Successful Blogging Tips

This post is for those that are considering starting a personal or business blog and even for those that already have a blog. I have compiled a list of sites you may wish to visit... to help improve your blogging experience.  I have a blogger blog but most of these tips will assist you in setting up other blogs or web pages.

It has been months since I started my blog and it has been a slow but sure learning experience and I have learned by trial and error and also by networking with some fabulous folks who have passed along valuable tips.

I urge anyone starting a blog to keep a journal of the steps they take, the sites they visit and the changes they make to their template. If you choose to go with Blogger (free site) in Google, there are many applications available to you at no cost to help manage your blog which makes it easy for a novice user.

Below are some random suggestions to consider. Unfortunate for me, some of these tips I discovered a couple of months after the creation of my blog. I would have been more productive had I been armed with this information.

1. Purchase Blogging For Dummies, WordPress For Dummies, or similar book and spend a couple of days just reading and reviewing to become familiar with what actually a blog is all about and write down ideas for your blog.
2. Pick a blog name.
3. Keep a notepad of all your passwords.
4. Decide on your host site -- such as Blogger or Wordpress, etc.
5. Pick your template (two or three column). In my case, I picked a two column but researched the internet to add a third column later.
6. Create custom hex colors for designing your site here.
7. Register a domain name? I used GoDaddy.com but there are many others. I wanted to go from a blogspot.com address to .com address for ease of use and GoDaddy automatically directs traffic once you have registered your domain name and updated your settings in your blog.
8. Add your URL to Google's site here. Oh, maybe you don't know what a URL is -- it is your address. Mine is http://www.savingswithsadie.com. Type it completely.
9. One way to verify a Blogger blog is to sign in to Blogger using your Google Account. On the Blogger Dashboard, under Tools and Resources at the bottom of Dashboard, click Webmaster Tools and follow the instructions.
10. You will want to sign up for Google Webmaster Tools to allow Google to view your site and help diagnose problems - also helps increase your sites visibility in search results.
11. What is a site map? Sitemaps allow a webmaster to inform search engines about URLs on a website that are available for crawling. You may check this out in Webmaster Tools also.
12. Add Meta Tags: Meta tags describe your site and communicates with search engines what your site is about. Meta tags are a must and will get you more traffic to your blog from search engines like Yahoo, Google, MSN,etc.  You will need to create a meta description with key words about your site - this gets inserted in your template.
    
13. Set up separate email or gmail accounts to help stay organized. I have several email addresses: one for business side, one for offers and one for personal.
14. I recently opted to leave Microsoft Explorer and switched over to the new Google Chrome for speed and security and so far I am loving it. By the way, Google Chrome is serious competition for Microsoft. At the present time, Google Chrome does not allow you to print coupons so you need to switch back to your other browser to do this but I do like the speed and the organization of Google Chrome for navigating the web.
15. Set up a (Google) Picasa account for software download that helps you organize, edit, and share your photos. Another option is Flickr.com but you must set up a Yahoo email address first.
16. Use Feedjit (a free site). Know what visitors to your site are doing, where they are from and how they are navigating through the site. Install a Feedjit widget on your blog sidebar. Scroll to the bottom of my "left" side bar for an example. Also, Feedjit will begin to crawl your blog and you will be included in the Geoblogosphere -- to see which blogs are popular with readers located in your city and any other city in the world, today.
17. Use Google Reader to get the latest news feeds from your favorite blogs. Google Reader can also be accessed at the bottom of your Dashboard on your Blog.
18. Set up Feedblitz.com for RSS feed management. Feedblitz offers free blog widgets to simplify and automate adding subscription options to your blog or web site.
19. You may opt to use Feedburner for RSS management especially if you are using Blogger.  I recently switched from Feedblitz to Feedburner. 
20. Use Google Docs a free service to create, share, and upload documents and spread sheets.
21. Use Google Analytics a free service that generates detailed statistics about visitors to your site.
22. Want to boost traffic on your site? Sign up for Twitter. Use Twitterfeed to post automatically. Use TweetDeck to organize your tweets. Twubble is a third-party site that references the folks you follow and the folks those folks follow. Why would you want to do this? To increase followers/traffic. Use Twittercounter to track followers and improve traffic.
23. Now that you have your site up and running, you might want to consider becoming an affiliate to support your site. Many of the affiliate organizations say that you must have a minimum of 5,000 plus hits a month to qualify. My site was a brand new site and I emailed each organization explaining my site and what I hoped to accomplish and I was accepted at each one. Below are a few popular affiliate sites to consider. Many bloggers use four, five and six different sites for monetizing.

MySavings Media - Make Money!

Click here to become a LinkShare Affiliate I just discovered this one.

Logical Media - Make Money!

Other monetizing sites are Adsense located on your Dashboard under My Accounts and also check on becoming an Amazon Associate.

As you become familiar with blogging, you may opt to do a little more with the design of your site which is what I am working on presently.The above comments are for informational purposes and perhaps you will take away one or two tips to help you get started setting up a blog or website or improving the blog you have already created. There are many things I have yet to learn and will share my experiences as I move forward.

Special Note: Last but not least, back up your blog weekly. Go to Settings and export your blog so you have a copy in the event your blog is deleted. Also, back up your template each time you make changes to it.