Blogging Guide

How To Submit Google Sitemap To Blogger

2009-08-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

Adding Google Sitemap to blogger makes google crwal you webpages and increases the chances of them being listed in google. By adding Sitemap google can crawl your website more effectively.
To add a google sitemap to your blog:

Go to Google Webmasters

Now add your website as shown below:

Now select the meta tag method, which will generate a code.

Copy that code and go to Blogger Dashboard -> Layout -> Edit HTML and paste the code above </head> code and Save Template.

Verified status will appear as shown below.

Now your site will be verified and a verified status will appear in google webmasters as shown below.

After verification is done, you need to add your sitemap url of your blog through Submit Sitemap option on your Google Webmasters Dashboard. In new blogger there are 4possible feeds to submit.

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/rss.xml
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full

Replace the text in red (yourblogname) with the name of your blog.

Your work is done, now googlebot will automatically crawl your website now to index your pages.

How to drive traffic to your blog - Part 1

2009-08-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

Succeeding with a blog can be very easy if your blog is driving substantial traffic, before trying to promote your blog remember the basics that unless your blog has appealing and quality content you wont be able to reap the benefits. Promoting without quality content might drive visitors once to your blog but what you want is the visitor to keep coming back.

Here are some tips I would like to share with you from my personal experience:

1) Social Media

Use social networking services like stumbleupon, digg, reddit and others to drive 'free' traffic to your site. Social bookmarking services drive a substantial amount of traffic as your website is referred by your readers which is one of the best form to spread your website awareness.

2) Comment on popular blogs

Commenting on popular blogs with good traffic leaving behind your website url. Remember to comment on blogs relevant to your niche to drive traffic that is relevant to your site. The idea is to comment in top one or two comments, becoming a regular commentor helps in getting quality traffic. Some blogs also promote regular commentors which is an added advantage. Having said that remember not to post comments for spamming purpose but to debate or add some quality information to topic.

3) Use Feedburner

Provide subscription services for your visitors to get notified whenever you post through Feedburner. Feedburner automatically notifies the subscriber when you publish a new post encouraging subscriber to visit your site.

4) Be Interactive

Interact with your visitors through blog comments, emails and other services. Print your blog url on outgoing emails to promote your blog by attaching your signature.

5) Write Smart!

Write smart and "to the point posts", dragging posts too long can distract visitors and "kill" attention. Smart writing is effective writing.

Making Money Online by Blogging For Newbies

2009-08-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

Big Question: Can you make money online ? YES, you can probably make a living out of blogging. There are two types of blogging i believe - blogging for fun/hobby & the other being blogging for money which might be a hobby as well but is more serious.

In order to earn money from blog, Ad space is utilized. Some of the top blog earners . To succeed in blogging you need traffic, traffic and more traffic! as it generates the income through ads. Blogging for money is not easy though, it requires serious dedicated effort and quality posting to develop a exceptional visitor base.

Blogging requires no monetary investment if its done through free blogging sites like Blogger or Wordpress but serious effort as I said above. So if you are ready to put in some effort, here are some tips:

Step 1: Find a Niche

Before you start blogging you should choose a niche, a niche is line that you are good at, you are passionate about. For example, you might be passionate & knowledgeable about golf or photography or say any other thing that you like. Its basically your specialization. Once you have found a niche your task becomes relatively simplified as doing something that you're good at on a regular basis increases your chances to succeed.

Step 2: SEO for traffic

Once done with step 1, you will need traffic to your website people who read your articles. Now we all know the best way to get traffic is through search engines like google, yahoo, etc. In order to get your site ranked high in search engines you need to optimize your website through SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Step 3: Placing Ads

In order to earn money from blog you need to place ads on your blog. Google adsense is most widely used by bloggers. Sign up with one or few alternatives given below and start advertising on your blog.

- Google Adsense
- Text-link Ads
- Adbrite
- Bidvertiser
- Widgetbucks
- Yahoo Publisher Network
- Amazon Affiliates

Step 4: Patience

After doing the above steps, you need to understand that until your website generates decent enough traffic you wont earn that much. Be patient and work on building traffic.

Some of the top bloggers earnings are given below:

Techcrunch - 200,000$/month

Mashable - 180,000$/month

Perez Hilton - 140,000$/month

Gothamist - 80,000$/month

Timothy Sykes - 80,000$/month

Venture Beat - 62,000$/month

Life Hacker - 60,000$/month

How to Add Meta Tags to Blogger

2009-08-25T04:38:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in my previous post, having a meta tag can help search engine autobots to crawl your website easily and index pages. Meta Tags are in other words are a communicating link between a website and a search engine crawler.

To add meta tags to blogger, follow the procedure given below.

Go to Layout through blogger Dashboard

Now click Edit Html

Using Ctrl+F find the code given below

<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

Now insert the code given below after the above line

<meta content='WRITE DESCRIPTION HERE' name='description'/>
<meta content='WRITE KEYWORDS HERE' name='keywords'/>
<meta content='WRITE YOUR NAME HERE' name='author'/>
<meta content='blogger' name='generator'/>
<meta content='ALL' name='ROBOTS'/>

Change the text in red with the required details and Save Template.

Remember not to add irrelevant keywords and too many keywords of the same category (example: football shirts, football t-shirts, football team shirts) as search engine ranks will have a negative effect due to this.

5 SEO Tips To Improve Search Engine Ranking

2009-08-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

SEO is the process of enhancing the presence and visibility of a website on search engine listings. In this post i will share with you 5 important seo tips to achieve a higher search engine ranking.

1) Title Tag

Title tag is the most important factor to improve search engine rankings. Having a title tag makes search engine easier to index web pages. Title tag although having some similarities with meta tag is different from it. Search Engines while indexing the webpage primarily look for title tag which makes it one of the most important factors.

Learn more about title tag here.

2) Meta Tags

Meta tags consists of two primary tags – keyword and description. Meta tags are indexed in search results but lately due to excessive keyword stuffing search engines have fallen out of favour with meta tags. Regardless it doesn’t harm in including them. While inserting keywords in the meta tag be sure not to enter too many keywords of the same category and avoid “overdoing”keyword stuffing.

Learn about inserting meta tags in blogger here.

3) Link Building

Link Building implies linking with other sites for SEO. It is important to note that while linking you might get good links as well as bad links, getting a good link will certainly help improve your search engine rank whereas getting a bad link might degrade it. It is advantageous to get links from higher ranked websites for better rankings.

4) Sitemaps

A sitemap is a list of website pages easily accessible to crawlers and visitors. It assists search engine bots to find and evaluate pages on the website. There are two kinds of sitemaps – Text and XML. Text sitemaps are not as flexible as XML sitemaps which are widely preferred and used for SEO. XML sitemaps are used by Google, Yahoo and other earch engines. A sitemap can be important if your website/blog is new, does not have many links, having flash on webpages, many webpages archieved and not linked very well.

5) Content Relevancy

Posting relevant content is very very essential. If you have stuffed your meta tags with keywords that irrelevant to the post it will do no good to search engine rankings. Moreover the visitors need good relevant content to remain glued to the website and if not then the very next moment he will visit another website no matter whatever your search engine rank.

Besides these tips use social media like twiiter, stumbleupon, digg, etc to drive traffic to your websites as we are doing SEO to drive traffic ultimately to our websites/blogs.

Over and above all after doing the requisites it is very important to be patient and wait for the rankings to improve.

SEO Tip - Add Title Tag To Blogger

2009-08-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

One of the most important things to improve search engine ranking is by optimizing the blogger title tag. Here by optimizing the title tag we intend to remove the blog title from the individual posts so that search engines can easily search keywords and index the page.

- From Blogger Dashboard go to Layout

- Click Edit Html

- Use to Ctrl+F to find the code given below:

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
Replace the above code with the code given below
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "index"'>
<title><data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/></title>
</b:if>

- Now Save Template, its done!

How To Add Meta-Tags To Individual Posts in Blogger

2009-08-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

Meta tags play an important role in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and having them in every post is definitely advantageous. Unlike wordpress where meta tags for every post can be added automatically with the help of plugins, blogger needs codes to be added for every post which is one of the drawbacks of blogger.

Follow these steps to add meta-tags for every post in blogger:

Step 1: From blogger Dashboard, go to Layout.

Step 2: Click Edit Html option and tick Expand Widgets.

Step 3: Search <head> using Ctrl+F.

Step 4: Paste the code given below after the <head> line.

<b:if cond=’data:blog.url == “enter the url of the post here”‘>
<META NAME='”keywords” CONTENT=”enter keywords here separated by commas”' />
<META NAME='”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”INDEX,FOLLOW”'/>
</b:if>

Replace the text in red with post url and keywords respectively.

Note: For every post you have to repeat this procedure by adding post url and keywords repectively. If you want to add 5 individual meta-tags you have to add the above code 5 times.

Step 5: Save the Template.

Top 10 Richest People In The World 2009

2009-08-23T02:27:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Richest People in the world as of 2009.

1) Bill Gates

Net Worth: $40.0 billion
Country: United States
Source: Microsoft

2) Warren Buffett

Net Worth: $37.0 billion
Country: United States
Source: Berkshire Hathaway

3) Carlos Slim Helú

Net Worth: $35.0 billion
Country: Mexico
Source: Telmex, América Móvil

4) Lawrence Ellison

Net Worth: $22.5 billion
Country: United States
Source: Oracle Corporation

5) Ingvar Kamprad

Net Worth: $22.0 billion
Country: Sweden
Source: IKEA

6) Karl Albrecht

Net Worth: $21.5 billion
Country: Germany
Source: Aldi Süd

7) Mukesh Ambani

Net Worth: $19.5 billion
Country: India
Source: Reliance Industries

8) Lakshmi Mittal

Net Worth: $19.3 billion
Country: India
Source: Arcelor Mittal

9)Theo Albrecht

Net Worth: $18.8 billion
Country: Germany
Source: Aldi Nord, Trader Joe's

10)Amancio Ortega

Net Worth: $18.3 billion
Country: Spain
Source: Inditex Group

Top 10 Most Expensive Websites

2009-08-23T00:55:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered the 10 most expensive websites in the world? Find out which is at no.1 and believe me these figures are mind-boggling!

Check the list here:

1.$7,415,127,703
yahoo.com

2.$5,964,434,191
google.com

3.$3,470,944,933
amazon.com

4.$2,238,990,172
blogspot.com

5.$2,101,422,635
myspace.com

6.$1,933,295,570

ebay.com

7.$1,862,845,593
facebook.com

8.$1,666,954,309
photobucket.com

9.$1,633,485,033
statcounter.com

10.$1,500,341,232
youtube.com

The most important factor in the worth of these websites is the traffic, more traffic = more value!

Source: websitevaluecalculator.com

How To Add Read more to blogposts

2009-08-22T03:53:00.000-07:00

Lately many people have been asking me regarding how to use expandable posts, which I personally think makes the blog look decorous & elegant. As you can see in my blog I have used expandable posts to make my blog more user friendly and easy to navigate, you can add this option by following these steps

For blogger, use the following steps to add read more option:

- Go to Layout through the blogger Dashboard.

- Now open Edit Html option.

- Tick the Expand Widgets option and find <data:post.body/> using Ctrl+F.

- Now paste the code given below above the <data:post.body/> line:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<style>.fullpost{display:inline;}</style>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
<b:else/>
<style>.fullpost{display:none;}</style>

- Now paste this another code given below after the <data:post.body/> line:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'><br />
<a expr:href='data:post.url'>Read more...</a>
</b:if>
</b:if>

(Note: There are supposed to be two tags)

After saving the template, go to Settings -> Formatting and enter the following code in post template code:

<span class="fullpost">
</span>

It will appear as follows:

Now in by default every post will contain the above code as shown in the picture below:

After saving settings you can start posting. The text that you want to be shown after the read more option should be entered between the two lines as shown in red colour below in posting section:

<span class="fullpost">
ENTER THE TEXT YOU WANT TO BE SHOWN AFTER READ MORE OPTION
</span>

How To Insert Ads in blog posts

2009-08-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

Very often you come across blogs having ads in their blog posts, which usually has a high click through rate provided the blog is driven by rich content and good traffic.

In order to insert ads in post:

- Go to Blogger templates, Layout -> edit HTML section

- Tick expand widget templates

- Using Ctrl + F find out <div class='post-header-line-1'> or

- Now paste your generated adsense code below this line in this format

Note: Add the codes in blue as well as shown below.

For ads to appear on left side of the post:

<div style='float:left;'>
AdSense Code
</div>

For ads to appear on right side of the post:

<div style='right:left;'>
AdSense Code
</div>

How to Add Youtube videos to blogposts

2009-08-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

In order to add youtube videos to blogger, select the embed code on youtube video page as show below:

To select Press Ctrl+A and copy using Ctrl+C. Now paste the code in your blogpost using Ctrl+V and its done!
Note: You can adjust the width and height of the youtube video player by changing the respective sizes in the embedded code.

Facebook 3.0 For iPhone awaiting approval

2009-08-21T14:42:00.001-07:00

Facebook 3.0 eagerly awaited by iPhone users is nearing completion & is to be submitted to Apple. New features include a completely new homescreen and the ability to post videos directly from the iPhone 3GS.
Facebook 3.0 follows Facebook 2.0, which was launched last September.

Facebook 3.0 Features Include:

“New” News Feed
Like
Events (Including RSVP)
Notes
Pages
Create new albums
Upload photos to any album
Zoom photos
Easy photo tagging
Profile Pictures albums
New home screen for easy access to all your stuff, search, and notifications
Add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen
Better Notifications (With Links to Comments)
Quickly call or text people right from the Friends page
Incomplete messages will be saved if interrupted by a call

Google Fun Trick

2009-08-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

Old but Must try!

- Go to Google Images

- Fill in any word

- A page with alot of images thumbnailed will appear

- Now delete the URL in the addressbar and copy/paste the below script and press enter:

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200;DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style;DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math.sin (R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5;DIS.top=Math.cos(R* y1+i*y2+y3 )*y4+y5}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);

Capture Screenshot in Windows Vista

2009-08-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

Windows Vista alike the older version of windows like 2000, xp and others comes with an integrated powerful screen capture tool which makes capturing screenshots much easier.

In order to capture screenshot in vista,

-Go to the start menu

-Write Snip, you will find a option named Snipping tool

-Open Snipping Tool

-Dragging the cursor select the required area

-Save in png or jpeg format, done!

How To Remove Blogger Navigation Bar

2009-08-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

Many of the times i have come across users who want to get rid of blogspot navigation bar at the top of their blog.

It certainly annoys me & i think removing it makes your blog look much professional and neat.

Here is how you can remove it:

- Login to blogger

- On Dashboard, select Layout. Now in the Template tab, Click Edit HTML. In the Edit Template section you will see your blog's HTML.

- Tick Expand Widget Templates

- Paste the code below directly above the #header-wrapper line in your blog's HTML.

- Use (Ctrl + F) and type in #header-wrapper to quickly find the #header-wrapper line.

#navbar-iframe {
height: 0px;
visibility: hidden;
display: none;
}
- Save your template, done!

How To Track Website Traffic for Free

2009-08-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

If you have always been wondering where do the uers come from on your site, which are the most popular pages, visit time, visit length, visitor location then Statcounter.com offers you the perfect solution.

Statcounter.com offers the best online tracking tool I have ever seen and whats good about it is its totally free. All you need to do is to copy the code created at Statcounter.com and insert it on your site/blog and start tracking.

Full list of its features:

Log-Size
Invisible Counter Option
Configurable Counter
Configurable Summary
Stats
Magnify
UserDrill Down
Popular Pages
Entry Pages
Exit Pages
Came From
Keyword Analysis
Recent Keyword Activity
Search Engine Wars
Visitor Paths
Visit Length
Returning Visits
Recent Pageload Activity
Recent Visitor Activity
Country/State/City Stats
Recent Visitor Google Map
ISP Stats
Browser Stats
O.S. Stats
Resolution Stats
JavaScript Stats
Email Reports
Multiple Site Management
User Access Management
Public Stats
Blocking Cookie
Secure Tracking [Upgraded Members Only]
Custom Branding Logo [Upgraded Members Only]

There are many other sites which offer this kind of service but in my opinion statcounter offers the best service. I have been using it since over a year now and I have never faced a problem using it. Statcounter certainly goes to the depth of tracking.

Statcounter