Want To Be A Better Blogger?

2012-02-09T13:23:00.000-08:00

DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEE YOUR WEBSITE AND BLOG? DO YOU WANT TO STAND OUT FROM THE PACK?

Thanks for stopping by my Blogger Tips. First off, I do not know everything about this venue. There are a lot of smart people online with years under their belt. But I have worked hard and learned along the way. I really don't have the time to learn as much as I would like. But what is here works great for me. I have many blogs on page 1 of Google every day. With certain keywords. Mostly Florida Travel, Florida Fishing, and others. That is my goal. Exposure as quickly as possible. Everything else takes care of itself. These are just my common sense tips and suggestions that should help most people out.

I love doing blogs. I'm addicted. I look at it as creating a product. My product. And my motto is I want my blogs to be my very best. Now this blog will never be as good or have as much detailed information as others on blogging tips. I really don't have that kind of time. But what I have here has worked well for me. And I'm always looking for more info I can use.

While I started doing blogs around June of 2009 as of this writing, I have been working like a mad man. Usually 12 or more hours a day. And I have learned a lot. Anyone who is fairly new at this has to admit there are a lot of smart computer people and smart bloggers on the web. They know a lot. However it can be difficult at times to find specific information about things. I run into that a lot.

My biggest complaint is that some people are information smart, but not common sense smart. I have been in forums, will post a very simple question on how to do something on my blog, and they can't answer me. They are either vague with an answer, or answer my question with a question. That makes me crazy. Failure to display or articulate with common sense. That's what I call it.

I have over fifty blogs. But just because you have a blog(s), doesn't mean people will see it. That is the most important thing to remember. My philosophy is Google=traffic=exposure. It's that simple. So I will give you some tips that work for me, and you decide whether they can work for you.

GOOGLE BLOGGER VS WORDPRESS.COM

I discovered early on was Blogger was a lot easier to use than WordPress for a beginner. I started using Blogger first. I was able to figure it out fairly quickly. But a lot of people love WordPress. I regularly used the Google Blogger forum from time to time to get answers to questions.

After doing over twenty blogs with Blogger, I decided to do one with WordPress. Holy cow. I spent hours trying to figure out WP. To me, I waisted a lot time. It was clearly not as easy as Blogger. To me it wasn't. However, I did not have or take the time to really learn everything about WordPress. Also, WP is a more sophisticated looking blog with better templates. And you can do more things with it. I do like the looks of it better. I eventually did get a blog up on WP.

Yes WP has better templates and you can do more than with Blogger. However I only care only about two things: Making money with affiliates and getting exposure with Google.

A lot of people with Blogger have downloaded different templates. There are a lot of nice free ones online. There are people in forums who love WordPress over Blogger. But hey, it's all good. Everybody is different.

ANOTHER DOWNSIDE USING WORDPRESS.COM

Did you know that if you use WP, you cannot change the URL domain? Example: floridatravel.wordpress.com. Want to change that? You can't. That's bad. Blogger? You can change it all day long. That is a great plus. I have changed some of my Blogger URLs several times to make them better. Thank you Google.

BLOGGING TOPICS

When you start blogging, you need a topic(s). I read a lot of people who say, "What should I blog about?" or "Can you suggest a topic for my new blog?". To me these are silly questions. Use your imagination. Get ideas online. Blog about anything. The sky's the limit as far as subjects. Blogging subjects could depend and usually depend on whether your a man or a woman. Men like cars, movies, computers, sports, etc. Woman like fashion, celebrity gossip, children, etc. But there's no steadfast rule here. Blog about what you know or like. The information is out there to help you make a great blog.

SPELLING ERRORS

I see so many people, especially in forums who can't spell. This is really bad. And I'm talking about regular words. Correct spelling gives you credibility. I have talked to a lot of people who feel the same way. If you are not sure of your spelling in a forum, open a second window in Explorer and type the word in Google. This will almost always give you the correct spelling if you are close with it. It's not hard. And use spell checking. It's there. However, this will not catch your punctuation errors. Small spelling errors can slip through. I see it all the time. I do it myself. No one is perfect. But the blatant ones stick out a lot. Present yourself well on your blog and in the forums with spelling properly.

CONTENT IS KING

You will read this over and over again in forums. Your blog must have content. And this is true. But not always. I have seen some blogs on page 1 of Google blog search, in Florida travel, monkeys, fashion, etc., that don't have a lot of content on their blogs. And when I see this, I say, "how did they get to the top page?" I don't know. But this proves that content is not always king. But you do want your blog to have lots of content and interesting information. And photo's. Photo's are very important to make your blog great (I know there's none here).

ADDING AFFILIATES

Affiliate marketing are used by a lot of companies to gain exposure for their product or service. They are the ads you usually always see on websites or blogs. A lot of people have blogs to make money with affiliate ads. Some make a little, some make a lot. Some bloggers either don't know about this, or don't care about making money with affiliates. And that OK. Also, you will need to get a federal tax id number (EIN). You can get that at: irs.gov.

In my opinion, if you do want to have affiliate ads on your blog, stick with the reputable ones. Google AdSense, Commission Junction, Amazon, and Digital River all have excellent reputations. There are many other affiliates, but these are the ones I'm most familiar with.

META TAGS

Meta Tags are HTML elements inserted into the HTML code of your web page. The most valuable feature of meta tags is to control, to some degree, how the web pages are described by search engines.
Though meta keyword tags and meta description tags are not the main factor search engines consider when ranking sites, they should not be left off the page.

A meta description tag is supposed to be a brief and concise summary of your page's content. A meta keyword tag is supposed to be a summary list of the most important words on your page. They were both proposed in order to make using the web easier.

Unfortunately webmasters over the years have abused meta tags so much that search engine creators have had to de-emphasize their importance in the algorithms.

UPDATE: I just read that about 10 years ago Google stopped indexing keyword meta tags. But they still use description meta tags. They mainly index page content. You can see the article here.

ADDING META TAGS IN YOUR BLOG

On your blogs top right corner, click customize. Click edit html. This is where your meta tags go. Description tags first, then keyword tags on the next line. Do a Google search and see more info about these, how the meta tags look, and how they go in the HTML. I tried putting them here, but the blog won't let me show them. These are very important. And easier than they look. If you don't have at least description meta tags, your blog might not be indexed good in search engines and getting exposure.

FREQUENTLY CHECK YOUR META TAGS

My blogs are very bad with the meta tags in the html code disappearing. I couldn't believe it when I first noticed this by accident. So why does this happen? I don't know. Even if you don't believe me, check your html often. Don't assume.

HOW FRIENDLY IS GOOGLE TO BLOGGER?

I feel it is very. And a lot of people will agree. And for more proof, I have blogs on page one daily that (1) does not have great content, and (2) are missing the meta tags frequently. How is that possible? It is what it is. And to prove it, these are a few of my blogs on page one of Google blog search: The Big Lebowski, The Machinist DVD, Stealthsurfer, Bahia Honda State Park, and Marineland Florida. Not really huge content in these. And you always read "content is king" and "content is crucial". Well you be the judge.

USE A META TAGS ANALYZER

This is a crucial tool you need to use. This will check your keyword and description density, and give you a meta tags report. This will also analyze your title, title relevancy, description, description relevancy, and keyword relevancy.

This type analyzer is the easiest and very best way to improve your blogs rank with the search engine. The two sites I use for this are Submit Express and Scrub the Web. Two great places to use. They also have a web page analyzer, to see how the search engines rank your blog. A great set of free tools.

USE GOOGLE SEARCH

Any questions you have about anything, it's on Google. There is no excuse for not knowing things. It's all out there. I use Google probably a hundred of times a day. People in forums are always asking questions, and a lot of answers are "look it up on Google". Take advantage of it.

FORUMS

I first learned about blogs and affiliate marketing from forums. Forums have a lot of smart people. They know this blogging, marketing, and affiliates inside and out. Join the forums in your blog topics. Example: travel, fishing, computers, etc. These venues are worth gold.

Not only can you learn from others, but as you will quickly notice, people will put links to their site or blog. You will get added exposure by doing this, and also the search engines see these links.

SIGN UP FOR FORUMS

When you find forums related to your blog subject, create a profile (username, password, etc). Read and know the rules. Participate regularly. In most if not all forums, you will have to add a certain amount of posts before you can start adding threads (a new topic) with links to your blogs. But have something to say in posts. Don't just answer threads (discussion topic) with "good info" or "nice stuff". Show that you are interested in belonging to the forum, and have a contribution to make.

Also be aware, some or most administrators in forums I have encountered will give you warnings or points against you quickly if you say something or refer to something they consider bad. For example, I mentioned in a forum that I create my own backlinks. Not good. This is called signature stealing. You should get permission from a site before adding a backlink. I wasn't aware of that at the time.

WHAT IS A BACKLINK?

A backlink is incoming links to a website or web page. With the search engine (SE) the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page. Personally, I think there is nothing wrong with backlinks. It is free added exposure to sites. What does that hurt? The rule is you should always get permission from a site before adding them as a backlink. But personally, I don't think many people do. Just my opinion.

GETTING HELP ON BLOGGING QUESTIONS

Google and WordPress have help forums from very experienced people online. You can either post a question to be answered and be notified when it is answered, or look at other questions that have been answered. Usually all questions have been answered. However, there are some people who will not answer a questions very thoroughly. They are vague. This makes me crazy. How hard is it to be specific? It's pretty easy if you ask me.

Example: Step 1: Do this. Step 2: So this. Step 3: Do this. How hard is that? To some people answering help forum questions, it's impossible. This will happen from time to time. I have spent a lot of time trying to find answers to my questions about things pertaining to my blogs. But I didn't give up, and eventually found the info I needed.

GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS

This is a great feature that provides you with detailed reports on your blogs visibility on Google. To get started click here.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS TOOL

This is another great tool from Google. Add the html code in you blog and this will track your blog visits, page views, average time spent on site, etc. Also see what percent and how visitors found you. Example: search engine, direct traffic, and referring sites. Go to Google Analytics here.

SAVING YOUR TEMPLATE AND CONTENT

A lot of recommendations are out there about saving your template and content in case something happens and it is lost. Like backing up your files, photo's, etc. I found another way to do this that is really cool. Go to Submit Express click on "Page Snooper". Enter your blog URL address. Their is the entire html code for your blog. Copy, paste, and save. Nice.

CHECK KEYWORD POPULARITY

This is an excellent tool that everyone should use. It's called "Keyword Popularity Check". With this you can see how many daily searches are done for certain words and related words. Just go to Submit Express for this tool. I sure Google has this too. I haven't looked for it yet.

MAKE YOUR BLOG INTERESTING

I see a lot of really bad blogs out there. They don't have a clue what they are doing. Make your blog good. Add photo's. Photo's are so important. They really will make your blog great. In Blogger it's easy. And use paragraphs. A lot of people won't stay on your blog long if it is not spaced out. Look at other blogs and get idea's. Take the time. It will pay off.

ADD A PICTURE TO YOUR HEADER

Adding a picture to your Blogger header really makes your blog stand out from the others. And I'm sure you've seen many who do this. This is a really easy thing to do. Again, I had trouble finding out exactly how to do this. But I did. There are many sites that have free header pictures. The one I really like is called freewebpageheaders.com. They have a nice variety. When you find a header you like, just right-click the mouse on it, save as, and add it to a folder in your pictures.

Then go to your blog layout. Click edit in your nav bar section. Make sure behind title and description and shrink to fit are checked. Then click browse. Select the header picture you saved. Then click save. That's it. Your blog has a header picture. Really easy. Now this works great in the Blogger templates Mr. Motto and Scribe. The other templates maybe not as good.

Also, you can use one of your own pictures to make a picture header. But it has to be sized. I found a way to do this. Just go to this website. Click on advanced tools. Click browse and select your photo. In the boxes you want 200 to 300 height, 800 wide. Frame select yes, sharpen select yes, convert image to jpg. select yes, then OK. Then you photo shows up. Right click your mouse and drag the screen exactly where you want it on your picture. Then click crop it. Then save it in your photo's and that's it. Really easy.

Again, I posted a question in a forum about how to add a photo header in my blog. Two people responded and said it cannot be done. That's what you run into. People who don't know what they are doing. And they shouldn't be helping others out with wrong information.

SUBMIT YOUR BLOG TO BLOG SITES

is so important. Once you have finished your blog, you want as much exposure on the Internet as possible quickly. Blog sites will do this. Submit your blog to as many of these sites as you can find. The search engines will pick these up also. Links to your blog are all connected to one another. You will see all the links to blog sites I use, but there are more I'm sure.

As of 10-13-09, one blog submission site generated 2,659 visits for ten of my blogs. That's for about a three month period. So multiply that by 10 to 20 blog sites, no matter how many blogs you have submitted, and that's a lot of extra traffic.

HYPERLINK

A lot of people don't take advantage of this on Blogger or don't know what this is. I see this mistake on many blogs. A hyperlink is a reference in a document to a external or internal piece of information. Simply put, if you want a link on your blog, you don't want the whole URL to show up. That's ugly. The right way is to have a link say More Photo's. Then the hyper link goes to the page or website when you click More Photo's on your blog. It's easy to do this in Blogger.

HOW TO ADD HYPERLINKS ON BLOGGER:

1-On your blog page at the top right click customize. 2-Click gadget. 3-Click list. 4-Go to add List Item and type the name (photo's, food, or the name of the website) 5-Click the link icon. 6-At the top of the box your in, right click on the yellow bar, and right click temporary allow scripted windows. Click on the link icon again. 7-At the top of the box, you will see explorer user prompt. Type in the web address.8-Click OK. 9-Click add item. 10-Click save. 11-Click save on your layout page. That's it. Clean and neat link added to your blog.

You would be amazed how many Google bloggers don't take advantage of this great feature on their blogs. If you have never used this before, it can take you a while to figure it out. I tried a Google search to find out how to do this. Only problem was no one explained it step by step. They would say "you have to add a link". OK. But explain it. No one did. I figured it out on my own.

ADD YOUR BLOG URL TO SEARCH ENGINES

This is very important to get or keep your blog ranked as high as possible in your topic category. And a daily job. I have read in forums that some people will submit their blog url two or three times a day. I just do mine after midnight Florida time. There are many search engines, but I only use two. Google and Submit Express. I have added these to my favorites. Never forget to do this daily.

ONLY THING I HATE ABOUT GOOGLE BLOGGER

Over the course of doing my blogs, I noticed that the words move frequently. For no reason. And it will make your blog look horrible. I am adjusting some of my blogs daily. So always check on your blog content daily. I'm talking big gaps between your words and pictures, and words climbing up the side of your pictures instead of staying below them, etc.

Adjusting this when you edit your post will not always work. You have to edit your html. So write down the adjustments before editing your html. You can't edit the html from your blog layout. Go to dashboard and edit from there. It's a real pain in the ass, and a lot of lost time, but I have yet to discover or see an answer to this.
And remember, every time you open and edit your blog, check it when you are through. It is extra work, but it has to be done to keep your blogs right.

CHECK BACK OFTEN FOR MORE TIPS

I hope I've had some useful info for you here. I know it is not detailed, but use Google to find specific answers to any of your questions. That's is how I learned. These are the basics that work for me. Blogging is hard work. Especially when you have a lot of blogs. Myself personally, I only care about getting to the top pages of Google. That equals traffic to any blog. I don't even know what my page rank is with Google. I only care about page1-2 exposure.

Now I'm am not an expert that knows all the detailed knowledge on how to do everything. Others do. So if I have any questions, I find the answers smarter people than me. The information here I found through hundreds of hours of work. And it has been good for me. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you can check back as I will be adding to this blog as often as possible. Good luck with your blogging.

Common Sense Tips For Google Bloggers

Want To Be A Better Blogger?