Blog Templates Can Make A Difference

  One of the first processes of making a blog is designing the template. Usually, basic templates are made by the hosting website to let you choose from. However, these templates are limited. Templates also affect your blog very much. It can affect the amount of readers, pageviews etc. If you get the wrong template, your blog may end up shoo-ing away visitors just when they see the header. 


  The main thing is: What is a good blog template?


  Here is the blog template of Problogger.net:

  If you notice, only the title of the posts and a short part of the post is shown. That way, many posts can be shown in a single page and people can easily browse through the posts they want to read and just skip the ones they don't want to read. The short part of the post also initiates the reader's interest about the post and he/she will automatically click and view the whole post in a new tab. 

  Also, there is a small widget of popular posts in Problogger that does wonders. Though small and unattractive, readers who notice it can get around easily in the blog, knowing which posts are for beginners, which are all time populars and so on. Popular posts gives readers the impression that the post must be good and valuable, thus they will want to view more.

  Isn't a good blog template wonderful? Try it out on your blog! I'm sure it'll bring more pageviews for you!

Why niche blogging?

  First, do you actually know:


What is niche blogging?
Basically, niche blogging is like having a blog about a certain topic only. Let's say you chose the topic photography. Your niche blog is about only photography and nothing else, meaning the whole blog has the same content-about photography.




Now we got that covered. Next, the main question:


Why niche blogging?
If you blog about only one topic in your whole blog, people who are attracted to one post they read may lead them to other posts as the posts are about the same thing. As opposed to that, if you blog about any random topic in your blog, people who are interested in this post may be not interested in the other random topics of your blog. If he/she gets bored, he/she will just leave your blog. Niche blogs usually get loyal readers that want to read only on a certain topic that a niche blog provides. If your blog is what he/she wants, then congratulations! You have a loyal reader!


How does niche blogging get you better income?
A niche blog helps advertisers find the relevant blog that has a connection with their ads. For example: a blog about photography can get ads about new cameras to put in his/her blog. Readers who read about photography are naturally interested in the topic, thus cameras are relevant to this topic and can get attract more interested people to know more about the ad. On the other hand, blog with random posts makes it difficult for advertisers to choose the right ad to put in your blog as there are too many topics. Imagine finding a guitar sale ad right next to a post about animals. Off topic isn't it? This reduces the number of potential customers that will want to find out more about the ad. 


Doesn't labels help blog readers get around in your blog?
Let me ask you: How many of you who are interested to find out about blog tips on my blog are going to click the label to find out more? Let me guess: None? Blog readers can really be as lazy as they can get (even I am). The content they want is not shown on the page? Out of their reading list. They usually don't bother checking labels as it takes time.


I'm more of a personal blogger than a blog-to-earn blogger. Is this step necessary? (Changing to a niche blog)
If you are just going to blog about your life and personal stuff, then it doesn't really matter. Your income is not that important as it just gives you a small sum of money. It does not really affect you unless you're going to be a professional blogger full-time.


  The conclusion is, niche blogging helps to increase your income. I think I'll have to go niche blogging to. On my next posts, I'll reveal on how to choose your topic for blogging!

Inserting HTML codes to your BLOGGER POSTS

You know those times when you want to post a HTML code in a blogger

post as a guide to the public, but when you publish it, it becomes the widget or application instead of showing the HTML code?

For example: I want to put a guide on how to insert a CommentBox widget. 

The code that you insert:

 Comments:

  

  

Create website

Becomes the widget itself!

  But fear no more! I am here to teach you how to make it into the original HTML code:

<!-- HTML codes by Quackit.com -->
<form action="/html/tags/html_form_tag_action.cfm" method="post">
  Comments:<br />
  <textarea name="comments" id="comments">
  Hey... say something!
  </textarea><br />
  <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
<p style="font-size:10px;"><a href="http://www.quackit.com/create-a-website/">Create website</a></p>

  First, go to http://www.elliotswan.com/postable/  It looks like this:

  Simply copy your HTML code to the space given, and press "make it friendly"!

Then, copy the given HTML code into your blogger post, and TADAA!! It's the HTML code! Not the widget itself!

  Please leave a comment, subscribe to my posts at the sidebar, retweet this, share this or like this and my other posts. Want to know more about blogging? Go to my 'Blog Help' labelled posts! I also recommend the book that I posted on the left side of this post. All about blogging. Buy it today!

Minimizing URLs

  I'm not sure why people do this, but since it's done often, I'm going to post about it.


  Ever saw those URLs with formats like http://bit.ly/bepHqh ?


  Well, those aren't links to virus or malware, it's just a shortened link! A lot of websites are specialized in doing this, which I'm going to introduce to you guys right here!


  The list I have here is:
1) Tinyurl.com
2) Bitly.com
3) Snurl.com
4) Ow.ly


This is just a short tip! Have fun! Oh, and subscribe below for more complete tips in the future!!

Way to Attract Traffic to Your Blog

  Hey! This is my second post on driving traffic to your blog. Haven't seen the first? Check it out:

http://arts-inmylife.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-to-promote-your-blog-for-free.html

  Anyway, here's a few more ways to get traffic is by joining social blog websites where you can put interesting stories from your blog into those websites. You can also write about anything else or get it from other sources.


  Basically, this is how it works:
1) People who have accounts on these social blog websites log in.
2) They randomly scroll through different posts like recently added or popular posts.
3) Ooohhh! What a post! (It's your post, they click and visit your blog.)
4) They like/dislike your blog. People who like may follow your blog, then rate your post at the social blog website and comment!. Others may just skip through or leave a comment/feedback.


  Simple? Well, the problem is at step number 3. You have to get people to find your posts by making it to the top news. 


  Here are some websites where you can get started:


1) Digg
2) Delicious
3) StumbleUpon
4) Yahoo Buzz
5) Slashdot
6) Reddit
7) Propeller
8) Innit Nuffnang

  If you want to use link number 8, you have to be a member of Nuffnang's Advertising Community and be a Glitterati member. Don't worry, it's all free! Just have fun joining!


 Mind sharing your results after trying these out? Please comment below, thanks!

Animated Label Cloud Widget

  As a blogger, your aim is to make a blog that is stylish, cool with modern looks but not too outstanding as it may make the blog seem plain again, right? If you don't, then you must be a new blogger! Basically, that is the aim to keep traffic flowing stably and nicely, also helping you to remain your visitors and make them permanent visitors.


  One of the interesting stuff to put in your blogs are widgets, which are sort of like ornaments to your blog. I explained a bit on that before, you might want to check it out. http://arts-inmylife.blogspot.com/2010/08/widgets-websites.html

   Anyway, one of the most famous widgets is the animated label cloud widget, which looks like mine on the left sidebar of my blog. See how it works? The tags hover around the space with no sequence, making it look stylish. The problem is, most people think it looks hard to make that cool thing.


WRONG!
  
  That's why, I am here today to teach you how to make it! This is much different than the other 'copy-and-paste' or 'click-to-add' kind of widgets. This includes a much more complicated step, which is the HTML codes.




Let's get started!
  Firstly, start of by logging in to your blogger account, then click on the 'design' tab, and then the smaller tab called 'Edit HTML' 

   Before you do anything else, click on 'Download Full Template' as a backup set of HTML codes.

  Then, search for the following line:

  How to search? Just click 'Ctrl' + 'F' and a small tab should come out at the top-right corner of the webpage to insert text. Type in the letters one by one until you find it (for me, I didn't have the 'sidebar' so mine was 'main'. Just find the nearest possibility available.)

  Straight away after that line, copy the code from http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2008/08/blogumus-flash-animated-label-cloud-for.html

and paste it there.

Then, preview your template. Works? Good! Then save your work. After that, you should be able to see it in your page elements, so enjoy moving it around anywhere you like.

Can't see it? Post a comment and maybe I can help you out!

Credits to the website stated above.

How to Promote Your Blog for Free!

As a blogger, I'm sure most of you are trying to get traffic flowing into your blog. This is quite difficult in the beginning if you do nothing as a new blog is not widely visited. To enhance your blog's traffic and performance, here are a few tips I can share with you people out there:


Facebook Posts
  Facebook as a social website? Yeah, or so they say. Of course, sharing your link with your friends onto their walls is kind of helpful, it increases your traffic tremendously. I tried it before, my daily views became from 0-10 to 40-90. But of course, this has a bad side of it.


  Every friend who has a Facebook account and saw your posts will say that you spam and they'll hate you for that. If you don't care, well, good luck!


Twitter
  Have a twitter account and plenty of followers? Well, tweet-ing about your blog is helpful too! It has the same effect as Facebook posts, but you have to have a lot of followers to let it have a tremendous effect.


Emails
  Once again, another simple yet effective way to enhance traffic. Sending emails to introduce your blog can help a lot!


Link, link and MORE links
  Linking your blogs to other blogs, videos or other sources can let the whole world see your link. Commenting on other people's blogs or websites and linking your blog, especially famous blogs, can really help.


  Obviously, letting public see your blog link ain't a crime, so why not try it? As long as you don't spam irrelevant comments, its not bad at all.


Put your blog on search engines
Putting your blog on search engines such as Technorati, Google and others makes your blog searchable on these search engines, thus increasing your traffic too.


Install a blogroll
A blogroll is like what I put on the lower right side of my blog, a list of other people's blogs. Saying that these are your friends blogs can bring traffic to your friend and yourself. Simple, yet effective socializing way.


Add comments bar in your blog
Allowing people to comment on your blog makes them give you ideas to improve and to communicate with them. This makes the people who comment permanent visitors to your blog and even followers.


And, the last, but most importantly,
Write well. Writing well is the most important aspect in attracting readers to your blog. That's why they are called readers in the first place!

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The bobs plotter scratches beside the precedent.

The bobs plotter scratches beside the precedent.