The Webmaster Blog » Blogging

Tips for Setting Up Your Blog

Kat — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:35:07 +0000

I found a blog post that I thought was just brilliant. Number one because the topic was interesting, and number two, because the post itself encouraged you to read further into the blog.

The post is Blog Setup: 40 Practical Tips. The title itself is great, it is interesting and Google is going to love it. Notice how the keywords come first, very important for SEO. The post caught my eye because I am always looking for tips on how to set up a blog. I am always starting new blogs, and anything that makes blogging easier or more profitable is of interest to me.

Opening the post I was surprised to find 40 links dealing with all sorts of blog topics. Now I was just a bit annoyed that I would have to do more clicking to get the information I was after, but I had to admire the technique. For the most part the links were to other posts in the same blog, but some were to outside posts. All look interesting and I am going to be spending some time checking out the links.

The links were organized by topic. I found that very helpful, it is easy to get put off by a long list of random links. With the links organized into sections it was easy to jump from topic to topic. For instance, I skipped right over the basics and went straight to the section on SEO and analytics. Someone just starting out would probably start with the links on how to choose a hosting account.

All in all a great post from many different stand points. I think it is a format that I will be using in the future!

Create a Free Blog

Kat — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:50:21 +0000

Visit the forums and you will find that the debate rages on. Is it better to use a free blog service, or pay for your own domain and hosting? In my opinion the answer is both!

The biggest advantage to having a self hosted blog is that you have the most control over your blog. You can post the ads you want and the content you want.And when you you use a provider such as Hostgator or GoDaddy you can rest assured you will have reliable hosting without too much downtime.

But there are advantages to using a free host. The number one advantage is that it is free! Free blogs are a great way to test the water of blogging. Try it out and get some experience before you actually pay money to blog. Free hosts are also a useful source of backlinks to your regular blogs.

There are some downsides to free hosts. Some will place ads on your sites. Some will not allow you to place your own ads on your site. Read the terms of service carefully and make sure that the host you choose will meet your needs.

Following is a list of free host sites. My favorite, just because it is small and I know the owner is Blogging4Life. My blog there is Katalina Online. Have fun creating your free blogs!

Blogging4life.com
Freeblogs.org
FreeBlogIt.com
Blog.com
MyBlogSite.com
informationjunkie.net
blogsome.com
weebly.com
wordpress.com
blogger.com
livejournal.com
theblogs.net
thoughts.com
webnode.com
blog.co.uk
freeblog.org.uk
bravenet.com
yola.com
webs.com
bloguni.com
sosblog.com
wix.com
doodlekit.com
vox.com
tumblr.com
blogskinny.com
blogeasy.com
blogr.com

Finding Content for Your Blog

Kat — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:55:21 +0000

Knowing that I really needed to get a post up that had nothing to do with my December giveaway, and actually had something to do with blogging, I went searching eZine Articles for something to put up here fast. When you are rushed for time it is an appealing idea, and I have to admit I have done it more than once. It is not hard to tell on my blogs, I follow the rules and leave all the links. Usually it is a simple task. Select an article, cut, paste, done.

It didn’t work that way today. First off, most of the articles on blogging were “How To Get Rich Blogging” articles. I don’t believe many of the authors have actually gotten rich from blogging, so I am not all that interested in whatever affiliate program they are pushing. The rest of the articles were just rehashes of the same old stuff. Anyone who has been blogging for more than a week probably knows to find a niche, write great content, and write often. If they have been blogging for a month they probably have guessed that SEO is important, (even if they don’t know what that is, or if like me, they would rather write for readers than search engines!), pictures make your posts pop (apparently pictures of scantily clad women are best, even if your post is about SEO). Then there is always the self hosted vs free hosting discussion. Go ahead and bash whatever you are not doing.

So, because I have no time, the best thing to do is waste time, I go blog hopping. Entrecard is good for this. I’ll just do a little widget surfing and maybe some blog out there will give me inspiration and help me to write the post that Diggers will Digg, Stumblers will Stumble, and the almighty Google will put in the #1 position of every search. In addition the readers of this remarkable post will click every sponsored link and buy every affiliate product, making me an overnight millionaire.

I know my standards were high and I was asking the impossible. But it is hard to be inspired by a post on “I’m sorry I haven’t been posting”. Or the, “I need original content so I will scrap this post and run it through Google translator a couple times and the resulting gibberish is sure to bring tons of readers and instant wealth” posts. And the inevitable “make money online” posts.

Of course, my favorite posts are the ones on mesotheliomia. Because when someone clicks on an ad for mesotheliomia it pays really well so even if my blog has nothing to do with mesotheliomia I will make sure that I use the word mesotheliomia lots, because using high paying keywords, like mesotheliomia, are the best way to instant riches. (Of course it might help if I knew how to spell mesotheliomia.)

So, my poor readers, still believing that any post is better than no post, I have subjected you to over 500 words of pretty useless ranting. But I know that I read somewhere that between 525 and 550 word posts are the best for SEO, keywords and instant riches, so I’ll just leave it at that!