Are you spending every waking moment planning for your blog? Do you spend hours and hours searching other high ranked blogs related to your niche, reading blog after blog to find inspiration and ideas, checking traffic of your blog or sometimes just starring at your laptop’s blank screen and finally going to bed exhausted?

If the answer to the above mentioned question is yes, then you are over indulging in your blog. If, despite all of your efforts, you fail to be inspired and are not generating any new ideas for your blog then you’re suffering from blogger’s burnout.

Getting Frustrated is not the solution!

Questions to ask yourself

If you are not quite convinced yet that you are suffering from writer’s block or blogger’s burnout then ask yourself the following questions.

Ask yourself if all of your practices helped you achieve something remarkable?

If it helped you make any improvements to your blog?

If your answer is no then here’s the first sign that you just might be a victim of the notorious condition called blogger’s burnout. If you have any doubts then look around at the condition your room is in. Are there coffee stains on your table, energy drinks cans, chocolate wrappers or pile of cups? If yes, then there is no denying the fact that you, indeed, are undergoing a blogger’s burnout.

Dealing with Blogger’s Burnout

If you are in a state of denial about your condition then you can seriously aggravate it and take your “blogging burnout” to a point where you will be unable to post something new for your readers.

It’s a normal condition and happens with a lot of other bloggers too who have been blogging for a long time without having anything else to do. But rather than fretting too much about it, you can simply use the following tips to deal with it.

Make a schedule

There are certain rules of doing things. Blogging is like working from home for which you need to work by a strict schedule. Dedicate a few hours to your blog while taking out time for other things as well. You should not overwork or burden yourself too much just because it’s your blog you are working on. Take short breaks even within day and after some interval.

Create a proper working ambiance

Open up your windows and curtains, let light flood your room. Continuously working in a darkened room can affect your eyesight. Besides, working in little or no light can also cause stress which snubs the generation of idea.

Spare some time for yourself

It is not advisable to work continuously. You need to take out the time to allow yourself to live life. Go out for a walk, a jog or a swim. Make your limbs move and take in ample oxygen into your lungs. Meet your friends, plan some lunch or go out for coffee even. Not only will it be refreshing for you but you’d also feel much better.

Find inspiration

There is no specific time duration within which you can brew up an “exceptional idea” to work with. Go easy on yourself, relax and you will definitely come up with something new, something brilliant for your blog.

If for example, you come up with more than one idea then it is not necessary for you to start working on both of them. Note it down and schedule for some other time. Keep a notepad with you at all times to write down your ideas for later.

Learn to relax

You have got a blog like everyone else has, then what were you doing so exceptional to get it going? Once you are relaxed, prioritize your activities to allocate time to each one of them.

Once you will be back, even you write one post, make sure to optimize it for SEO, do some promotion and see the results. Instead of a big leap, take small steps towards your destination. All of these things will help you to get rid of your stress but also re-energize you. You’d see the affect of it all on your blog in the form of better response.

Telltale signs of Blogger’s Burnout and how to deal with it is a post from: Blog Godown

Blogs take time, effort, and a whole lot of content. While having one isn’t a bad thing, they can quickly become detrimental to your brand if started for the wrong reasons. A blog started with the wrong intent is almost guaranteed to fail.

Although blogging is the cornerstone of online activity for many people, there are still companies and businesses that misinterpret their intentions.

 credit: Webtreats

The following are 6 poor reasons for starting a blog.

1. Competition

Do not start a blog simply because your competition has one and you feel intimidated. The reasons for starting a blog should be your own, derived from the progressive behavior and marketing strategy of your own brand. Remember that what works for one company, may not necessarily work for the other.

Do not let your actions become reactions of your competitions’ behavior. Think before you make the commitment to start writing. If you are blogging just because you think you should, there’s a high probability that you won’t dedicate the time needed to make it successful.

2. SEO

Adding a blog to an existing site is a great way to consistently attract a fresh stream of visitors and increase traffic and exposure. With that said, if the main motivation behind wanting to start a blog is to optimize search engine results, then stop while you’re ahead.

While a blog can deliver better search results, it can only do so with quality, optimized content. Ensure that the initial launch of your blog can be executed with the ability to continuously provide this type of content.

3. To encourage feedback

Admittedly, applying what you learn from feedback to help critique products and services of your company is a great reason to create an online presence. On the other hard, not only are there other facets of social media that perform better for this function, but remember that feedback can be both positive and negative. Ensure that your business is prepared to face both before launching a blog.

4. To generate content

Do not start a blog because you think that someone else will be made responsible for generating content. The most crucial aspect of a blog is that it needs an author that understands exactly what your niche subject area is, and have plenty to say about it.

Whether you believe it or not, the passion you have for the subject will be reflected in the writing. In turn, readers will feel the excitement or lack thereof, making it evermore pertinent that you write your own content when launching a blog.

5. Cutting corners

Do not assume that just writing a blog will bring you visitors. It is a terrible decision to start a blog if you are not willing to back it up with any other marketing.

A blog will never take the place of good ol’ fashion marketing strategies like press releases and research groups. It will only ever work as an extraneous entity of your marketing efforts. Do not utilize it for more.

6. Broadcast marketing

Do not make the mistake of thinking that a blog is just a digital form of broadcast marketing that you control. Again, a blog will never take the place of the marketing strategies you already utilize.

If you can’t market your business without a blog, a blog is not going to save it. A blog is a great way to get more out of social networking and expanding your brand’s presence online, but you need a brand first.

While this may seem negative, it is only because blogging is not simple and requires a lot of thought and patience. Take the time to think through and determine whether starting a blog would be the most effective move for your company. If it is, then do some research and best of luck.

6 Poor Reasons For Starting A Blog is a post from: Blog Godown

Creative writing is involved. And for many who are passionate about that, the concept of a “hobby” is basically thrown out of the window! So, here’s what you need to do: define your goals.

Choose Your Topic

Because of the tremendous scope behind a blog, you have to absolutely know why you’re blogging. Is it for politics? God? Marriage? Children? Nickelodeon? Sexy women? What’s your blog going to be about? It has to be something you’re at least interested in, if not passionate about – because if you lack interest, you won’t get any kind of pleasure or satisfaction out of the writing.

If you’re not getting any of that, you can bet your content will suffer to the point where you’ll just quit, wasting away all those hours you’ve already spent. Be sure you know your topic.

Focus on Content

Know that it’s not about money. Put aside any myths or rumors about blogging, because the fact is blogs are only about free content. Yes, you’re a writer, and it takes up your time; know, though, that the simple act of writing your thoughts for the whole world to see – published under your name! – would be satisfaction enough. Let the money come as it comes.

Don’t worry about blog optimization either. No matter how you look at it, you’re just writing! So who cares where you stand on the search engine ranks? However, do consider some of the professional blogging advice regarding design and style. Think of your blog as your baby; you want to dress him or her well, right? Of course!

Let Your Personality Flow

Whenever you write creatively – either an aspiring-to-be-published author, poet, or whatever – you almost immediately inject with some essence of you, your personality, into what you write. Know that it’s a good thing. On your blog, make sure you be yourself. Don’t try to be someone you’re not; without a doubt, it’ll show in your writing as archaic, stilted, mechanical, and hardly authentic. Readers don’t like that.

Ignore the Nay-Sayers

Make sure you keep your ears shut to anyone saying that you’re wasting your time. They’ll be around, for sure; there’s nothing you can do about that. But who cares? Don’t let it disappoint you. Writing fuels the heart and soul, and that’s all that matters.

Don’t Give Up

As said before, a blog continues constantly based on your efforts. The moment you stop, the blog stops. So make sure you don’t stop. There’s always other options as well, such a exploring My Blog Guest to expand your talents to other sites, or even looking for news sites that allow you to contribute- you can contribute to sites like NJ.com by applying to guest blog.

Cyberspace is all yours. The blog is your craft to navigate every cyber meteor shower or black hole. Crystallize your goals inside your head, and the trip should be an adventure!

Blogosphere Control: Define Your Goals is a post from: Blog Godown

Writing … it must be admitted, is as demanding a job as any of those mind numbing jobs out there. It’s all good when you are writing occasionally, and that too just for kicks, but the proceedings can get really stressful as soon as you’ve got deadlines to meet or topics that sound as uninteresting as watching the grass grow. In those scenarios, mental stress can keep building up, and subsequently it can lead to some serious hiccups. To be brutally honest, it’s easier to deal with a dog-tired body as compared to cope with a worn out mind.

Just like the mind can have a direct impact on your mood and energy level, the energy level can have a similar impact on your mind. Both of them are interrelated, when one’s down (i.e. energy level) the other will follow (i.e. mind). End result? Your mind might revolt just by the idea of putting pen to paper.

Actors and actresses spend generously to take care of their looks, going by the same token, if your livelihood largely depends on creative writing, you must look after and pamper your mind in the same manner.

Contrary to the popular belief, healthy food is not only a concern for those who are looking to gain or loose weight. Healthy food is equally important for a writer, who’s using the mind all the time for writing articles, marketing copies, blog posts, and the likes. And even though you need to maintain a balanced diet, there are some foods which are particularly beneficial for the writers in one way or another. Let’s take a look at some of these foods …

(Note: Remember, that this is not a medical advice, some of these food items might not be appropriate for you, so you must consult your doctor before you start gulping down any of these).

Fish:

Studies have shown that people, who tend to eat less fish, are more prone to get bogged down by the depression as compared to those who consume adequate amount of fish. The omega-3 in fish is an extremely potent nutrient for the brain, not to mention that the fish has plenty to offer for the body as well. There’s a well known slogan that goes like “eat fish live longer, eat oyster love longer”. But there’s a good chance that eating fish will help you last longer as a creative writer, as well.

Coffee:

Apart from immediately taking care of the drowsiness and boosting your mental capabilities, coffee will decrease the chance of certain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases as well. But even if you aren’t concerned about Alzheimer, a cup of coffee can still help in coming up with a catchy tag line or title.

Nuts and seeds:

Nuts of all kinds including walnuts, hazelnuts, cashews and almonds etc are packed with rich proteins and other goodies that can help augment brain power, allowing you to think more clearly and steer clear of mood swings and depression. Seeds like flax seeds were hailed by Gandhi as wonder food, and many nutritionists confirm. Just like Fish, majority of nuts and seeds have fats (no need to frown, we are talking about the good ones, known as the omega-3), which is considered to be an enhancer of core skills needed for writing e.g. focus, recollection of ideas, or problem solving.

Fruits and veggies:

Eating more fruits and raw vegetables can give a boost to brain performance. Some studies have shown that these natural foods can boost brain functions by stimulation (though the exact substance that actually powers this boost is unknown). Fruits and raw vegetables can help you think faster and more clearly (on the other hand artificial sugars can actually backfire). Also artificial sugar can cause random surges and drops in mood, instead of helping you to keep a steadier frame of mind, which is almost essential for writing.

Eggs:

Eggs are good, but most of us will eat them anyway without caring too much about the “good” it can do to your mind, but for those who are not fond of eggs … eggs release a chemical that bolsters the transmission of information between nerve cells, therefore positively affecting the power of memory and retention.

As you can see, good food inevitably makes a positive impact on the brain, as well as the body. So for the sake of your blog or writing careers (and an overall healthier lifestyle), you must consume good, healthy, and balanced food.

Top 5 foods for Bloggers – Fuel for your brain is a post from: Blog Godown

A man’s character is made up a certain value sets. A man without values, will be a person without soul. These value sets greatly affect the decision making of a person.

A certain set of values are required to excel in any particular field. For e.g.. a person working in a services company needs to be customer focused, because customer satisfaction is their main priority. Similarly, bloggers who are aspiring to be probloggers should have the following set of values:

1. Dependable – “Once told to complete a task, he will complete the task no matter what”.

Dependability is a quality bloggers should have,  because although they don’t have a boss, but in order to collaborate with others and work in multi-author blogs, they should be able to deliver when they are told to. If a blogger fails to deliver, then many might have to suffer the repercussions.

2. Passion – “Visible enthusiasm for one’s work or belief”.

Without passion every work is just work. But, when passion comes into picture, work transforms into fun. Passion is the driving force which keeps you constantly motivated. Most bloggers on the top list are there because they have the spark within them. The spark is nothing but their intense passion for their work. So, each blogger should have the same or even stronger driving force, if they want to achieve something big.

3. Effectiveness – “execute tasks with precision in achieving results”

A blogger has to be very effective to survive in this competitive age. A few seconds can sometimes prove to be very crucial. A blogger needs to stay far far away from time wasters and try to be highly productive in all respects.

4. Reader Focused – “Focusing on Reader Feedback”

If you don’t know where your blog stands, you can always use reader feedback as a parameter. If your readers give positive feedback, it means that you are doing good. Bloggers should focus on what reader says. Readers can be from various different backgrounds and you may never know some readers might actually have something really interesting to share which might broaden your horizon.

5. Quality – “Completing tasks correctly and meeting or exceeding expectations”.

I constantly stress on quality content. Why is that? When readers read your article, their first response should be  something like “WOW! This was such an insightful article” or  “ I learned something valuable from it”. When your content is able to have such an impact, then you can expect the blog’s reader base to grow.

6. Lifelong Learners – “investing time in self education”

A blogger can never say that he is Mr Know-It-All. There is always a scope of learning. Nothing is permanent, things change with time. What is popular today, may not be popular tomorrow. So, you have to adapt yourself and be acquainted with new things. Only then you can expect yourself to stay as an expert in your field. for a longer period of time.

7. Credibility – “the quality or power of inspiring belief”

This is one of those values which can be the difference between success and failure. People will start believing you if you are able to show the true picture. You have to be honest when you are sharing your experiences. A little bit of false information can harm your image really badly. Only if you act as an expert, can you expect others to follow you.

Do you agree with the above mentioned value sets for bloggers? Do you think that bloggers should have certain other values as well? If yes, Let us know by your comments

Image Credit

7 Values that Each Blogger should Possess is a post from: Blog Godown

1. STOP!…Go Have Some Fun
If you’re writing a blog and get some writer’s block, go do whatever you do for fun. Play video games, hang out with friends, or go read a book. No matter what it is, you need to get your mind OFF of the Internet and the post you are supposed to write. A blank slate is better to work with than a full one. It doesn’t matter if all you come up with are witty doodles or paper shavings, the end result will always be better than what you are trying to force yourself to write.

2. Go Read OTHER Blogs
This may sound weird, but if you aren’t inspired to write on a certain topic maybe reading a few other blogs might do the trick. Whether or not you agree with the post you read doesn’t matter, if an emotional reaction takes place….REACT. Write about it and let the readers know about it. The best articles I’ve ever read have always had some sort of emotional initiation. Trust your emotions, they can produce your best work.

3. Intentionally Disagree With The “Experts”
While you may get branded as a “troll” or “flamer”, don’t let it stop you. If you read a blog post you couldn’t agree with more that is written by one of your favorite industry leaders…write a blog post that could disseminate it. It doesn’t matter if you agree with it or not, the purpose is to write something that will help you do deeper research and give another (logical) perspective to your readers.

4. Go AWOL
I’m not talking about the traditional term for it. But just go nuts, start writing and let your mind wander. The point is to write senselessly until you get tired/sick of writing. Why, you ask? Well my personal belief is that the more a person writes, the more junk he/she will get out of his/her system so that the better ideas can come to the surface. If the line between genius and insanity are too close, let your writing reflect that. After all, it’s the editor that has the final say right?

So now, inquiring minds what to know. What do you the readers (fellow bloggers…or not) do to write or judge blogs by? What type of posts or what do you think he/she does/should do to create better blog posts?

What to do When You’re Blogged Out is a post from: Blog Godown

As a consumer, buying products in the festival season is the best possible time, because you are able to get the best possible deals for the product you are actually want to buy.

I would like to let you know certain black friday offers and discounts which will benefit bloggers and will help them save a huge sum of money.

Hostgator Web Hosting

About Hostgator:

It is one of the world leaders in web hosting. It’s features include Unlimited disk space, Unlimited Bandwidth and 99.9% Uptime Guarantee. Hostgator is a reliable hosting. They have a great support and a lot of bloggers are using it’s services. Hotgator is specifically really good for bloggers using the wordpress platform.

The Offer:

This the best DEAL by Hostgator in 8+ years of hosting!

Without further ado, here is the Black Friday 2010 Special Offer:

50% OFF EVERYTHING (including shared hosting, hostgator VPS and Hostgator reseller hosting.) From 12:00AM CST – 5AM CST

80% OFF EVERYTHING From 5AM – 9AM CST WHILE SUPPLIES LAST (first come, first receive; so definitely don’t miss out!)

From 9AM – 11:59PM CST OR after 80% OFF accounts have sold out, the 50% OFF will apply on EVERYTHING

This means that for 80% off

Shared Hosting – $4.95/month AS LOW AS $0.99/month

Reseller Hosting – $24.95/month AS LOW AS $4.99/month

VPS Hosting – $19.95/month AS LOW AS $3.99 First Month

Dedicated Servers – $174/month AS LOW AS $34.80 First Month

Isn’t that an amazing offer!

Grab This Amazing Offer

MaxBlogPress Bundle Offer

About the Bundle:

The Bundle contains the following:

Maxblogger Ninja Affiliate

It is the best plugin to increase the affiliate revenue. It automatically converts words into affiliate links which increases the number of conversions.  Many bloggers that have used this plugin have seen 2-3 times increase in their affiliate income.

Price: $97.00

The $365K Blog Traffic Formula

Every blogger is looking for traffic because traffic = popularity = money. This Traffic Formula teaches your techniques to gain huge amount of traffic.

Price: $37.00

WordPress Wizard

The ultimate wordpress and blogging coaching program in which you’ll find a series of more than 50 videos showing you everything you need to start a blog, get traffic and earn from it.

Price: $97.00

RSS Email2.0

Video Tutorials which teaches you how to add rss feed in the blog as well as how to create an email subscribers list and broadcast the blog posts to the subscribers

Price: $17.00

Subscriber’s Magnet

The newest product of MaxBloggerPress which can help you build huge email lists. It is a wordpress plugin which will rapidly build your email list by using the technology in some unconventional and unique way. It’s unobtrusive and highly impactful.It has power to grow your list conversion rate by 300%.

Price: $147.00

Total Price for all 5 Products: $475 AS LOW AS $137

This is a whopping 70% off which is amazing!

Grab This Amazing Offer

Take your pick and buy these products asap, or else you will lose out on a great opportunity!!

The Best Deals on This Black Friday for Bloggers! is a post from: Blog Godown

Blog Moderation is a tough task

No two blogs are the same, or at least they shouldn’t be. While topics and content can be similar, the major differences are below the fold. For me, at least, it’s about how the blog owner/author moderates the comments. We’ve already read pieces on different types of commenters, but how about the different types of moderators?

Link Nazi

The only thing this moderator hates are links in the comment section. No matter how valid the comment, what type of link it is, NO LINK FOR YOU. This doesn’t mean the blog owner is against linking out. More than likely he/she has a blogroll or a set of links to sites he/she supports. It doesn’t degrade the quality of the blog either. Just don’t be surprised when your link doesn’t get included.

For Example:

Blog Post: Dogs are Better Than Cats

Dogs rawk! Cats stink. Dogs like to play outside; cats do nothing but poop in a box you have to clean later. Dogs can fetch Frisbees while cats only lie around, get fat, cough up hairballs and get high on catnip. Dogs love to get treats and show you appreciation for giving them treats. Dogs FTW!!!

Commenter 1: Dogs are cool man. That’s why I’ve got four.

Author: Four? Dude that’s awesome. How can you afford to feed them all?

Commenter 2: Dogs are pretty cool. But what do you think of cats?

Author: Cats are okay. I’ve just grown up with dogs.

Commenter 1: Well, my job pays pretty well If I couldn’t afford to I’d have to give some away

Commenter 2: Hey you removed my link!

Author: It’s your first time here, and you’ve got a spammy username. Change it and stop by again and I might add your link. And commenting twice in the same post doesn’t count as a repeat guest

I’ll also add if it’s your first time commenting on that blog and your link isn’t included, but surrounding comments have them, I’d wager to say that particular blog is waiting to see if you’re a regular visitor before they will allow your link to be welcome.

Response Snob

Did you leave a comment completely disseminating the blog post you just read? Don’t hold your breath on this moderator responding. The author either isn’t responding because he/she:

• Is too busy, which can be understandable, but given the time still wouldn’t respond
• Wrote the piece just to stir the pot and watch the comments
• Doesn’t care to defend their post and pretend the comments don’t exist

For Example:

Blog Post: Dogs are Better Than Cats

Dogs rawk! Cats stink. Dogs like to play outside; cats do nothing but poop in a box you have to clean later. Dogs can fetch Frisbees while cats only lie around, get fat, cough up hairballs and get high on catnip. Dogs love to get treats and show you appreciation for giving them treats. Dogs FTW!!!

Commenter 1: Not all cats are like that. Sure cats get lazy when they get older, but so do dogs. It all comes down to how much attention and care the owner gives to their animals. How much attention do you give your dog?

Commenter 2: I like cats too, they show more of their personality than dogs do. Don’t get me wrong, dogs are great, but nothing is better than when a cat curls up on your lap. What do you think? Cat purring or dog using you like a pillow?

*chirp* *chirp*

In my own opinion if you aren’t going to take time to respond to comments that ask valid questions or refute the post itself, I’d just disable the comments altogether.

Flip-Flopper

I love discussion, it’s where real learning can take place. However, this blogger only thinks they are creating discussion when they are doing nothing but confusing the readers when he/she contradicts themselves in the comments.

For example:

Blog Post: Dogs are Better Than Cats

Dogs rawk! Cats stink. Dogs like to play outside; cats do nothing but poop in a box you have to clean later. Dogs can fetch Frisbees while cats only lie around, get fat, cough up hairballs and get high on catnip. Dogs love to get treats and show you appreciation for giving them treats. Dogs FTW!!!

Commenter 1: I love dogs too! They are better than cats!

Author: Hey thanks yeah dogs rock!

Commenter 2: This really offends me I love cats! Cats are better than dogs!

Author: Oh I love cats too! I think cats and dogs are equals!

Commenter 1: ???

It isn’t one way or the other with this moderator; it’s both.

Comment Hoarder

Every blogger that allows comments enjoys getting them, but none more so than this moderator. No matter how ridiculous/spammy/pathetic the comment, it will be approved. In most cases the threads end up looking like an outdated chat room full of random stuff. To this moderator, a higher number of comments is much better than the quality of said comments.

For Example:

Blog Post: Dogs are Better Than Cats

Dogs rawk! Cats stink. Dogs like to play outside; cats do nothing but poop in a box you have to clean later. Dogs can fetch Frisbees while cats only lie around, get fat, cough up hairballs and get high on catnip. Dogs love to get treats and show you appreciation for giving them treats. Dogs FTW!!!

Commenter 1: Are you lonely at night? Click here for the ultimate hook up!

Commenter 2: Dogs are just great. How many do you have?

Author: I’ve got two, a Great Dane and a Poodle. Do you have any?

Commenter 3: Awesome post! I will definetly subsricbe to your blog and learn more about these topic. If you are in need of good web site design for SEO contact me!

Commenter 4: I’m more of a cat person myself, but dogs are okay.

Author: I like cats okay, but my girlfriend is really allergic to them.

Commenter 5: Lose weight lose weight lose weight lose weight lose weight

Commenter 6: Cats FTW Dogs can suck it!

Author: Hey come on man, that’s a little harsh. Why do you like cats so much? Dogs don’t suck!

Commenter 7: Click here for your enlargement medication that will help get some great backlinks from sites that use advanced SEo tactics from getting keywords out of dictionaries.

You’ll see more advertising in the comment section than on the sidebars on this moderators blog.

Chatter Box

I almost lumped this one in with the above moderator, but the only difference is the chatter box loves to, well chat. The thing is if the comments are completely off topic, the moderator will respond to them as if they did contribute to the comment thread.

For Example:

Blog Post: Dogs are Better Than Cats

Dogs rawk! Cats stink. Dogs like to play outside; cats do nothing but poop in a box you have to clean later. Dogs can fetch Frisbees while cats only lie around, get fat, cough up hairballs and get high on catnip. Dogs love to get treats and show you appreciation for giving them treats. Dogs FTW!!!

Commenter 1: Dogs are awesome!

Author: Dogs ARE awesome!

Commenter 2: Dogs are okay, but cats are cool too.

Author: Oh I like cats too! But I never had one, my parents do though.

Commenter 3: Buy computer parts at a low discounted rate

Author: Hey thanks for the resource and for stopping by my blog to check out my post! Do you like dogs?

Commenter4: Dogs are pretty cool. Did you know you can increase your income by 10000% by reading my low cost e-book? Download it today!

Author: Yeah dogs are neat-O. I’ll check out your e-book, I can always use some extra cash! Thanks for stopping by!

This moderator could make friends with a brick.

So what do you think? What types of moderators have you seen? And for the moderators out there, which of the above traits do you think you possess?

5 Types of Blog Moderators is a post from: Blog Godown

This is a guest article by Kip Keilty of compare broadband plans. Join the discussion and voice your opinion by following our guest blogging guidelines.

Bloggers like you want to earn a living from their work and possibly even become famous. Building a blogging career that takes you from being a beginner blogger into the cream of the crop takes a lot of time, patience, and hard work, but it is possible to realize your dream. To help you accomplish the most from your efforts, here are 7 of the best tools for aspiring probloggers.

1. Wikimedia Commons – As creative property becomes more carefully guarded by its owners, bloggers face increasing pressure to avoid illegal use of images online. This means that more people are demanding that bloggers obtain permission to use the images used on their sites. Some Web users are scouring the Web looking for people to sue over images used without permission. Wikimedia Commons offers a huge repository of photographs and other images that are available for general royalty-free use (usually with attribution) that you can use without fear.

2. Akismet – Years ago, the government supposedly outlawed spam, but the problem has only worsened. Spam is not just in your inbox anymore: it is everywhere, including your blog. Whether you are spammed with users and fake contributors or if you are spammed with thousands of comments about tinnitus and sexual potency, Akismet is there on the front lines with you to help reduce the amount of spam you have to deal with. With solutions to equip more than 20 different blogging platforms and computer systems, Akismet gives you the upper hand in the fight against spam.

3. Photoshop online – Serious bloggers depend on creating interesting content, and that requires image editing and optimization. You want your users to have a good experience at your blog, so you want to make sure that the images you show them are not only legal, but that they are optimized to load quickly into their browser. Photoshop online gives you the power associated with the premium image editor at your fingertips via any Web browser wherever you are.

4. The All in One SEO plugin for WordPress – This is one of the most popular blog plugins because it automates the task of preparing blog posts for SEO discovery. Bloggers using the plugin configure it once and then let it do its job. The time saved in optimizing blogs for the search engines is used by serious bloggers for better things such as content preparation.

5. Sniplets – Sniplets is an essential tool for creating dynamic content within a post on a WordPress blog. With this plug-in you can dynamically replace text in your blog with text, code, or other content that is found somewhere else. This relieves much of the burden bloggers have to keep fresh content on their blog. Sniplets can also be used to brand RSS feeds to prevent unauthorized use of your content.

6. Shareaholic – This popular service gives users an easier way to share online content among their social networks. In fact, with just one mouse click, more than one hundred services can be instantly updated with online content. This is a tool that bloggers use to share content that interests them, but bloggers should encourage their users to use Shareaholic as well. It is fun, but it also gives users a new, easier way to spread the word about your blog.

7. Screencast – If you want to spice up your posts then consider Screencast, a place to store videos and make them accessible to other users on the Web. You can get a free 2 GB account for free, or pay $99.95 for a year of video hosting services that come with 25 GB of storage.

The Internet is full of great tools that will help you as you pursue your dream of being a problogger. These are just 7 of the best tools for aspiring probloggers that will get you started on your quest.

7 of the Best Tools for Aspiring Probloggers is a post from: Blog Godown

Each and every aspiring blogger wants to make it big in this highly competitive online world. Most of them try really hard to achieve their goals, but only a few of them are able to succeed. There can be many reasons why they were not able to reach their target. It can be due to lack of focus or lack of strategy. Sometimes it is really hard to find a reason behind it.

In order to achieve these ambitious goals, bloggers should try to analyze the reason behind the popularity of blogs who are always in the limelight. Analysis of such blogs as case studies can help a lot in developing a sound strategy.

Popular blogs can be classified into two broad categories depending on the reason of popularity.

Slowly and Steady way of Building Authority

Blogging, in the very early days of it’s inception was considered as an outlet of thought for people who weren’t professional writers but wanted to share their feelings with others. Nowadays, the scenario has completely changed. Bloggers have slowly and steadily transformed into experts. These are the guys who are heavily relied on by people when they are facing a serious problem.

Some of the blogs which have become extremely popular in the past few years were actually very small blogs a few years ago. But, due to the correctness of the information and the quality of writing, they were able to attract audiences. These audiences were really small in size. But slowly and steadily the numbers started growing which in turn helped in building a formidable authority. The audience size reached a certain point which led to the exponential growth of the readers.

This method is a guaranteed pathway to success, but the path is a really slow one and the possibility of a person losing interest and quitting blogging is quite high.

Key To Success : Quality and Consistency

The Rapid Success Route

Today’s world wants instant results and this rapid success route is the way to reach success in the minimum time possible (Tailor-made for the people belonging to the 21st century). It uses the latest tools available to online marketers : social networking websites.

How did Justin Bieber became famous in a matter of a few hours. The answer is the viral spread of his youtube video. This shows the importance online social media in increasing exposure and that too virally. The viral spread of any blog post, video, or song depends on a few set of things.

First of all, the matter inside that blog post (or video) should be something which is very unique and it should take the audience by surprise.

A customer who buys an expensive mobile phone expects that the mobile phone should be able to deliver it’s value’s worth of service. But, if that mobile phone is extremely good, then obviously it’s customers will be really happy. They will be so happy with the product, that they will try to persuade their peers to buy the same. This will in turn lead to a chain causing an increase in the sales of mobile phones by multiple folds.

Similarly, the video or the blog article should be a really good value addition or should I say good value for the time invested. If the first people who see it (or read it), love it. Then, they will try to share it with others. This sharing will multiply with a help of few very influential people online and thus, will make it a grand success.

This is the mantra of the blogs that became popular in a span of a few months or an year. The content of the blogs should have something new to offer in terms of novel techniques or out of the box ideas. Whatever maybe the idea, it should click at the right time and be able to impress it’s readers.

Key To Success : Out of box and Great Value Addition

Tip: Analysing case studies of popular blogs helps in understanding what readers like and what they dislike. Also, it gives your exposure various different techniques that can be employed in your blog as well. They may or may not work for you is a different thing. But, there is no harm in trying,

What Makes a Blog So Popular? is a post from: Blog Godown

Newspaper's First Page Has Article Excerpts

In this article Karan Singhal of Trafficke wants to solve the battle between excerpts and full sized posts on the blog homepage. You can express your unique blogging view or blogging tip by following our guest blogging guidelines.

A widely debated issue in the blogging community is the question of leaving your blog homepage with full-sized posts or excerpts. Should new visitors see a preview of your posts, or should they be able to read each of them easily by simply scrolling down?

The best choice might seem, at first, to keep full-sized posts enabled, but if you look closer you’ll find this is a big mistake for your blog.

Implementing excerpts is definitely, and I mean without a doubt, the best choice for your blog, no matter what niche you’re in. Here’s why:

Too Much To Handle

Have you ever thought of the possibility that full-sized posts on your homepage might just be too much for a new visitor to handle?

A visitor who is overwhelmed at the first sight of your blog is very likely to close out and never come back. You don’t want your visitors doing this. The only way to keep it simple for your visitors is to use post excerpts that give the reader an option to read more.

Difficulty For Visitors

Even if you’ve managed to pull in a few dedicated readers that have become used to your (stupid) overwhelming homepage, all is not well. At least for your visitors. Have you ever thought of how hard it is to keep on scrolling through posts that you really don’t want to read? (don’t laugh at me, I’m serious) By putting full-sized posts on your homepage, you are creating huge difficulty and potentially setting yourself for a higher bounce rate.

This too, can turn your blog into a waste of time for your readers.

Benefits of using post excerpts:

Bite-sized nuggets of information – By providing excerpts instead of posts on your homepage, you are providing quality information that they can easily swallow, and if they aren’t interested, scroll down a little for more. If they are interested, they can just as easily read more by simply clicking on a link for the full post. By doing this, you are making your homepage manageable for your traffic, especially for new visitors.

Pull in more visitors to your content – If you use post excerpts, you’re making your content much more inviting. I always feel much more attracted to a small readable paragraph instead of a huge 500-word full sized post. And most likely, so do your readers. After all, which would you like better: getting a small taste and being invited for more, or getting the entire meal at once? I think the choice is clear, for you and your readers.

A better opportunity for you – Excerpts are what your visitors will read. Post excerpts give you an added opportunity to pull in the traffic your posts were made to get. This means a better performance for all of your posts. But you can also add to this opportunity by really spending a good amount of time writing you excerpt so that it brings even more traffic to your posts.

There are many reasons why you might want to use post excerpts on your homepage instead of simply leaving the WordPress default of full sized posts. This post has just listed a few. To summarize, just know that using post excerpts decreases your bounce rate and reduces clutter and difficulty for your website traffic, especially new visitors. They also help your posts perform better and attract much more traffic.

Thanks for reading! Please retweet, I spent a lot of time writing this article for you!

Blog Homepage: Excerpt vs. Full Size Post is a post from: Blog Godown

Don't be disappointed

Guest Bloggers face rejection if their article is not appropriate for the host’s blog (according to the blog owner). Many bloggers are not to handle rejection well and they eventually give up. Karan of Trafficke SEO Services thinks that rejection is a good thing as it helps bloggers in improving their blogging abilities. You too can join in by following our guest blogging guidelines.

Contrary to popular belief, rejection doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. Actually, in blogging, it’s a great wake-up slap and it helps you improve in a variety of aspects. How will you ever improve as a blogger if you don’t know what you’re doing wrong? You can’t. That’s why it’s important to get rejected once in a while. (but not on purpose, of course )  Let’s see,  how rejection can actually help you in your quest to become a professional blogger.

Guest Posting

‘These days, I’m putting a lot of focus on guest posting. I submit at least 3 or 4 per week, without losing time for posting on my own blog. In my opinion, this is a great way to promote your website. So much traffic potential, so many new prospects, a whole new community to share your content with, all in exchange with the simple task of writing an article. My posts usually get accepted, but often, when I’m asking A-list blogs like ProBlogger and CopyBlogger to publish my content, I get rejected. Not because my posts are bad. (at least I hope not ) But more because that so many guest posts reach Darren’s inbox each day that you really do have to be a “pro blogger” to get a guest post on his signature blog.

So, rejection happens. Sure, my goal when I sent Darren my guest post was to get it published, but it isn’t really his fault that he can’t publish it, so I’m not angry or anything.

But besides that, when I get rejected, I’m not sad, I’m not angry. I’m actually eager to find out what was wrong with my post.

Was it on a level that the readers of the blog would feel to be too easy? Is the post structured badly? Is the post boring for the reader. Maybe, maybe not. These are all good questions and the only way to find out the answer is to ask. And the only way you get this amazing opportunity to improve your writing and get personal tips from some of the top people in your niche, (in my case, blogging and SEO) is rejection.

So, don’t be afraid of seeing an email that says that your post can’t be accepted. Because, rejection is more than what’s on the outside. It’s how you can improve as a blogger. If every guest post intended for the best blogs on the internet that you wrote was accepted, you’d feel no need to improve. Rejection is there to change that and helps you become a better writer, and as a result, a better blogger.

Pretty much anything else…

Pretty much anything you can do as a blogger that involves other people may lead to rejection in some shape. So pretty much anything you can do as a blogger that involves other people may lead to you improving in some shape. Seriously.

For example, even if it’s a small and insignificant one, blog commenting. If your blog comment isn’t accepted by a blog, you may rethink about your comment. Was it really valuable? Did it add to the conversation? Did you do anything other than repeat what other commentators have already said? These questions won’t come to mind if you don’t get rejected. See, how rejection helps you to improve in all aspects of blogging, and not just guest posting?

Rejection doesn’t have to be a bad thing. And if you know how to handle it calmly and properly, you’ll only benefit from it. Rejection acts as a wake-up-call and it slaps you into improving yourself. So don’t be mad that your article wasn’t good enough for that A-list blog, and don’t be mad if your comment wasn’t good enough.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed reading this article, please share and retweet!

Why Rejection Isn’t A Bad Thing In Blogging is a post from: Blog Godown

Worst things that can annoy readers

This is a guest post by Chavah Kinloch, a WAHM (Work at Home Mom) of four young children – She’s an artist. You can regularly find Chavah at her blog, Creating My Reality, and you can find her here on Twitter. Be part of this community and check out our guest blogging guidelines

1. Flash – Can we say 1990′s? No one likes sitting there while it loads and then having to click past an intro just to arrive to some more flashing photos.
2. Music – Please, please, get rid of it or make it optional to start. People will either click away as soon as they hear the music or go insane as they try to find the window that’s making that crazy noise.
3. More ad’s than content – If your ad’s are taking centre stage, you will get no credibility.
4. Pop up’s – I can handle pop up ‘join my mailing list’ ads but anything other than that means I will never again return to your site. In saying that though, let me at least read what you’ve written so I can choose whether you’re worth following or not.
5. Really Bad english – A little bit of error can be tolerated but if it is glaringly obvious that you’ve never had to speak english to communicate for the sake of survival, you should probably be looking to outsource your writing or write in your native language and use something like Google Translator.
6. Loooong Blog Posts – If it’s going to take forever to say it, break it up. Create a series.
7. Broken links – Check, check and triple check! Or install this if you use WordPress.
8. Making people register to comment – You’re likely to lose many commentors if you choose to go this route.
9. Spam – Take precautions with your blog to ensure as little spam as possible gets through.
10. Bad content – Reading a post about something we’ve read a hundred times before isn’t interesting.
11. Writing like a professor – No one wants a lecture!
12. Lack of images – Try to include a photo in each of your posts.
13. Caps lock – I can’t believe I still come across this. Caps in text is the equivalent to yelling, SO USE IT WITH CAUTION.
14. wRiTiNg LiK dIs – Wow. Just wow. Really? Need I say more?
15. Writing about how perfect your child is – I see this a lot as well. It’s great to be proud of your child, I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t be but make sure you don’t overdose your readers with how wonderful little Jamima is at everything. I mean goodness… I have four. I know the deal.
16. Your site is ugly – There are some extremely bad tasting blog and website designs out there! Search for a talented designer. I use Swish Development.
17. I click on a link I thought was part of your site and suddenly I’m somewhere completely different – A reader should only leave your blog if they choose to.
18. The design of you site changes on each page – Only use one template for your all over design.
19. Slow loading pages – Keep images small and minimise posts on your homepage.
20. I can’t read the first post on your blog without clicking through – This is a big pet peeve of mine. I want to be able to read at least one post by landing on your blog’s homepage.
21. There’s no search function for your site – Sometimes people come back for a specific post. If you don’t have a search tool they have to scroll through pages and pages of posts. This isn’t likely to happen so instead you lose the reader and a possible link back.

The 21 Worst Things To Have On Your Blog or Website is a post from: Blog Godown

Without readers a blog is nothing, they interact, create, share and develop an environment in which the blog author can share what he believes is most important. Engaged readers often are the reasons as to why we blog. Not because of the money, rather, because we have a passion for sharing information. Without readers, why would we blog? Blogging is all about sharing, and this is only possible with readers, people who actually care about what you write. Because of this, it is the duty of every blogger to create good quality relationships from within a blogging community. Here are some of the best ways of establishing good quality relationships with people.

Reply to everything

Building strong relationships with readers can be best achieved by directly engaging with the readers themselves. If a reader has a query or problem, reply to them, tell them how to solve a problem. Set a goal of devoting as much time as you spend on writing blog posts towards replying to comments and emails which people share on your blog.

Study what readers want

Blogging can often lead into many new areas of interests. The most important thing to remember is to not stray from what you always write on your blog. If you discover that you have a new interest and you want to blog about it, create a separate blog as your current blog readers will want to continue reading what you always publish. The more you remain on topic, the more readers will engage with you because they know that you are a professional in what you talk about. The best way to find out a specific topic which you should be blogging about is to hold a survey discussing what you should be blogging about. If you come out with mixed results then incorporate everything together.

Introduce guest posting

Your readers might actually have something to say or expand on which you might not have covered but others might be interested in. The best way to let your readers become fully engaged with your blog is to allow guest posting. Guest posting allows readers to directly contribute to your blog. They can publish blog posts on topics which you might not have covered yet.  Not only do they increase the reader interaction with your blog but they also create a strong community where everyone can participate.

Follow them through

Nothing more delights a reader thean when the author of a very successful blog starts reading and commenting on their blog. Follow your readers through. If a reader leaves a comment on your blog and they have left a link to their blog, visit their blog and publish a comment on theirs. The relationship between you and your readers will develop 10 fold, especially because they will discover that you are an outgoing person rather than just participating on the comments in your own blog.

Give something back

If you share a specific interest with your readers and you want to develop strong community well being with them further then share something with them. Give them a reason to be participating in your blog rather than just subscribing to an rss feed and never visiting. Write an e-book, start a competition; share something of value with them. Put your readers in a situation were if they actively participate in your blog then they will be given something of importance be it, free backlinks, reviews or free hits. Give readers a reason to participate. This will surely maintain a good relationship with you and your readers.

Developing a strong relationship with your readers will open both them and your blog to greater discussion. The more actively you engage your readers, the stronger relationship you will develop with them a one road ticket to your promotion.

This post was written by Peter, the creator and author of ideas bubble, tweet, blog, post, link and share your way to success.

Creating Top Quality Blog Reader Relationships is a post from: Blog Godown

SEO short formed as search engine optimization is a process whereby a website is being optimized to appear and rank in the search engines. So many people think SEO is not required to rank in the search engines, but i want you to know that if everything is not in place such as the robots.txt and some other on page factors then your page will not be indexed by the search engines. So many factors are entailed when talking about Search Engine Optimization but we have to deal with the important ones first.

i. ON PAGE FACTORS: The onpage factors of a website has a long way to go in affecting a websites search engine rankings. Some you need to work on are:

• META TITLE: The meta title is your website’s title, it is what is being shown to your visitors by the search engines. The following are tips for choosing a good website title:
  a. Let the title be attractive.
  b. Let it make sense.
  c. Let it be in line with the theme of your website.
  d. Make sure your keyword is included in the tilte.
  e. Make sure the title is as short as possible.
• META DESCRIPTION: Aside the meta title, the meta description and keywords does not influence your search engine rankings, but why is there a need for optimization? You ask! The need for having a good meta description is because this will be shown to your visitors by the search engines, it will also improve your click through rate. It is possible for you to achieve high search engine without getting the right amount of visitors if you have a poor meta description. It is important to make your meta description attractive, but don’t worry about the keywords in the description because it will not affect your search engine rankings.
• META KEYWORDS: This has to be the list of your desired keywords, you might not bother much about this as it is less regarded by the major search engines.
• KEYWORD DENSITY: This is also a very important and overlooked method of achieving high search engine rankings, this is also very important when targeting highly competitive keywords. It is important to make sure that your keyword density is not more than %3 of your whole content.

ii. OFF PAGE OPTIMIZATION: Every other thing that can be done outside your website to improve your website rankings/traffic is called off page optimization. Some of the important off page optimization strategies are link building, Social bookmarking,Creating media awareness e.t.c.

• Link building: This is one of the most important factor for ranking websites and it is very important to consider mostly dofollow websites in your link building efforts. It is also very important to deeplink to inner pages of your website from bot your website and other link sources.
• Social Bookmarking: This is another method of improving your search engine rankings, and any webmaster that is not tapping this yet is missing a lot. Some good social bookmarking sites to start with are: Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Sphinn and Twitter(social networking).
• Creating Media Awareness: This can be done by creating videos and uploading them to video sites such as Youtube. Just make sure your link is included in your description and and video when doing this. It is also important to consider press release sites.

Great SEO tips for Everybody is a post from: Blog Godown

Reasons why you should change from Blogger to WordPress :

1. Professional Blogging :

Most of the blogger blogs are owned by bloggers who blog as a hobby not as a business or a profession. Blogger is a really good platform for newbies, who don’t have any knowledge of blogging and who just want to explore. Through Blogger one can easily learn the basics of blogging and the art of writing good posts.

But if you are looking to move ahead and start blogging professionally then you should take the next step and  switch to wordpress, because of its features and the ability to have full control over its design layout.

2. Multi-Author Blogs and Guest Blogging

Guest Blogging and Multi Author blogging is a mess in Blogger, because there is no way to moderate posts submitted by other authors. In comparison to this, WordPress has the ability to moderate posts and also assign roles to content submitters as Authors, Contributors or Admin. This way you can easily control and decide which authors should be moderated and which should be allowed to have full control.

Another cool feature of the latest version of WordPress stable release 2.8.6 is that it fixes two security problems that can be exploited by registered, logged in users who have posting privileges. This makes Guest Blogging and Multi Author Blogging extremely secure and a really good experience.

3. Plugins

The Plugins feature of WordPress is one of the major reasons why bloggers move to WordPress. Though Blogger platform has recently added the Gadgets feature which is quite similar to wordpress plugins feature, but it is a relatively new concept and there are a handful number of people who are actually creating new gadgets. On the other hand, WordPress Plugins feature is an old one, and there is a vast collection of  useful plugins. Actually there are so many of them, that you need a guide to tell you which plugins are actually worth installing to your blog .

4. HTML vs PHP Scripting

Blogger uses HTML and WordPress use PHP scripts. PHP scripts have much more functionality as they use dynamic HTML and therefore it can change automatically, but for HTML we have to manually update the code. Besides individual blog posts in Blogger can only include HTML, no javascript  can be used. Whereas in WordPress, you can easily add javascript to each page.

5. Themes and Design

Before the new version of Blogger was released, it really had no major design customizability and the Themes were few. And even when the new Blogger has been released, most of its themes are converted from the original wordpress ones.

WordPress has got a huge list of themes to choose from, some have good seo features, while others have good navigation and JQuery effects. You will always find one that suits your needs. And if you want to design your blog by yourself, you can do so easily, using the popular seo optimized Thesis Theme.

6. Search Engine Optimization

SEO is very important for your blog, because it increases your search engine rankings and hence gets you a lot of organic traffic.

In Blogger, you can do SEO for images and Posts by adding the the meta keywords and alt tags for each post manually. And to top it all the meta keywords are to be added to the template, which increases the size of the template and hence decreases blog speed.

WordPress has the most sophisticated way to do SEO. There are many plugins which can optimize the site for SEO automatically. The best plugins for SEO in my opinion are the All In One SEO Pack and the SEO Friendly Images.  So SEO work in WordPress is minimal.

In all, Blogger is for new and rookie bloggers and WordPress is for the expert and professional bloggers.

Blogger to WordPress conversion is not very new and many have got fabulous results with WordPress.

What’s your opinion?

Why you should convert your Blogger Blog to Self Hosted WordPress is a post from: Blog Godown

Why should one use Blog Engage?

1. Blog Promotion: If you submit your post at Blog engage, it will be read by other users and therefore your blog will get free promotion.

2. It is new so there is more chance of become a power user. Being a power user, you get the power to publicize any post you submit and that may increase your traffic inflow to multifolds.

3. It is a community of new and active Bloggers: It means that not only will they vote for your post, but they will engage by commenting and also subscribing to your blog.

4. Do Follow Link Love: Blog Engage is Nofollow free, i.e each post you submit will get a link back. And this may increase the page rank of the blog post.

5. Get on to the Spotlight: Blog Engage also rewards it’s active members with a spotlight on their blog. This means more exposure to your blog and therefore more traffic.

6. Get Featured on Brian’s Blog: Blog Engage’s owner Brian has a great blog and he links to most voted posts on his Blog. This means an up on your technorati rank and authority.

All in all it is a great oppurtunity for new and active bloggers, to promote their blogs and get attention.

I have added a Blog engage button on top of each post so you can vote for the post you like. And i believe in “Sharing is Caring”

Are you already a Blog Engage user? If yes, share your experience with us.

Blog Engage – A Social Media Site for your Blog Promotion is a post from: Blog Godown

I always liked the amazing plugin that greets every user if it is redirected from google, digg or any other popular website which is popularly known as WP Greet Box.

Classic Tutorials has made a blogger version of this plugin: Blogger Greet box

1. Shows a different greeting message to your visitor depending on the referrer URL.
2. Greeting message can be inserted any where but better to use on the top as shown in classic
tutorials.
3. Shows a default greeting message if the user hits the URL directly or comes from a referrer.
which is not specified.
4. Ability to remove the message when the user navigates within the same site so we do not keep
nagging them with greeting messages.
5. Currently the following referrers are installed:

1. Google
2. Yahoo
3. Digg
4. Stumbleupon

Here are some snapshots of the plugin:

Stumbleupon Greet Message

Blogger Greet Box – Blogger version of WP Greet Box is a post from: Blog Godown

So to celebrate 6 months of Blog Godown and showing some cool statistics and roundup of the best

Here are some statistics of this site:
Total Page Views: 57,539
Alexa Rank: 40,390
Compete Rank: 107,307
Page Rank: 2

Most Popular Posts:
400+ Beautiful Twitter Icons for your Website : 14,613 Pageviews
75 Beautiful Free Social Bookmarking Icon Sets : 6,876 Pageviews
50+ Awesome Twitter Tips to become a Pro : 4,466 Pageviews
350+ Fresh Twitter Icons : 3892 Pageviews

Posts By Categories:

Blogger:
1. How to add Retweet button to blogger
2. Random Posts Blogger Widget
3. Kickass Alternative Commenting Systems for Blogger
4. How to add a Favicon to Blogger Blogs

Social Media:
1. 33 super engagers to follow
2. Battle of the #Retweets:Tweetmeme vs Twittley: Which one is better?
3. How to create a Facebook Page for your Blog/Website
4. Finding Great Content to Tweet

I would also like to thank my friend Tycoonblogger for his constant support. Check out his blog. He is a great blogger.

Do you want anything else from this blog. Suggest me!

Blog Godown is open to Guest Posting. If you are interested feel free to contact me.

Blog Godown now 6 months old! is a post from: Blog Godown

Backtype Retweet Button

Backtype button has the following advantages over tweetmeme:
1. The design is customizable (You can easily change the color and border of the button).
2. Backtype tracks retweets via twitter search and it’s tracking is more reliable than tweetmeme.
3. The starting text of each retweet is editable, i.e you can use text other than Rt @virtuosoblogger like #coffeeclub, via @virtuosoblogger etc.

The Advantages of Backtype button make it a probable choice for a retweet button.

Previously i wrote about How to add Retweet button to blogger

Here’s how you can add a backtype retweet button to blogger:

Follow these easy steps:
1. Go to Layout->Edit Html
2. Download Full Template (For backup purposes)
3. Check the Expand Widget Templates
4. Search for the code below:

<div class=’post-header-line-1′/>

Note: you can always look for a place to put your code that gives you the best results in terms of the look and the position of the button.

5. The backtype button has the following options to customize:

tweetcount_url: The URL to measure tweets for (Default: Current URL)
tweetcount_title: The title of the page for retweets (Default: Title of current page)
tweetcount_src: Leading text for retweets
tweetcount_via: If tweets contain ‘(via @BackType)’ (Default: true)
tweetcount_links: If links should be opened in new windows (Default: false)
tweetcount_size: Size of button (“large” or “small”) (Default: “large”)
tweetcount_api_key: Awe.sm API Key for custom URL shortener
tweetcount_short_url: Specify the pre-shortened URL that you would like to use (Default: Generated (bt.io))
tweetcount_background: Button background color (e.g. ‘FFFFFF’)
tweetcount_border: Button border color (e.g. ‘CCCCCC’)
tweetcount_text: Button text color (e.g. ’000000′)

6. paste the following code below the previous line of code:

<div style=’float:right; padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px’>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
tweetcount_url = ‘<data:post.url/>’;
tweetcount_title = ‘<data:post.title/>’;
tweetcount_src = ‘RT @virtuosoblogger‘;
tweetcount_via = false;
tweetcount_links = true;
tweetcount_size = ‘small’;
tweetcount_background = ‘FFFFFF’;
tweetcount_border = ‘CCCCCC’;
tweetcount_api_key = ’5c3bba3f5d77a46a13453091e36dc1cde4335e9299a1edeeaa3c31d193b33fda’;
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://widgets.backtype.com/tweetcount.js”></script>
</div>

This code will display the button on the right of the post. You can replace float:right to float:left to display the button n the left side of the post.

You also have to change Rt @virtuosoblogger: with the text of your choice.

7. After all the customizations, save the Template and see for yourself, the result is a sweet retweet button added to your blog.

Any problems? Comment!!

How to add a Backtype retweet button to Blogger is a post from: Blog Godown

The default text for date in blogger might look a little too simple to some, so for those blogger users who want to spice their layout by adding a calendar to their post dates, this post will help you achieve that.

Preview of the date in calendar style

Follow these steps to replace the default with the date in calendar layout:
1. Go to Settings->Formatting and change the Date Header Format with the format DD-MM-YY
2. Go to layout, then click on Edit Html
3. Download the Full Template (So that you don’t lose any date).
4. Search for the following code:
[xml]
<data:post.dateHeader/>
[/xml]
5. Replace the code above with the following code:
[xml]
<div id="date"><script type="text/javascript">// <![CDATA[
replace_date(&#39;<data:post.dateHeader />&#39;);
// ]]></script></div>
[/xml]
6. Search for the following code:
[xml]
</head>
[/xml]
7. Paste The following code above it:
CSS 3.0
This the CSS code, this governs the look of the calendar. If you know a little bit programming you can make modifications to this code and add your own image.

8. Search for the following code:
[xml]
<body>
[/xml]
9. Just below the code paste the following code:
[java]
<!-date image background–>
<script>
function replace_date(d)
{
var da = d.split(&#39; &#39;);
month = &quot;<div class=’month’>&quot;+da[1].slice(0,3)+&quot;</div>&quot;;
day = &quot;<div class=’day’>&quot;+da[0]+&quot;</div>&quot;;
year = &quot;<div class=’year’>&quot;+da[2]+&quot;</div>&quot;;
document.write(month+day+year);
}
</script>
<!-date image background–>
[/java]
This javascript diaplays the date. You can change the order of display in document.write function.

10. Save the template.
And now your date in calendar style is up and running.

Facing problems? Tell me!!

Replace Date with a cool new calendar type layout in blogger is a post from: Blog Godown

Here is a preview of the new post editor:

This editor sure looks cool eh? But that is nothing compared to the features it has in store for us. It is one of the major updates blogger has done to its blogging platform.

New Features:

A lot of new editing features are available now. Here are some of the ones i would like you to see:

1. Firstly there is the Undo/Redo button which was much needed as i and many others used to use the button available in the browser to do the same function.

2. Strike through Button : Easily strike off text without dealing with any Html or coding.

4. New Color Pickers:

In the previous post editor there was only one color picker which could be used for the font color.
But there is a new color picker to choose the Highlighter color to color to highlight text.

The color pickers have a better look and organization and also have a faster loading time.

Here is a preview:

 

 

These color pickers are easier to use and it is very easy to choose from them.

5. Add a Link :

The look has changed and so is the way you can add links in blogger. Now you don’t have to select the text to add a link. Just click on Link Button and enter the text and link. Super easy!!. And in addition you can also link to an email address.

6. Add a Picture :

 

Now this is the one of the best feature. No image popups, add image in the same post editor. All the uploaded images will all be displayed in the same box and you can add these images anywhere in the post, i.e where your cursor is placed and not at the top of the post.

 

And after you upload your photo you can easily adjust the size of the image (small,medium,large) along with it’s placement (Left,Right and Center) and you can also remove it with a click of a button. Isn’t that awesome

What Features it lacked

Though this update was feature rich, it lacked some features. Here are some of the features which according to me would be great addition to blogger.

1. Image Bulk Upload
The image edit is good but i would like to have an uploader like that in facebook where you can easily add images in bulk without any pain. I hate to select and upload each and every image.

2. Underline Button :

I would like to have fast underlining without any coding.

3. Tables Editor

A tables editor to make adding tables to blogger easier by ability to select the number of columns and rows and also if  possible the template just like that in microsoft office.

This post editor feature is still optional and you can always revert back to the original one.

These are just a small number of features that i liked mentioning.
Have you noticed anything else ? What is your opinion about the new post editor? Have suggestions?
Feel free to comment.

New Blogger Post Editor is a post from: Blog Godown

I would give you a review of the features wibiya widget offers.

1. Facebook Fan Page

This snazzy widget integrates facebook to your site. It has features like adding the blog’s fan page. For this you should have a fan page for your blog (which you created earlier). It displays all the latest updates on the page as well as the fans, a sureshot way to increase your fan base.
You can also see Blog Godown’s fan page on this widget installed on this website.

Facebook Fan Page

2. Facebook Community

This is a community for your blog in facebook. Those who are logged into facebook can join easily and can post what they think by posting in the shoutbox.

Facebook Community Page

3. Twitter Dashboard

Twitter Dashboard is powered by backtype and is partitioned into two sections. One section displays the tweets about the website and the other displays the tweets of the website owner like mine (@virtuosoblogger).

Readers can tweet any page from this site through this tool. This tool is not only good for readers but also for the author as through this he can know who is tweeting about his website and pages and also track the tweet stats.

4. Notifications

Notifications feature enables the blogger to notify readers about the latest news or site updates. These notifications comes as a pop up on the right side bottom and can be easily closed.
It is a great feature to promote content or news on the website.

Latest Notifications

5. Posts Navigator

These feature makes it easy for users to see the recent posts (with thumbnails).
Another feature is the random post button which on clicking directs the reader to a random blog post. A great way to give exposure to blog posts.

Recent Posts with Thumbnails

6. Blog Search

Another feature to keep readers on the website which offers an option to search for the query in the blog or the web. Right next to it bloggers can also display their site favicon.

7. Translator

This tool adds a another much need functionality to the blog, translation. It offers translation in 10 languages – English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, French Italian, Korean, Russian, Portugese, Dutch. It uses the google translator for translation.

8. RSS And Share

These feature adds the ability to view the Rss of the website without even leaving the website.

RSS embedded in wibiya

The Share function makes sharing on social bookmarking websites a piece of cake. Sharing is available for major social bookmarking websites: Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Stumbleupon, Yahoo, Digg, Myspace, Friendfeed, Google, Msn and Technorati.

Share Tool

9. Photo Gallery

It Provides readers with an immersive photo gallery through Cooliris’ 3D Wall. (Currently, this application only works with Flickr accounts).

10. Games

Power of 12,000+ of the most addictive games on your website. This will increase traffic and user time on site.

Games Powered bu HeyZap

11. Analytics

Wibiya Analytics

This is a feature for bloggers, it shows all the analytics like the number of tweets read, shares, and many more rich analytics.

This can be called a wonder widget having so many features. This is not over there are many more features to come (according to the owners)

What do you think of this Widget? Comment Below and tell me.

Wibiya – Cool Widget for Blogs is a post from: Blog Godown

Here’s a preview:

Here is a simple hack to do this:

1. Go to the Layout> Edit Html.
2. Download Full Template (For Backup).
3. Search for the following code:

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

4. Replace the code by the following code:

<b:if cond=’data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;’>
<title><data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>
</b:if>

5. You can also remove the title of the blog after post title by removing <data:blog.title/> from the code above.

6. You can also add tags to your blog title by adding it after <data:blog.title/> in the previous code.

7. After editing all the code. Save the Template and it’s done.

Check your title at each post and you will see the result.

This will be the end result when you see in google search

Optimizing Title For Search Engine Optimization in Blogger is a post from: Blog Godown

Features

• Spam control with Akismet
• Banning : Ban a person by the user name or by IP address
• Gravatar Support
• TrackBack/PingBack: Trackbacks/Pingbacks can be automatically be included in comments.
• Comment Ratings and Karma: Users can rate comments.
• Blogger Comment Sync: (Best Feature) Transparently switch back and forth between native Blogger comment system and JS-Kit Comment system with no loss of comments because comments are always synchronized with Blogger.
• Emoticons: 16 emoticons are available.
• Threads: Threading is also available
• Pagination: Comments can be paged.
• Commentluv a feature to give love to your commenter is available to only this commenting system
• Photo as well as video comments.

Features:

• Comment Threading
• Reply By Email: Respond to and moderate comments with ease via email
• Commenter Profiles: Special Profiles for commenters so that there is more interaction between people.
• Moderation/Blacklisting
• Reputation Points & Comment Voting
• Twitter: Tweet your comments
• Widgets: widgets like blog’s comment stats, the most recent comments made on blog, most popular posts and the most recent comment
• FriendFeed:(Best Feature)When comments are made in the context of a blog on FriendFeed, IntenseDebate will republish them back on the blog.
• Plugins API:Developers can enhance the comments by plugins like Seesmic video comments, PollDaddy polls, YouTube videos, smileys.
• Gravatar support.
• Facebook Connect and Twitter Sign-in: People comment via their facebook and twitter profiles and can further broadcast the content.

Features

• Social Media Reactions: (Best Feature) Display mentions and comments about post from other services around the web (e.g. Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, YouTube).
• Trackbacks
• Seesmic Video Comments
• Pagination
• Threading
• Facebook Connect and Twitter Sign-in: People comment via their facebook and twitter profiles and can further broadcast the content.
• Widgets like Popular posts and top commenter’s widgets.
• Blacklisting as well as whitelisting people.

Among the three commenting systems, Js-Kit is the easiest to install, whereas
Disqus and Intense Debate are feature rich.
Js-Kit is best for people who want the option of reverting back to blogger.
But above all they are much better in comparison to the blogger’s default commenting system.

Kickass Alternative Commenting Systems for Blogger is a post from: Blog Godown