The Blog Engage $500 USD Guest Blogging Contest #1
Blog Engage $500 USD Guest Blogging Qualifying Article

I always like writing from a different perspective, and I am sure that same is true for you. Writing what I enjoy is my passion. Blogging is not.

If you are a long time member of Blogengage, then you may remember me writing about passion – and blogging as my passion. If you don’t, here is the summary: I used to consider blogging as my passion (and I thought of that as a good thing). Not anymore.

In this blog post, I will tell you why I did that (And why you should do it too). Alright, are you ready, let’s go

What is Passion?

What is Passion? Passion as it applies to blogging? Have you ever blogged about passion? What about being passionate? Then, I think it would be easier for you to answer my question: What exactly is passion, as it applies to blogging?

Here are the definitions of passion and passionate that we are going to use for this blog post:

Passion: any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling

Passionate: Showing or caused by strong feelings or a strong belief

As you can see, being passionate is about having a strong and powerful feeling/belief inside your mind – So, passionate about blogging essentially translates to belief in blogging and a strong urge to blog.

Well, can you guess what’s wrong here? (Nope, I am not talking about the definition, think back to the headline of this post).

It is a belief or an urge.

And it is easy for a belief/urge to loose its strength within your mind.

Now, I will give you an example to illustrate this:

Imagine that you have an urge to eat this new food that you tasted from your regular restaurant. You try it and you like it and you are passionate about it. So, you decide to have it at least once a week (And you eat it – not just once a week, but more). As time passes on, you began to lose your interest in eating the food (And you want to try something else).

Think about it. It occurs to all of us.

This is also why we usually hate the food that we eat daily (it becomes boring to do the same thing over and over again). You will lose interest.

Now, let’s connect this back to blogging:

You start a blog. You read other blogs and know what you have to do. You blog for a while, let’s say 6-7 months and you are definitely passionate about it. But, as time passes on, your passion will loose its strength, unless you take preventative measures (this happens to all bloggers, whether you agree with me or not).

I have had the same experience too. Back when I was blogging with Techpupil, I was really passionate about it. But, the urge lost its strength pretty soon and I had to cope up with it. And now that I am working on a new blog, I can definitely tell you that I am not passionate about blogging (and I proud of it ). Instead, I am compassionate.

So, what’s the solution. Well, that’s where I am heading to:

Solutions

1. Be Compassionate: Yes, compassion is something that has passion within it (inherent in nature).

Definition of compassionate: Feeling or showing sympathy and concern for others.

Yes, in real world, compassionate means being sympathetic to people who suffer. But, that’s not what we want in blogging. In blogging terms, compassion refers to having a concern for your readers.

And that’s what we want. You should be concerned about your readers. What was it like when you started blogging? You were a newbie blogger, trying to write great content and get attention right? Or maybe you were blogging for some time and haven’t got the traffic that you deserved (upcoming blogger?). Well, that’s where most of your readers lie. So, help them. Be concerned for their success. Care for them. Concern is a hard thing to break apart. So, be concerned about your readers.

2. Be Creative: Creativity is actually my favorite word right now. I just like talking about it over and over again (Well, that’s not creative, is it ). Yes, we need to be creative. Change up your writing style, blog theme/template every now and then. It will refresh your mind and keep your urge/concern about blogging strong.

Be creative with your blog post (perspective, new ideas!), your theme (tweak it, change it, experiment, learn) and with your writing style (narrative? descriptive? interesting and entertaining? begin with a paragraph? begin with a question? introduction? conclusion?).

3. Take Breaks – Ah! I like blogging breaks! Do you? Blogging Breaks refreshes your mind, makes you more creative and helps you to stay focused. Essentially, it helps you with being compassionate about blogging.

4. Hold On, Hard Work and Enjoy – Be patient (And impatient!), be hard working (And lazy) and enjoy blogging. It is important for you to taste everything. Here is what I have got from my experience:

Be Lazy and Unproductive for a while. Because, after a while you will realize that being lazy and unproductive is just not fun and your motivation to be productive increases (you will do the work!).

Conclusion

Well, that’s how I manage my blogging career (At least, right now). And it is going great, for me and for my new blog. How about you? Do you agree with what I said in my post? Do you have anything else to add?

Leave your thoughts below and help me win this contest

Are you passionate about blogging?

Do you want to be passionate? Or do you want to switch gears to compassion?

Do you see the difference? What are your thoughts on this?

The Blog Engage $500 USD Guest Blogging Contest #1
Blog Engage $500 USD Guest Blogging Qualifying Article

This topic might not be as interesting as what anyone is thinking. Anyone might find this quite humorous but I am sure that at least two on this list were experienced by every professional blogger of today. So, if you’re a newbie, don’t take it as offensive one. Take it as an advice.

Facts About Newbie Bloggers

So, what’s your name?

Okay, first thing first. In blogging, blog title really matters a lot. Newbie bloggers are not aware of it. So, he will make a trial-and-error for his new blog’s title. At most, a newbie will choose a title that is good for his ears even the truth is, it’s annoying. But no one knows, that title might be the next internet’s biggest name. There are lot’s of annoying titles around the web. And besides, in my point of view, it’s just a matter of name. Though it matters a lot for Search Engine Optimization, the main content is the most important. No one will look for your blog’s title for more than a minute. Everyone will look for the content.

The eye-catcher!

Design matters and simplicity is beauty when it comes to blog design. But the fact is, a newbie will spend a lot of time for designing his first blog up to the point that it became over-decorated. He will put a lot of widgets on his blog’s sidebar, footer, and everywhere. Well, that’s beautiful for a newbie’s eye. But time will come that he will realize that those fancy widgets weren’t that useful.

Again, simplicity is beauty. Why? As a blogger, you are not about to blog things for yourself. You blog because you want to share something, could be either information or any media types. So, in selecting design and colors, do not choose your favorite one. Choose for what you think is good for your audience eyes. If your blog design has the color orange and yellow-green as its main colors, I bet, no one can stay on your blog for more that five minutes.

Unlimited Reload

If you’re a professional blogger right now, can you still remember how many times did you reloaded your blog just to see how it looks like? Well, every blogger wants their blog to look good so, I guess, this is normal for the newbies specially when they’re still on designing stage. And I bet, a newbie could spend a day or even a week just to finalized the design of his first blog. Yes, even there’s still no content.

This is also applicable on testing your site’s visitors counter. It’s very funny that I am so much guilty with it. I am very happy seeing my visitors counter increasing it’s number yet I already knew that I am the only one who visits my blog. Well, I removed that widget since then. Instead, I started to use some statistics tools like Alexa and Google Analytics to see the real counts.

That’s mine!

Any web content is a copyright of it’s creator. Actually, asking for permission and giving credits are just enough in this free internet world. But the newbies are, again, unaware of this. He will just copy some contents to his blog without returning any credits. Although, he might not claim the ownership of the content, he also didn’t give credits or didn’t even asked for permission.

Just imagine this, if you became a successful blogger and the time has come that you visited some blogs, and you saw your own creation on that blog, what would you feel? Would you feel proud even there’s no single word that credits that work to you?

We are very lucky that SOPA and PIPA failed to conquer the web. We are still free! Yet, being free doesn’t mean that we can get whatever we want. Besides, it is a good practice to say “thanks” to the original author. And the only way to say it is to give credits by linking to the author’s website or profile.

I’ll follow you back.

One of the known strategy on blog promotion is by commenting of other blogs, specially the related ones. Again, newbies are unaware of that but he do “blog hopping” and commenting on other blogs. But the funny fact is that on his comment, he’ll ask for a visit back to his blog. Sometimes, they just try to be good in commenting but as you read the comment, there are no relevance. So what’s the purpose of that? Remember, comments must always be about the topic and not about your blog.

When will the advertisement appear?

Before a newbie will enter the world of blogging, he might already heard about earnings through advertisement specially with the use of Google Adsense. A newbie is so excited to see any advertisement on his blog.

When will I get paid?

Of course, when there’s advertisement, there’s payment. And once the newbie blogger saw that advertisements appears on his blog, he will eventually check his Adsense account for how much he earned for a couple of hours ago, not knowing that he’s the only visitor his blog’s have for that day. I suggest, do not look to your earnings daily and be surprise if you visited your account again, you’ll see some cents. At least, it is less annoying.

That’s all. And for the newbies, don’t be afraid of the blogosphere. There’s a big space here for improvement. I claim no mastery in blogging. Just remember, everything is a learning process and always remember this, “Content is the King“.

Let’s make a healthy discussion here for the newbies. Please leave some comments and everything will be appreciated. Thanks a lot and happy blogging.

The Blog Engage $500 USD Guest Blogging Contest #1
Blog Engage $500 USD Guest Blogging Qualifying Article

As someone who has been blogging for three and a half years I learned that you can reach many goals without being the best at any of them as long as you take a fresh approach and inject your own personality and touches into them to make them unique.

There is a reason why dozens of bloggers all try to sell their own “How to Blog / SEO Tips…etc” and that is because there is room for everyone to weave a slightly different approach that worked for them, or tips they learned along the way.  I won’t lie, many of it has been said before in different words but sometimes articulation is everything, if somebody can connect with you in a way that makes sense and is easy to understand then you may gain more benefit from a smaller blogger’s instruction courses than a mega blogger’s instruction courses.

• You Don’t Have To Be The Best Writer

I see some mega successful blogs by teenagers who have limited vocabulary, misspellings in their articles and by International bloggers who write in English that can sometimes come off as broken and fragmented.  You don’t have to be a literary writer to be a successful blogger, you just have to connect with audiences on an emotional and intellectual level.  You have to inject personality with your readers and write a post that draws something from them that makes them remember your site and article.  This can be anything from asking them questions, to sharing information in a way they can relate to.  I have seen many bloggers share personal stories including mistakes, lessons, pains and triumphs that connect with a reader’s own struggles and successes which build a connection.

Take a time to engage your readers, respond to every comment with a good reply that asks more about them or invites them to share more information.  Every comment is an opportunity to engage.

• You Don’t Have To Be The Best Salesman

Okay, having a great sales pitch is really helpful here but you don’t have to actually sell anything directly.  If you have a following you can more passively monetize your sites with CPC programs like AdSense, Kontera, Infolinks or even Amazon Affiliate so that mere banners, ads and text links do the income earning for you without you having to convince someone to buy something.  Sure, direct affiliate marketing has higher commissions and potential profits but you don’t really have to do it to be a successful blogger.  Once you have an audience, a casual mention of a product or service you really like or enjoy may be enough to throw some affiliate sales your way, so work on building relationships first.  You can’t sell to an empty theater, so make sure you fill up all the tickets before you show some commercials before the movie.

• You Don’t Have To Be The Nicest Blogger

Some bloggers have gained fame and recognition for being bold, blunt and to the point.  Others may have gained some recognition for being downright rude and upsetting.  Pick a style and persona that you want to invest in and stick with it, if you don’t want this persona to leak to your real life name then make sure you use a pseudonym when you blog and leave no trails/traces to your actual personhood.

My own personal thoughts are to always be professional and treat everyone with respect.  However I see that it works for some personalities and gets them recognition and attention, so don’t think you have to play nice all the time.  Blogging is all about choice, pick what you want to be as a blogger and be it without worries.

Note: if you want to sell people products, best to have a professional personality though.

• You Don’t Need A Niche

Mommy bloggers even though they are considered a niche really aren’t, they are just personal blogs that can talk about anything and everything the blogger wants to discuss without caring whether their post or topic is “in niche”.  There are plenty of successful personal blogs and in fact companies love bloggers who are parents, and talk about what they do in day to day life provided they come off as real and have a real reader base.

If you want a niche, you don’t even have to be the best in your niche you just have to be good enough to get attention.  This means you have to be unique and original, if 20 blogs talk about Pugs, then put a spin that makes your Pugs blog unique in ways others aren’t.  Do the research and find out what makes other blogs in your niche appealing and if you feel you can’t beat them at the game, then do something different.  Focus on what you can offer that makes your blog a unique experience.

• You Don’t Need Paid Web Hosting

I prefer self hosted WordPress blogs and tell all my clients, readers and fans why I think that hosting your own blog on your own web hosting company is better than a free blog.  I still think this but there are also big advantages to running a blog on WordPress.com, Tumblr or Blogger.com not the least of which is that it is free and hosted in a cloud platform where you don’t have to worry about PHP or script performance and deal with the complexity of a self hosted solution.  Wordads is WordPress.com’s own ad network which will even allow you to earn from CPC ads on your WordPress.com blog if you own your own DNS name.  The rules are slacking and advertising opportunities will pick up on free cloud hosted solutions.  I still think you should get your own DNS name however, this way if you build a following you can take it with you to another platform should you choose to change later.

Note: there are still reasons to have self hosting but the gaps and benefits are shrinking a bit to the point where you can use a free platform until you get a reader base, some income first and can switch later.

• You Don’t Have To Be Number One

Again, there is so much competition you have to know that you don’t have to be number one, you just have to be memorable and carve out your own fanbase and audience.  Just like there are hundreds of TV Shows, there are millions of other blogs and you just need to have your own fans and subscribers.  As long as you keep them engaged and connect with them you will be remembered and talked about.  Try something different and simple for a change, experiment and call readers or fans out with questions.  Attack news items with your own unique point of view, be original, be unique and be different.  You don’t have to be the best, but be different because standing out against the white noise of blogs is the most important.

When building online relationships via webmaster forums and other social media websites you have some common techniques in which you must use on a daily basis.

These key factors will determine the level of success, and strength of your online relationships.

Today I’m going to share some of the building block techniques I’ve used to build the Blog Engage community and brand. (more…)

1000 USD 2011 Best Guest Blogger Contest Article Approved

I have started Makewebworld some time back and it started with a PR0 (each blog starts with that). In the latest update my 3 months of effort has been rewarded with a page rank of 3.

Once I was over with the feeling of achievement, I started to analyze which things have worked in favor to make this happen.

Here are few things which I think has worked in the favor and I would like to repeat them for my other blogs. I will not be including things like good content, user interface etc. These are basics and should be there to start the blog.

A Helpful Act

An unselfish helpful act can take you long way in terms of establishing you in the market. My first post which has ranked and reached to Google’s first page was because of this only.

I had a malware attack on my blog which has brought the blog down for some time. I cleaned it and it took almost 7 hours to restore everything as there was not much information available on the internet about it.

I could have taken a rest after that but instead I decided to write a guide on how to clean the malware, so other people does not suffer like me. I did spend 1 more hour on writing that post and publish it. So it was an 8 hour effort on the whole thing.

And instantly this post was ranking no 3 in Google, and started to get people on the blog. On that day I got 500 new visitors on my blog.

Many people like the help provided by that guide and decided to link back to it, while they were writing about the malware removal process. I got many one side in content valuable links for that post.

After a week I decided to share this inspirational story through guest post on Problogger (What You can take from your blog’s worst day). They liked it and guess what – another chain of good traffic and backlink from a high PR site.

I have not done any promotion for that guide and still it is a PR2 page on my blog.

We always work for looking keywords, generating posts and backlinks to rank higher but sometime just going out of that mindset and a simple act can give a lot more than hours of work. You just need to keep your eyes open for the opportunities.

Guest Post

This is one of the known methods of generating traffic and links for new blogs. I have also used it to some extents. I am not doing a lot of guest posting for Makewebworld, but I do make sure that I send 2-3 posts in a month.

Key is to track and promote your guest posts. I do track all my guest posts and do promotion for them. Posting on a good PR blog is not enough because the backlink will not be from that blog, it will be from the guest post.

So you need to know the PR of your own guest post and should try to increase it. Yes, it is easy to rank with good traffic blog rather than a new blog. So posting on a good PR blog will help but you may want to get all you can from your efforts.

The only restriction is that we should always send a high quality post. I always know deep inside that a post will be accepted or not and I am sure everybody will know this if they are sending a post. If a post can’t be published on your blog, it can’t be on any other too.

Blogging Community

If you are new to blogging sphere than you will find it hard to meet new people and make a space for yourself. Blogging Communities are a good way to make new friends.

There are many communities around but I like Blogengage and blokube. I am mostly active on Blogengage. These communities are a good way to generate some backlinks and get some new readers for your blog.

If you become part of these communities, than you need to engage. I have seen many people joining these with the mindset of getting links. Yes, you will get links but there is much more on offer.

“Once you have made an effort, you should get all the benefits you can take from it” – I always like to get whatever I can from my efforts.

Commenting

Blog Commenting is another way to increase backlinks and generate traffic. I do visit lots of blog and comment on posts, if I like them.

There is lots of debate about a dofollow or nofollow links, I never worried about the type of link. If I like the post and have something to add, I will post a comment.

I also make sure to visit one or two new blogs and check the posts there, if we do not make it a habit than most of the time we end up with one set of blogs to comment on. Going to one or two new blogs daily gives an extra bit of visibility to your blog.

There can be many ways to find new blogs, Stumbleupon is one of the great way to do that or if you do guest posts than you can look at the comments you have on the posts.

I also installed commentluv plugin on my blog to rewards the commenter’s and as soon as commentluv premium came out in the market I upgraded to that. This plugin helps in gaining some extra traffic as many people come by searching for commentluv premium enabled blog. Also it gives extra visibility on other blogs along with the addition of links.

These are the few things which I think made my journey easy.

Is there any other ways we can make this process smoother, share with us through the comments?

Looking for web forms for your blog? You have come to the right place! JotForm is the easiest way to get your message across with it’s user-friendly and intuitive drag-and-drop design and interface. You have all of the tools you need right at your fingertips.

Form Tools

Let your voice be heard with these easy Form Tools. Edit your heading, text box and text area, drop down box, radio button, and check box. Upload files with the file upload feature. You can also add a submit form button. (more…)

1000 USD 2011 Best Guest Blogger Contest Article Approved

The Internet is over-saturated with blogs. Just starting a blog is not very difficult. If you just want to have a generic online presence, your initial blogging process can remain unimaginative.

Readers want to get information, advice, and updates from the experts of their field. In the process of establishing your expertise in your niche, you actually have to have an expertise in the niche (there is no shortcut). Of course, the process of establishing said expertise could not occur overnight.

Start with a simple and most striking decision; choose to blog about what you know. The topic that you choose should be your primary interest, enough for you to strive to know the latest, the best, and the most on this area.

Analysis of your stand

Analyze your priorities. Start by figuring out the main purpose for your blog. What do you want from you blog:

• Online marketing for your products/services.
• To start an income from the blog itself.
• To establish an online presence with an option to economize your blog in the future.
• Simply, because you love to write and extremely interested in a particular topic.

It is not imperative that your purpose be isolated within just these options. You can relate to more than one option here. However, it is important to figure your stand in the game.

Standards by which you measure your topic selection

The wrong blog topic choice can actually go so far as to ruin your chances to achieve your blogging purpose. Alternatively, you could get results but they are a fraction of what you could achieve with the right topic.

• Do not blog about a subject just because the A-listers of that niche are making heaps of money with it. In no way, will that influence your blogging process or outcome. Blog on the topic where you have an exceptional grasp of the subject and you think you can bring innovative and unprecedented concepts on the table.
• Contrarily, you might be very passionate about some subject but the niche audience group is too tight to create a large following. Definitely you can blog about the subject but integrate it with a related sub-topic that might not have such a selective target audience group.

Aim to find the balance between your passion and creativity with the commercial aspects of your blog.

Advantages of blogging about what you know

Blogging will get stressful if you are floundering for your next post inspiration, all the time. When you blog about what you know, you already know the subject’s best areas. Hence, you can be more creative with your posts. It makes sense that you might have more ideas to update posts on your blog regularly since what you write is what you know to be the hottest point of interest in your zone.

Analysis of your blog’s income potential is important. The range of authentic ideas and information that you put on your blog affects your readership. Your grasp on what you blog about will translate in to a strategy unto itself into attracting more followers.

A wider blog niche can be a disadvantage when you cannot manage your time to juggle all the aspects. Narrow the blog down to concentrate more on your main subject of expertise. You can develop the blog in time when you have a better management process.

Follow your competitor blogs and keep track of the topics or ideas that they might have ignored. The advantage here is that you can regroup these ‘gaps’ in the ideas and fill them with your creative take. However, to grasp these neglected details, keep yourself up to date on the latest in your subject.

Final step to compliment your blog posts

Promote your posts to get maximum exposure. Your niche has so many blog options for the readers. Unfortunately, just writing about what you know might not be enough, market this fact (and your blog) to your audience. Social media sites are a boon to this age of bloggers, make maximum use of these sites.

Some good and reasonable (if not professional) SEO for your posts will take you up in the search engine charts effortlessly establishing your expertise without compromising your post integrity.

When you pair effective marketing with your undeniable interest in your own blog topic, it will not fail to impress the readers. However, follow it up by cultivating readership with efficient networking.

What are your thoughts?

You know it always amazes me what some people will do for money. I’m talking about plastering ads all over your blog. To me there’s nothing worse than visiting a blog only to find two 300 by 250 ads right in your face before you even see content.

The first thing you should know is these ads are greatly reducing the chance of someone commenting, tweeting or socially sharing on any of your articles on their favorite networks. In fact I don’t even let the website finish loading I simply click the close option and continue looking for other blogs to engage with. (more…)