1. Not proof reading: A simple mistake but it can definitely make you look bad with tons of mistakes. Spell checking is great, but you can’t rely on just that. You have to read your blog post 2 or 3 times to make sure you catch all your grammar mistakes. It might not seem like a big deal but here is one example of a mistake I have made. I wanted to write “now four styles to choose from” and I wrote “no four styles to choose from.” Spell check didn’t catch anything, but that one sentence means a big difference to the reader. If you want to take it to the next level, get someone else to proof read your blog post. They will catch things you miss every time.

2. Plagiarism/Spun Content/PLR: Alright if you have an adsense bait autoblog, ignore this mistake. Put up whatever you want. However, if you care about your personal brand and your blog, then at all costs avoid this type of content. Creating content can be a pain, but stealing someone else’s can hurt you dearly in the end. If you get caught (and you will) you lose all credibility instantly. The same thing goes for PLR content. If you want to use PLR on your personal blog, then makes sure you rewrite them and use only quality content.

3. Not being consistent: This might be the biggest mistake. If you are committing to running a blog, then it is a commitment. Treat it as such. Don’t fire out 5 articles your first week then sit back and relax. You have to constantly create content in order to engage your visitors. Fresh content is also good in the eyes of Google. We don’t want Google unhappy do we?

4. Not marketing: I was guilty of this mistake. When I first started blogging I hid it from people! What’s the point of that? I posted away and hoped people came, but never worked at marketing it. I didn’t start to see success until I sent it out to my Facebook and Twitter lists. I began using Digg and Stumbleupon. I talked about it at social gatherings. I even got some business cards made up that had nothing but the URL of my blog. It began to work and I finally got to see some significant traffic. You can post all you want, but what use is it if no one sees it?

5. Not responding to comments: If you are fortunate enough to get comments on your blog posts, then you should reply. For one, it is the polite thing to do. Secondly, it will engage web visitors and make them more likely to come back. Also, people who haven’t commented will be more likely to comment if they see people getting responses. A blog full of active commenters is the start of a potential money making machine!

Eliminate these five mistakes and you will definitely notice a traffic increase to your blog. You will also notice that you have more interaction with your visitors, and in the long run it will offer you more chances to monetize your site. If you have to only choose a couple from the list above, please post consistently and market yourself. Curing these two mistakes alone, will mean great things for your site.

1. Develop Their Writing Skills – Some children don’t like to read and write. This might change if you help them set up their own blog. Kids seem to gravitate towards technology at an early age these days. If they don’t find traditional writing enjoyable, the added touch of technology inherent in a blog might excite them. You can help them develop their writing skills by encouraging them to post regularly to their blog.

2. Develop Technological Skills – The world we live in is becoming more and more technological everyday. Many parents feel overwhelmed themselves. You do not want your child falling behind. Having them regularly using a blog will introduce them to the internet, computers, typing and email. All of these skills are pretty much essential, especially for the next generation. There are a lot of pitfalls and dangers incorporated with these technologies so teaching your child how to avoid these early will be tremendously helpful.

3. Develop Social Skills – Having a blog will allow your child to get more comfortable expressing his/her feelings. Responding to comments can also help them develop their social skills. Some kids are shy and might be able to express themselves more fully online. Eventually those skills can translate to the real world.

These three reasons alone should be good enough for any parent who has thought about allowing their children to blog. You need to help them navigate the internet pitfalls, but it will all be a learning experience.

Make sure you monitor your children’s online activities and blog. You also need to talk to your child and explain the dangers of giving out personal information online. Once you have done that, and considering the vast benefits, I think your child having a blog is a wonderful idea.

Internet Safety…

You have to be careful because blogging by children can be dangerous. Follow these four tips and you will make blogging a safe and fun activity for your children.

1. Make Rules: You need to sit down with your child and set up some rules. Whatever rules you decide on you should explain them clearly to your child and explain why they are important. Set some consequences as well, let them know what will happen if they break any of the rules. You don’t want to be lackadaisical when it comes to online rules. Stay firm and your children will understand.

2. Strong Passwords: Make sure that your children’s accounts are all protected by good passwords. “12345″ is not a good password. You should use number, letters and symbols. It might be impossible for them to remember, but if it means you have to log on for them – even better.

3. Screen the Content: Encourage your child to create their blog posts on the computer before they go live. This way you can check them out and ensure they don’t give away any sensitive information, or have any objectionable content. Another bonus with this method is you can help your child get used to word processing software. You can also teach them about grammar and spelling with this method.

4. Monitor their Blog: Check your child’s blog everyday and make sure they haven’t tried to sneak any objectionable content on to it. Also make sure no one has been leaving weird comments. Even some spam comments can have dangerous links so make sure you have access to delete these. Install Akismet if you use WordPress and most of them should be caught. Also check out any links your child puts up, who knows where they could be linking to.

If you follow these four tips you will ensure that your child’s blog will be a great learning experience and not a potential danger. Commit to strong passwords, screening and monitoring and your child can benefit from blog ownership!

Here are some suggestions:

1. Use Ideas Instantly – Whenever you have an idea use it instantly. This doesn’t seem like much of a strategy but it has helped me explode my blog traffic. There will be days when you can’t think of what to post at all. If you jump when you have an idea then you won’t have this worry. Be prepared to at least jot down any ideas that come to you. Carry a notepad, or an audio recorder to get your thoughts down as soon as you think of them. You don’t want to make a mental note, because those aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. You don’t have to post your ideas instantly, but keeping running notes about all your ideas will make content creation a snap.

2. Update Often – Oh great strategy right? Well it is actually. This might not seem like it has to be said but if you are starting to blog make sure you are consistent. There is nothing worse than a blog that is never updated. Those blogs have no real chance of building a fan base. Besides your live visitors, Google likes to see updated content as well. Updating your content might seem obvious but if that is the case why do so many people ignore it? Once you decide on blogging, one of your first strategies better be how to update regularly.

3. Spread The Word – This is a really important strategy that all good bloggers know. You have to actively market your blog online and offline. A lot of people start a blog and then post like a mad person, only to wonder why no one comes to their site. People have to know it exists. You have to combine online and offline marketing.

First off, make sure your blog can be found and is optimized for search engines. Then make sure you share it everywhere you can online. This means social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. It also means social bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon. As for offline, you can add your blog to any of your pre-existing marketing material, in fact I suggest you do. You can also create cheap offline marketing tools. I had business cards made up with only the url of my blog on it. I gave it to people I met when they asked how they could contact me. It cost me $25 bucks and I still get traffic from those cards circulating.

These above strategies have been used and proven to stimulate your blog traffic and overall exposure. If you act on your ideas right away, update often and market your blog offline AND online you will notice your traffic increase. You will also gain valuable backlinks and begin branding yourself as an expert. Who could ask for anything more?

1. Write Like You Talk: This is not advice that you will hear in Journalism 101, but when it comes to blogging it is an entirely different story. If you write like you talk you can engage readers quickly, because they will feel connected with you. It also helps for editing purposes, when you read over your blog post, do it out loud and you can hear if it flows naturally.

2. Edit, Edit, Edit: This goes well with the above point – read over your blog post at least three times before you publish. Yes, spellchecking software is great, but it won’t catch all the mistakes. It will miss grammar mistakes, punctuation and words that are spelled properly but used wrong. If you value your readers then you will want to make sure you present your best possible work.

3. Avoid Overkill: For the most part, I don’t think people are into 9000 word blog posts. A lot of people will scan a blog post without really reading it, if your post is short and simple it is more likely to grab their attention.

4. Don’t Be A Wimp: Do not be a wimp – stand up for what you believe in. Take a controversial stand or two, yes some people might get angry, but they also might send the link around in their anger. Getting people talking and engaging you (even negatively) can help your blog’s exposure. For every person you anger, there will be someone who agrees with you. Stick to your guns in comments as well. I used to dread negative comments, but now I view it as a way to interact with my readers.

5. Your Work Isn’t Over When You Hit Publish: You can write as much as you want but if people don’t read it, who cares? Market your posts every time you make one. The average person has a couple hundred friends on Facebook so share it on there. Share it on Twitter if you use it. Email it to your friends if you don’t use social media. You can also send it out to bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit. None of these strategies cost you anything!

Now that you have these five tips to work with you should be able to consistently create quality content. Remember to use each tip every time you write a post and you will undoubtedly notice your comments, traffic and opt-ins climb steadily!

7 Tips to Becoming a Successful Blogger

Starting a blog can be a fun experience, but you want more than that.  You want to make money with your blog too.  There are many things you can do with your blog to help you get more traffic and make more sales, and I’ve listed 7 blogging tips here just to get you started.

1.  Post lots of content, and do it often

For one thing, readers like to read blogs that have fresh content published regularly.  It’s hard for a reader to get into following you if you only post once in a great while.

They don’t have to be monster posts, they just need to be timely and relevant. Also keep in mind that search engines
also like to see you publish fresh content often.

2.  Use longtail keywords in your post titles

The purpose of using these longtail keywords in your post titles is so that people searching those words on a search
engine will find your post.

It’s nice to have as many people as possible read your posts since you’ve gone to all the work to write and post them -
so think of your current readers as well as what you need to do to bring in some organic traffic.

To bring in even more traffic to your blog, I recommend building backlinks to your blog by commenting on other relevant blogs.  I highly recommend Angela’s backlink building service to help you quickly gain 30 high page rank backlinks to your blog.

3.  Decide what you want the outcome of your post to be

Before you even start to create a blog post, make a decision about what you want your purpose is going to be with this post.

Is it to promote an affiliate product or your own product?  Is it meant to stir up a little controversy so that you get lots of comments and it goes viral?  Is it to establish yourself as THE expert?  Is it to leak some information and prime the
pump before your product launch?

You can give solid, valuable information in your post as well as have it point in the direction you want your readers to
go next.

4.  Keep your blog design pleasing to the eye

Your blog design should have eye appeal and should be structured so the person coming to your blog isn’t confused as to what he or she should do.

What do you want them to do?  Read your post then subscribe or buy something?  Read your post, laugh at your wit, then go away? Don’t read your post, just click on the AdSense?

Whatever you want them to do, don’t have your blog layout so confusing they don’t know where to turn next.

5.  Use PLR to help you post more often

A PLR (private label rights) article might give you a spark of an idea for a blog post or you might take some PLR and lightly rewrite it to add your own personality.

Either way, it can help you take action and get you publishing your blog on a regular basis.

*Find my favorite PLR Resources here: http://ivegotblogs.com/get-blog-content/

6.  Learn from other great bloggers how to blog

There is always something to learn, whether you’ve been blogging a short while or a long time.  Subscribe to the best blogs, listen to what they have to say, and analyze everything about those blogs so you can make yours better.

7.  Find out which WP plug ins will make your blog friendlier to the search engines as well as to people

Readers like plug ins like Comment Luv because it means if they leave a comment on your blog, their last blog post link will show under their comment. This encourages more comments, which is a good thing.

There is always more you can do with your blog to make it better, even if you’ve been blogging for years. So keep on learning, testing, tweaking, and posting.

]]> http://ivegotblogs.com/7-tips-to-becoming-a-successful-blogger/feed/ 0