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
   

Aromatherapy Tips For Bloggers

Aromatherapy is a form of alternative medicine that uses essential oils and other aromatic compounds from plants for the purpose of affecting a person's mood or health.

Enhance Concentration

Concentration is essential to gain in depth knowledge about your subject or niche of blogging. Loosing concentration is commonly encountered problem in most bloggers.

Basil sharpens the senses and increases concentration. Black pepper increases stamina and erases frustration.

For Travel Bloggers

Travel blogging is one of the most glamorous filed of blogging. Exotic resorts resorts and delectable dishes compel the readers to get back and see more. However the travel bloggers know the story behind the scene. The fatigue of travelling, jet lags, motion sickness, extremes of temperatures whether hot or cold can make one dizzy and nauseating.
Ginger is wonderful for nausea, hangovers and travel sickness. Indigestion is common due to experiments on various foods and Fennel comes to rescue from this symptom.

Back Pain

Improper posture and long work hours on the computer are the major culprits of moderate prolonged back pain. Bay, Cloves and Lemon will keep your spine fresh and invigourated for the next days grind.

Muscular Pain

Muscular pain accompanies back pain as well as arms, shoulder and scapulae. Peppermint, Black pepper and Rosemary will be soothing for these ailments.

Special Care For Female Bloggers

Premenstrual Syndrome

Is an episode of premenstrual syndrome affecting your blogging schedule. Irritation, depression, food cravings have tossed your attention away. Try Clary sage, for easing out painful cramps and regulating irregular periods. Geramium can be used for premenstrual depression and heavy periods.

Dysmenorrhoea
Dysmenorrhoea or painful periods can be eased with Roman camomile, Clary sage and Jasmine.

Menopause
The stage of menopause is another time for extreme psychological changes and mood swings. Bergamot, Cypress and Fennel will alleviate major symptoms.

References:
Aromatherapy On Wikipedia
National Association For Holistic Aromatherapy
Aromatherapy Point
Hamlyn Aromatherapy Solutions
Pic

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eggybird/ / CC BY 2.0

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.

How To Add Google Reader Shared Item On Blogs

Login to Google Reader Account. Find the Shared Items link and click it. See the yellow rectangle in the image below.


On the right hand side of the Shared Link pane, you will find Add a clip link.



Here you can choose the style color and number of entries to be shown. To add it to blogger the button provided will do the rest.
If you want to add it to any website then copy the code given below and use it.


Any questions ?

The Secrets Of Blog Footer Utilization

The footer of your blog can be a stepping stone for success if utilized efficiently.
Though the footer lies at the bottom, by no means it is a thing to be looked down  upon. It can propel your blog right up in the sky, like a rocket engine, which resides at the bottom and delivers all the force. 

A blog structurally consists of four parts.

1. The header
2. The body
   
3. The sidebar
4. The footer

Why Footers ?
According to a survey, even if a user skips reading a blogpost and scrolls to the bottom of a page he looks for something to be done. Keeping this report in mind the post footer ads were suggested and they worked well. So keeping some interesting and informative columns in the footer is bound to help you in one or the other way.

Footers As Sidebar Saviour
It also serves to reduce the the burden from the overly cluttered sidebar. As the footer lies horizontally, it accomodates much more efficiently.  A subtantial portion of sidebar real estate  can be saved.

Prominent Examples
Many successful bloggers have utilized this space for various purpose.

• Problogger has a mighty double storey blog footer. The upper is dedicated to categories and is divided into 5 columns. The lower row is divided into 3 columns and contains recommended Money Makers, Problogger Resources adn The About (Page) Column.
• John Chow Dot Com is yet another double storey footer blog. Upper row dedicated to categories and the lower is divided into three columns for Recent Comments, Friends Of The Community and Blogroll.
• Digital Inspiration uses a 4 column single row footer which includes About Digital Inspiration, RSS Feeds, Contact Us / Send a Tip and Get news on the go.
  

Get some excellent footer examples at 50 Excellent Blog Footer Designs from Hongkiat.