If you are a blogger or related to blogging/Internet marketing in any way, then you might have faced the writer’s block.  We all face it or at least I face it daily, that irritating feeling of sitting in front of the computer browsing various websites, thinking about what to write, what my readers would like, what would be helpful for them, and what is something that they don’t know about. Suddenly your mind goes blank. Do you feel the same way I do? If yes, then please continue reading as I am going to share some tips which are really useful and helped me a lot to avoid such situations.

Taking Notes

Create a notepad file and list topics which you found while surfing on the web, chatting, reading the local newspaper etc. and feel that these topics could be of great interest for your readers. This list is very handy when you are facing a writer block and searching for some fresh ideas.

Digg

We all know about Digg and other social bookmarking sites. These sites are endless sources of fresh content and ideas. Go to any such website. I personally prefer Digg. Search the Digg stories relevant to your niche and analyze the taste of your target audience. See what kind of content is popular and write something on it.

Google Wonder Wheel

Have you heard about Google Wonder Wheel? Google Wonder Wheel is a flash based interface which shows the searched query in the hub. Results would be shown as its branches. To use Wonder Wheel, click on the “Show options” as shown in the figure below.

Then select the “Wonder Wheel” to see results in Wheel Format. I am using the keyword, “internet marketing” in my example, but you can use any keyword depending on your niche.

You can click on any branch you want to search further to get new ideas for your content. For example, I want to see which keywords are related to internet marketing strategies.

Yahoo! Answers

Another good source of finding fresh ideas is Yahoo! Answers. Yahoo! Answers is one of the biggest community driven Q&A website on the web. You can easily search for the questions which are related to your niche to find what your target audience is looking for lately.

Google Blog Search

Going to relevant blogs and reading new posts are a great way to find new ideas for your own blog, but it is time consuming. Hence I prefer Google Blog Search. Go to blog search, perform search for your keywords, and see the latest blog entries dealing with that keyword. Finally, simply read only those you find interesting to get new ideas for your blog.

So, these are some tips which I use and hopefully they can be useful for you too when you are facing a writer’s block. Also, if you have any more ideas on how to avoid writer’s block then feel free to share them in the comments.

Gagandeep Singh is working as a marketing executive for Invesp and helps E-commerce websites in creating killer landing pages and in making their conversion rate optimization campaigns successful.

Quite often, bloggers struggle to write. Regardless of the niche, sooner or later, they will hit some sort of a writer’s block where they simply cannot get out of. Breaking out of that block is not the question as time as proven again and again that people do break out eventually. However, the importance lies in how quickly you break out of it and what quality of posts you write during your break out. It is easy to start writing low quality posts, but as much as your blog is an image of yourself, you certainly don’t want to take that route.

I find myself mostly struggling to find time to blog. Unlike many, I rarely (actually don’t recall once, but I will say rarely to be safe) find myself out of ideas to post about. Why? I go through these five steps to find ideas, and I go through these unconsciously. However, you can start by practicing them consciously and maybe these might melt into your daily schedule without you intending them to be. Then, voila! You overflow with ideas!

Read And Don’t Read Your Niche

Everyone nowadays will tell you this. Read blogs in your niche. I will say, “Read them, but don’t only read them.” This is because by reading other blogs related to your niche, you start to unconsciously develop a writing style that isn’t your own flavor, but one that imitates the blogs you are subscribed to. I always find new bloggers trying to imitate the bigger bloggers. If you read carefully into the bigger blogs, you will notice:

• they are talking in their own unique styles
• they have experience
• they have their unique sources of ideas

By imitating them, you are confined to only their share of knowledge and ideas. That limits your blog and it can only be, at the most, an “imitating” blog. You don’t want that happening.

To prevent that, you should read other blogs and writings. Newspapers, online news articles, and personal blogs are just a few to mention. Go for the global section that applies to everyone. The intention here is to read over multiple styles to start defining your own style. However, as the idea of this post is to give you ideas to talk about, I will also confidently state that by reading other subjects, you will also create an idea database in your mind. Some things will spark posts to write about and others won’t. In the long run though, you will be pulling stuff to implement into your posts from multiple sources here and there to create quality posts.

What’s Hot?

You may have brilliant ideas. However, if no one is interested in your ideas, although they may be brilliant, you are not going to get much recognition.  So, you want to blog about topics that are on everyone’s minds. There are multiple ways to do this.

• Visit forums related to your niche. For example, since I’m talking about blogging in this post, I may visit super niche specific forums such as BloggersBB or relatively focused forums such as Digital Point’s Blogging section. Regardless of which ones you visit, you are bound to see people asking questions of all difficulty and interest.
• Carefully read the comments on your blog and others’ blogs. You will start to see that there are many commentators that ask questions that unfortunately, many bloggers nowadays do not take the time to respond to. This is your chance to jump on the idea and write about it.
• Follow people on Twitter. The microblogging scene has added a whole new dimension to this blogging game and it certainly is a pot filled with stuff to talk about. See what Twitter users in your field are talking about and try to join in on the conversation, both using Twitter and using your blog.
• Run a poll on your site to see what people want to know about. Sometimes, you have to ask your visitors what they want and serve it to them. If you don’t have big traffic, this may not be the most ideal option, but minimal traffic will still give you some results.

Three More Ways To Fish Ideas!

So, I guess I’m not that great of a planner, making this post initially go past a thousand words. Little doses of medicine are much better than chucking the entire thing down your throat, so I’ll let you guys munch on these thoughts for a while until I release the next three ways.

For this post, I’m going to focus specifically on migrating your WordPress blog over from one host to another host. I’ll cover the more general technique of transferring your blog over to another blog. Then, I’ll cover a really straightforward option possible in the case the control panel your web hosting company offers you is cPanel.

Moving Your WordPress Installation

To move your blog over to another host, the two things that you want to backup are your wp-content and your MySQL database. To backup your wp-content folder, it is pretty straightforward. Just download the folder through your FTP client and you’re done.

Backing up your MySQL is a little more complicated. Login to your phpMyAdmin and select the database that has your WordPress installation. With the database selected:

1. At the top, click Export
2. When the page loads, at the left side in the Export box, there will be all the tables in your current database. Click Select All to select all the tables.
3. Underneath, among the radio buttons, there should be one labeled SQL. Select that.
4. Under the SQL section in the right, tick the settings: Structure, Add DROP TABLE, Add AUTO_INCREMENT, and Enclose table and field names with backquotes.
5. Then right below, tick Save as file. Once you save it to your computer, you’re pretty much done backing up.

Now, putting it back online.

1. Download a copy of WordPress from WordPress.org. Extract it and except for the wp-content folder, upload everything.
2. Then, update the wp-config-sample.php file to a database you have created in your new hosting account.
3. Upload the wp-content folder you backed up to your blog’s root directory.
4. To restore your MySQL database, login to phpMyAdmin and choose a database you wish to restore your tables into.
5. Then, click Import, Browse, select your SQL file, and click Go.
6. You should be all set then.

Super Easy Way If You Use cPanel

If you have cPanel and your new host uses cPanel, simply click Backup and backup the Home directory and the MySQL database. Then, in your new hosting account, simply use the Restore wizard, click Browse, and select your backups. Done!

Conclusion

When I changed hosts, I utilized both methods. I can confidently say that both methods work very fine. If you do try one of the two methods and get stuck somewhere, feel free to contact me and I’ll try to help you out.

How do you successfully move your blogs over, as not all hosts are always perfect? Any migration episodes to share?

So I was doing my usual random surfing on the web when I saw this theme.

My initial reaction was, “Wait, is this a wrong screenshot?” Then I looked again and thought, “What an awesome theme!”

Let’s face it. Not everyone is a hardcore blogger. You might make a post or two here and there during the week. It is certainly not updated to really call it a blog or a face of you. However, you might use Twitter intensely to really draw your day out completely. Maybe it is some other social networking site like Facebook. Then, this is where this Visiting Card theme kicks in.

I only took a peek at the demo, but was instantly amazed by its potential power. Now, if you modified this page to your taste, wouldn’t it be an awesome online business card for you?

Just a thought. I rarely make posts like this, but I was just too dazzled by this theme, I really had to share it.

Anyways, although ahnternet is technically a “personal” blog, I still want to give something worthwhile to you guys, so here it goes.

Today while I was waiting in line for my Transformers 2 ticket, I was somewhat befuddled at a screen that was showing the movies that the theater was playing. Drag Me to Hell, Terminator, Night in the Museum 2, Transformers 2, Transformers 1, … what?! Transformers 1? That must be an error, right? I quickly realized it wasn’t–they were playing it again to help people who might have forgotten the previous story. Anyways, what does this have to do with you?

“Publish” Doesn’t Mean “End”

Let’s first look at the “posts” component of this article–recycling in the aspect of the blogging. Often times, we will publish an article and think, “Well, that article’s done with now.” It is as if you won’t ever come back to that article. I feel that such a thought is actually a big mistake that bloggers make. It is like although “Publish” is a bit significant in that it feels like the article is finally ready to be released to the world, bloggers should see it as “just another draft.”

In the world where we’re constantly going after good keywords and SEO, we often forget who we actually write for. It definitely isn’t entirely for Google or any other search engine spiders and it also isn’t all for yourself. The majority of our content should be written for the blog readers and subscribers. Hence, you want to deliver quality.

Recently, I had a legitimate comment made on a post I made back in August 2008. That’s right, nearly a year ago. First, I was surprised that someone commented on a post that old. Second, I found a few sentences that I could rework (and I did) to make the ideas easier to grasp.

Regardless, I’m currently in the stages of composing a new post that enhances upon this post I made. Obviously it won’t be a lame re-phrase or a regurgitation of what I wrote 11 months ago, but its focus would certainly revolve around the same idea. Why am I doing this? There is a clear indication that there are new people coming into this industry and often times, these old posts can get buried away and catch a few webs. Therefore, it seems appropriate to re-open and explain once again. Who knows, you may have missed a couple points here and there too!

Recycling Ideas & Not Copying

Let’s admit this. We see same ideas coming up again and again. Remember The Million Dollar Homepage? That site and the script was cloned so much it wasn’t even funny. I think it came out to be that the only one that suceeded was the original. Hah! Well then, why am I saying, recycle ideas if you know that copies are bound to fail?

No, it is not copies that I’m talking about. I would say a model to build on with a hint of creativity. What am I talking about here? Let me show you.

The Thesis Theme is a popular theme in the blogosphere, not because it is fancy, but because it is an excellent theme to build on. However, let’s be frank. Many blogs that run Thesis, you sort of get the feeling that it is running Thesis. However, you still wouldn’t be able to conclude for sure. Why? Because the more successful ones have adopted Thesis, but have developed its own unique parts. This is what I’m talking about. Starting from something and building on it.

One of more direct examples I could give you is my mini-sites. I run a lot of mini-sites that sell various things ranging from simple eBooks to tools like directory submitters. Often, I’ll just copy over the same page, change the words from one product to another, and then play around with the site. Sometimes I’ll re-order the paragraphs and other times I’ll change the color of the page. At times, if I’m just flowing with adrenaline, I’ll add more scripts and functions to the site to make the visit a little bit more enjoyable. However, in the end, the core beginning is the same. By doing this, I am able to save money and time mostly while providing the same great quality and easy navigation to my visitors.

Conclusion

I will say this again. I am not promoting plagirism and I am not telling you to regurgitate your old posts. The point I’m trying to get across is that by enhancing your previous works, you both benefit yourself and your reader in the ways I mentioned above.

If you are an old blogger, look through your achives and see what posts could still be pertinent to readers today. See one?  Read through it and see how you can enhance it for today’s visitors new and old.

Are you a new blogger? Read through others’ blogs. See what they are talking about. See what you can give about that topic? Remember, don’t copy. However, I’m sure other bloggers wouldn’t mind you giving your view on the subject. Isn’t that what communication and interaction is after all?

What do you feel about recycling ideas or posts? Let me here your view through the comments, as I do fully realize that this can be quite a controversial assertion.

Well, TysBlog actually did this already and made their own Entrecard list. However, the big downside of the list was that it quickly got outdated. Way too many sites on the list have the Entrecard widget hidden somewhere near the bottom of the page, some of them don’t even have the widget anymore, and worst of all, some sites don’t even exist. As originally, a big fan of the list, now, I have my own list that I accumulated. Plus, these are sites that are related to my niche, which makes it a lot better for me too. Anyways, let me get to the point.

I’m going to make a new list. Now, why am I telling you this? I’m telling you this because I want to give my readers an opportunity to be on this 300 Entrecard widget supporting blog. I will heavily promote this list, so for every download and user, assuming that they add the bookmark into their browser’s favorite list, you can assume a unique visit from them once per day. Pretty sweet deal, huh?

Obviously, as it is Entrecard, you’re not really submitting here in hopes of getting more subscribers or more comments, although that is a possibility. The primary reason I use Entrecard is to gain credits to promote on other related sites, which is a pretty good deal in my opinion.

Criteria

However, as I have some great plans on promoting this list, I need to ask you to do a favor for me. No, I’m not asking for your money, all I’m asking for is the following:

• Entrecard widget should be visible on a full screened page, above the fold. I will accept F11ed FireFox folds.
• No splogs.
• Make sure that the widget is visible. Don’t hide it or camouflage it as I want blogs where you can see the widget pretty much the moment you open the page.
• A focused niche within the field that ahnternet deals with would be awesome, but outside is still fine, assuming that it is not a splog.
• If your site isn’t in the first batch, don’t bombard me with hate emails. If your site meets the above requirements, it will be in it within a few updates as I am pretty sure people won’t stay on par with the criteria above, booting them out of the list pretty much.

How to Submit

Simply submit it using the form below. Please submit one form for every website you wish to have submitted.

Anything Else?

As much as I love my readers, I love my subscribers even more. It would be kind of you to subscribe to this blog in appreciation of my efforts in this mini project. Subscribers (by RSS and email) can notify me through the form above and they will be moved up the 300 list, which ensures them a greater possibility of their blogs being looked at as opposed to #300, as most people start off from #1.

Also, by subscribing, you will get the latest updates on the 300 Entrecard enabled websites, which allows you to pretty much not have to do the bad job of picking out the bad and replacing it with the new, good ones.

To subscribe, just enter your email and away!

Conclusion

I’m looking at receiving about 100 submissions looking at popularity of this blog right now. However, the more I receive through the form, the better for me and for you as you will get more sites in a list that would be viewed by thousands while I don’t have to do the somewhat tedious job of going through the Entrecard directory looking for fast loading and above the fold Entrecard widgeted sites.

Anyways, so just feel free to submit the sites through the form above and if you would so kind to do so, subscribe to this blog so you can get the latest updates on the list of 300 that really works while also getting your site a good position within the list.

Some notes! These 50 themes are themes I chose, want to share, and feel are quality themes. Thus, these 50 were chosen based on my personal preferences, so if you think one of them looks ugly, still take a look further down as you just might find one worth checking out. Also I haven’t tested all of them myself. I chose them after checking out either the screenshot or the demo, so don’t come to be asking for theme support! While I could, the theme authors are the best to approach! Click “Read the rest of this entry” to check out all the themes. I did this to prevent the first page of my blog from crashing down badly due to an overwhelming long list.

Checkmate

Blogger Theme

Uchilla

I Heart PC

Satorii

Connections Reloaded

Leviathon

Zinmag Primus

Monezine

Cool Breeze

iNove

oriental

Carrington Blog

Disciple

simpiSIMO

disaster

Too Newsy

Pink Valentines

hijriah

goldmine

Simple Balance 2.2

Freemium

Paraportica

igloo

Quantum

I’d like to note again that these themes were chosen based on my opinion only. If you don’t like them, there are a lot of other WordPress 2.7 compatible themes. Also, I did not receive any paid offers for these placements as I don’t do that stuff.

All these themes should run fine with WordPress 2.7’s latest features, like threaded comments. Note however that I didn’t personally test it, but I only referenced the official website of the blog.

Well then, enjoy.

However, one thing that I’m wondering about is whether this may begin a closing of more and more WordPress tutorial blogs. Sort of like that effect that the WordPress themes database had when it first re-opened…

I guess we’ll have to see, but so far, I’m liking it.

Before I go on any further though, these R’s are just a five that I feel are important to a blogger. Obviously blogging is a bit arduous and requires a certain degree of expertise, and thus, I believe there are more to blogging that these five R’s. However, remember how I said I like to make all these funky lists to help me remember stuff? Well, this is just another one of them which I’m sure you’ll find easy to remember and recall during your blogging career.

Revelation
Before I go and explain this one, let me say that no, we’re not talking about The Holy Bible here. Revelation here indicates that you want to be different—a unique and a one of a kind blogger. As a blogger, to gain the maximum exposure, you want to voice something unique. If you don’t write something different and just replicate the other hundred blogs in your niche, there is NO REASON for a visitor to visit your blog.

So how can you be different? How can you be a revelation in the blogosphere? How can you take the blogosphere by a storm? There are actually quite a few ways in my opinion. One of them is developing current existing information with your personal color and research. However, this is a bit more challenging as you need to know the line between plagiarizing and not. You could also be the first to announce a new discovery or some release in the niche your blog is in. This is bound to bring some traffic to you and heighten your authority in the blogosphere, but again, this is a bit challenging. What I have found to be the easiest is just being yourself and supplying the information that is in demand. By supplying here, I’m talking about giving your personal take on a certain popular incident. Usually this works pretty well, as everyone has their own view on a topic.

Reputation
I’ve said quite a few times in my blog that a blog is, in a way, a resume. Well, since there are words that employers these days are even looking at potential employees’ Facebook profiles, I don’t see why a blog should be any different. Thus, a clean record and a good reputation within the blogosphere are important. So how do you create or maintain this reputation? It’s all about being diligent. Working hard in producing great posts, not forgetting to market your blog correctly, doing business legitimately, and always making new connections are just a few ways to get your reputation up. Remember, it’s a resume that you have here that you are composing.

Reciprocation
Blogging is often a two way relationship, thus the name of this section, reciprocation. The connection is either between you, the blogger, and a reader, or you the blogger, and another blogger. Without this relationship, I don’t think you can say that you are having the best blogging experience. If you were the only one who wrote and read the posts, isn’t that more like a secret diary online? To really experience the connections bloggers can make with others, you need blog as if you are talking to someone beside you, just that with blogs, you are doing it in words.

Also, I talk quite often about reciprocating, or replying, between bloggers. An essential part of a successful blogging experience and career is networking with other bloggers within your niche. To do this, take some initiative and make some connections going. Once you have established a decent relationship, maintain that relationship by commenting on that blogger’s posts, giving link love, and just thanking the other blogger for even small things like a casual comment. Social networking is crucial and through your first initiative and then a follow-up, a connection is created. This connection can only turn out to have positive outcomes in the future.

Rejuvenation/Revitalization
Blogging can be quite hard and taxing. I’m sure that even the likes of Darren Rowse from ProBlogger gets tired of blogging from time to time. It’s just inevitable and you’re bound to burn out sooner or later. Unfortunately, you are the only one who can fix that problem, but this is how I overcome it. It could work for you, but it also might not.

Anyways, what I do to revitalize myself is I look over some goals that I set at the early stages of the blog and try to revive the enthusiasm that I had when I was just starting out. Remembering all these goals and also remembering the times that I reached some of these goals just motivates me and gives me the energy that I need to keep blogging. Knowing the feeling of achieving something just makes me keep on wanting to go forward with blogging. Of course, this is all just me, but it could be you too, so try to remember those early days in your blogging career. If you’re just starting out, just often remind yourself how blogging is like a marathon and you should always keep your goal in mind and not be distracted by any outside factors that may discourage you or stop you from blogging.

Reflection
Throughout my years of blogging, I have learned quite a lot about blogging and just the general web. I have earned quite a bit of money, but have also lost just as much due to poor decisions. I have gained a lot of friends, partners, and contacts, but I have also fell apart with a few individuals, although I did make it up to them now. Now that I think about it, these experiences helped me quite a bit as I was able to grow as a blogger and grow as a responsible individual.

If you are quite an experienced blogger, try re-reading some of your old posts. I’m sure you agree with me that some of them are pretty bad. Maybe you solved those issues already, but most of the time, you probably didn’t. Grab these chances and see how you can change and grow as a blogger. Did you use a lot of informal language? Well, it’s an indication that you should be more careful on your word choice if you’re looking to be famous. Were you only focused on growing your blog and not contributing to others’ blogs? Again, it’s an opportunity for you to realize this and go on to make a few comments or even write guest posts on other blogs. I’ve found reflection as a great way to grow in anything. Of course, reflecting as a blogger helps in growing too.

Conclusion
Revelation. Reputation. Reciprocation. Rejuvenation/Revitalization. Reflection. These are definitely five aspects of blogging which I feel can play an important role in your success as a blogger. Yeah, the “5 R’s to a Successful Blogging Career” is just a fancy way of putting all this, but if it sticks in you this way, why not?

Obviously there are more than these five that you need to be aware of to be successful. In fact, there are so many that I never would be able to write up a one complete post just on it. I doubt anyone would be able to write a book on it. After all, success can be attained in so many ways.

However, if you have any tips beyond these five that you used or kept in mind to be somewhat successful in the blogosphere, please feel free to share your account via the comments. Remember, success is relative and thus, all comments are welcome. If a post per day is a success story to you, by all means share it with us. If making a nine figure is a success to hear, I’d love to hear that too. Cheers.

Blogging is an enjoyable activity, but it can also be an exacting one. If you don’t manage your time well and be efficient, you can run out of things to blog about, make your blog go idle, or at worst, lose interest and throw your blog (and potential money) away. Efficiency is what can help you, as a blogger, keep your blog rolling with minimal effort, while producing quality articles. That’s what I’m going to be talking about today.

Begin by Setting a Goal
I fail to do this on a daily basis, but whenever I do remember, I try to set a goal for the day. It varies from day to day. To give a few examples, these goals range from planning on writing a few posts within a certain time frame to making a certain amount of comments in other bloggers’ blogs. Note that there is no pressure for you to achieve these goals. However, you should still make an effort to reach them. At first, this is one of the harder parts to becoming an efficient blogger. Once you catch the rhythm though, it’ll get easier and easier.

Make Notes Often
A good portion of blogging is writing about something. Finding these unique topics to write about can be quite demanding. Thus, instead of thinking about what to blog about while staring at your monitor, try to make a habit of making notes every time you see or hear about something interesting that you could blog about. In addition, when you do use one of your ideas, be sure to not throw away the other ideas. Keep them in a Word document or save them as drafts for future use. I personally have over 50 drafts just for BloggersWalk. Most of these drafts only have a title and a simple sentence so that when I open up one of my drafts later on, I can quickly remember the incident and develop the post.

Bookmark Aggressively Using Your Browser
If the above was making notes in your daily life, this one is making notes while you browse the web. Most browsers nowadays have a pretty good bookmarking feature where you can organize your bookmarks anyway you want. Whenever you see something awesome, bookmark it! Note that these bookmarks can be used for various things. They can be used in ways such as for research or to link to for further reference. However, keep in mind that bookmarks should not be used to steal ideas or to plagiarize in some sort of way. That’s not the point of bookmarking. As a blogger, you should bookmark to go back on good information.

Give Yourself Space and Time
To deliver quality content, you need to focus. At least for me, it is really hard to write up a decent post while listening to music and chatting on MSN. Maybe I’m just a really bad at multitasking. However, I honestly believe that even if you are a great multitasker, you will be able to work much better if you give yourself some space and time, and devote your whole self into writing the post. Don’t let other things distract you from working on your post, as you want to be efficient. You don’t want to be spending five hours writing two sentences.

Are you an efficient blogger? Personally, I’m not that efficient and have often caught myself wasting too much time on one blog that I don’t have enough time for my other blogs. Thus, I did a little bit of research to find some ways to be a bit more efficient. I’ve only implemented this “technique” for about a month or so, but have found it to be great, as I now have quite a bit of extra time in my hands.

If you are an efficient blogger and thinks that these tips are a joke, please do share with me your techniques on how you stay efficient. Maybe you don’t think it’s a joke, but have other routines to keep yourself efficient. Why don’t you share it with the rest of the community through a simple comment? I’d really appreciate it and I’m sure many others would too. Thanks!