Simple actions to take before setting up a blog.

Reveal your blogging plans to few experienced blogger and ask for suggestions.

Reveal your blogging plans with few intelligent people around you and make them your initial readers.

Be definitive about your blogging goals.

Do a lot of research on deciding your blogging topic.

Understand the basic  of HTML, CSS , JS , Web mastering and SEO

Read articles related to your core writing area for a while

Write few articles offline and discuss them with people around you, ask for their opinions.

Comment on blogs related to your topic in an interrogative manner.

Skills needed by a blogger to be successful

Technical skills pertaining to HTML, CSS, graphics , SEO etc.

Experience of using internet and browsing

Ability to do good useful research

Ability to write in appealing manner – creatively

Social media management and community building skills

Planning and time management abilities

The blogging arena has few people who have become inspiration to millions of bloggers globally. These people are not just iconic but have created their own successful stories of self employment to building large web properties. Before a bloggers considers establishing a new success story , why not try to learn that how these bloggers have made this possible. It is not possible to write about every such blogger but here we have some of them . The bloggers making in this post are included without using any criteria.

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Some successful bloggers with inspiring stories

Pete Cashmore of Mashable.com

Pete Cashmore is a well known name on the web. He is the founder of Mashable.com which is extremely popular blog publishing primarily about social media and technology. Cashmore started this blog in year 2005 from his house and now the blog is operated by Mashable , Inc. a company formed by Cashmore . Pete Casmore is iconic for taking a blog to a company and showing great entrepreneurship.

The way Cashmore did this is not very easy , he had to raise money consistently to support growth of Mashable. He did it the business way.

Honkiat Lim of Hongkiat.com

Part of a very creative team but employed with non compatible boss. The situation led Hongkiat Lim consider blogging as a full time profession in 2007. Today in 2012 Hongkiat.com is one of the top 2000 websites according to Alexa rank. Hongkiat Lim is a definitive example of team blogging.

Amit Agarwal of Labnol.org

Amit Agarawal has never said that he was not satisfied with his job with an multinational company but some people think of doing it their own way and Amit has been one of those. Amit has been doing consistent research and has been producing quality articles about technology. Amit Agarwal has become an inspiration for not only blogger in India but globally. Due to all his hard work done smartly , Amit Agarwal is maintaining his Labnol.org consistently in Alexa top 2500 websites for quite some. Amit Agarwal is a good example of what an individual blogger can do with blogging.

Darren Rowse of Problogger.net

Darren Rowse is the guru/ master for many of the successful bloggers today. He is an early starter though but most significant thing about him is that he considered writing about blogging and earning enterprise scale money by blogging at a time when blogging was in its early days. Darren has been researching and writing about blogging since 2002 , however he did not start writing directly about blogging but about some local stuff about Australia till he realized the power of blogging.

Mohammad Mustafa Ahmedzai of Mybloggertricks.com

Mohammad Mustafa Ahmedzai is new to blogging if compared with other names featuring here. He must have started blogging seriously around 2008/09. He has been since them offering everything that he could have learned in his blog posts. He has maintained his blog Mybloggertricks.com constantly make in the top 10000 websites as per the Alexa list. He has been extremely popular in new bloggers who have started blogging before some time only. Mohammad Mustafa Ahmedzai is iconic because he proved that blogging can take you to fame and money even in 2012.

Every blogger is enthusiastic at the start of their blogging journey. Many of them plan blogging as a profession and dream of making big money by blogging. Very few of such bloggers do actually succeed in blogging professionally and making real big money. Some still go on and continue blogging to make their blog reach moderate success, other drop in the middle. If you are blogging part time, you can continue to take it a part time activity that can earn for you sometime but if a person is seriously planning for a blogging career, here are 17 question that should be answered.

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17 questions that bloggers need to answer before taking up blogging as a profession.

What do you know about blogging ?

Ask your self that what do you know about blogging and is it sufficient to seriously consider blogging a profession. You may talk with an experienced blogger about this.

Do you know something or have some special skill that  people will be interested in ?

A post will be appreciated by others in any way but ask yourself that do you possess some special knowledge or ability that you can share with other and they will find it useful.

What time do you plan give to blogging ?

Time is really crucial, the more time you can give to blogging and the more scope of success in less time that you have , ask your self about the time you can give to blogging.

What period can you survive before you start earning sufficient income from your blog ?

Be clear about the time you can manage your finances without earning from blogging. Full time bloggers do also need around 1 year to make a small earning from blogging.

What money do you plan to earn from blogging ?

Be clear about the money you plan to earn from a blog and a blog can earn for you. You have to be practical but still be enthusiastic.

What blogging platform are you going to use for blogging ?

Make your mind about the blogging platform you are going to use and how comfortable are you with that blogging platform.

How good are you with basic web technologies like HTML, JS, CSS etc. ?

Make sure that you know at least the basics of web technologies like HTML , JS and CSS etc.

What do you know about search engines and SEO ?

You need visitors to earn from a blog, search engines can do this for you . Make sure you have studied the very basics of search engine optimization.

What is going to be the key source of visitors for your blog ?

Search engines do not give you instant traffic/visitors. Plan for some other source to get initial exposure.

How will you socialize your self ?

Bit odd but a blogger spends time blogging and in some cases isolate from others. Make sure that you manage time to socialize your self.

What extent of hard work you are ready to do ?

Blogging has high competition nowadays , doing research and composing quality posts is smart work that is hard.

What amount of patience you have ?

Do you have belief in yourself and patience that you need till you reach your goals.

Are you aware of top social media websites and can you use them properly ?

Do you know which are the  top social media websites these days and can you use them efficiently.

Have you been blogging for a while ?

A blogger does not get in action instantly , it is recommended that you pursue blogging activity for over a period of 6 months to 1 year before you take it as a profession.

Are you going to be blogging alone ?

Having few co blogger gives you a chance of doing better together that just taking all the responsibility.

What amount can you invest initially in your blogging efforts ?

Spending some money in good stuff that can really help you is good, it is not very compulsory though . Even if you have money you should make sure you spend that in something worth value.

What is your strategy to convert a blog in a business ?

Once you are clear with everything mentioned above. One thing that you can not lack at any cost that is a well thought strategy and a plan based on it. The plan has to orient around  getting your blog to success.

Remember the day of using a PC about a decade ago, Except few Mac enthusiast ,Windows was the only name which could appear before us when we thought of operating system. Now in 2012 , we have many names added to the operating system idea and also the devices they are used with are also diverse. The global software giant Microsoft has been struggling for creating a product to serve the modern needs of consumers and now the most anticipated Microsoft product, the Windows 8 is made generally available. Here is quick information about Windows 8.

Information about image source and license , used with permission from Microsoft.

Important information about Windows 8

About Windows 8

Windows 8 is the latest operating system aimed to be used with various devices like PCs, Laptops, Mobile Phones etc. Windows 8 is made to be used efficiently with touch screen devices.

How Windows 8 is different from earlier operating system

Windows 8 is a modern operating system made to be used on latest devices. Microsoft has added support for Intel, AMD x64-86 and for ARM infrastructure based devices to make sure that the operating system can be used with ARM powered mobile devices. Windows 8 features all new UI ( User Interface ) that shows tiles dynamically to access various applications. Just like earlier releases Windows 8 offers better user experience and speed. Windows 8 is made to be used with touch screen devices and hence has added support for such devices.

Windows 8 versions available

Windows 8 is available in three different versions for computers.

1. Windows 8 , a version for general use and without media center.

2. Window 8 Pro , a version for professional use and with media center.

3. Windows RT , Windows 8 for ARM infrastructure and will come pre installed.

Which devices can run Windows – configuration required

Windows 8 will come pre installed on mobile phone devices but for computers, the minimum configuration is that You need a 1GHz or faster CPU which supports PAE or PAE-NX Physical Address Extension for new security features in the Windows 8. 1GB of RAM (or 2GB for 64-bit systems), 20GB of hard drive space and a DirectX 9 graphics card with WDDM driver.

Windows 8 price

Various versions of Windows 8 were introduced to be tried by privileged users but Windows 8 is generally available from 26 October 2012. Users can now upgrade their Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 PCs with Windows 8 for just $ 39.99 as introductory offer. The operating system is also shipped to you for a higher price of $ 69.99.

Microsoft expects from windows 8

Microsoft is aiming to create strong competition in the tablet and mobile device market by launching Windows 8 and Windows 8 powered devices. The operating system will try to fill the gap between PC and mobile device operating standards and offer more compatibility as well as synchronization options between two different kinds of Windows 8 powered devices.

Get your Windows 8 here

This post is a part of the “Better Blogging 2013 Series”.

The fundamentals of blogging have varied since it was started. Every aspect pertaining to blogging has shown significant change. Number of active bloggers has increased over-ruling its proportion with number of internet users. The use of blogs, its reach, goals and the quality of content has also changed. Blogger doing all the SEO optimization and the search engines trying to improve themselves to show most relevant and high quality content, battle is still on. In all this scenario, one aspect has continuously gained more attention and that is the monetization capabilities of a blog. Few bloggers who tried to make blogging a full time career few years ago are earning big money now. These blogger have been iconic and have people following their path. However I just believe that many bloggers who start aiming at blogging as a full time career drop somewhere in the middle and this is the reason that there is still huge potential in the professional bloggers arena. To reach there is difficult and full time blogging has its pros and cons. I am sharing some of them with readers. I just want that this post should help people in deciding whether to consider blogging as a profession or not.

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Pros and cons of blogging as a full time profession.

The cons of professional blogging

1. High competition

Blogging in 2012 has got high competition.A person is starting in 2012 must be ready for high competition. It takes time for one to reach top and that time depend primarily on the competition.

2. Speedy changes

Blogging basic change regularly. New trend do come in everything, writing, design , topics, social media optimization, search engine optimization etc. Many bloggers are unable to keep up to date with latest tweaks and tricks, whereas professional bloggers have to stay up to date with them.

3. Technical skills

A professional blogger must possess advance technical skills and this is not possible for every blogger.

4. Regional limits

A blog is initially expected to receive regional traffic and blogger from smaller nations that have less population or internet users find it extremely difficult to take their blogs to international audience.

5. Lengthy process and long waiting for income generation

Taking a blog to success is a lengthy process and it can be frustrating as well as difficult to manage for many bloggers.

6. Difficult research

Doing research about new and fresh topics is not easy. Millions of bloggers are writing about things here and to find fresh new topic by doing quality research is a real challenge.

7. Quality and usefulness of content.

Blogging is not about writing anything. Every topic can have its freshness and usefulness. Something that is widely searched by readers will be welcomed. Producing quality content about popular topics is again very challenging because experienced bloggers must have already written sufficient about it.

8. Photo and video blogs

Photos and videos speak more that words , a person may like to watch a video than to read about something. Faster internet allows this with ease. Us of photos and videos to communicate has also become a challenge for bloggers in recent times.

9. Search engines hard to command

This is a fact that a blogger can not build traffic to their blogs on their own , bloggers need search engines to send quality traffic to their blogs. Commanding search engines to send regular traffic is not easy.

10. Possible saturation point

Might not be very true but some people believe that blogging has reached its saturation point.

The pros of professional blogging

1. International reach

No other medium can offer you a way to reach people internationally. Blogging is the best way to promote something on international arena.

2. Respected activity

A blogger is respected by people who are aware about them and I believe that blogging is a respected activity.

3. Fame to some extent

A blogger is not a general celebrity but has got good fame. Some very successful bloggers are known internationally.

4. Only smart work

Blogging requires very less physical hard work. Even a professional blogger does not require to go places, in some cases a blogger may have to travel e.g. a travel blogger but that too will be at convenience. A blogger can focus totally an producing quality content than just spending time in travelling or in traffic. So the core functions of a blogger is just smart work.

5. Symbol of intelligence

Blogging as an activity itself , represent the intelligence of a person.

6. Improved technical knowledge

People who blog regularly are more likely to learn new technologies even though they are not writing about technology.

7. Community building

Operating a blog helps a person build community of readers or for a cause. Though social media is on its peak but blogging is also an oldest form of social media that is still very effective. Blogging is an unavoidable part of the overall strategy to use social media and web to promote any concept.

8. Very less investment and operational cost

Considering its utility a blog requires very less money to be set up and operated.

9. Flexible working hours and styles

Nothing is as good as having no undue pressure. Generally professional responsibilities come with undue pressure by others , in case of blogging as a career , you have your own working hours and style.

10. Asset building

Many blogger do not even know that when they are blogging regularly, their asset in form of their domain name is increasing every time. The extent to which such domain names may be purchased by others depends on many aspects but every old and know domain name has got good value.

This post is a part of the “Better Blogging 2013 Series”.

What is a blog ? this question used to appear in mind frequently before I thought of doing further research that has taken me here. My first piece of work toward doing the research about blogging was way back in 2005, however I did not start blogging till I could find some time out to do the same in 2012. I could have found many amazing things that blog as a medium can offer and also to admit the fact that right starting from 2005 till the day in 2012 when I actually started blogging I could always realize the power that blogging has. I could always think of many ways to use this medium and few such ideas are being applied by me while I have been actually blogging for some time now. In 2012 , I find blogging a very powerful tool to achieve various goals. Some of them are listed below.

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The best uses of a blog as a medium

Most easy way to exist on web

Even if you are not a celebrity, still you may desire to exist on the web. A blog is the most easiest way to have your own identity on world wide web.

Great way to reach the world

A blog is an incomparable way to reach the world with your thoughts. It does not require extreme technical skills or highly priced technology to set up a blog and start giving strength to your ideas.

Excellent way to learn and share your knowledge

Blogging needs you to do a lot of research to compose better posts. The better a blogger can do the research , better the post will be. While doing all this exercise , blogger end up having increased their knowledge and ability share that with others.

High potential manner of promoting something without spending much

Blogging is the most reliable and efficient way to promote any commercial or even a non commercial idea, product or anything on the web. Maintaining a blog requires very less money if compared to other expensive promotional methods. This is the reason for nearly all entities on the web having a blog.

Great way to do socialization and build networks

Unbelievably good way to do socialization and build personal, business networks.

Flexible way to earn for any need, from weekend parties to few thousand dollars a month.

Blogging is a high potential earning activity. Though every blogger does not earn money or does not intend to earn money by blogging but if taken either ways blogging has potential to earn the kind of money that many other activities may not earn for you.

This post is a part of the “ Better Blogging 2013 Series “.

The number of people engaged in blogging activity has grown in 2013. It really feels good to hear that a community that you belong to is growing in number but at the same time I can also feel the difference and higher competition that new bloggers have to face . Blogging basics have really changed a lot in 2012 and will lead to many important changes that bloggers will have to accommodate with . This post is the first post in “ Better Blogging 2013 Series “ and is the best way to start with because understanding future makes you prepare for it.

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Blogging in 2012

Year 2012 has been all about social media. The social media revolution that started in 2007-08 felt to have reached its saturation point. Blogging if understood to be the father of social media seemed to have lost its ground to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter which gave opportunity for people to reach larger audience in quick time. However due it the strength of its core idea and dedicated supporters , blogging has still maintained its prestige. Bloggers who could use social media efficient have really worked blogging and social media together to receive the kind of fan following. Blogging in 2012 and in 2013 is not just scripting some word but has become more of a rewarding skill. 

Blogging scenario and challenges in 2013

Blogging has become a classy act in recent time. The success in blogging will only be restricted to bloggers who get to know about few important fundamentals, here are few of them.

Your blogging goal, topic and plan.

Bloggers must know their blogging goal. If they want to make money , become popular, raise awareness about something or many things together. Understanding of blogging goal followed by creation of a plan will only result in success.

Selection of a popular topic will offer more prospect for growth of a blog in evry aspect.

Quality and usefulness of content

Quality of content has been and will continue to be the key. Content which is good on few aspects like usability , readability , ease of understanding and way of presentation will be favored by readers. A blogger should never forget this.

Scale of content

Unlike the early days of blogging, 2013 has high competition between number of bloggers writing on similar topics. Not only the quality but also the scale is important. Posting occasionally will never take to anywhere closer to success. 

Ability to build a community

Your ability is all about building a community of dedicated readers who follow your posts carefully and find them useful. These readers will play a vital role in building readership and promoting traffic to your blog.

Use of social media

How important is this ? truly very important. If you can not use social media properly in 2013 , just forget about blogging successfully. Bloggers will have to make them better and better with use of social media websites.

The search engine behavior

Earning money from advertisement is the primary earning option for bloggers and making money to any possible extent is just about how a blogger can receive traffic from search engines. New SEO ideas have emerged in 2012 , most popular Google PageRank which made bloggers do everything for last few  years is being taken over by Google Panda slowly. Search engines are becoming smarter and so the bloggers will have to. Bloggers who wrote only for search engines will lose a lot in 2013 and bloggers who work hard to create quality content which is oriented around some concept and server some needs for readers , will win the battle.

AdSense the best and most used revenue generation program for small to large publishers. Whatever the scale of your web  property but AdSense can let you earn to the maximum of your potential. Very few other services can offer you the possibility to make money by blogging or operating a website, the way AdSense can give you. However AdSense and subsequently Google the company behind AdSense is famous for its strict policies that govern AdSense program. Many people complain that they either find it difficult for getting approved by Google AdSense team or their account is suspended for violating Google terms and they are not informed about the correct reason.

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I personally believe that AdSense is the only large ad network that even considers small and new publishers to participate and earn from their program. Many ad networks that have advertisers any where close to the volume of AdSense have very strict participation norms and only approve large publishers with huge traffic.

It is also true that Google AdSense has strict policies that govern the program but one should understand that being a large enterprise , Google will always want to ensure quality service to their clients and again I think that AdSense norms are genuinely true to be compliant with. This article offers easy tips that will help you get approved by AdSense.

Tips to get approved by Google AdSense and start earning.

Read AdSense program policies carefully.

This is by far the most important step I consider for getting approved by AdSense. You have to be very clear with Google AdSense program policies.

Google AdSense program policies

Maintain a user friendly design of your website or blog.

Make sure that your website or blog has a professional looking and user friendly website design. You can use a free or premium template designed by a professional.

Select primary topic of your blog carefully .

Do not believe that you will write anything and Google will approve you. You must select a proper primary topic that is targeted for general audience. Google will never approve pornographic websites.

Write in a language supported by AdSense program.

Make sure that the primary language in which most of your website content is written is supported by AdSense program.

Write consistently for a period.

You have to write consistently for over a period before applying for AdSense. Understand that AdSense is not for a very new website. Even if AdSense approves you it will be of no use as you will not earn anything without traffic/visitors.

Build some readership, have comments and be interactive.

You have to build some readership and that should reflect in your blog before you apply for AdSense.

Promote your website on social media.

Social media plays very important role nowadays. You should promote your website on social media a bit before applying for AdSense.

Do not use black hat SEO practises at all.

New bloggers and webmasters are more likely to use black hat SEO practises. Google will never allow such practises and will never approve a website or blog for AdSense if it is involved in such practises.

Ask an experienced blogger to review your blog or website before applying.

You can ask an experienced blogger to review your blog or website before submitting for AdSense approval.

Reapply very carefully.

Many new bloggers try and submit their blogs to early and with some lapses which in return are not approved by AdSense team. While reapplying make sure that you have completely eliminated the issue specified by AdSense for disapproval earlier.

In few last words of this post I just need to express something very important and that is , AdSense does not need you to do something impossible to get approved, you just have to do some simple things for some time and you can get approved. You should not try doing something silly in anticipation of getting AdSense approved. There is no secret formula or method of getting approved by AdSense.

Facebook has 1 billion users , this news is not new for us. I had earlier published an article on the Facebook billion achievement that can be found using link below.

How can Facebook have a billion users - the real story.

However we will not be discussing about this here. I just mean to say that Facebook has users higher that any other social media website. People finding and using multiple ways to promote a blog can really optimize this single way to reach any possible number of readers that they can engage with their blog posts. This will not be easy though. Many authors us blogger communities to fetch attention of bloggers, this has been productive but understand one thing that this will have very limited scope if compared to Facebook. I personally have seen many bloggers switching to Facebook to promote their blogs and their Alexa rank improving by large difference.

This article explains a simple step by step guide for using Facebook to promote your blog.

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Step by step guide for promoting a blog on Facebook

Step 1 . Preparation for promoting blog on Facebook

Facebook can be used to reach people in number of way. Many of these ways are not decent but here we will use the most proper way. To promote anything on Facebook one must have a Facebook Page. You can create a Facebook page under a proper category and maintain it in a proper way by filling all required detail including your website URL. You should use a good cover for your page. It would be really helpful if the cover can have your photo at least for initial promotion.

Step 2. Building awareness about your Facebook page

Once you have a Facebook page for your blog, proceed to this step. Here we will create some awareness about the page. This can be done by inviting friends to like the page with an appeal to invite others to do the same. You should also find other co bloggers and people who would find your content interesting and make them aware about your blog and its idea.

Step 3. Finding related content on Facebook

You must be familiar with searching a person on Facebook but it is great to know that Facebook also allows you to search content, links etc. You can use the Facebook search feature to find very recent article about a topic you are writing and offer comment or like. Just understand that the more comment and likes you will offer , the more scope is created for people finding your page and blog. Just understand that a link posted by popular is visible to hundreds of people at once, a quality comment on the link can really fetch attention of many people at once.

Step 4. Liking and commenting as the page

This step is very important, every time you like something or comment on something related to your blog topic make sure that you are using Facebook as the page of your blog.

Step 5. Being interactive as the page.

Liking, commenting can not be done using a measurement of activity and results. Building your community and readership is important and to achieve this , you have to be interactive. Do reply to comments and be interactive.

Blogging is in its best of the times in year 2012. I have personally observed great increase in people who have started blogging these year. Many of these bloggers believe that a blog can make them popular and can also make good money for them . They are certainly very true but a simple change in the application of this is that they can use blogging and a blog to build popularity, money etc. but subject to their understanding of blogging. They can not just write anything and achieve this. Whatsoever be the goal for blogging, a blogger needs visitors to make it useful. This article shares 10 most effective topics that can let you start considering of a successful blog that earns money. Choosing any of the topics below does not guarantee any success but guarantees that your are writing something that is in demand.

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Top 10 blogging topics starting from 10.

10. Health

Understand how important is this? , if you do not you can ask yourself. Health and fitness are widely searched and read blogging topic.

9. Automobile

A long time favoured topic of millions across the globe is also popular on web. Latest autos , technologies behind them, maintenance and best deals. This everything is  popular. Apart from its popularity this topic can earn you extremely high income.

8. Education

The percentage of people who are still educating and using internet is high. Such users can also be regular users. This is also a worth value topic.

7. Entertainment and movies

Movies and entertainment is a never separated aspect of our lives. Very few people would want to stay away from this to any extent. Again if anyone is writing about specifically the entertainment from there geographical area, they have the edge.

6. Celebrities

Celebrities and popularity are never different. Writing about celebrities is just carrying on their popularity to make yourself popular. Just mind that what s being written.

5. Fashion

Very few people would believe but fashion is an extremely searched topic for blogs. If you consider that you can write about it, do it without wasting time.

4. Blogging Tips

Blogging tips is a master key to a successful blog. Bloggers are the most active livings associated to web and a blog that offers blogging tips is always fetching more traffic. A blogging tips blog would need a blogger to do the research and thus makes them better bloggers.

3. Mobile phones, gadgets and applications

Just imagine the number of smartphone users around you. Though many people use smartphones nowadays but every smartphone user is not smart enough to make their smartphones do more for them. Internet is the ultimate place for them to find every possible info. Writing about latest mobile phones, their features and other gadgets , application can help a blogger fetch visitors and money.

2. Social media

Facebook, Twitter , Google plus, Interest  are some of the very popular keywords on the web. People like to read everything about them. A blogger dedicated for these topics is sure going to at profit.

1. Internet and technology

Internet and technology is the most popular topic on web. Internet , computer, latest technologies, software, operating system are never dying words that run on popularity every time.

These all have been few very popular topics but a blogger must understand that being successful does not mean only writing about these topics but requires many other skills. One more important thing to understand is that the more a topic will be popular , the more competition it will have.

The first week of October 2012 was very good for Facebook. Facebook claims that they have reached the most awaited landmark of having a billion users a month. One billion users is a big achievement but I could just realized that this big achievement and subsequent announcement did not make it that loud , what it should have. The reason for this is that many people on the web believe that Facebook has many fake profiles that help them reach this number. Though it is arguable issue but a less known tech blog has published a information graphic post on how Facebook has achieved this number. Here are few points from that analysis.

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How Facebook has reached 1 billion users.

Fake accounts created using bots

The infographic claims that Facebook has used bots ( automated programs) to create 167,785,962 account. The source of information is unknown.

Accounts created by WInklevoss twins

The infographic claims that Facebook has 7620 accounts created by Winklevoss brothers. Winklevoss brothers once sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for copying their idea of CoonctU to create Facebook. It is believed that Mark Zuckerberg restricts them from using Facebook.

Accounts created for pets by their owners

The inforgraphic also clams that many Facebook users have created profiles of their pets and pets are not the real users but included in the number.

Stalking on Facebook

The infographic claims that Facebook is widely used for stalking by creating fake accounts.

Fake accounts created for variety of reasons.

The infographic claims that many fake accounts are created on Facebook for various reasons. Some of them are by kids to mislead parents, by employees to mislead boss, by married people to mislead their spouse, fake account to use Facebook without giving real information and many other reasons.

Infographic available at

People believe that blogging has changed, the practises that bloggers follow have also changed and the way bloggers have been operating their blogs for years have lost their value, this is social media era and Facebook likes , Twitter follower mean a lot. Despite all these prevailing ideas I just know that there are some things that can not be replaced and comments on a blog is one of those. Nowadays content and competition has increased and blogger are trying to generate more content. Though this is very important for the success of your blog but the value of comments on a blog post can not be completely ignored. Here are few reasons that a blog post should have more comments.


Image source and license.

Before you proceed , you may also like to find out my article on why you should comment on other bloggers posts,

Importance of blog commenting and its benefits.

Important reasons for your blog to have more comments.

Comments make a post impressive.

There are millions of blogs that exist on the web. Very few of those have quality content and receive comments. When a new visitor reaches your blog post and finds out that the post has few comments, the first thing that you can do to impress the visitor is achieved. Comments create better impression.

Comments reflect popularity.

Comment also reflect the popularity of a blog or the blogger. Visitors use comments as a measure to find out the popularity of the blog.

Comment are also indexed.

A blogger should mind that the comments are also indexed by search engines. Apart from creation of additional content comments do enhance the value of the blog post for the search engines.

Comment keep high value for search engines.

It is observed that comments do keep a good value for the search engine ranking performance. Search engines and even readers do realize that humans visit a blog on finding comments.

Comment work like a mirror for a blogger.

Quality comments work like a mirror for a blogger. These comments can help a blogger find out that how readers like posts, what do readers like to read. It helps a blogger to build good relation ship and reputation in the blogosphere.  Comments by experienced blogger help bloggers to improve.

The expression “ Whats there in a name ?” might be famous due to the man behind it but does not apply every time. When it comes to composing a blog post the name plays vital role. A proper title is necessary for a good blog post. This article has 6 tips for creating better title for your blog posts.

Image source and license : Some rights reserved by Paul Stainthorp

6 tips for creating better title for a blog post.

Use one or two high value keyword

Before composing the title for a blog post a blogger must find one or two high value keywords to be used in the title. High value keywords mean the keywords that are highly searched and have better value. This will help you to get more organic traffic from search engines and again will make your advertisement earn more for you.

Even if someone is not interested in organic traffic but still this step is advised because a highly searched keyword means that more and more people know and use that word generally. This makes the post more acceptable for readers.

These posts can help you more about this :

Tips for doing keyword research before composing blog posts

Blog ideas -Ways to find blogging topics to create interesting blog posts.

Try the appeal of the title with your self

The title is the first thing that will encounter with the readers and it has to be appealing. An appealing title will be able to fetch more readers. Bloggers must ask them selves that do they find the title appealing ? and if they do not they have to make it appealing.

Use easy to understand words

Bloggers should never try to fancy the title of their blog post. The title of a blog post should be simple to understand and consist easy words that are known to readers. If the topic requires inclusion of less known words or nouns, they can be included in the post content and then be explained.

Be sure that the title reflects the actual topic  of your posts

A blogger should make sure that the title reflects actual topic and the content of the blog post. Intentionally or unintentionally using irrelevant title will serve a negative impact for the reader.

Do not use symbols and marks that are not understood by search engines

Bloggers are advised not to use symbols and marks that are not understood by the search engines. These characters are known as “Bad Characters” in HTML. Though one can not know evry such characters but it simply means that avoid using .,?./ and other such characters in the title.

Limit to 75 characters

This is the last and the most simple tip of this post. Just make sure that the title of your post does not exceeds 75 characters. It is recommended because many crawlers are believed that they do not index more that 75 characters of a title.

Visitors from search engines is what a blogger should target if the key goal is to monetize a blog. Search engine optimization(SEO) or search engine marketing(SEM) is a broad concept and requires deep study as well as experience. It is very understood that every blogger can not be an SEO or SEM expert but there are few simple way to make sure that search engines do not turn back to you and you receive organic traffic ( Visitors or traffic for which you have not paid ). This article is going to explain a bit about it.

Image source and license : Some rights reserved by Danard Vincente

Simple everyday tips for making your blog better for search engines.

1. Make sure that you write about something that is searched on the web.

2. Make sure that you use the best possible keywords in the post title.

3. Use H1 to H6 headings in the post and use relevant keyword is the heading.

4. Start the post title, headings and paragraphs with a good relevant keyword

5. Try and use better keywords that are relevant in the post.

for tips above find more information in this post.

Tips for doing keyword research before composing blog posts

5. Use blog post composing tools like Windows Live Write etc. to compose blog posts.

6. Use nofollow attribute to links in your posts.

<a href="http://www.ksnworld.com" rel="nofollow">KsnWorld</a>

7. Insert links to your own posts on your blog at appropriate places in your blogs and do not use nofollow attribute for them

8. Be interactive and offer/receive comments on your blog posts. Just understand that comments do keep good value for search engines.

9. Avoid using characters that are not understood by search engines in you post title and headings. Such character are the characters that can not be a part of an URL.e.g ?, / etc.

10. Use the Author attribute in the post to tell Google that your are the author of this blog or this post ,  Read more about this here.

11. Post regularly, if possible at least a single post every day.

12. Do not use more that 4 to 5 labels in your posts.

13. Do never pour invisible/hidden keywords in your posts.

14. Try and maintain your post to around 500 to 100 characters.

15 Do not place more Google AdSense ads in the upper part of your blog.

16. If possible , write something significant about your post in blockquote, read more about blockquote.

17. Use a search description in the blogging platform where this option is available, Wordpress, Blogger and other leading blogging platforms have this feature, however in blogger you will have to enable this by using search settings , read more here about blogger search settings.

18. Use anchor text to relate to the links to your other post from the same or different blog. Anchor text is the text that contains a link to some other webpage. Just understand that you have written a post about a love poem and in some other post you get a chance to insert link about a love poem , insert hyperlink to the words love poem and link it to your love poem post. This will make it easy for search engines to understand that the linked page is about love poem.

<a href="url to your love poem post">Love Poem</a>

19. Create a good permalink, permalink is usually automatically generated if not specified by you. Use least possible and most relevant words to create a permalink.

http://www.yourblog.com/2012/10/love-poem.html

21. Do not embed videos in your post unless it is extremely required . Embedded videos will increase the page size and will require your readers to have updated plugins like Java and Flash. f your users will not have these their browsers will show errors.

22. Check every post after it is lie by using this GtMetrix.

23. Use the clear all break before and after an image in your post.

<br clear="all" />

24. Use Facebook meta content OG type article in your blog or individual posts.

<meta content='article' property='og:type'/> 

25. Use a number in your post title where ever possible, the way it is used in the title of this post.

People who have been using internet from or before the year of 2005 do understand the way web has become dynamic. After 2007 the web has seen a big change with web 2.0 social media websites being introduced to the web by young internet entrepreneurs and those site being used and likes by millions of people across the globe.  Facebook, Twitter , LinkedIn, MySpace, Google Plus and the latest one Pinterest all such websites have grand user base. Blogging as an hobby, activity or profession has also grown timely. A big difference that social media has made to bloggers is that now they do not need to rely only on communities and search engines for visitors but can reach every part of the world with social media. Just posting links of latest posts to social media will not help but understanding various social media websites and the way they can help a blogger is important. This article explains the ways a blogger can use social media to promote a blog.

Tips for bloggers to use social media websites properly.

Every social media websites is different and can be used in a different way. The tips are offered for individual websites and only for top websites that can really help you.

Before we move ahead to our primary topic I need to tell you that you must shorten URLs using URL shortening service and then post to social media websites. Such services also display a report of clicks received and other metrics. Some notable URL shortening services are mentioned below.

bitly.com (bit.ly)

ow.ly

goo.gl

Many online services offer scheduling and posting to social media websites. Here are few notable services. You can use these services to save time.

Hootsuite

Postcron

Facebook

We all know that Facebook is the largest social media site on the web. We can understand that how large attention this website can offer to a blog. Facebook is a social media website for personal connections and less commercial connection . So the watch is on but still it can be useful.

1. Create a Facebook page for your blog and fill every possible information and also use a good cover photo.

2.  Find out people who are interested in the topic you write about by searching followers for similar blogs.

3. Join groups that have similar interest that you write about.

4. Search for public posts that you write about and comment on them , use your shortened links in the comments.

5. Try uploading photos and then writing about a post and offering a link to the post in the description.

6. Tag your popular friends in the photo. Try and make friendship with people with similar interest.( This is not very sophisticated way, still can give you big traffic).

7. Do use a secondary Facebook account to do all this stuff.

8. If your budget allows you , using Facebook ads can also be useful and extremely targetable.

Twitter

Twitter is the second largest social media website and a great utility.

1. Have a separate Twitter account for yourself and your blog.

2. Post your post links to both the account if possible.

3. Post a short message in your tweet.

4. Use relevant topics preceded by # in the tweet , e.g #bloggingtips

5. Use via @yourtwitterid n the tweets , e.g via @ksnworldblog

6. search for topics and find people with similar interest and follow them.

Google Plus

Google plus is also a large social media website some of its feature may affect your Google search performance.

1. Create a Google Plus page for your blog.

2. Import and invite contacts from your Gmail account ( if available)

3. Search for people and pages with common interest.

4.Use relevant topics preceded by # in the post. e.g #bloggoingtips.

5. Search trending topics that are relevant to your blog and find people with common interest.

6. Try uploading photos and then writing about a post and offering a link to the post in the description.

7. Do use a secondary Facebook account to do all this stuff.

Pinterest

Pinterest is the fastest growing social media website.

1. Create a Pinterest account for your self.

2. Use Pinterest bookmark let to post link to Pinterest along with the photo.

3. Organise post on Pinterest by creating topic wise boards.

4. Search for people and boards with similar interest, then follow them.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn a large professional social media and professional connection website. Advanced bloggers can use this website to find out people with common interest and create a professional network.

1. Create your own profile and display blogging as your primary or secondary activity ( as applicable).

2. If your blog has reached a good reputation. Create a company page for your blog.

3. Post links to Linked In and mark send to individual ticked.

I recommend that a blogger should use Klout to analyse their social influence.

Blogger and Wordpress are world two largest blogging platforms. Both these platforms are extremely good. I started blogging bit late if compared to few very known bloggers but in my early days of blogging I always asked this question to myself that why more of the reputed bloggers are using Wordpress despite the continence of blogger and less technical complications ? I never got this answer in my early days but just thought that Wordpress has got more widgets and blogger like this , however this was not the fact and the real reason was that Wordpress was more customizable and was more search engine friendly. Professional blogger seek more traffic form search engines and this require them to optimize their blogs for search engines. In March 2012 Blogger introduced new setting for making your blog more search engine friendly. Though this did not make Blogger equal the customizability of Wordpress but really gave blogger something very much needed. These setting can really affect the way a blog will perform in search engine ranking. This article explains the way these setting can be used efficiently.

Ways to use Blogger search setting properly.

Blogger search setting can be accessed  from Blogger dashboard by clicking on Settings and then Search Preferences.

Description under Meta tags

Well meta tags have their history but now do not play any significant role. However the description under the meta tag can play very important role. This description is used by search engines to understand the very basic idea of your blog. You should have a very properly formatted description here.

Errors and redirections menu

Custom Page Not Found

This option lets you set a custom page for all victors who visit a page which has your domain name but the link does not exists on you blog. This is known as HTTP 404 error in technical terms. This is not very important but advised that you should have one which has link to your home page and other important pages and these visitors are routed to your blog.

Custom Redirects

This option allows you to redirect visitors to some different URL within your blog. You may use this option for various purposes but not very important.

Crawlers and indexing

These settings are extremely useful and important because they define the way your blog is being indexed and understood by search engines.

Custom robots.txt

Your blog has a robots.txt file that gives direction to the search engines as to how they can crawl and index your blog. You can set various rules here only if you need to do so. There are many rules that give direction to search engines and they can not be explained in this article but you can just understand that use this only if you require.By default the file has got something like this.

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow: 

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Allow: /

Sitemap: http://www.ksnworld.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=UPDATED

Here “Disallow: /search” tells search engines not to crawl and index any page that s generated from a search.

The site map tells crawlers to use a sitemap fro given URL.

Custom robots header tags

You can set your custom robots header tags to the values as shown in the image below and then click save.

This will edit the robot tags in the header of a webpage and will direct search engines not to crawl and index archive page along with the search pages. The search and archive pages do not have their own content and fetch content from other pages of your blog. Indexing of these pages may lead to duplicate content being indexed from the same blog and the blog may be penalised by search engines.

Blogging is not just writing but also a journey of taking your blog to success with more followers and popularity. This process has got  a lot of self teaching and learning. The key factor is that this process involves a lot of technical learning. Every blogger is not very comfortable with technology and many times bloggers are amazed to see that a blog which is similar to their blog and has got similar or less quality of content published but still being more popular and then they have to think that  how this is possible and the source of traffic/visitors to that blog. It is not very difficult to understand the traffic source to a blog or a website. This article is going to explain you ways to find out traffic sources to a blog or website. By doing this you can easily understand the sources that can offer traffic to your blog and every new visitor to your blog will make your blog more successful.

Image source and license : Some rights reserved by andrusdevelopment

Tips for finding out sources of traffic to a blog or website.

Alexa rank and search analytic

Alexa is a largest internet based service to find out the reputation of a website. The first way to find the popularity and traffic source of a website is to check its Alexa standing. One can visit alexa.com and enter the name of website to find out various details that include Alexa search analytic. The search analytic tells you about the top queries that fetch traffic to that website from search engines. If a website has got less or no search queries , you can conclude that the key traffic source for that website is not search engines.

Alexa clickstream

This is by far the best way to find the source of traffic to a website. When a person uses Alexa to research about the web presence of a website, various aspects are researched and a report is displayed. This report includes Alexa Clickstream analysis that tell you about the websites that a person has visited before or after visiting a particular website. Though this does not tell you about the actual source but it s very easy to understand that what can be the source of traffic for a website.

Google PageRank and indexed pages

Checking Google PageRank and indexed pages is also a way to know that if a website is receiving bulk traffic from search engine or not if a website has higher PageRank and has got more indexed pages, you can simply conclude that the website is receiving more traffic from search engines. There are number of PageRank checker tools that can be easily searched by Googling ( Searching on Google) . Users can also check the number of indexed pages of a website on Google by searching the domain name preceded by link: ( Example : search “Link:www.ksnworld.com” ) to search number of indexed pages for this blog.