Blogging Tips

This week I’ve noticed that some of the blogs I regularly visit are looking for contributors or guest bloggers to write for them. I would understand why they resort to this strategy to be able to provide fresh content to their readers, especially that most of them are blogging on a part time basis.

Definitely, there are benefits of opening your blog to willing contributors or guest bloggers. But at the same time, this could do more harm to your blog than the sought benefits. Today’s post will introduce you to some reasons why you should not welcome contributors or guest bloggers.

Disadvantages of Using Guest Bloggers

If you’re looking for the advantages of opening your blog to guest bloggers and contributors, you will not find them here. Instead, you’ll find a list of disadvantages. Don’t worry, I’ll have a separate post for the advantages. You can subscribe to my blog so you won’t miss any future updates. In the meantime, here are the disadvantages of welcoming guest bloggers and contributors to your blog.

Apparently, when you don’t have time to keep your blog updated, you resort to opening it to willing guest bloggers and contributors. In exchange, the contributors or guest bloggers can reward themselves with links to their own blogs. You are probably doing this because you’ve read somewhere else that updating your blog regularly will attract search engine to crawl your blog more often. As this takes place, you’ll receive more traffic from them. Unfortunately, while search engines are important, your readers and subscribers are also equally important.

1. Looking for Guest Bloggers! EQUALS No time to blog!

Of course, you don’t want your readers and subscribers to think that you don’t have time to keep your blog. This could result to them unsubscribing to your feed or become discouraged to return back for another visit.

What if the guest blogger or the contributor fails to deliver quality posts? What if the guest blogger or contributor surpasses your standards and provide even better posts for your readers and subscribers? What will you do?

Will you curse yourself for letting someone into your blog and steal your blog readers and subscribers? Will you hate yourself for letting someone publish his post on your blog and later realize that your readers didn’t like it? Or will you moderate all the contributions your guest bloggers submit, do the necessary grammar and spell check, which could be a burdensome task. What’s the difference of this to making your own post. It’s like writing a post, only that the idea is not yours.

2. What if the Guest Blogger…

 
Whether you like it or not, your guest bloggers or contributors are your competitors. These people who are willing to publish their best posts on your blog are hoping to steal a slice of your blog traffic. They are also eyeing at your subscribers… But to be able to attract your readers and subscribers, they need to compete with you. They need to show your readers that they can provide them with more valuable information. That’s exactly the reason why guest posts are generally written outstandingly.

In case you haven’t noticed, bloggers who welcome guest bloggers invite those who blog about the same topic they do. That reason alone makes them potential competitors. And, the need for them to be better is even more obvious because that’s the only way they could get your readers to visit their blogs or subscribe to their feed. Now tell me they’re not your competitors.

3. Guest Bloggers could be your potential competitors!

 
It’s difficult to get guest bloggers or contributors who can compliment your ideas, styles, methods, and voice in blogging. As a result, your subscribers and readers will find it difficult to cope with the changes introduced to them. This is especially true in cases where the owner of the blog and the guest bloggers have conflicting or opposing views on certain topics. The end result is a blog that confuses its readers and subscribers instead helping them.

While the presentation of various perspectives (pros and cons) on certain topic on your blog is healthy, it becomes less helpful to your readers as they are more likely to be confused. Also, in case your idea is in conflict with your guest blogger, you might end up being the loser after your readers weigh both your points. What will happen to you if this is the case? What will you do?

4. Guest Blogger could alienate your readers.

 
How many blogs have posted articles contributed by guest bloggers and later on delete it because of copyrights violation? There’s hundred of them and this happens for the simple fact that guest bloggers have their own interests and oftentimes, care less to protect yours. The truth is, there are more guest bloggers who want to take advantage of your blog that those who want to contribute something of real value to your readers and subscribers. This is why guest bloggers resort to stealing posts and ideas from other bloggers and submit it to your blog. The careless you, on the other hand, forgot to use Copyscape to check if the contribution is copied somewhere else. Later on, you’ll find yourself in trouble. And since it is your blog, you will be most responsible.

There you have it. Will you still welcome guest bloggers and contributors? What other reasons, I failed to mention, should discourage you from opening your blog to guest bloggers? I’m sure you have some thoughts you wish to share. Kindly use the comment and share them to everyone.

5. Guest Bloggers don’t protect your interest.

How many blogs have posted articles contributed by guest bloggers and later on delete it because of copyrights violation? There’s hundred of them and this happens for the simple fact that guest bloggers have their own interests and oftentimes, care less to protect yours. The truth is, there are more guest bloggers who want to take advantage of your blog that those who want to contribute something of real value to your readers and subscribers. This is why guest bloggers resort to stealing posts and ideas from other bloggers and submit it to your blog. The careless you, on the other hand, forgot to use Copyscape to check if the contribution is copied somewhere else. Later on, you’ll find yourself in trouble. And since it is your blog, you will be most responsible.

There you have it. Will you still welcome guest bloggers and contributors? What other reasons, I failed to mention, should discourage you from opening your blog to guest bloggers? I’m sure you have some thoughts you wish to share. Kindly use the comment and share them to everyone.

Thank you for your time.

The once huge number of netizen is continuously reduced as the number of bloggers to share them increase everyday. And if you’re one of those serious bloggers who wants to succeed in blogging, you will work hard to stand out in an overcrowded room. As more and more bloggers start to blog about the same topic, the need to be distinct and unique becomes a key element for bloggers to succeed.

In today’s post, I will be writing about the 8 Effective Blogging Tips to Create a Blog that Stands Out.

The first thing your blog should have is an eye-catching layout. You need to get your reader’s attention as soon as they get into your blog. Secondly, you need to have something in your blog that will make your bloggers stay and navigate through your pages. Lastly, you should instill in them the need to keep coming back to your blog for more updates. Listed below are the things you should do to make your blog stands out.

1. Make your blog’s layout and design distinct and unique.

People, especially the ones who browse the Internet are particularly interested in things that are different, new or unique. If they happen to stumble upon a blog that lacks appeal or fails to grab their attention and interest, they will surely leave as soon as they’ve seen the website.

Blogger.com offers free but limited number of template designs for a huge community of bloggers making layouts and designs of blogs almost identical. This will create an atmosphere of boredom to those who read blogs. In order to solve this problem, bloggers are advised to customize their blogs by changing the color, background, text style, logo etc. You can check out my previous article about free resources for bloggers to get a different template design you can implement on your blog. Once your blog has a unique design and layout it will be easier to create a brand and image for it. Branding is another important issue in blogging, which I will be dealing with extensively through the succeeding posts.

2. Use graphic designs or multi-media on your blog.

To catch the attention of your readers, you should strategically use pictures or multi-media on your blog. Take note that I emphasized on strategic use. The tendency with some bloggers is to post a lot of pictures on their blog, which makes downloading slower. Should this happen, your visitors might not have enough patience to wait for your blog to finish downloading.

Use pictures and videos only when it is necessary and when it’s useful. Normally, bloggers use pictures and videos to emphasize their messages to their readers. And it has been proven that pictures and videos improve the appeal of your blog to visitors.

3. Be the first to write about controversial issues.

Another way to gain attention and stand out from the crowd is to be the first to report or write about current or controversial issues. As soon as you’re done writing you should let others know it. I am the first one to write about the Blogging Mix on my blog, a concept that was born from the idea of Marketing Mix. After writing about Blogging Mix I submitted it to a number of article directories.

4. Write with Bold Content.

Write about why China’s Great Firewall is justified, or why Darren Rowse’s Problogger sometimes doesn’t make sense. These are some bold topics you can write about but you need to make sure you’ve got something to say. A lot of bloggers were able to gain attention after they were able to successfully provoke an A-list blogger to respond to their entries against them. This strategy however does not work all the time, especially if you are not able to support a daring idea or claim or accusation.

5. Challenge Authorities or Established Bloggers.

Everyone loves Brian Clark for his very helpful blog but if you can find something worth disagreeing about his blog, write about it then let him know, as long as you can defend your standpoint very well. Don’t challenge what established bloggers say on their blogs not until you have a sound reason to do so. If you challenge someone’s content and you don’t have what it takes to prove you’re right, you will just end up losing face and credibility.

I remember one of my friends during my undergrad. He is a non-conformist. He gets a lot of attention from people who hear about his radical ideas but most of them appreciated him for he is able to defend his beliefs very well.

6. Write articles in series.

Most bloggers, if you have noticed write articles in a series. This is an effective strategy when you write a good article because your readers will be waiting for the next post. They will then subscribe to your rss or they will come back to your site for updates. Just remember to intensify suspense as you go on with the next post. If you are writing about Increasing organic traffic to your blog, and you come up with your suggestions, place the most important suggestions at the last post of your series.

7. Offer something useful, fun and different for your blog readers.

Aside from the articles that you write on your blog for your readers, you should also offer newsletters or ezines. You may also offer free software and video clips. Other bloggers organize contests and seminars. These activities will earn your blog recognition but it will demand a lot of your resources.

8. Get a domain name for your blog.

One simple way to get noticed is to have your own domain name. If you are using a subdomain from Blogger or Wordpress it will be very difficult for you to create image or brand for your blog. When using a subdomain, you are promoting your subdomain provider and your subdomain and in most cases your subdomain provider gets more of the credit and recognition.

Your domain name should be related to the nature of your blog. TheWeblogZone.com for example is all about webblogs and blogging. When I have included blogging in my domain name, it makes it easier for my readers to remember it. Choosing a domain name is as important as choosing a name to be given to a person. So think carefuly of the best domain name for your blog before you purchase one from godaddy.com.

There you have it. After doing these 8 blogging tips, I’m sure that your blog will stand out from the rest. Enjoy blogging and Kudos to your blog!

Do you have any other suggestions on what bloggers can do to make their blogs stand out? I hope you’ll take the time to share it through the comments. Here are a few more suggested readings you might be interested at.

Research shows that more than 65% of the netizens don’t like a blog that takes forever to download. In today’s busy lifestyle, no one would like to waste their time to wait for your blog to download. As a rule of thumb, your blog should download within the next 12 seconds once it has been accessed. Otherwise, you will be missing a huge amount of traffic and you have just deprived your blog of repeat visit.

Like I’ve said before, traffic is the lifeblood of most blogs. Traffic enables bloggers to successfully monetize their blogs. Simply put, the higher the traffic your blog gets the higher the potential revenue is. It is therefore crucial that you make sure your blog downloads fast to avoid losing traffic and to get the most benefit out of it.

Tips For a Faster Downloading Blog

Here are some proven effective tips that will help you speed up your blog.

Optimize Images and Go Easy on Them

While it is true that images spice up your blog, it is also true that it slows its loading time. Here are a few things you can do to optimize the use of images without compromising the speed of your blog.

• Use image formats such as PNG, JPG and GIF. When using software such as Adobe Photoshop, always use the “Save for web” image quality.
• Alternatively, you can use an image optimizer. An image optimizer allows you to lessen the size of the image up to 50% or less. This means a faster downloading image. There are plenty of free online image optimizers you can use for this purpose. Here are some of my recommendations: Dynamic Drive, Image Reducer, Net Mechanic and Spin Wave.
• Make sure to use the ‘Height’ and ‘Width’ tags in images. Using the height and width tags on images allows browsers to figure out the dimensions of an image before it is downloaded. Without the ‘height’ and ‘width’ tags, the browser will have to figure out the height and width of the image which will slow the loading period.
• Lastly, host your images using image host sites like Flickr, Picture Trail, Image Shack and Photo Bucket. Doing this will greatly reduce the bandwidth used by your server. Since image hosting sites specialize on hosting images, they help your blog load faster because image upload sites have a better loading speed.

Avoid Using Tables. Use CSS Instead and Don’t Forget to Optimize your CSS.

If you are still using HTML codes to create tables and design your blog, you’re depriving it of a faster loading time. Tables normally slow down your blog. A better alternative to tables is to use CSS. Using CSS will dramatically speed up your blog’s load time up to 30% or more.

To further improve your blog’s speed, optimize your CSS by removing unnecessary code declarations and whitespaces or by shortening the CSS codes whenever possible. Fortunately, there are online websites that provide free CSS optimization for those who are less knowledgeable of CSS. Here are some websites that I recommend: CSS Optimizer, Clean CSS and Style Sheet Optimizer.

Go Easy on Scripts and Adverts

Bloggers, especially the new ones are obsessed with their blog’s design and monetization. Oftentimes, they’d overload their blog with fancy flashes and adverts that use javascripts. Least do they know that doing this compromises the downloading speed of their blog. The use of flash can also cause browsers to freeze annoying your visitors. That’s the least thing you want your visitor to feel about your blog.

The use of javascript is unavoidable especially if you’re monetizing your blog but you should make sure to use it in moderation. Like CSS, you can also optimize your Javascript to make it run faster on your blog. Free Javascript Optimizer is a website that offers javascript optimization.

Use Slash (/) on your Links

Another simple tip for a faster loading blog is to use slash (/) on your links.

Instead of using this link to link to TheWeblogZone: “http://theweblogzone.com” optimize the link by putting a slash at the end of the URL. (i.e. http://theweblogzone.com/)

Limit the Number of Post on your Home Page

Your home page is usually the first landing page of your visitors. For Blogs, minimizing the number of posts shown will somehow speed up your blog. You can do this through your dashboards. For TheWeblogZone, I decided to show 4 of my most current posts.

That’s all for now. Hope these tips help you improve the loading time of your blog.

If you would like to add something on the list, you’re more than welcome to leave it through the comment.

Thank you for your time!