Good Blogging Advice

Although admittedly, not ALL my blog posts have exactly been from the heart... many may lack finesse and prose and even sincerity...nonetheless, I was interested to find that this is my 873rd ever blog post in a little under two years. In fact I have already completed two posts that will be published next week, so I guess you could say that this is my 875th... I have no idea how many of those were paid posts, although I do know how much I have made through paid posting in that time, and I may be prepared to expand on that at the end of 2008.

My point is though, after all this time I should have come a long way from those first tenuous forays into the world of blogging - my first blog was about my experiences building a website, and is geared towards websites, SEO and related topics. It wasn't 'til March 2007 that I started to get into the world of paid blogging with this blog.
My intention for this post was to give a few pointers from my experience of a little under 1.3 posts per day over two years... at this rate I should have completed 935 by the end of 2008.
So here's my ten blogging pointers:

1. Unlike this blog, niche blogs get better traffic and can earn more from adsense.
2. It is not easy to get on-topic paid blogging opportunities for niche blogs - although you may get some decent paying offers if you can get a decent PageRank.
3. You may be throwing away your PageRank if Google detects paid posts or links.
4. Leave lots of relevant comments on blogs operating in the same niche.
5. Give your readers something good to read - opinion is fine, but how about helpful tips and useful links too?
6. Make sure your blog is good to look at, but don't change the look too frequently.
7. When starting a niche blog, make sure you pick a subject that interests you
8. When starting a niche blog, if you are blogging for money, make sure that you choose a subject that can be well monetised.
9. Resources are important for niche blogs, both physical and online magazines can be invaluable, but always do good research using several sources and write the article with your own angle.
10. Finally if you write paid posts, make them fit your niche, often the client is just looking for the anchor text in the link, the rest of the post should be well written but does not have to read like an advert, try to keep it natural...

Well, I hope this is useful to someone, please feel free to leave your own tips in the comments.

Security features on Blogspot Comments

Coupled with the do-follow movement, comes the need for added security features on comments allowing you to easily deter spam commenting and to easily delete unwanted comments. I have observed in the past how pro-bloggers allow negative comments, and would point out that how you deal with negative comments may actually play in your favour. I would however delete spam comments as there is no point replying to them.
It has been observed by me and others, how John Chow and Problogger have not removed negative comments and even replied to them even though the comments were particularly crass. There is a common theme in these comments which actually does something to enhance the status of the blogger - they usually say something like 'you think you're so clever...', but of course the reality is that the commenter is acknowledging the popularity/celeverness of the blog by being there in the first place and bothering to comment. 'All publicity is good publicity' rules apply here...
Having 'do-follow' status is an invitation to bloggers with it's own reward (ie. a free backlink) that is why a level of security needs to be in place. There are two forms of security in 'Blogger', each with it's own pro's and con's.
First off then, let's go to Blogger Dashboard/Settings/Comments , our first option to consider is 'who can comment' (see above). Unless you are only running a blog for a limited exposure, then you will probably want to select 'anyone - including anonymous' allowing any visitors to at least attempt to engage with you. The security features that we can add to these comments are further down the page:

The higher-security option would be to select comment moderation (see above), the down-side is that your visitor does not have the satisfaction of seeing his/her comment immediately appear on the site. I choose verification which at least should make sure that your comments are from a real person, after that, I select to be notified of every comment. This means that I can check for new comments regularly without logging into Blogger, and then login to respond or 'bin' the comment. For either option, it is advisable to have email notification of comments to ensure that the delay between comment and either approval or response is as short as possible.
This is the last option on the comment section:


Place an email address that you regularly use in here and click 'save settings' and your new security settings will be up and running.

Looking back on July 2007

Well another month comes to a close and bloggers everywhere are eagerly awaiting the latest pagerank figures... none more so than me...
I have hardly generated any revenue at all this month with paid blogging, and am hoping that a raised pagerank will help to open up some opportunities on that front. So what have I been doing? being helpful of course and reviewing free software that I have found invaluable (you might say 'priceless' ha ha). And what will you be doing next month? I hear you ask - Well I think next month I am going to post about blogging competitions. I have done a few this month and am hoping that I can find a month's worth of blogging copy by bringing some competitions to your attention (whilst of course partaking in a few myself....).
This month, I am also planning to launch a new website which picks up some of the themes of my helpful blogging month - watch this space...

Blogging Success Challenge!

I was browsing around the web today and I decided that I would like to take up Stephen Walton's challenge. Stephen is suggesting that we post a visual aid on our blog to remind us why we ever got involved in the blogosphere in the first place. My choice, like Brown Barron is family... Also like Brown Barron, I am only going to use a representation of my family...rather than the real thing. This photo represents my family as well as anything else, and it's true, my quest for a little extra money is so that I can give things to my family that we would not be able to afford otherwise.
Your goal might be a specific car or a new house or a thriving business, using elements of the law of attraction, Stephen is inviting us to visualise our goal to concentrate our minds. Taking part in the challenge will mean that you will get link backs for SEO and page-rank so that fits nicely with my plan for this month of gaining page-rank points wherever I can.
Why not take part in the challenge or just take a browse around Stephen's Blog to get an idea of what Blog Success is all about...
Here are the reasons to take up this challenge:

• A chance to engage with readers on a personal level

• Promoting Stephen's Blog and helping him to share success

• Link exchanges for SEO and Technorati/Alexa/Google rankings

• Helping to visualise your own goals

• You could help someone by talking about what is important to you

It's guaranteed linking and you may even drive extra visitors to your site, so take up the challenge and tell us what motivates you to blog.

Oh yeah and...how about this for a mini-banner Stephen - you should be able to tell where the inspiration came from: hope you like it...

AllTipsAndTricks - a review

Now this will keep you entertained for ages...

All tips and Tricks from Simonne is what it says on the box - tips for every aspect of life. The home page is a blog with general posts including tips for bloggers, amusing articles, movies etc...

But where this site is particularly interesting is the wealth of tips and hints available in the sidebar under 'categories'. There are currently 21 categories, the most populated of which are: 'general' (200 entries) and 'tech & internet' (137 entries).

• One of my funny favourites was the cat washing video
• A practical favourite was the Microsoft WORD shortcuts entry
• Simonne also does reviews like the one for LifeIsRisky which is worth a read in itself..

This site is very well constructed and very well-written, the writing style is compelling and will keep you reading through quite a few posts. Overall, I found this site both useful and entertaining and that is surely exactly what a bog should be....