent batch of tips:

• A Tip – Think About The Audience That Reads Your Blog by Mike Goad
• Creating Linked Lists for Traffic and Incoming Links by Jason Bartholme
• 31 day blog challenge by Alex Miller
• Who’s Linking to Your Blog? by Rose DesRochers
• How to get Repeat Visitors to your Blog by Rose DesRochers
• Freelancers- 6 Safety Tips To Consider When Applying to Craiglist Jobs or Gigs by Melissa Fach- SEOAware.com
• Ways to Increase PageRank: Tip No.1 by Matt Jones
• Creating Signature Content by Skellie
• Everything I need to know about writing blogs I learned in high school; The FAT-P by Jim
• Should I start a new Blog? by Tejvan Pettinger
• How to have 250,000 blog visitors a day by Trevor Hampel
• 10 Tips on How to Start Your Own Blog Contest by Mon Macutay
• Simple fix for Windows Live Writer hangups by Sumesh
• Where to Start? by Suzanne Atkinson
• How To Write When You Can’t by Kathryn
• 7 Tips to Making Money through Niche Blogging by Jake Rinard
• Cheat Your Way to $1000 a Day by Jake Rinard
• Want a Technorati Boost for your Blog by Jake Rinard
• Achieve the dream – Why I am not a Full Time Blogger by Jake
• 5 OSX Automator Actions for Bloggers & Developers by Simon
• So what’s it all About? by Bob Walsh
• No way to live by Bob Walsh
• Writing sponsored content -An eye opener! by Ramanujam
• Idea For Posting by Syiru
• Five Ways to Increase Your Blogging Productivity by Michael Paul
• Use the Search Function to Look for the Post you want to Interlink. by Costa
• Blog Naming — Give Your Blog a “Reasonable Name” by Ted Demopoulos, The Blogging for Business Guy
• So you’re desperate for traffic? You’ll NEVER receive it unless you participate in forums! by Mark
• Stumbleupon Brings More Traffic Than Problogger by pablopabla
• 3 mistakes I WANT to make as a beginner blogger by Blogmunch
• 5 Great Affiliate Programs For Your Blog by Bryan Clark
• 12 Firefox Addons that Make Blogging easy by Karthik Kastury
• Ways to Increase PageRank: Tip No.2 by Matt Jones
• Redirecting with Alexa is a BAD Linking Strategy by RT Cunningham
• 3 Top Tricks for Driving Readers to Your Blog by Craig Huggart
• 5 Practical Steps to Getting Better at Anything by Mason Hipp
• 12 First Rules Of Writing by Clean Cut Blog
• Is Your Blog Receiving All The Traffic It Could? by Don
• Top 10 Ways To Improve Your Google PageRank by Salman Siddiqui
• Building your brand, one feed at a time by Bob Walsh
• Give readers choice, and let FeedBurner deal with the headaches. by Bob Walsh
• Social Bookmarking 101 – Increase Traffic Decrease Effort by Rob Malon
• Use business cards to publicize your blog by Jim
• So how will your week go? by Bob Walsh
• Display Testimonials on Your Blog by Jason MoneySpace
• First Impressions Lead To a Lasting Loyal Readership by Sly
• Don’t start a blog unless you can be committed to it. by Stephanie Cockerl
• One Week to a Professional Blog by Simon
• Blogging for Money? Some Market Research Helps a Lot by ninja
• 5 Tips on How to Make Non-Affiliate Money From Your Blog by Melissa Fach- SEOAware.com
• How to breathe new life into a dead blog by Bob Walsh
• A Guide to Promoting Your Blog Through Guest Posts by Steven Snell
• How to be or becomer a good Blogger by Kishore Reddy
• Improve Your Writing With A Simple Exercise by Steven Bradley
• Earn “6 Times” More With Your AdSense Very Easily by Salman Siddiqui
• 10 Fundamentals Of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) by Bryan @ OneMansGoal.Com
• Sharing the Pain: Problems and solutions are ideal content by Andrew Boyd
• Ways To Increase PageRank: Tip No.3 by Matt Jones
• How to embed adsense add unit in left or right corner of post content by Vijay
• Too many toys is too many toys by Bob Walsh
• How You Can be Just Like the Top Bloggers Today by George Manty
• 2 Seconds to Convince by Dan Cole
• 10 Ways to Promote your Blog Site Offline by Ant
• Blogging While On Vacation by Anne Wayman
• 7 days tasks in one day but I am serious by Eklavya
• Setting goals for your blog by Jordan (MamaBlogga)
• How To Increase Your Blog Traffic With Social Bookmarks by Jason
• Experts Rule The Blogophere by Jon
• A template for boosting subscribers through education by Simon
• Finding blog post ideas by Jo

Keep track of future tips in this series by subscribing to ProBlogger.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Blog Successfully – 70 Reader Blogging Tips

To help organize the project a little better and to help people keep track of both my tips and reader submitted tips I’ve created a central 31 Day Project page which lists all tips. This way you can start the project at any time and do it at your own pace.

Reader Blog Tips continued to roll in over the last three days with 56 more submissions added to the 25 from the first two days. Once again there are some great posts below and I encourage you to dig into them to see what you can learn about improving your blog. Please note – if you submitted a tip that isn’t in this list it will probably be in the next one. Enoy:

• Get your own Blog Theme! by Anuj Seth
• Ways to Increase Your Inbound Links by T.Pettinger
• Don’t be a Skeptical blogger by Costa
• 7 Sites with Great Blogging Tips by PabloPabla
• The First Thing To Do After You Publish Your Blog by Ankesh Kothari
• Blogging Mistakes to Avoid by Simon
• Use your Blog Comment Name for Personal Branding by Ted Demopoulos, The Blogging for Business Guy
• 7 Techniques that will help increase the number of your RSS Subscribers by Raiber Cristian
• Budget Promotion Part Three: Blogs by Genesis Davies
• Use Article Marketing to Attract New Readers to Your Blog by Rich Brooks
• Beware Of Letting Your Articles Go Cold In The Draft by Clean Cut Blog
• You Have a Complicated Blog, And You Want It To Be Popular. Should You Change Anything? by Ashok
• Market Your Identity / Not Your Product by Jason MoneySpace
• Blogsolid – ideas for better blogging by Imar
• Email and Blog Branding by Jeri Merrell
• Increasing Your Blog Revenue by Ian
• Got Blog? Grow it With Some Special Spice… by Fred Black
• Read More, Write Less: The Key to Blogging Growth by Chris
• 10 Things To Do When You Have Nothing To Blog About by Sly
• 10 Ways To Show Your Readers You Hate Them by Wild Bill
• Use trackbacks to build blog community by Jo Raisovich
• How to Get to The Top by Dan Cole
• 10 Must Have Softwares For A Blogger by Karthik Kastury
• 5 Ways to Get Noticed by A-List Bloggers by Steven Snell
• They comment, you email, they subscribe, life is good! by Bob Walsh
• Want more customers? Join a online community. by Bob Walsh
• 7 Ways to optimize AuctionAds by Scott Bird
• Grow Your Business in 15 Minutes or Less by Mason Hipp
• Do not forget http:// in WordPress posts by Sumesh
• Seven Ways to Master FeedBurner by Jordan (MamaBlogga)
• Cheat Sheets: Why Readers (and Social Networks) Love Them by Skellie
• Taking a Break from the 30 Day Challenge – for at least 10 minutes by Patrick
• My Article Writing Template – Effectivity in Action by Tom O’Leary
• Website Traffic and META Tags by Jason MoneySpace with guest author Kyle Watters
• How to Increase Your Traffic?? by syiru
• Causal Reasoning 101 for Bloggers by Andrew Boyd
• The Perfect Title: Try these Enticing Titles by Tejvan Pettinger
• Top Tips for Beginnig Bloggers by SingForHim
• How to participate in blog carnivals by Trevor Hampel
• Top WordPress plugins that make your blog smart by Vijay
• Contests Anyone Can Do – Promoting Blogs & Websites by Rob Malon
• Want Traffic? Create Something Unique and Valuable! by Lucia Liljegren
• 5 Simple Tips To Increase Adsense Income by Bryan Clark
• How to Scientifically Identify Content that’s Perfect for your Blog by Simon
• Do it on Fridays – when no one is looking by Bob Walsh
• What are Friday afternoons good for? by Bob Walsh
• Bloggers! If you don’t FIRE UP your HEADLINES, your blog will definitely be a LOSER! by Mark
• The Frustrations of Joining Forums without knowing anyone by Costa
• The Best Way To Earn Repeat Business by Derek Semmler
• How to NOT make money blogging by Ryan McFarland
• 5 Copywriting Tips That Will Make Reading Your Web Site/Blog Easier For Visitors by Melissa Fach
• Track Your Blog’s Stats by Matt Harzewski
• Links, Backlinks, Pingbacks and Trackbacks – What Exactly Are They? by pearl
• How to get 50x or more the traffic? by Emad Ibrahim
• Magnetize Your Blog: Always Reply to Comments! by Jeanne Dininni
• Tips for Writing Great Content the Right Way by Sly

We’re only at day 5 in this project so stay tuned for plenty more great tips to improve your blog! To submit your own newly written tips just follow the simple steps outlined in the project’s introductory post.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

More Great Reader Blog Tips

On the page below you’ll find links to a series of how to blog tips that I’ve written with blogging for beginners (and ‘Pre’ Bloggers) in mind. It unpacks the basics of blogging and a lot of the decisions and strategies that you’ll want to consider when setting up and starting a blog.

How to Blog – My Ultimate Guide to Blogging for Beginners

Since developing this series I’ve produced a book specifically for beginner bloggers. You can learn more about it on our ProBlogger the Book page. The book is filled with up to date blogging tips for beginners – you can get it on Amazon here.

3 More Excellent Resources on How to Start Blogging for Beginners

Also – if you are looking for some more personalized help in starting and running a blog I highly recommend that you check out these resources by a blogger that I respect – Yaro Starak:

• Blog Mastermind Blog Mentoring Program – one of the best coaching and training course going around on blogging.
• Become a Blogger Videos – a free series of videos that talks new bloggers through how to set up a blog. Easy to understand and best of all, free.
• Blog Profits Blueprint – a free report on how to build profitable blogs.

Lastly- if you enjoy these posts and want to keep in touch with ProBlogger – subscribe via our RSS feed.

Blogging Tips for Beginners

Introductory Posts

• What is a Blog?
• 23 Questions for Prospective Bloggers – Is a Blog Right for You?
• How to Choose a Niche Topic for Your Blog
• Choosing a Blog Platform
• Choosing a Domain Name for your Blog
• Blog Tools

Blog Design Tips

• Blog Design for Beginners Part 1
• Blog Design for Beginners Part 2

Tips for Writing Content for Blogs

• Useful and Unique Content
• Post Length
• Granular (One Topic) Posts
• Using Titles Effectively on Blogs
• Scannable Content
• Basic HTML Tags
• More on Writing Content for your Blog

Tips on Making Money from Blogs

• Introduction to Making Money from Blogs
• Should I blog for Money?
• Making Money From Your Blog – Direct Methods
• Making Money Because of your Blog – Indirect Methods
• How Much Money Can a Blog Earn?
• Introduction to Advertising Optimization – Traffic
• Introduction to Advertising Optimization – Ad Position
• Introduction to Advertising Optimization – Ad Design
• Introduction to Advertising – Ad Relevancy
• Introduction to Advertising – High Paying Ads

Blog Networks

• Introduction to Blog Networks
• Why Should you join a blog network?
• Why you shouldn’t join a blog network

Other Beginner Blogging Tips

• An Introduction to Using Images on Blogs
• How to Start a Blog Partnership
• Kick Your RSS – Jumping on the Syndication Bandwagon
• Introduction to Trackbacks
• Tag You’re It – Leveraging Tagging for your Blog
• 10 Techniques for Finding Blog Readers
• 19 More Strategies for Finding Readers

Want more Blogging Tips for Beginners?

If you want more blogging tips I can recommend two things.

1. Subscribe to ProBlogger – This blog is updated daily with news and tips relevant to bloggers wanting to improve their blogs. You can subscribe via our RSS feed or via email by adding your email address to the field below:

2. Check out the archives of ProBlogger – Over the last few years I’ve published over 3000 posts and blogging tips to ProBlogger. The links above just scratch the surface. One way to get into our archives is through our Archives Page which highlights the different categories of the blog and suggests some of the more popular posts from DEHE. Alternatively use the search feature at the top of the blog to hunt down the topics you want to know more about.

3. Get into these resources

• ProBlogger the Book – where I and Chris Garrett sum up all of the basic tips about starting up a blog in the one volume.
• Blog Mastermind Blog Mentoring Program – one of the best coaching and training course going around on blogging.
• Become a Blogger Videos – a free series of videos that talks new bloggers through how to set up a blog. Easy to understand and best of all, free.
• Blog Profits Blueprint – a free report on how to build profitable blogs.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Blog: Blogging Tips for Beginners

Get more Blog tips from our Blog Tips for Beginners series.

Here are ten tips that help me with my blog writing.

1. Make your opinion known
2. Link like crazy
3. Write less
4. 250 Words is enough
5. Make Headlines snappy
6. Write with passion
7. Include Bullet point lists
8. Edit your post
9. Make your posts easy to scan
10. Be consistent with your style
11. Litter the post with keywords

1. Make your opinion known
People like blogs, they like blogs because they are written by people and not corporations. People want to know what people think, crazy as it sounds they want to know what you think. Tell them exactly what you think using the least amount of words possible.

2. Link like crazy.
Support your post with links to other web pages that are contextual to your post.

3. Write Less
Give the maximum amount of information with the least amount of words. Time is finite and people are infinitely busy. Blast your knowledge into the reader at the speed of sound.

4. 250 is enough
A long post is easier to forget and harder to get into. A short post is the opposite.

5. Make Headlines snappy
Contain your whole argument in your headline. Check out National newspapers to see how they do it.

6. Include bullet point lists
We all love lists, it structures the info in an easily digestible format.

7. Make your posts easy to scan
Every few paragraphs insert a sub heading. Make sentences and headlines short and to the point.

8. Be consistent with your style
People like to know what to expect, once you have settled on a style for your audience stick to it.

9. Litter the post with Keywords.
Think about what keywords people would use to search for your post and include them in the body text and headers. make sure the keyword placement is natural and does not seem out of place.

10. Edit your post
Good writing is in the editing. Before you hit the submit button, re-read your post and cut out the stuff that you don’t need.

I hope you enjoyed my tips for writing a blog post – feel free to share your own blog writing tips below.

Want to Learn More about Blog Writing? Subscribe to our RSS Feed.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Ten Tips for writing a blog post