Besides the monetary investments needed to start a blog, probably the biggest investment you need to make is time. In all the time that I spend to get BloggersWalk clicking, creating informative posts is probably what takes up the most time. After all, content is king right? So, my goal recently has been trying to cut the amount of time I invest on writing content while not losing quality.
Ask Questions
There are many types of blog posts ranging from daily ramblings to product reviews. Regardless of the type, a technique that can be used to efficiently write up posts is asking questions. These questions can range from simple questions asking yourself on what you did today, to a common question in a niche you are dealing with, such as what is the best blogging platform when starting out. This is the spark that gets your post going. Most blog posts have a definite point that it is trying to get across; usually these questions help in focusing the blog post into delivering a specific point.
“Blueprint” a Post
You know how architects create a blueprint before working on a building? The theory is a bit similar. Before you start writing your first draft, plan something out. If you’ve got some scrap paper, it’ll do. All you have to do is make a simple outline on how your finished post will look like. You can do this in two ways. For every post, you can make a new blueprint from scratch where you plan everything out. Another way, which is the one that I often do, is creating a general template where all you have to do is fill out what point will go where. Basically, you would need pre-made template. I keep a simple template that I just fill out quickly: an introductory paragraph, a few paragraphs with my points, and a concluding paragraph.
Research for Quality
Remember how a blog is a compilation of useful information? Unless you know about everything in the world, research is necessary. This can include some important quotes or statistics relevant to your post. At first, researching will be quite time consuming. However, once you gain a lot of experience, you’ll know where to go to find the information you need. Although this step is not always necessary, once done, it can certainly boost the quality of your post.
Seek Feedback
Always seek feedback. Feedback can come in the form of comments and emails from the readers, and maybe even some of your friends. You can’t be perfect alone. If you do want to increase the overall quality of your blog and the posts, constructive criticism is necessary.
Analyze the Results
In my opinion, this step is crucial in growing your blog. After you make a post, with your favorite statistics analyzer (in my case AWStats, Google Analytics, and a few others work), monitor and see which posts are popular and which aren’t. There’s a reason why one post receives many times more visitors than another. See how your popular post is different or better than your not as popular post.
To be honest, I don’t go through this list every time I make a blog post. However, it is a little guideline that I do follow quite often. If you can’t be bothered to go through all the five steps, you can also implement portions of it. In my case, some posts, I will post without any second thoughts, but seek feedback later on from some of my fellow bloggers.
Do you have any tips that you could share with the BloggersWalk community on writing quality posts? If you don’t mind, please do share your tips!
So I’ll be heading off to Korea (I’m in China right now) for about 20 days or so. Unfortunately, although Korea does have some massive Internet connections, I will have limited access to them!
What does this mean? I probably won’t be able to post as often as I usually do. I have my posts queued up for my niche specific blogs, but I’m not a big fan of timestamps due to some horror experiences in the past… So, whenever I do get connection, I’ll be logging on to ahnternet to do my postings.
I also won’t be able to reply to many emails over the course of the days. It’s not that I’m ignoring you, but it’s just because there are so many emails coming in everyday that it takes a while to get through all of them.
Anyways, hope you guys have a great summer and I will come in from time to time to ramble on again. When I’m back, my daily ramblings will continue on as usual.
You guys know that I am currently into affiliate marketing to see if it will work out for me. To be honest with you, I’ve been thinking of trying out all the affiliate stuff for quite while now. Long before my post a few days ago, I already tried to expose myself to some affiliate marketing resources. I’ve registered on a lot of affiliate marketing forums and subscribed to even more affiliate marketing related blogs. However, it has come to my conclusion that while all these resources are helpful, none are as good as getting your hands dirty.
I’m proud to say that I finally submitted a few applications to some respected affiliate networks. Although I have yet to be accepted, I’m learning things already! One of this is finding the right niche. On one of the affiliate forums I visit, I asked how to find a decent niche. Of course, this guy with some experience came and gave a nice criticism saying that I shouldn’t focus on finding a niche, but should try and fail first as that is the best way to learn. Then, another user came over and she said that one of the biggest mistakes that new affiliate marketers make is entering an already saturated and competitive niche.
From clicking around some affiliate networks today, I discovered that the two points are both, surprisingly true. I was so focused on finding an untapped niche I totally ignored the rest of the process that you need to go through to become a great affiliate. However, by just going on without a great niche, but a niche to experience with, I think that I found a small, yet a profitable niche (I’ll share how I found it later). In the process, I’m also learning the tricks that super affiliates are using to succeed.
Wow, so far, I sound like a total jerk that just discovered the greatness of the whole affiliate marketing industry, when I have still yet to begin! Nonetheless, this has been a priceless experience for me. Rather than reading pages and pages of forums, blogs, and e-books, I feel that today, I learned nearly as much from a few hours of clicking around the affiliate programs’ websites.
If you are a super affiliate or have any experience in affiliate marketing, you’re probably thinking that I haven’t done anything great. I think not though. There really is a difference between thinking about it and acting on the thought. I acted on it today and learned a great deal. If you are hesitant about affiliate marketing or any type of a make money online scheme, I suggest that you try it, assuming that you don’t lose so much. It’s been great for me and I’m sure it’ll be great for you too.
I was playing around in DP today and found this interesting thread. The most overrated website on the Internet…
Anyways, I voted for AOL as the most overrated website. I honestly don’t understand why it is so popular. To me, a few other sites work better at their respective niche (such as YouTube for video, CNN for news). So, the whole AOL thing is pretty awkward and seems a bit overrated to me at least. I guess you could bring up that Lycos and the likes could also be like that, but I think AOL has a bigger user base than Lycos… I hope AOL doesn’t ban me!
People on that thread are also nominating Facebook, MySpace, and a few other social networking websites. To be honest, I don’t know why…
What do you think is the most overrated website right now? Some social networking websites? Google? ahnternet?! Leave a comment!
I’m constantly starting new blogs with my random domains and from time to time on Blogger too. With blogs, the initial launch is a great opportunity to form some relationships and make some buzz. To do that, you need posts. However, I have always believed (and still do) that the first post should be a brief introduction post. Nonetheless, some people seem to think otherwise, so I’ve tried to compile some pros and cons with what seems to be the rule of thumb in the blogosphere these days: launch your blog when you have 10 posts.
Pros of Launching with 10+ Posts
- A good first impression. The last thing that you want is a newcomer to your blog thinking that your blog is not worthy of reading and subscribing.
- Your blog seems consistent. Especially if you space out the 10 posts on a certain time interval such as daily or every other day.
- You can start promoting your individual posts right away! While this is do-able with a blog that launches with only the “Hello world!” post, it is a lot easier with a blog that already has quite a bit of content.
- You aren’t pressured to keep up with a blog schedule. If you have a blog setup, you better get posting regularly if you want some visitors. However, if you haven’t even launched it, you can take some time to write up your posts.
Cons of Launching with 10+ Posts
- The 10+ posts before starting does not guarantee anything. It is more of a gamble.
- It is likely that these posts, regardless of their quality, will be pushed back quickly anyways as you update your blog.
- It can be tiring and you COULD suffer from a burnout before even starting your blog, as you would, at the back of your mind, know that you are writing up posts that are not going to be displayed today or tomorrow or any day until the launch.
- When do you know that it is enough posts? Is 10 enough? Or is 15 enough? How about 25? Obviously the guy that prepares 50 will have a better chance at achieving a successful blog launch, right?
Conclusion
In my opinion, it really comes down to your preferences. Personally, I like to give a new blog a start with no posts. I like to see it develop into a successful blog right from 0. However, that is merely my opinion and others could pursue a different tactic when launching a blog. I have met more bloggers who like to launch their blogs with 10+ posts. That’s not me, but that could be you.
So I’m asking all you bloggers out there. When you started your blog how did you start out? Did you start from 0 posts or did you write a few posts before the launch? Whichever one you go with, care to share with the rest of the community why you choose to do it that way?
I have a decent online revenue from the various blogs I run and the numerous services I offer. However, right now, I’m thinking of trying out affiliate marketing. I guess it’s the thing that really helps you make money online.
So, I was wondering, if any of you know a great place to begin for affiliate marketing newbies, please leave a comment. I’ve already joined a few forums and have checked out a couple affiliate marketing teaching programs. I’ll probably join one of these programs to get myself some good fundamental knowledge in this industry.
HOWEVER, again, some tips would be great. I promise, once I’m decent at doing this stuff, I’ll be sure to leave my own tips and tricks in this field.
Staying ahead is an integral part of managing your time properly. This is in fact not something that only webmasters, bloggers, and web entrepreneurs should practice, but is something that everyone should practice. To be honest, I’m really bad at this as I usually finish my stuff on the day that it is due. However, recently I’m finding that the pain(?) of doing it without any pressure results in a joyful time later on.
Starting this upcoming Sunday, I will have limited access to the Internet for about 20 days because of some personal stuff going on. However, as a blogger and an entrepreneur, every minute is important, which explains why I stay up until 3 a.m. everyday. So, since last week, I have been writing up a lot (and I do mean a lot) of content to cover up the days that I will be gone. Even today I have devoted about 5 hours purely into writing–something that I don’t often do.
However, the thought of not needing to stare at my monitor for the next few weeks surprisingly excites me. While I do love blogging and I do love the life of a young online entrepreneur, I also do want to enjoy the world outside of the 20″ screen that I’m staring at. I guess it is in a way, a fair trade–hours of work and hours of play.
To be successful, time really is important. Fortunately, I’m learning that these days (as I wasn’t an amazing time manager in high school) and I’m really seeing the results. If you didn’t know, I’m also a designer who designs websites for people. I’m just too lazy to design my one. Anyways, recently I was hired to design and code a WordPress theme. Okay, so I’m not an awesome coder. I don’t know what went through my mind, but I accepted the request and was expected to produce a working product in two weeks. Some of you WordPress theme gods might think that the time was more than enough. Well, for someone who knew a decent amount of XHTML and a tad bit of PHP, it wasn’t easy.
Nonetheless, I was able to meet the deadline and was offered another theme job, which I am working on these days. How was I able to do it? I knew that the coding was going to end up as a headache, so I knew that I had two options. I could either try it myself and if I couldn’t do it, get another coder, or just hire a coder to do it. For a long time though, I have been looking to learn the WordPress backend, so I knew this was the time to give it a go.
I worked about 5-6 hours a day on the designing the theme. On the fourth day I had a good theme that was the client was quite pleased with. So, I had ten days left to see how I could code this in. Before diving in though, I also found a few reputable coders incase I wouldn’t be able to code it well. I followed WPDesigner’s tutorial and CodeScheme’s. Fortunately, by about the 7th day into all the WordPress coding stuff, I was able to get a functioning theme based off my PSD working on my localhost. I had a bit more than a couple days to get any bugs and XHTML errors cleaned out. To conclude, I met the deadline.
Honestly, if you want to suceed, you WANT to be a master at managing time. Overacheiving by giving the final product too early always dazzles your clients. Note that this isn’t only for designing sites or blogging. It’s really for literally everything. I’m learning it right now. It’s painful. However, I tasted the “freedom” after it and it’s motivating me to keep going.
Hello world. This is my personal make money online, tech, Internet, life, sports, idols, etc. type of a blog. A general blog to be short. However, as make money online is the first in the list, I hope to center this blog around this very saturated, yet quite an interesting niche.
I’ve been thinking of creating this blog for a while (more like about a year) and finally decided to conduct the famous 5-minute WordPress install.
Obviously, there really isn’t much in this blog right now, but I do hope to update this quite often. I have years of blogging experience through many gadget blogs and other niche blogs. However, I’ll leave that blogging tips and tricks talk to my other metablogging site and make ahnternet more of my personal blog centered around MMO.
Let’s see how this goes…
If you want to read more about ahnternet and the blogger, refer to the About page.
Ever since I began reading I have always loved material that was concise and to the point. Studies even show that people can easily consume written material if they are broken up into paragraphs containing 3-4 sentences. However, the best of them all has to be the list.
Lists are both clear and concise. Unfortunately, not many bloggers use this. This could be because the majority of the blogs on the web right now are personal blogs. However, even these personal blogs could use lists. In fact, lists help in preventing you reader from deviating.
In my case, my trackers (and I use way too many and stare at them way too long) show that my blog posts using lists are way more popular than those that don’t. Sure I don’t have many on BloggersWalk yet, but my other blogs also show a similar trend. Thus, it seems pretty safe to assume that lists work better. Let’s see why.
1. Short, BUT Informative
Rarely do you see long lists. If they were that long they would be paragraphs. The whole point of lists is that it gives the important information while taking out all the fluff. Readers like that as it saves time and energy.
2. It’s Not So Boring
Although some long lines of constant words are quite interesting to read, this is on a rare scenario. Most of the time, the really long posts are simply boring. The reader gets quickly bored of all the unnecessary information thrown at them. Lists don’t do this. You NEVER want your readers thinking that your blog is boring!
3. Organizes the Material
You know how lists usually go from 1 to X? Most of the time this number has some meaning behind it. Personally, I’m not dazzling at this one. I usually just number whatever comes to mind. However, lists usually are supposed to help you organize your material in any specific order you may have.
4. Helps With Persuading
As a blogger, you are often giving some sort of an information. In the case of this information being a trick or an opinion, lists are really good at persuading your visitors in seeing your opinion. This is because your points are thrown at your visitors one after another. Hopefully right now, I’m persuading you that lists are a good thing to implement in your posts.
5. Easy to Compose
Lists are often easy to create and write. You don’t need to have an awesome talent in your language. All you need to be able to do is be able to deliver your points in the most simplest manner possible. After all, that’s what lists are–giving your say in a quick but informative manner. This is what makes lists easy to create and implement in your blog posts.
Lists keep your posts clear and concise. If you are by any chance a high school student preparing for the SATs, you probably know this. In your writing section, you select your answers based on the following order: correct > clear > concise. As a blogger, assuming that your posts are correct and logical, what makes the difference between you and the average Joe is clarity and conciseness. Lists help you tremendously in achieving this.
Are you a big fan of lists? You think lists are stupid? Have your say about this post and leave a comment please!
Recently I’ve been reading a lot of blog posts that were of excellent quality, but looked unprofessional due to some mistakes here and there. Before hitting the “Publish” button, you can prevent these little mistakes and make your overall blog a lot better. This simple checklist might seem like an extra chore, but if you are serious about blogging, caring about your blog’s professionalism is important. Don’t you agree?
Spelling and Punctuations
What puts me off the most are spelling errors. To bring your blog posts to the next level, professionalism is important and a part of it is spelling things correctly. WodrPress and Gooogle should be fixed. Even a simple re-read over your blog post can help a lot. In the case of WordPress, it comes with a built-in spell checker. Clicking the spell check button and looking for the underlined words take at most a minute. Punctuations are also a key thing to watch out for. The most frequent punctuation error is forgetting to put a period. Again, a re-read can help immensely.
Organization
To be honest, I’m still struggling with this one, but am trying to improve. Organization. I’m still a blogger that is just writing the points as they come into my mind. Currently I have a post that is queued which discusses organization in further detail. However, as that post is not up yet, I’ll make a brief point here. Before posting, you should already have a general idea on what your finished post will look like. Instead of having that blueprint in your mind, draw one out on a paper. See what the best order of the paragraphs is.
Making Line Breaks
Studies show that people can read easily when they see a block of text that is about three to four sentences long. Again, this is not me and I have a tendency to write really long paragraphs. However, when I read a few blogs, I do notice some really long paragraphs which could’ve been two or three paragraphs. See how you can make smart line breaks to help your visitors. Remember, an important aspect of blogging is serving your readers well.
Link Out When Possible
Specifically, a web log (to different itself from other versions like photo logs) is a source of information. If you visit Wikipedia, you will notice that the majority of the articles there link out to other references. Readers love this as they want to know the most information possible. Linking out shows both the blogger’s professionalism and an awareness of the topic discussed. By linking out to related sites or posts, your post becomes more close to being THE post on the Internet for whatever you happen to be blogging about in that post. The best example of this is Wikipedia’s articles. In most of their articles they will link whenever possible.
Read It Out Loud
My experience tells me that this is the most effective last check-up to do before hitting the “Publish” button. It helps me find grammatical errors and other minor flaws in the post. I’m not a grammar whiz, so I will have a few grammatical errors that I couldn’t find. Nonetheless, at least eliminating those that I do know of always helps.
These are a few of the areas that I’m working on. I won’t say that I do it for all of my posts, but I do go through this short checklist with most of my posts. It helps immensely as I am able to catch the errors that do slip through on my first write. As a student, you are always told to write a first draft, revise it, then maybe think of the final draft. Why publish the first draft with blogs? If you cared for your blog, you shouldn’t be satisfied with a first draft, but strive for the excellent final draft.
Did I miss anything? Do you have your own little checklist that you go through before hitting the “Publish” button? Why don’t you share it with the rest of the community by putting it as a comment?
Static is a teen blogger who runs the blog, 
