9 Tips For Setting Up A New Blog

Starting a new blog with the right steps makes a concrete foundation to build a high rise blog. "Well begun is half done" says an old adage. Just give me 10 minutes and I will give you the mantras to start a rock solid blog.

Choose an SEO friendly URL

When creating a blog it is preferable to go for a URL containing words that revolve around the central idea of your blog. Separating the words with a hyphen will help it get indexed better by Google e.g. www.blog-tips-to-earn-money.com is better than www.blogtipstoearnmoney.com. This may not always be possible but try to as far as possible.

Optimize The Title
Blogger titles are not optimised for search engines. Visit this page on eblogtemplates to know how to do it.

Write 20 Posts Before You Publish Your First Post

You may be having sufficient matter of the subject you are going to write about. Make 20 posts in advance, with smart headlines and each about 3-4 paragraphs at least. Addition of illustrations in the form of pics and graphs will be an added advantage. This is not applicable to those who write their everyday events on the same day just as a diary.

Write 20 Headlines For Prospective Posts

Write down 20 prospective headlines for your posts beforehand. It is not necessary to follow the order or even elaborate on all the headlines but it will definitely make a path for you to tread in future. A very effective way to do this is to write it in Google calendar and set reminders for it according to your planned posting frequency.

Choose 20 Tags

With the help of various search engines decide on 20 tags that closely describe your site. These will be used as labels as well as in Technorati when claiming your blog( See claiming later). They will also be of much use when registering on various bookmarking and sharing sites. for e.g Stumble upon and Delicious.

Write 2 Summaries Of Your Blog

Write down two summaries of your blog, one in 250 characters and the other in 160 characters. Most popular blog search sites will provide you with 250 or 160 characters to describe your blog. This will ensure uniformity at all the places you register.

Add Google Analytics Code

Analytics is much more than just counting hits or visitors of your blog. It gives you many other facilities such as entrance keywords, geographical distribution of your readers etc.

Burn Your Feeds

Let people read your site through RSS or Atom feed readers. Feed burner is an appropriate and satisfactory site to burn your feeds.

Claim Your Blog On Technorati

By far the most important blog search and ranking engine is Technorati. Registering at technorati is indispensable. It shows your blog authority depends on how many other sites or blogs have linked to your blog.

Upcoming Posts

1. How To Burn Feeds Using Feedburner
2. Adding Google Analytics Code To Blogger
3. How To Claim Your Blog On Technorati

Evergreen Posts

1. 6 Habits of Highly Efficient Bloggers
2. 6 Animals To Follow For Better Blogging
3. Who Else Wants The 5 First Impression Fundamentals
   

Who Else Wants The 5 First Impression Fundamentals

In this busy world, where people want a baby delivered in 9 days and enjoy all four seasons on weekends, how much time do you think they will wait for your blog to load.

It has been proved by various experiments that the readers decision to stay or not to stay on the blog is accomplished in a flash. This crucial impactful time of readers decision ranges from 2-5 seconds. What are the factors that make a positive imprint on a readers mind in such a short span ? Understanding this is of utmost importance.

Lightening Fast Loading Time
Google has one straightforward philosophy - Keep the page loading time short. Among all search engines I bet Google loads fastest. No doubt people stick to it. In this busy world, where people want a baby delivered in 9 days and enjoy all four seasons on weekends, how much time do you think they will wait for your blog to load.

Clear And Courting Colour Combination
Before reading a even single line of text, what strikes the subconscious is the overall colour combination of your blog. The eyes take a snapshot and the judgment starts right there. Nalini Ambady's research paper " Half A Minute : Predicting Teacher Evaluation From Thin Slices Of Non Verbal Behaviour And Physical Attractiveness" proves this 2 second studies. In her experiment she hands over a 2 second muted video tape of various teachers and ask the students,who teaches the best. The results are remarkably similar to a group who evaluated the same teachers for a full semester.

Clean Clutter Free Interface
Over-stuffed sidebars, multiple animated flashing gif images, ads grabbing more real estate than the matter itself, too many columns and boxes like and old junkyard should be avoided at any cost. All these factors may chase the reader like an unleashed Doberman.

Powerful Pull Quotes
The above mentioned three factors affect the reader even without reading a single word from a blog. Now among the things that a visitor never skips is the pull quote. Whether its magazine, newspaper, site or a blog, the reader always goes through he pull - quotes.

Persuasive Headlines
Headlines having a question render the minds of a reader hungry to get the answer. Interrogative headlines thus make the best headlines ever. An all time great example to this is "How to win friends and influence people". Next bet bet is the list type headlines e.g. 6 Animals To Follow For Better Blogging.
I am sure you may be having some more important ideas which I may have missed out. Please feel free to write it here and let the blogosphere watch your words of wisdom.

6 Animals To Follow For Better Blogging

Though the human beings are gifted with immense power and ability, sometimes observing and assimilating the qualities of animals can be of great advantage for bloggers. One most important qualities of the human beings is to learn and adapt, so he can definitely learn from all other creations and apply it for his own benefit, be it blog or life.

The Bee
The Bee chooses the most beautiful flowers, collects nectar, digests it properly and makes honey out of it. The inference is that to write you need to study and know your subject well. As a blogger you should hop for the best source of knowledge, research thoroughly, collect gist (nectar), and make an original composition. It is bound to serve the readers will all the goodness just like honey. Won't the readers return in search of more ?


The Woodpecker
With a beak of the size of your fingernail, it pierces hard woods and makes a house to live in. The might of the largest sequoia, cedar or oak cannot come in the way of its determination. A saying goes "If you don't have the best, make the best of what you have". Does it matter if it doesn't have the abilities of the Weaver Bird to build a beautiful nest. It concentrates on its own abilities and the result is well known. What if you as a blogger don't have the resources enough, to spend on domains, hosting, email newsletter service, advertising services, dedicated office, paid writers, fancy accessories etc etc. You can still make a wonderful blog and get it running successfully too. Just utilize what is there and forget what is not there.


The Stork
For its target to be achieved, the stork stands for several hours on one leg. Dedication is a must for any blogger to succeed. Never Give Up.


The Ant
It has the ability to carry loads, several times its own weight. Another important quality is that she marks its way with pheromones, well in advance that she has to follow. Never deviates from that path till one work has been accomplished. Multiple tasks, multiple blogs, part time blogger, theres no excuse, you can do it and you should do it. Moreover choose your path, the niche carefully and stick to it. Success is on the way.


The Peacock
What happens when there is thunderstorm, black clouds, tremendous breeze and heavy rains ? The peacock dances and enjoys every moment. He knows well that this has to pass, its not permanent. Never be bothered if there are difficulties, less traffic, no clicks. Its your choice, whether you pass this period dancing or crying.


The Tortoise
This humble and slow creature has been a part of our moral lessons since the very child hood. Elaboration on "Slow And Steady Wins The Race" is not required.


Would you like to suggest some other qualities to be followed ? Please feel free to write in the comment box. Thank You !

6 Habits of Highly Efficient Bloggers

Link Thy Neighbour

Just as love increases by loving others, a smile proliferates as you pass your cute smile to others, blogs blossom by linking it to other relevant blogs. And yes, just as true love and sincere smile is the key for its perpetuation, linking follows the same rule. It requires just a click to judge the genuineness of a link. As you sow so shall you reap.

Positive Association
An eagles egg hatched in a chickens nest will dare not think of gliding on the ferocious turbulence of breeze, miles up the green grounds. Positive environment boosts productivity. Associate yourselves with active bloggers. In the era of social networking and @twitter it cannot be easier.

Concentration
The "Blog and Grow Rich" fever is prevalent in all the arteries which have shuttling RBCs in them. Survival of a blogger depends on the amount of concentration he pays on the subject and its intricacies. A magnifying glass is able to set the paper ablaze only if it is adjusted to concentrate the rays to its maximum. Greater the concentration, faster the results.

Continuing Education Program
Be a student, while you blog. Every blogger does not have a technological background. Even if a home maker wants to blog, may be about recepies, she will have to brush up with the knowledge of posts, feeds, backlinks, trackbacks, retweets, photohosting, Adsense, scripts, and many such things. A little knowledge of HTML and CSS can dramatically improve the posts and its layouts even on the free platforms like blogger.



Set Goals
Set up a realistic and practical goal for your blog in terms of finite identifiable numbers. It is fruitful to say that you will write 2 posts per week, you want 20% increase in the conversions, and 30% increase in blog traffic by the end of say April 2009. It is futile to say that you will be writing hundreds of posts and you will be getting thousands of conversions and millions of hits this week. These are unrealistic, undefined impractical goals.

Get Into Action
Write the post, revise it, give meaningful related tags and revise it again and post it. Ping the search engines with appropriate services like pingomatic. Click and preview your links to avoid dead links. Announce your post on twitter and mailing lists if you have any. Take some time off around 9-12 minutes to read related posts on others blogs and write sincere comments. Relax.
Yes it is also an action, and one of the most powerful actions. It gives you subconcious mind the energy to think for the next post.