Now studies show that you can be judged by the interviewer on the appearances like this. Your qualifications may be above the grade, and you may show ambition with a great sense of accomplishment coupled with a good sense of humor, but that stain just rubbed him the wrong way. Now if the stain was not there it may not have improved you interview but having the stain there sure caused enough irritation that the interviewer may have felt something was a bit “off”.

Relate this to the appearance of your blog. Having a good looking blog won’t make you successful. All the qualities that make up a good blogger will make you successful like: networking, writing good content, keeping the blog current and up to date, relating to your readers, and so forth. But if the appearance of your blog is too distracting, or is just a bad looking theme, it can cause readers to feel unpleasant. It should be a fairly pleasant experience to come check in on your blog.

So what are some of the top most annoying things about a blog that could cause problems?

I will list a few but I would like you guys to list at least one by replying. But how about when the there are so many Google Ads you can’t find the content? Or how about when the theme is too dark and you can’t read the text? I have read blogs where it is so dark and the text looks like it is trying to hypnotize me while I am reading. Shouldn’t a blog be fresh and clean… easy to read?

What else? Ideas anyone?

The key is to break longer posts into several, and then linking them together. If they read the first post and got through it, they will more than likely click over to the next post. Keep articles under 5 minutes. Present the article so it is easy on the eyes. I tend to read articles that are broken up nicely into short paragraphs with bold words emphasizing an issue. You could have the same text but in one long paragraph. Break it up into nice looking paragraphs.

Blogging is different than writing articles for a magazine. I remember when I first started blogging, and my goal was for lengthy articles. Soon you realize it isn’t the length of the article but rather saying the exact same thing but in half the article. Choosing your words better, and getting to the point immediately with little character development leads to better blog posts.

The first paragraph is the most important. That first paragraph will be the determining factor whether or not the reader will continue. One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make is trying to lure readers in with suspense, as if you are writing a novel. Instead you should lure your reader in with facts on your topic. Whatever your article is about should be pretty much summed up in the first paragraph. From there on out, diving in and getting more specific will be important.

Spend some time reading top news articles online. Hit some of the biggest news sites and read through their articles. First and foremost, the title is descriptive. There is never any question what the article is about from reading the title. Then the first paragraph is a quick summary of all the important facts. Then the rest of the article dives into more detail. Go check it out. The reason they do that is because they know what hooks the readers and draws them in. Try following these simple procedures when writing and I think you will begin to see a big difference in readership.

But as far as short or long posts, the best thing to do is mix it up. There is nothing wrong with winded articles as long as people are reading them. When people are not reading them, then it might be worth shortening your articles a bit or splitting longer articles up into several.

But the debate goes on… and on… and on… and on… and on…

You be the judge!

Darren is also one of the founders of the largest blog networks on the Internet today… b5media.

Well, Darren a while back, unleashed his secrets onto the average blogger in a book called ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income… Co-Authored by Chris Garrett.

For those of you out there who are looking to monetize your blog may want to swing by Amazon and pick this up… Right now in paperback you can pick it up for only $16 or so.

Review
“Both authors are successful and profitable probloggers and here they reveal at last some of their secrets.” (The Bookseller, Friday 14th March 2008) “You’ll learn about the essential steps involved…if you think blogging could be the business opportunity for you – buy it!” BusinessOpportunitiesAndldeas.co.uk Monday 19 May 2008 “You’ll learn about the essential steps involved…if you think blogging could be the business opportunity for you – buy it!”BusinessOpportunitiesAndldeas Monday 19 May 2008

Product Description
Problogger.net is where bloggers worldwide go for advice and information on enhancing their blogs presence. Whether youre just starting out or have been blogging for years, these two professional bloggers show you how to turn your passion for blogging into extra revenue. This practical guide to creating and marketing a blog with the potential for generating a six-figure income shows you how to choose subject matter that works for you, handle technical issues, and evaluate your blogs success so that you can use your blog to generate income indirectly.

Sometimes it’s better to sit back and keep things a bit simple and follow some of the basic formulas in order to move in the right direction.

A new Adventure Network I have been in contact with and is actually in partnership with Skinny Moose Media, wrote a nice article on their main blog called, “What is Important When Starting a New Blog?” The article focuses on a few major facets to blogging that is extremely important in the early stages of a blog’s development.

The article breaks these down into 4 stages:

1) Have A Plan
2) Reach Out
3) Tip Off
4) Social Networking

Read the full article here >>

Put yourself in the shopper’s shoes. Pretend you are a shopper online and envision yourself having to seek out gifts. Some questions you need to ask yourself are:

a) What are the new and hot products?
b) Can these products actually be purchased online?
c) What do you know about these products?
d) Can you offer advice on any of these hot new products?
e) Is the Internet already saturated with content about these hot new products?
f) Is the product related to your blog’s niche?

Once you ask yourself these questions you probably can narrow it down a bit better if it is worth writing about an item or not. ipods are a cool topic, or the new iphone, but more than likely the Internet is saturated with information on this. Finding products to talk about can take a lot of research. So what can you do?

Look around at other blog’s in your niche. What types of products are they discussing? If you have run a parenting blog for the last 2 years and have been all over the Internet reading other parenting blogs then you probably have a good idea what types of products have been talked about and what the new hot items are for this year.

Write a review about it. Maybe go out and actually buy the product and test it out. Write about it. Tell people how it functions. Did it live up to your expectations? If not… why?

Link to other reviews. Maybe you don’t have all kinds of money to blow on the product or you have your doubts about. Do a roundup and link to what others are saying about it. Put 80% of the links to blogs in your niche. Then try breaking out a bit and see if other blogs outside of your niche have blogged about it. Link to them. Pingbacks may drive traffic back to your article.

Make sure in your articles you are using nice keyword rich text. Link often and liberally to sources. You never know… you may get on the first page of Google for those searching online for information about the hot new item…

Comment on other blogs talking about the same product and make sure to link your name to either your blog or that specific blog post. Remember, people search the Internet heavily by topic. If you can stick with the same crowd and get some links coming and going you will see a rise in traffic naturally, as long as the topic remains of interest.

Now what if you wrote about a product and more traffic comes your way? How do you jump on this opportunity? Maybe one example would be to post a link at the end of that article inviting readers to subscribe to your feed via email. Feedburner offers a great service that will deliver your posts via email to those who choose to sign up for this feature. As a matter of fact, if you want to subscribe to my feed via email you can do so right here at this link.

What other things can you do? You can provide links at the end of your article leading them deeper into your blog with other related articles. Maybe you blogged about that product on many occasions. At the end of the article tell your readers if they enjoyed this post why not try reading a few of these… and leave a list of about 3 or 4 other articles that may interest them.

Another option would be to provide a link to any referral type programs. The downside of this is you are providing a link which will lead people away from your blog. On a good note, some of these referral programs can earn you a bit of cash. It’s really your choice. If you can find the right program which is closely related to the topic being discussed in the article then it should only benefit you since you are sending targeted traffic to a program potentially making you money. Any random program is a bit risky and you could probably benefit by keeping the reader at your blog longer.

Any other ideas? How can you benefit from added traffic on a blog article that is attracting people? Don’t forget to open those comments up and get conversation going. Readers will be back to see if anyone replied. This can boost traffic momentarily. The key is to get these new readers to come back and stick around.

Alexa is similar to Google and they provide each website out there on the Internet a rank. How it works, though, is a bit different. Alexa ranks the top site with a 1, which is actually Yahoo. CNN Money ranks number 2. So the lower the number the better you are. There are ways to get a lower (better) ranking with Alexa. If you rank 235,000 then you know that there are 234,999 other websites out there that rank better than you. Now since there are millions of websites on the Internet, getting as low as 200,000 is extremely good. Alexa’s ranking is based on the level of traffic each website receives from the number of people who visit a website with the Alexa toolbar installed.

The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis.

The main Alexa traffic rank is based on the geometric mean of these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users)

So how do you rank lower and better with Alexa?

*The most basic step is to Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension and set your blog as your homepage.

*Try puttnig up an Alexa rank widget on your website.

*Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar, like friends, fellow webmasters, and your readers.

*Write or Blog about Alexa. Others enjoy reading about ways to increase their Alexa ranking and, in turn, will hopefully like to your article sending you targeted traffic. Hopefully they will have the toolbar already installed. This gradually has effects on your Alexa ranking.

*Get one of your articles submitted to Digg or Stumble Upon when you can. This usually brings massive numbers of visitors to your website and the sheer volume will have a positive impact on your Alexa Rank. Naturally, you’ll need to develop link worthy material.

*Use Pay-per-Click Campaigns. Buying advertisements on search engines such as Google or Exact Seek will help bring in traffic. It will be more useful when your ad is highly relevant to webmasters, who are more apt to be using the Alexa toolbar.

*Optimize your popular posts. If you have a popular post that consistently receives traffic from the search engines, include a widget at the bottom of the post and then link to your Alexa post.

Blogging is similar. There are basics. Those basics should be mastered so that when later on you face questions, concerns, dilemmas, and a lot of problems, you can simplify everything. You break everything back down to the basics.

So what are the basics of blogging?

What is a blog?

Ok don’t laugh. What year is it and I STILL come across people who don’t know what a blog is. According to Blog Basics this is the definition:

Blog (noun) – a journal or diary that is on the Internet – Andrew Sullivan has the most popular blog on the Internet.

Blogger (noun) – a person who keeps a blog – Bloggers are revolutionizing the way news is shared.

Blog (verb) – to write a blog – I am going to blog before breakfast this morning.

Blogging (verb) – the action of writing a blog – Blogging is my way of sharing my passions with the world.

Establish Motive and Set Goals

Once we have determined what a blog is, you need to narrow it down to why you are blogging. What is it you want to write about and what are your goals? Do you want to provide a wide range of topics or narrow it down to just one or a couple? Do you want to produce news articles, tips, reviews, commentary, or maybe all of the above. Do you want readership? Are you looking to make money? Why so many dang questions?

The reason for the questions is simple. Blogging is not easy. Without a vision you will more than likely give up finding out that blogging was a waste of time and you should have spent more time with your studies or your family. Blogging is a commitment. You have to write often and even spend time doing research. Yuck… Research?

Yep. How else are you going to learn about something so you can share something new with your readers? So setting goals, planning out a mission, and being prepared to learn is key.

Persistence

This is the biggy. Here is a thought about success. I would not have gotten married to my current wife if I was not persistent. I was turned down (believe it or not), before she finally caved in. I am sure she is regretting it now. But hey, I was persistent. To be persistent also means you have to accept certain levels of failure and move on and keep up what works without letting the little things get to ya. I could have gone home and cried my eyes out and sworn off women for the rest of my life. Instead I was persistent.

There was a job I applied for over 10 years ago and was never contacted. I called each day asking for an update. They told me my schedule didn’t fit what they were looking for. So I changed my availability and resubmitted my application. After several weeks of constant back and forth communications, and being turned down for many reasons, I was persistent yet professional, showing them I was determined to work for them and would make certain accomodations to do so. I could have chalked it up the first time they turned me down as yet another failure, but I was persistent. It isn’t always that you need to do more work, but rather keep doing the same thing over and over and over again until it pays off.

What is your edge? Offer something different

Just like a product… you need that cutting edge. What separates your product from all the others? There are so many blogs out there to read, it is impossible for everyone to read all of them. How do you draw them in? Having another blog just like everyone else is kinda cool when you are new to the blogosphere, but at some point you will need to ask yourself, “What is it that makes me stand out?”

Networking

Networking builds traffic. There is no sense building a business out in the middle of the woods where you might get a couple of passer-bys each week. You need to learn to envision online traffic much like roads and pathways to real communities and places of business. I wrote about this a while ago on the Skinny Moose main blog in an article called Blogs are Roads; Intersections. Networking is done in many ways and we will cover this later in future posts but it can help you understand what is happening in your niche, and at the same time pave some nice roads to your blog. There are some great ways of doing this. Each time you write a new blog post you have another opportunity to pave roads to your blog. You aren’t just looking to promote your main page. Each article is a gem in and of itself. Getting people to take interest in your articles, link to them, and drive traffic your way based on one article out of many is a beautiful thing. It won’t happen with each article but the more you write and the more you network the more pathways that lead to your blog. So opening these pathways up so there are so many avenues to get to you no matter what the browser’s interest will really spark some diversity in your audience.

I think there are many things you can do with a story even if you aren’t the first to post it. So don’t be afraid if you get to it 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. I guess when it has been 3 days and there are 212 pages of results for all the blogs that posted about it… well maybe you should give it up.

But, heck we can’t always be the first to post about something, and in fact it is rare. So what do we do?

Be the first to post a decent commentary about it. Though we may be looking for facts, we also want to hear what others have to say about something. It is our nature. So quit beating yourself up over trying to get to that story first. I know it can be a great way to get some hits but I think what’s most important… and a lasting impression is what you do with that information.

Post your opinion and tell your readers about it. Personally I can’t stand reading politics blogs when all of the Democrats have the same opinion and all the Republicans have the same differing opinions. I mean come on folks. Are we that simple of human beings where we are either Democrat or Republican? If there is a top story on Barrack Obama, you can almost bet that if you land on any or all Democratic blogs you will read pretty much the same thing. Same goes with Republicans.

So my point? Umm…. Be yourself and discuss the issue. Being able to have a strong voice that isn’t the same as all those other bloggers is important.

So how do you stand out in your commentary? You can agree with everybody in your camp or you can have a real opinion. But maybe you do agree with everybody? But my point is that don’t simply write what everybody else is writing just to get the news posted on your blog. Actually take the time and come up with something decent to write. In the end it is all about what you say…

Obama… Osama…

I browse other blogs and leave comments.
Reading what others have to say and participating in other people’s ideas can really stimulate your creative side. You don’t have to comment on blogs in your niche. Just comment on blogs that interest you and participate. It is tough to produce material on the same topic over and over again. You should engage in other forms of writing. Which leads me to…..

Free write
Write something else in a word document or for some other purpose. It is tough to be a well rounded writer when all you do is write about the same topic. Write about what it means to be a dad or mom. Or write a piece on how you lost weight. Or write about your new truck. Write about how to think of ideas on what to write. Write about your family vacation.

Go for an hour walk.
It is proven that exercise stimulates creativity. It releases endorphins and will help you with ideas on what to write and probably other things. I know that I have to be overly careful when I am on my walks because I get a sudden rush of ideas that some may seem realistic at the time but later find out that my goals I set on my walk were far out of reach. So it is best to exercise and then write down your ideas for later assessment.

Make a list.
I will make a list at the beginning of the week of things I want to blog about. Keep a notebook and take notes of your thoughts. I know I come up with great ideas but 2 hours later I can’t remember that idea. Writing stuff down helps me remember. Those ideas you get when you exercise should be logged in to your notebook. This will make your life so much easier when it comes to blogging.

Take a short unannounced holiday.
Don’t announce it, don’t ever apologize to your readers, just don’t post for 2 days and then come back strong. Nobody really cares that you are going through a rut. Everybody does it. If you can’t think of anything to write don’t force it. Go back to the drawing board. After trying many things and that doesn’t do the trick, then take a mini 2 day holiday. Don’t feel guilty, just do other things like clean the house, go mow the lawn, do some yard work, take a family trip and take pictures, etc. Then when you come back, come back strong.

These are some of the things I do. What do you do to avoid blogger’s block?

Do you have a list of blogs you wish to be part of but you just can’t because you are busy? Well when you do a blog blitz make sure you hit that list. Keep the list in your favorites and add to the list when you come across good blogs. Then when it’s time for blitzing you hit all of them.

What do I do during a blog blitz? I mainly read through the latest blog entries and make note to comment on at least one of them. Sometimes I find myself commenting on a couple or sometimes I just can’t bring myself to comment at all. Just move on quickly.

I think it is important to be sincere and not just comment for the sake of commenting so if you can’t think of something to say within 20 or 30 seconds then don’t force something. It wouldn’t be sincere if you did. Just move on and spend time getting an idea what others are writing about for the week. Comment on stuff and follow links given to you by trusted and resourceful blogs. Explore new blogs and comment on them.

I have found each time I do this my traffic spikes a bit and I may get a couple new loyal readers.

So make time to blog blitz once per week on average.