Blogging Tools You Shouldn't Be Without

Here is a list of the blogging tools I use.

Google Suggest - can give you an idea about the number of competing pages for a topic. It can also be a helpful tool for formulating keyword phrases

Overture's View Bid - can give you an idea what advertisers pay for a particular keyword.

BlogExplosion's Ping Service - BlogExplosion has recently added a ping service. If you are registered with them you can check all blog search engines then ping them with one click of a button.

Alexa Search Engine - Type in the URL of your website and know your site's traffic ranking and the sites the link to you. However traffic ranking only works for root domains.

Link Popularity Check - Type the URL of your website and know the link information about your website.

The first two tools will help you determine what topic to blog. The third one will help you promote your blogs after you have updated them. The fourth one will give you a feedback about the status of your blog on the internet. The fifth one gives you information about your link status across different search engines.

World Clock - And lastly you will also need this time and date reference. Many bloggers are noticing that they get a spike in traffic and earnings if they publish at a certain time of the day. So you will also need this tool to determine what time is most profitable for you.

If You Can Talk You Can Blog

Writing can be scary especially when you feel you don't have the talent for it.

So how can you blog if you don't know how to write?

Simple. Just talk. Talk on your blog. Write your posts as if you were talking to a friend. Dont try to be artistic. Just talk. Eventually you will get better at it and your blog will have that clarity and rhythm we all admire from professional writers.

There are also studies that show that people online would prefer blogs that are written in a more conversational tone than a formal one.

This means that there is not much to worry about. If you simply talk on your blogs you will do fine.

For more indepth discussion refer to "If you can talk You can write by Joe Saltzman".

Where to Host Your Blog

Free Blog Hosting Service

You can either host your blog on a free blog hosting service. The advantage of this is that you don't have to pay for a hosting fee. The disadvantage is that you have limited control of your blog like you are limited to what advertisement you can place and you are limited to the blogging software provided by the service.

Paid Web Hosting

Or you can pay for a web hosting service. The advantages of this is that you have complete control on how you will format your blog or what blogging software you will use. You can also choose what advertisements to place.

The disadvantage is that you incur a cost for the hosting and the domain name.

Tips on Increasing Blog Traffic

To increase blog traffic you should create a search engine friendly blog. Here are some of the things you can do to achieve this.

1. You must use the appropriate meta tags so that the search engine's spider can classify your blog accurately.

2. Keyword density - you must use your keywords frequently within the body of your articles or blog to assist the search engine's robot to discover the topic of your article or the theme of your blog.

3. Link popularity - This simply means that the more websites or blogs link to you, the higher will be your ranking in the search engine listings. This can be achieve by consistently providing good content. If your blog has good content other blogs / websites will find it useful and they will automatically link to you.

References:

http://www.searchengines.com/metadescription.html
http://www.searchengines.com/themes.html
http://www.searchengines.com/linkpopularity1.html

Blog Ideas

Knowing what people do when they visit websites can also help you find a theme for your blog.

People visit websites for the following reasons:

1. For educational purposes like learning a new skill.

2. For information - like facts about a product, service, or place.

3. News.

4. To be entertained.

5. To interact or communicate. (very common especially with blogs)

Revenue Sources for Pure Online Publishing

If you are going to engage in a pure online publishing business, these will be your sources of revenue:

1. CPC (cost per click) - advertisers pay you each time a visitor clicks on an ad.
2. CPM (cost per thousand impressions) - advertisers pay you per one thousand visitors who goes to your website.
3. Ad Space rental - You can rent your ad spaces to advertisers for a fixed monthly fee or by the number of days their ads will be displayed.

10 Rules for Blogging Success

These are the lessons I learned in my three weeks of blogging.

1. Every article is a potential money maker so always give your best when writing one.

2. Write about the most searched topics or most interesting topics.

3. One new article equals several new impressions.

4. Wait for the affiliate to display the correct ads before promoting an article.

5. Concentrate first on content and traffic. The earnings will take care of itself.

6. Not everyone you invite will visit your blog but take care of those who do. Do your best to turn them into frequent visitors.

7. Build related blogs.

8. Link related blogs together.

9. Every blog is like a plant. If you nurture them, one day they will grow into a tree.

10. Always have blogging goals and achieve them.