Simple Tips for New Bloggers

Joining the blogging world can be overwhelming at first.
Everywhere you turn there are �experts� wanting to give you guidance for a pretty penny. 

The truth is, there is no right or wrong way to do it.
There are so many ways to gain traction online that it doesn�t have to be as stressful
as they make it out to be. When I started blogging three years ago I felt clueless.
 I had no idea where to begin, and how to get more traffic. 

The thing is, I wasn�t really focused on the principles of blogging. There are
a few things that you should do as you grow your blog, so that you can find success
 down the road.

Create Content

Assuming you have already went through the steps to creating your blog,
 creating content is the next thing you have to do before anything else.
 You don�t want to promote
your blog or get your name out there if you don�t have anything for your readers
 once they get there
. Create good content that will be of value to your ideal readers.
If you give them tons of information and entertaining content,
this will be the reason for them to come back. One of the main focuses
you should have as a new blogger is to gain returning visitors.

Gain Readers

What good is a public blog if no one is reading it?
We all know that traffic numbers matter, especially
if you are planning to monetize your blog down the road.
The higher the traffic, the more you can potentially make
 from your efforts. Real bloggers don�t do it for the money,
they do it because they are passionate about it.
 With that being said, making money from it enables
 them to keep putting in more efforts and value for the readers.

There are many different ways to promote your blog in order to get people to visit it.
The first and obvious way is by promoting it on social media. 

You should share your posts to Facebook, Twitter,
Pinterest, and whatever other platforms you are using.
 You should also visit other blogs in your niche and
 comment on their articles. By doing this you are
possibly getting people to come back to your page,
 and you can establish some great friendships.

Create Your Brand

As you start to gain more traction you should take steps to brand yourself.
 This means consistency throughout every platform you are on.
You can do this by sticking within a �niche,�
 and keeping your content related to that same niche.

 Assuming you have a logo and color scheme
 on your blog, be sure to keep that consistent
with the content and social media posts as well.
You want your readers to see your posts and know without looking that it is your content.

Once you create a brand for yourself
you want to stick with it. Like I said earlier,
consistency is the most important part of this.
 If you are inconsistent with your branding,
you might just confuse your audience. As you gain
a name and authority for your brand, you will start to
 become a household name for some of your followers.
After all, gaining loyal readers who trust you is one of the
 greatest things you can do for your blog.

Create a Call to Action

You don�t want readers to come to your page, read your articles,
and then leave without a trace. You should always have a call to
action on your posts. It can be as simple as asking a few questions
 related to the article for your
readers to answer in the comments.
The more engagement you can get on your posts, the better.
Your call to action can also be giving away a freebie for those
who join your newsletter. Some experts say that growing your email list should be at the top
of your priorities. In order to do this, you have to give a call to action-
 or a reason to sign up for your newsletter. Most bloggers do this by giving
 away something for free. It can be a PDF printable, a list of some sort, or a free challenge
to help solve a problem for your readers.

As I said earlier, there is no right way to start and grow a blog
. Your path may look completely different than others, and it should.
 Creating your own unique blog is what you need to do in order to stand
 out from the others. The world does not need any more duplicates. These
 four tips are things
 that you should do at some point, in my opinion.
This may not be the exact order, and that�s ok too. Always keep in mind
 why you are doing this, and stay focused on the end prize.

How to Place Guest Posts on High Ranking Blogs

If you are excited to place guest posts on high ranking
blogs I have a 4 step process for you.

I landed gigs on a slew of blogs over the years.

You may be intimidated or outright terrified to
 even dream of submitting guesties to big dawg
bloggers. Goodness knows I was.

But if you change your energy around the process
the big dawg blogging bosses who own high ranking
sites will beg you to write and submit guesties like
Oliver Twist pleading for a bowl of porridge.

1: Enjoy the Process

Enjoy the process of writing, networking and flat out blogging.

Enjoying the blogging process detaches you from outcomes
which helps you land guest post spots. On big time blogs.

Filling yourself with tension only mucks up
 your guest posting mojo.
Because top bloggers avoid desperate, needy folks
 who beg and plead to get posts placed.

I love blogging. The work is fun so the work is the reward.
 Landing guest posts on top blogs is icing on the cake.

Maintaining that vibe makes
you irresistible to big dawg bloggers.

Guys, following this tip helps all other tips fall into place.

Submit guest posts for the fun of it. Guest post with love
. Emanate a delicious energy that top bloggers gobble up with relish.

2: Write 1,000 Words Daily (for Practice)

Landing posts on respected blogs requires you to know your craft inside out.

Know your craft by writing 1,000 words daily for practice.

Open a Word document. Write. Hit that 1,000 word minimum.
Daily. Because writing on the regular makes your guest posts attractive.

Some bloggers run through hoops trying to convince,
 persuade and cajole folks to place their guest posts. But since the quality of their work is
poor no cajoling in the world will help them get the gig.

I felt intimidated to guest post on top blogs for years.
Little clarity. Tiny blogging cajones. I simply didn�t work on my craft enough. Little confidence because I spent little time in the lab.
The writing lab.

Eventually I set aside time daily to write for practice.
My writing improved. As did my confidence.

Some folks appear to be writing naturals but these bloggers
simply wrote millions of words online to gain the clarity and
confidence to create and publish guest posts on top blogs.

Wanna know how to get published on blogs
 like Pro Blogger and Blogging Tips?

Practice writing!

3: Make Friends with High Ranking Bloggers

Zac Johnson invited me to guest post on Blogging Tips because:

• I practiced writing daily for a minute (aka, �a while�)
• I have fun writing and that fun energy bleeds through my posts
• I commented on Blogging Tips persistently and promoted BT 
• posts regularly on Twitter

I built bonds with top bloggers to land guest posts on top blogs.

When you do this right, people will ask you to
submit guest posts. You will attract the invites.
No pitching. No pushing. No influencing. (See tip #4.)

4: Buy a Baseball Bat to Keep Successful Bloggers from Overwhelming You with Guest Post Requests

No lie; if you follow tips #1-#3 diligently you
 will need a bat to keep top bloggers away from you
. Because these folks will beg you to guest
post on their high ranking blogs.

People tend to mess up #1. Which causes them to mess up #2. And #3.

If you are blogging mainly to have fun you�ll be BEING
a successful blogger. Successful bloggers love writing.
So successful bloggers will write daily.
 Successful bloggers love making friends with other bloggers.
So these folks will promote other bloggers
and comment on their blogs daily.

Following tip #1 makes everything go.

Have fun.

Love your craft.

Out of the hundreds of guest posts I�ve written I only pitched
1 guy. Only because I felt an intuitive nudge to do so after I created
Blogging From Paradise.

Other than that, all other guest gigs popped up on my doorstep
.

Make money from your blog doing sponsored reviews

We all know that every blogger wants to make money from his blog. Bloggers are very good at doing reviews then why not make some profit from this opportunity and do reviews for money. Sponsored reviews are those reviews which are written by bloggers for money. To make money by doing sponsored reviews your blog has to receive decent traffic to be eligible for doing sponsored reviews. To get higher payment your blog should have high traffic and a loyal readership.

Some bloggers do not participate in paid reviews and product inclusion because it can be misleading if you do not state that you are being paid for your testimonial or recommendation. If you feel as though reviewing products or recommending them to your readers without disclosing that you are being paid is dishonest, then the practice is not for you.

On the other hand, if you think the products you review are worthwhile and are worthy of mentioning in your blog, what better way to make money then sharing these products with your readers.

There are a few different websites that will connect you with companies that will pay you to include their product or service in your blog. The pay ranges per assignment and you may be required to write a few sentences about a specific product or a few paragraphs, or even a whole blog entry.

Generally your blog has to receive a good deal of traffic to get accepted by these websites, and depending on how much work you do for them payment can be slight or substantial.

Payment for sponsored reviews can range from 50 dollars to 200 dollars according to your review's quality and your blog's traffic. PayPerPost pioneered the paid blogging model and soon other companies followed behind. If you want to try your hand on doing paid reviews then here are some of the most popular paid reviewing networks:

1. PayPerPost

PayPerPost is the pioneer of the paid blogging model. There is no fee or hidden charges for joining it. Payperpost is very much simple. You submit your blog for approval and when it is approved you can start reviewing products and websites in your blog for cash. Pay Per Post has a market place where you can pick which opportunities you want to write about and payment varies according to the assignment you
choose.

2. Reviewme

Reviewme is a very popular marketplace which connects advertisers with bloggers who are willing to do paid reviews. It is free to join Reviewme.

3. Sponsored Reviews

It is another famous website through which you can make money online by doing sponsored reviews. This site lets you submit your blog and then pick from a listing of review opportunities or lets companies contact you directly and request a review. Payment varies by assignment.

4. Creamaid

While this site is not solely dedicated to reviewing products, many of their opportunities are for posting your opinion in your blog for payment.

Different �conversations� are started on the site and you pick the ones that look interesting to you. Some require you to review a product or website in your blog and other require you to post comments elsewhere; of course you can always include a link to your blog which will bring it more traffic.

5. Smorty

Smorty is all about providing your opinion in your blog about an available advertiser�s campaign. You may not be reviewing a product per say, but you will be giving your opinion. Your blog has to be indexed by

Google, older than three months, and have at least two new posts per week.

Posting your opinion or review for advertisers is a good way to make cash from your blog. You should remember, however, that like affiliate marketing blatant attempts to advertise to readers does not usually work as well as naturally including a review or opinion in your blog.

I hope that this post was helpful in making money from your blog.
Happy blogging! 

Improve Blogger Title Tags For Better Search Engine Optimization

Every one wants to do better search engine optimization in order to receive more traffic. Blogger is becoming one of the most important platform for the blog writer as it posses greater value in the search.It is important that blog owner should optimize there blogger template for better and improved title tags .While most of the Blogger template have this feature Built in but old templates of blogger does not have this important feature.This optimization will for sure improve not only your traffic but there is higher chances to be ranked high in the search engine result.While most of user have already done this to improve there traffic.Optimizing title tag in Blogger template give a better idea to the crawler (Bots) the reason why your title tag will be publish better then it was previously publishing i may not guaranty that your traffic will be increase in day after change it will take time but i am sure you will get the desirable traffic according to the ability of your content.

How to improve Blogger Title Tags?

1. Go To Blogger.com >> Your site >>Template >> Edit HTML.

2. Now Press Ctrl + F and Find <title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>  in the most of the template this is around first 5 to 10 lines in the beginning of the template coding and now after you find it replace it with the following coding:

Code:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> - <data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
</b:if>

Now your all work is done now go a head and hit Save template button and you are done now all you have to do is to wait and let Google and other bots crawl your website for sure you will see a change in your traffic. Happy Blogging!

4 Things I Learned Since I Started Blogging

I have been blogging for as long as I can remember.
 I used to write on a private blog,
just as a means to get my thoughts out of my head. Later
I decided that I wanted people to read what I had to say, so
I blogged publicly,
 but I didn�t tell anyone who knew me in real life.
 Now, I have embraced my inner thoughts and insecurities,
and I share all of my writing with anyone willing to read it.
I have gone through multiple different blogs and niches,
and I have finally settled with my favorite. My blog,
My Life on a Whim, didn�t come by accident.
The name came to me one day, and it fits perfectly
. I write about so many different things, that it is literally �on a whim.�

I have read about people who make an amazing
full time income from blogging alone,
and honestly I have strived to get there one day. I still do, too.
 I would love to run my blog full-time,
while making a livable income. While I might not be there yet,
 I know that I will be one day. In the year and a half I
 have been blogging about random thoughts, recipes,
and parenting lessons I have learned,
 I have gained a steady stream of good traffic,
and I am proud of that. It has been a slow road, full of ups and downs
, but I have learned quite a bit from my first semi-successful beginner blog.

You have to share, share, share

My first mistake was thinking that as soon as I hit �publish� on my first bog post,
I would have readers instantly. That somehow,
people out there would know about my blog and
 want to read what I have written. Wrong
. The internet is a vast black hole that even the best
written material can get lost into, and getting noticed may seem impossible.
If you don�t get your name out there and share your work,
 no one is going to know it is there. I have had many
, many days (and weeks) where my traffic was at a big fat zero.
 I wasn�t sharing or promoting my blog posts, and no one was reading them.

You have to keep your readers

While it�s nice getting traffic to your blog
, it�s even nicer when they stay for a while.
Getting a click to your blog post means nothing when t
hey leave your page before reading the entire post.
 If you don�t keep your reader�s attention
, you are doing it wrong. You can�t clutter
 your page with ads and pictures,
because that is too much going on and will distract your visitors.
You have to be consistent with your posting, as well,
so that your visitors will be more likely to return.
 If they see you actively blog on a weekly basis (at least), a
nd they like what they see from you, they will want to come back and
 see what you will share next.

Get your readers engaged
This one is hard to do for most beginning bloggers,
myself included. Most people will read your blog and leave,
without saying a word and possibly never coming back
. The real value is when you get your reader to complete the blog post,
and leave a comment with their questions, concerns, or replies to your article.
The more people who are engaged,
the more people it will attract and encourage to be engaged as well.
Even better, these people have more of a possibility of returning,
especially if you reply to their comment.
This is a great way to make new blogging friends,
 too
, while growing your network.

Don�t take anything personally

As a blogger, I am putting myself out there to
 literally anyone with internet
. This is scary, because there are a lot of keyboard
warriors trolling social media.
Someone who wouldn�t say a word to you in the street,
may end up calling you the worst names you could think of, simply
 because they don�t agree with your article on the internet.
 I have learned to stay away from comment sections, sometimes,
 because people can be downright mean.
 They don�t know you, and they have no remorse when
 they make you feel
 like crawling under a rock. Luckily, I haven�t experienced anything that bad (yet),
 but I have had my share of condescending know-it-alls who
 had to put in their two cents.
 Just brush it off, and understand that most of these
 people have issues within themselves, that have nothing to do with you.
Keep doing you, don�t take anything personally, and shine your light everywhere you go.

I wouldn�t take anything back from the past year and half
, when it comes to my blog. Sure, I wish I would devote more time to it
, but life is so buys that some things
have to wait. Everything that looks like a failure in life is just a lesson in disguise
. I once started as a young girl who had no idea what I was doing, and
I can�t believe where it has taken me. All I wanted was to write
, and it turns out that some people like to read my work. We all have a story in us,
 and we all have people out there that we can relate to
. Don�t be afraid to share your story and write for the world to see
, because you never know where it will take you.

Top 10 Factors that Could Make Or Break Your Blogging Success

Do you want to become a successful blogger?

How much time are you seriously spending on
blogging to make it a success?
 Have you ever analyzed what are the factors that
 are used by top bloggers?

If you don�t give a serious thought to the following 10 factors, they
can break your blog�s success. If done right, they can bring more leads,
traffic and sales.

So make sure to invest your time and efforts on getting
 them right and you can build a profitable blog in 2017 and beyond.

#1 Keyword research

Are you doing proper keyword research before
publishing post on your blog? If not, you need to
 take serious about this and start doing keyword research.

Without keywords there is no SEO and without SEO,
you can�t expect your blog to get organic traffic.

If you don�t use right keywords for your niche blog,
 it can make or break your blog success. By targeting right keyword
s, you will get to know who are your potential
 audience in addition to getting traffic to your blog.

Only the right kind of visitors can generate leads.

Here are the tools that helps in your keyword research.

• Moz keyword explorer. It helps you with 
• bunch of information related to your niche keyword. Just enter your seed word 
• on explorer page and it will give the best keywords.
• SEMrush It displays your competitors� ranking keywords
• . It will also helps in getting all variations of long tail keywords for your niche.
• Ahrefs The one best thing in this particular tool 
• is it gives you estimate of number of backlinks that
•  your blog needs in order to be listed in the top 
• 10 results of Google search engine.
• Keyword.io It is an alternative to Google keyword planner.
• SECockpit It will give in-depth information 
• of keywords which includes organic competition and search trends

#2 Website hosting

In order to make your website go live in the Internet, you need to host a website. If you want to make money online, if you want to make your blog success, you need to host your blog.

There are several web host service providers but
you need to choose the best one. Tips and facts to remember while doing website hosting:

• Avoid free blogging hosts if you are serious
•  of making money through blogging.
• The best option for beginners is to host their wordpress
•  blog on Bluehost. More than 8,50,000 bloggers use bluehost. So, you can understand how powerful it is.

Consider these features while choosing website hosting service providers:

• Check for the customer support. 
• What are the different kind of ways they are offering the customer support like chat, email, toll-free etc.. Are they available 24/7?
• What so special about them? 
• What kind of extra incentives they provide?
• Is the user interface easy to navigate?
• Do they offer backups for your data on website?
• What is their uptime score? 
• Uptime is the amount of time that you website is up. It is measured in percentage. If the website hosting providers
•  have high uptime, it means their servers stay up and running.
• Do they offer server upgradable options?
•  This is important if you want to expand 
• your business and grow big in the next coming 2 years.
• Do they offer money back guarantee?
• Is it affordable? Price is what everyone looks for.
•  Make sure that you are getting the best features for the money paid.
•  Check with other website host providers.
• Look at their email features if you like to host email accounts with your domain name.

#3 Website design

Blog design is the new king. You need to make people
 fall in love with your blog. And you can do it by having cutting edge design for your blog apart from creating outstanding and useful content.

If you are not attracting your readers visually,
 how will they stay on your blog page and
read your content and subscribe?
If you have great content in your blog but poor design then it breaks your blog�s success. So,
blog design and content are equally important.

Every successful blogger have custom theme design. It is the blog design that makes the site visitor to decide whether to stay and read content or leave it. You need to create trust among your blog readers.

Some tips to consider while creating a compelling design.

• First impression is the best impression
• . You can create it in the minds of readers through your blog design. Your blog design should be clear, concise and easy to navigate through posts.
• Have a custom theme design for your blog
•  that is responsive and works on mobile device too
• . It enhances your blog traffic.
• Categorize your blog posts and make it clear to the audience.
• Go for premium themes if you are serious of making
•  money through blogging because in free themes
• , you have very limited features to use.

#4 Content

Once you selected a nice custom theme and made your blog design super cool, concentrate on content.

No doubt, blog design is important in making your blog success but if you don�t have great content, what is the use of having stunning design?

It is the content that makes readers to come back again, read and subscribe. You need to attract readers with blog design first but you need to make them stay and stick to your blog with amazing content. Here�s an image that tells you why long form of content always wins the race.

Here are some of the tips for creating great amazing outstanding content.

• Write lengthy content. Short content is dead. Write a blog post of at least 1000 words. More the word count, more the chances of including keywords related to your blog niche.
• Write catchy title for your blog post. Based on your blog post title only, readers decides whether to read your content or not. Your blog post title should instil curiosity in audience.
• Divide your content into three sections, one is Introduction second is the main content and the third is conclusion.
• In the Introduction part, give the overall idea of the blog post. Keep it simple and engaging. So that readers should get a feeling to read further content.
• Use heading 2 for all your headlines in the content. Use sub headings wherever possible. Long paragraphs are dead. Make it interesting with headlines and points.
• The conclusion part you write should include call-to-action(CTA). What action you want your readers to take?

#5 Networking with other bloggers

So far, you have done a great job. You hosted your website, designed your blog and created great content after keyword research. Now, it�s time to connect with other bloggers. No one can succeed alone at least in the blogging world it�s not possible.

Google your niche bloggers. If your blog niche is related to travelling, then connect with all �Travel bloggers�. This is how you will grow.

You want your content to be shared, liked right? Then do it for other bloggers of your niche. Share others content, like their stuff. Comment on their blog posts.

Blog commenting is the #1 evergreen method to connect with other bloggers. Leave thoughtful worthy comments. Sure, they too visit your blog and do the same. Doing blog commenting can give you backlinks to your blog and backlinks are very important for SEO.

Avoid commenting like �Thank you. Very useful post�. The comment you leave on other blogs must give a feeling to the blog owner that you read the article.

#6 Blog promotion

Well, you wrote a great content but if it doesn�t reach to the intended audience, what is the use anyway? Your blog success depends on how well you are marketing it.

Promote your blog on all social media platforms like facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google plus

Use 80/20 rule which means 20% content creation and 80% promotion. Don�t spend too much time in creating content instead use it for promotion. Get audience who can consume your content and share it.

Let�s say you are spending 20 hours in creating content and promotion. Divide this time like this, 4 hours for content creation and 16 hours for blog promotion.

#7 Social media metrics

When you share your original content, you get click-through rates to that content. You need ot measure your presence in social media and try to increase.

Here are some of the metrics to consider:

• To how many people your content is reached. How many followers on twitter? How many connections on linkedin? How many likes on your facebook business page? Visitors to your blog?
• Is anyone caring or responding to your content? This defines how well your content is engaged in social media. How many shares on facebook and google plus? How many comments on your blog post? How many retweets?
• What is the conversion rate? How many people are entering your lead generation funnel? Track webinar registrations, content downloads.

You can use these tools to track social media metrics

1. Integrate your website or blog with Google analytics so that it tracks all your blog site activity.
2. Build trackable links with each of your social media posts in Google analytics.
3. Setup Goal tracking in Google analytics.
4. You can use URL shortener like Bit.ly so that it is easy to traceable and also easy for sharing.especially on Twitter as there is a limit on character usage..

#8 Blog posting frequency

How many posts you should publish every month in your blog? What is its effect on your blog traffic?

If you are posting daily on your blog but it�s of low-quality content then it�s mere waste.

Always be consistent in posting content to your blog. More the blog posts, more the traffic. If you observe the successful blogs, they have more posts with high-quality content.

The famous blogger Neil Patel says that �publishing 2 to 4 posts per week is my personal strategy� and he gets huge traffic to his blog.

If you are planning to produce just one post per week, then do good amount of research and write magazine style content. Most of the magazines publish post once in every week on a particular day and they draw huge traffic to their blog.

Whether you are posting daily or once in 2 days or once in a week or twice a month, always create high quality content and stick to one strategy of posting. Your blog organic traffic depends on your blog posting frequency.

#9 Email list

An email list gives you a great ROI. Check it out. Every $1 spent on email gives you $40. That�s a great ROI!

Money is in the list. If you are not building an email list, that�s the biggest mistake you are doing. If you want to turn your visitors into customers, build your email list.

If you want your readers to subscribe to your mailing list, create compelling  and useful content. When readers join your mail list, it means they are extremely interested in your products.

You are not sure when facebook, twitter, Google plus changes their policies related to marketing campaign and blocks you. It�s not your own.

But email list is your own and it�s not changed or influenced by any other person. Emails are the most direct method of communication to be in touch with your customers.

You know at least 91% of consumers check their email on a daily basis. Choose the best email marketing service.

Here is how to grow your email list.

• Create online contests like free giveaways it could be free pdfs, free course anything that�s related to your blog niche.
• Use email subscription forms in your blog. If you are using wordpress, most of the themes comes with built in sidebar subscription widgets.
• Use your facebook business page to collect emails. Use sign up forms.
• Add Call-To-Action(CTA) button at the end of the blog post as well as a sidebar widget.

#10 Create a monetization plan

If you want to make money through blogging, monetize your blog.There are several ways to generate money through your blog but it takes time to build such a blog. It all depends on how well you can monetize your blog.

Here are the few ways you can monetize your blog

• Cost Per Mile (CPM) advertising. You will be paid based on the number of page views your blog get. There are number of CPM providers where you can get ads from them. If your blog is receiving good number of page views then it is one of the good options while monetizing your blog.
• Text based ads. You can insert these ads within your content.Let�s say if you are writing about food or sweet recipe, you can insert link to that bakery item where readers can buy that. This is something related to affiliate marketing. It�s one of the best options to monetize your blog.
• Use advertising widgets. This generates good amount of money.
• Sell some space of your blog to advertisers to show their banners
• Monetize your blog with RSS adverts.
• Write product reviews related to your blog niche. Majority of the people buy any product based on reviews. If that product has an affiliate program you will get some money.

Final Thoughts

It takes time to build a blog that makes decent money. Focus on each factor that I mentioned above. One simple mistake can break the blog�s success. Always proofread before you publish your content. Craft better headlines. Fix timings to promote your blog post and optimize your blog posts for search engin
e