Here are some ‘How To’ blogging tips that should help you make the best use of your blog, particularly if you are trying to make money blogging. Many people know the basics of blogging, yet knowing these doesn’t mean you should make the basic blogging errors.
Here are nine ‘How To’ blogging tips on how to avoid basic mistakes that could cost you dear.
1. How to Attract Attention
Make the topic of your site obvious through the graphic header and title. Attract attention with a good graphic header and use a title that holds your visitors on your site. Keep visitors on your blog for the first 3-4 seconds and they will likely stay and start reading.
If your site is on the topic of dogs, have dogs in the header graphic and in the title – with the title in Bold text and Larger than the rest of the page text. Make your title STAND OUT.
2. How to Get Them to Read
Bite sized pieces – easier to scan and easier to read! Long paragraphs are rarely completely read – maybe the first four or five lines, but little more. So make your blog paragraphs no more than four or five lines long – even if you have graphics to either side that reduces the word count for these 4-5 lines.
3. Use Readable Fonts
This third of my ‘How To’ blogging tips is broken in an unbelievable number of blogs I have come across. Make the font and text readable! Dark grey text on a black background – faint blue on white – how on earth do people think that most of us can read some of that text.
Good old black on white, or occasionally white on black, is fine. No need for anything fancy that looks nice but can’t be read. The same goes for fancy fonts. Arial, Verdana and Calibri are best for online reading, while Courier is good for technical instructions and so on.
Also – not too small! Not everybody has 20/20 eyesight for on-screen reading. Calibri at 12 point and Arial and Verdana at 10 point are acceptable. Do not use serif fonts, such as Times New Roman or Garamond for on-screen reading. These are best for text intended to be printed.
4. How to Lose Visitors
If you want to lose visitors and potential customers the ideal way is to use pop-ups on your landing page. Exit pop-ups that show when visitors leave your site are fine. Pop-ups that appear as soon as a prospect reaches your blog are fatal!
5. Avoid Blinking Text
At one time, flashing lights and blinking text were regarded as cool – not now! People have become more sophisticated in their internet usage, and are no longer thrilled by special effects. With some it brings on migraines, and with others even epileptic fits – though that is an extreme case. Nevertheless, flashing and blinking text is no longer cool – it is destructive to your objective which is to keep visitors on your blog.
6. Avoid Clutter
Avoid cluttering your blog with graphics, adverts, external and internal links and badges of affiliated bodies and so on. Your blog should be clean and easy to read, and all graphics should complement the text, not be there just for the sale of it. Adsense advert blocks should be placed intelligently and not break up important tracts of text. Keep it clear, easy to follow and everything in its place, as they say.
7. Use One Single Theme
One of the more important ‘How To’ blogging tips is how to set up your theme. Some people believe it cool to have a different graphic header on each page – avoid that at all costs. Like any other website, a blog with permanent pages must have the same template on every page so your visitor gets visual consistency on your site.
If you have any pages devoted entirely to a pre-sales page or even a sales page for a product you are promoting, you could use the facility offered by WordPress to remove the sidebar for that page so there is no distraction to the main objective: promoting the product. However, the page header should still be that for the entire blog site.
8. Include a Privacy Policy and a Contact Page
Google gives high listing points to blog pages containing a link to a Privacy Policy and a Contact page, and every blog should contain these pages. In fact, if you want to use Adsense on your blog to make money, Google will be unlikely to approve your blog for Adsense unless you have a Privacy Policy. There are many online you can use and customize for your blog.
9. Give Your Visitors Something to Do
Make sure your visitors have something to do on every page and post on your blog. At the very least they are able to make a comment, but one of the more important how to blogging tips is to provide a link at the bottom of the page. That could be to your Home Page or to a page relating to the post, but whatever you do, don’t let them read to the end and then . . .
. . . nothing to do but leave the site using the exit or back button. Even a bottom Adsense block or a link to another of your websites would be good. Even better would be to finish with a link to product you are marketing that relates to the topic of the post or the page.
Each of these ‘How To’ blogging tips will either help you to keep your visitors on your blog long enough to achieve what you want to achieve, or will persuade Google that you blog page is worth listing – and listing in a high position so you get some great free advertising. Always keep the objective of your blog in mind when designing your content.
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Brian Verigin. YahSuccess
Making use of a blogging can earn you income on the internet. Yes, you can have a blog of your own … YES you can make money from blogging. Get ahead of the curve, I can show you how!
