1000 USD 2011 Best Guest Blogger Contest Article

Sometime there comes a time when the latest news is something that could really benefit your blog, specially with the search engines and there does come a time when trying to figure out what is trending in the current going on in the World.

One of the ways that I do this is to use Google Trends, it’s simple and probably a great way to find a subject that is trending that could help some visitors and comments to your blog, as well as some ReTweets and shares of your blog post over the many social networks and bookmarking sites on the Internet at the moment.

So How Do I use Google Trends?

For starters I visited Google Trends and and opted for “Hot Trends” this not only gives me a list of the hottest trends at the time but also give me a link for the RSS Feed for the Hot Trends, this is where finding out the latest info becomes part of my list of Feeds that I frequently read with the aid of Feedly.

The RSS Feed is updated hourly, so you are always in the know of what the latest trending searches are and an ideal way for you to blog about them.

Using The Feed To Your Advantage

Now that you have subscribed to the feed with your RSS reader you will now have the latest trends direct to your reader, now it’s just a case of using these to see what is trending, find something that you think your readers may be interested in and blog away.

Remember though to utilize your SEO as well, by simply blogging about the subject is OK, but by adding keywords to do with the subject in your posts Title, Description and in to the post itself will certainly help the story been found in the SERPs.

An Example Via The Slappy Bear Blog

I recently saw that the phrase “Heineken Advert 2011” was trending, so I checked out why and it was to do with the new advert and the music that was in it, it seemed people were looking to find out who the artist was and the song title, so I took the opportunity to  do a post, via Slappy Bear, about the track.

Two benefits for me on this one, first of all, I found out that the artists had an amazing album out and secondly this one posted started brining in a stack of traffic and the post even landed up on the first page of the search results on Google

It has also been the top search term for the Slappy Bear Blog, well up until today when people started search for Kate Middleton

So Try This For Yourself

If you are in a bit of a sticky point where you aren’t sure what to blog about, or would like to help your blog on a little, then this is certainly something to try, I’ve tried and tested this method with both the Slappy Bear Blog and Blazing Minds and it’s worked.

But as I mentioned earlier, if you are blogging in a set niche, which I know a lot of people do, then try to use this with your niche, if you’re blogging about Tech, then you can use this with the latest Tech News for example

1000 USD 2011 Best Guest Blogger Contest Article

If you’re reading this then you are most probably a fellow blogger, you may be fresh to the blogging world or even a seasoned blogger that has been going for a few years, but even so are you a full time blogger or a part time blogger?

Fun or Addiction

It may sound quite sinister, but, at the day we are one or the other when it comes to blogging we either do it for the sheer fun or we are doing it under a urge to constantly keep blogging about everything under the sun or just to make a quick buck or two by posting how to sell this or how to sell that!

Spending every waking moment in front of your blog is probably the signs that you are indeed addicted to blogging or someone has glued you to the keyboard

Full Time or Part Time Blogger

Not to be confused with the fun or addiction above, the statement of “Full Time or Part Time Blogger” is very different, even though it may not sound like it at first.

Part Time Bloggers

For starters a Part Time blogger is someone who only spends a couple of hours reading and commenting on posts and perhaps posting a blog post on their own blog three or four time a week, if that. Not taking their own blogs too seriously and only using their blog as perhaps an online diary of their lifestyle and observation, but I think that’s how most of us started, I know that how I did on Blazing Minds

Full Time Bloggers

I would probably class myself as one of these, a blogger that reads many blogs and comments, writes a least one post a day, guest posts on other blogs and answers 95% of comments made on not only their own blogs, but on blogs they have also commented on or guest posted on within a 24 hours.

It may sound like the Addiction mentioned above, but there is a slight difference, only slight though.

A Full Time blogger uses their blog as a business, not so much to become rich and powerful, but to promote themselves to the world to show that they have amassed enough knowledge to share with the world and respond to others that may need help on the subjects they are posting about.

This knowledge is hopefully spread around the internet via social networks etc and in turn the blogger become a type of celebrity with followers and commentators taking heed of the word that that say.

You’ll general find that a Full Time blogger will also go out of their way to help a fellow blogger in any way they can, within reason.

To a full time blogger it’s not about the money that can be made on the blog, but more so it’s about the knowledge and satisfaction that can be gotten from those around them.

So, which of these do you fall in to? Or are you someone who falls in to several of the above

It’s all very well producing that awesome blog post with that mass of information that is extremely useful to your blog readers, but sometimes, well most of the time, it’s a good idea to add pictures to your blog posts as well.

Now I don’t just mean pictures describing how you are actually producing a desired effect or instructions on how to do something, but as a means of breaking up a post with some that stops your reader from going “goggle eyed” while reading all of your blog post

Also on the plus side, this makes you blog post look a lot more aesthetically pleasing to the reader of you masterpiece, sometimes having a picture also brings in the discussion on your post, with some commentators commenting about a funny picture or even staying a tad longer to admire the chosen picture.

You can use the simple methods of your blogging platform to add pictures or you can opt to use one of the many plugins that can be used to get a picture for your blog posts, plugins such as “Insights” and one of my favourites “Zemanta”.

Both these plugins bring you the advantages of adding pictures to your posts, but, also the benefit of adding and searching for information and links that you can bring to your blog post.

So remember the next time you create a new blog post, try and find a picture to add to your latest post and maybe bring a smile to your readers faces

When you search for blogging tips these days, one thing that always seems to stand out is the word “niche” and when you read about it on these blogs they always say that you should set a niche for your blog to blog about and stick to it.

But the question arises, Do you have to stick to a niche or can you stray from it?

I myself blog about a lot of stuff, so I suppose you could say that Blazing Minds is set in the niche of “Mixed Bag”, but if you do have a lot of interests, then why should you only blog about one thing and one thing only, OK I know there are a lot of blogs out there that do only blog about one thing and they do very well, but do you get a wider audience by blogging about anything you want and do you get a set target audience doing it this way or just people strolling around the net looking for everything and anything.

Over the time I have been blogging, when I do do several posts about one subject, I personally get bored with them, I think that is why I enjoy blogging about anything I can, after all, I’m not in it to get rich, only to have a bit of fun and meet fellow bloggers and have even more fun.

Maybe that is one of the reasons that I now have guest bloggers, not only do they help in bringing some freash blood to my blog, but they can also bring in some knowledge to subjects that I may not know much about or nothing about and not only teach me but my readers, but then again does this mean that the blog is falling in to a niche for these subjects, there’s that word again, niche!

Do you blog in a set niche or do you blog about what you want, are you following a route of only blogging in subjects that seem to be big on the search engines top keywords that could possibly make you money or are you blogging from the heart just to have fun.

So there we have it a small question with a big post

Are You Blogging in The Right Niche? Do You Care?

Ok we all enjoy blogging and the majority of us, myself included, do have tendency to post once a day, but from experience, this can lead to you becoming a bit of a slave to your blog and trying to think up posts to post everyday.

This will eventually cause you to get the dreaded “bloggers block” where you can sit there for a while trying your hardest to think of something to blog about and then possibly coming up with one of the worst posts that you have ever written!

I find that when this happens I come away from my blog, go off and do something else, such as watch TV or read a book, chat to friends etc. If I’m out and about I take notes or photos of things that may give me inspiration, even reading other blogs may give you the kick start you need, sooner or later a spark of inspiration will rear it’s head and eureka a new blog post is born. (more…)