Do you know that hundreds of new blogs are launched each week, without any goals. It might be just purely popularity that people started blogs. The birth of blogs started in 1996 where people mainly used it for online diaries. I don’t think there is anything wrong with talking about your personal life and sharing your daily life stories with friends and family. As this dynamic medium evolved in the 21st century it has become a mechanism for people to share all kinds of news such as sports, business, celebrity, etc. So the real question today is: Why do you want to start blogging? Do you want to start it as a hobby or for the money i.e. Google Adsense?
I have found 5 great videos on an article from Spoongraphics. These videos will answer almost all of the questions that run through the mind of someone looking to create a blog for the first time. I hope these free courses will help you to understand more about blogging. Enjoy!
While dropping my Entrecard to other blogs. I notice that a lot of them modify their blog theme constantly. I can understand why they need to change their blog design. There are millions of blogs on the net and the majority of them are using a free generic blog theme. That is why the need to be unique become a priority. Since I have started six months ago, my blog didn’t look like what it is today. During my spare time, I am always looking for new features to add to my blog and polish my blog design.
One of the latest themes that gave me an inspiration was from the WP Premium theme for Worpress. The Wordpress Premium is an elegant design, 2/3 column side bar, feature packed, widget ready theme that comes with three color-scheme options. The theme is bundled with all three colors. To change complete color scheme, all you need to do is open the style.css and change the color style name to your favorite one. There is a helpful readme.txt file that will give you more detail instructions.
Here is the list of features that you can find in this theme:
Comes bundled with 3 color-scheme options
Separate css for layout and color. So, if you only wish to change colors you don’t have to mess with the other css styling.
Multiple Search option with Tabber Functionality
RSS e-mail subscription form
2 and 3 Column sidebar
Three 100X100 pixel ad blocks in sidebar.
Easy Editable, Light weight, Strategic Code
SEO Optimized
W3C Valid
Table Less Coded
Optimized XHTML code
Short Hand CSS
It’s Premium and It’s free!
Some of the features gave me great inspiration such as the tabbed-content box, which I am planning to implement on my blog to improve the loading my pages. The only requirement for this theme is to use Wordpress as your blog platform.
I remember last year at this time, my only source of motivation on the net was playing online games. When I was bored of playing games, I then started visiting blogs that had interesting articles. I enjoyed visiting those blogs which inspired me to create my own blog. I didn’t know where to start and which blog platform to use. I have tried all the blog platforms available on the net. From blogger to drupal, I finally found Wordpress which have more gorgeous features and attractive themes than any other blog platforms. My only goal at that time was to be able to have a working blog. But many times, I wanted to quit blogging because it was very hard to attract an audience and write an article every day. I’m proud to have achieved this goal because I’m still here!
Did you know that setting goals is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future and for motivating yourself to turn this vision of the future into reality? By setting goals, it will help you choose what you want in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you will know where you have to concentrate your efforts. It will give you a strong source of motivation and you will find that your self-confidence builds faster.
I have several goals that I would like to achieve this year. I will prioritize them in chronological order, 1 being the top priority and 10 being low priority. This will help me to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals and to focus my attention on the most important ones first. I will set my goals using the SMART Goals guideline which is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound.
My goals for 2008 in order of priority are:
1. Increase My Posting Frequency By Writing One Post Per Day. 2. Build A List Of Quality Guest Writers. 3. Improve My Blog Design & Aesthetic. 4. Increase My Daily Unique Visitors To 5,000+. 5. Increase My Average RSS Readership To 1,000+ By The End Of The Year. 6. Make On Average of $1,000+ Per Month. 7. Increase My Alexa Ranking To The Top 100,000.
8. Increase My Technorati Ranking To The Top 10,000. 9. Increase My Google Ranking To PR 5. 10. Become A Popular And Better Commentator.
Entrecard is a revolutionary platform that help you to promote your blog. It’s also the first and only free exchange network for 125×125 ads. You pay the advertising to other blogs with Entrecard Credits, which you can easily earn by visiting and dropping your card to other blogs. You will earn 1 Entrecard credit each time your drop your card or someone else drop their card to you. Also you can earn more credits every time someone advertise on your widget. The cost for advertising through your widget depends on the number of cards dropped on that widget each day. So if a widget receives an average of 50 cards dropped into it each day, advertising on that widget will cost 100 credits per day. You can apply for as many 24-hour advertising terms as you would like until all 9 days of the users advertisement que are filled.
You are in full control of the cards that run on your site. Which means that you are able to approve their card before it will be displayed live on your site. You may want to reject cards that do not look professional to uphold your own quality standards.
You can place easily the widget on your blog by getting the code and copy the code where you wish to display on your sidebar or pages. If you don’t place the widget on your blog, your listing will not appear in their listing or their “Campaign” page.
I have been using Entrecard since December 2007. I like the idea and I guarantee you will get people visiting your blog through Entrecard. Why don’t you give it a try!
I have been writing articles for several months now. I have never been disappointed about what I have written. I always wanted to be original and I’m constantly trying to produce good articles that will maintain the interest of my audience. I know that hardworking is an important key to success. The best lesson that I’ve learned is that everyone of us learned through our failures. Don’t be scare of your failures, it’s how you will become an experienced blogger.
Be Persistence
The worst thing that can happen to a blogger is to fall after difficulties and discouragements. I can understand that you might put in all the hard work and you gain nothing in return when starting out your blog. My advice is that you review your written articles throughly for logic and grammar. That way you can see what went wrong. Have you confused your readers with the words being used?
Know Your Audience
Imagine yourself in front of a stage, how will you interest your audience? Do you want the audience to be amused, informed or motivated? Will they read all of it? It’s important to know who your audience are and what their needs and motivation are. That way you can decide how to organize and present the information of your articles. Don’t be shy to express your thought. You don’t have to worry about nervousness because you are not speaking in front of a live audience.
Quality and Original Content Rules
While writing an article show off your originality and creativity. The best tip I can give you is to know your subject. By knowing your subject you can write useful, authoritative and unique content. Don’t make the mistake to pick topics that you know nothing about it. Your audience are not stupid and they will sense it. Informative and useful content will help you to create original content that will catch the interest of your audience.
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