Successful Blog

Blogging on the Road: How to Keep Up When You Travel a Lot

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how to blog series

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Ann Smarty

Understanding Online Business

When people ask about me, I usually have two main descriptions I go to: I am a travel-lover and a blogger. These two things make up so much of who I am and my life that they are the very first details that spring into my mind. Which is great, because they are two parts about my life that I truly love and would never change.

You would think the two would naturally intertwine, and in a way they do. I have plenty to say after each journey, and love showing pictures and videos taken along the way as I speak of my experiences. As I started out backpacking around the world in my earlier days, I have some serious stories about it. Which I am always eager to tell.

The problem is finding time to blog while I am traveling. This is something I have always wanted to be able to do, as my impressions and details would be much clearer and more accurate when it had only just happened.

It took me years to develop this skill properly, rather than relying on guest bloggers or hiatuses to get me through. It all comes down to a few tricks of the trade.


ImageCredit: Alex E. Proimos Learn the tricks.

Have Backups At The Ready

No matter how good your intentions are to blog while on the road, it won’t always happen. Your best bet is to have a small collection or prewritten articles in draft. That way you can publish on those scheduled days where you don’t have the time, ability or just energy to write.

Install Apps

Here’s a detailed guide on how to stay connected with your iPhone. Here’s another one for Android. It all comes down to which apps you choose to stick with as there are plenty!
Rely On Photo Or Video Posts

You don’t always have to tell about your day with words. Instead, you can post a vlog or collection of photos. It gives you a post, will update your viewers and also engage them visually.

Have A Blog Day

You know those days that you can’t bring yourself to go out and do anything? Even the most experienced travelers in the most beautiful and exciting destinations feel like this once during their trip. Take that day to lay low in your hotel room or hostel, and take advantage of the available internet connection. If they don’t have one, spend an hour or two at an Internet cafe or business with free WiFi. Knock out a few blog posts so they are ready and scheduled to go out. Then you won’t have to worry about it. If you are fast and determined, you will actually be surprized how much you are able to do in ten minites!

Fall Back On The Guest Bloggers

I mentioned before that I don’t like to rely on guest bloggers when I travel, and that was true. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like them at all. I love guest bloggers, and they have saved my butt more than once. I always have one on hand when I travel, who knows they will be called on to write at specific times. Or will just be expecting an email if I need them. MyBlogGuest is also always there to rescue!


This is one of my favorite ideas. Ask readers who are interested in writing for the site submit their ideas or blog posts on a relevant topic. Hold it like a contest with the winners having their posts published while you are traveling. You would be surprised by how many responses this tactic can get, especially from other writers looking for some exposure.

It isn’t always easy to keep up with a blog when you are a frequent traveler. But that doesn’t mean it is an impossible feat. In fact, it is quite simple to do if you just spend some time preparing for it. The tips above should help you out.

Author’s Bio:
Ann Smarty Ann Smarty is the blogger and social media gig launching Viral Content Buzz, the free social media promotion platform focusing on high-quality.


Thank you, Ann! Great information, Great guest post! Great birthday present to include SOBCon among them! 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

10 Reasons Your Blog Could Be Bleeding Readers

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how to blog

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Tara Hornor

Is Your Blog Bleeding Readers?

If you run a blog, then you probably struggle with the age-old issue of bleeding readers. It’s tough to keep folks coming back for more! But there are things you can do to make sure that your readers stay tuned to your blog.

At the end of the day, your blog should be about producing quality content that is relevant to your readers. If you’re giving them what they want, they’ll come back. But sometimes other elements of your blog can be causing frustration as well.

10 Reasons Your Blog Could Be Bleeding Readers

If your content is strong and you are still losing readers, you may want to analyze some of the following aspects of your blog site.

Awkward Layout

Your blog is your virtual home. So, like you would with your real home, make sure that it is warm and presentable for visitors. In other words, your layout should be both aesthetically pleasing and organized. If it looks as though you threw your blog layout together within two minutes (as in, it looks sloppy and haphazard), then your followers won’t want to look at it long.

Do you have too many ads? Are there too many things going on? Is it difficult to find your navigation menus? Consider simplifying your layout so readers focus on the content.

Overkill

While it is important to remain consistent with your blogging, avoid posting more than 5 or 6 times a week. No more than one post on a day, either. Posting more than this can make your followers feel as though you’re blasting them with too much content. Of course, this is very dependent upon the type of blog you’re running. News blogs, of course, will far surpass these limitations. The point here is to remember that too much content can be frustrating. If readers are following your blog and getting updates, you may be flat out annoying them with too many.

Unreadable

Choose fonts that are clear. Don’t make your readers work too hard to read what you’ve written. Additionally, don’t put your font in a color that is difficult to see. Legibility is a key factor in a pleasant reading experience.

Consider balancing white space as well. If your paragraphs are too long, you can cause readers to lose interest. This goes for content that is too wide as well. Therefore, balance your white space (the blank space in between text and graphics) by creating more readable width.

Offensive

If your posts are, on average, overly slanderous and offensive, then you will more than likely see a higher rate of no-returns. It is okay to be opinionated, but there is a way to word your opinions in a respectful manner.

We all like a strong voice that makes us think, smile, laugh, or generally incites an emotional response. But too much negativity just frustrates. So if you have a strong voice and find yourself losing readership, consider toning it down a bit.

Ignorance is Not Bliss

If you are an opinionated writer, make sure you know what you’re writing about. As a silly example, imagine you are ultra-anti-Twilight series. You write all kinds of posts bashing on various aspects of the movies and books. However, if you have not read the books or seen the movies, then you are an uninformed reader and will be viewed as such. While others may agree with your general view, your lack of expertise will eventually result in lost readers.

Length

Keep a balance in the length of your blogs. If they are all over 1,000 words, then you have a problem. You will overwhelm your followers. Occasional long blogs are okay, but make sure to separate them into paragraphs.

Various studies show various results. But generally speaking, posts over 1,000 words will take too long for readers to get through. Look at your metrics and see if you can find a trend in longer vs. shorter posts and adjust accordingly.

No images

People want to read blogs for entertainment, so entertain them. It is not necessary to post an image on every post, but an occasional shot of your post’s subject is appropriate and will add interest to your post. Images also help with search engine optimization, especially if you title your images with the main keyword of your article title.

Grammarly Misuse

See what I did there? Raise your hand if you cringed a little bit. So will your readers. If you are a person who struggles with grammar and spelling, then write your blog drafts in Microsoft Word or other word processing systems that will check grammar and spelling for you. Sites with poor writing and grammar are likely to be unfollowed.

Too touchy feely

We do not need to hear the nitty-gritty details of your life. A blog is not your diary, and it should not be treated as such. Of course, there are exceptions, but balance personal drama with valuable content. A good story requires some personal backstory so we can all relate to it. But keep the personal stuff focused on the point you’re trying to drive home.

Unemotional

Yes, this feels antithetical to the previous reason, but it is not. There should be a balance between personalizing your posts and gushing your deep, dark secrets. If readers wanted to read straight-up dry information, they would read the newspaper. So don’t write like a robot; give your blog a flavor of your personality and life.

Eliminate these 10 frustrations and your quality content will have even more power to keep readers coming back to your blog.

How do you keep your blog from bleeding readers?

Author’s Bio:
Tara Hornor writes about marketing, advertising, branding, web and graphic design, and desktop publishing for PrintPlace.com a company that offers online printing for print marketing media. Find her on Twitter as @TaraHornor .

Guest Blogging Tips for Attracting More Traffic to Your Site

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Subodh

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Guest blogging is a great way to attract people to your website. By guest blogging, you can link your products, services or ideas to new audiences via other websites. Those links also provide more credibility for your own website, which makes it easier for you to improve your chances of getting a better ranking on a search engine.

Effective Guest Blogging Tips to Attract More Traffic

Whether you guest blog for yourself or use a service to help, here are some effective guest blogging tips you might pursue. Use them sensibly to get the best possible results.

Work with Blogs on Your Niche

You need to make sure that your links are of the best possible quality. This includes finding links that are relevant to your site. You must make sure that any guest blog posts you write are on blogs that relate in some way to the site that you run.

This is needed for the best search engine results. You can get better SEO results if the links to your site are relevant to it.

Express Your Knowledge

Another of the guest blogging tips to use is to demonstrate your knowledge of something. You need to express your knowledge so you can show people that you have an interest in whatever it is you are writing about. People are more likely to take your site seriously if they see that you know about your topic.

Avoid Going Big

Start small when trying to get your work onto more blogs. A good tip would be to start off with smaller blogs instead of using the larger ones when you start out. This might help you out because you will have an easier chance of potentially getting more traffic onto your site.

In fact, you are more likely to get exposure on a smaller blog than if you were on a larger one. A smaller blog will be easier to communicate to people in because you’ll have more of a focus on your own post. A larger blog might be cluttered with too many people who are trying to get their ideas out all at the same time.

Keep Links Under Control

You need to make sure all links on your guest posts are controlled well. A good idea is to use them in your resource box or author information box. This is often found at the end of a post.

Of course, you could use links within the body of what you are writing. This works provided that the links are not blatant advertisements and that they directly relate to what you are writing about.

Use these guest blogging tips if you want to get your website more power on search engines. These should not only make it easier for you to get more links on your site but to also express your knowledge of items to a greater audience. It makes it easier for you to get the most out of your site.

Author’s Bio:

Subodh is a SEO expert with over 6 years of experience under her belt. He provide guest posting service at www.seocreations.com

Earn Money Blogging? Not Unless You Avoid These Pitfalls

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How to blog series

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Emily Green

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Blogging can make you money but only if you avoid some of the annoying pitfalls that can actually cause you to lose money instead of gaining it. The following are several common and very costly pitfalls that bloggers all over the Internet encounter on a daily basis.

The Time Sucker That is the Internet

The Internet is a minefield filled with numerous distractions. There are social media outlets, games, blogs and search engines that just seemed designed to distract and waste your time. However, if you are looking to make money on your blog you need to avoid these distractions at all costs and apply yourself to networking, writing blog posts, researching and interacting with visitors.

If you are finding it hard to avoid distractions consider some of these time saving methods:

  • Set a timer
  • Block distracting websites
  • Create a schedule and stick to it

Will Write Soon – Losing Contacts

Contacts are everything in the blogosphere. It can often be easy to assume that the contacts that you have made in the blogging world will be there forever, but if you don’t keep in touch you’ll notice that they slowly start to disappear. Avoid losing contacts associated with your blog by devoting a few hours every week to emailing, tweeting and touching base with your numerous contacts and with Android tablets that are designed to keep you online 24/7 there is no reason you can’t keep in touch!

Due Date Delays

Guest blogging or writing blogs for others can be a great way to earn cash, but you have to be willing to stay on a strict schedule. Many of the blogs that welcome you with open arms to guest blog or blog for them have strict schedules they need to keep. When you agree to blog make sure you stick to the deadlines, not only will it help ensure you get paid for your writing but it helps build your reputation within the blogosphere community.

People Pleaser – Catering to the Billions on the Internet

There are billions of individuals on the Internet and as a blogger it is your role to make sure that you don’t offend them. Offending your audience is a sure fire way to send them packing to another blog and cost you money. Remember the more visitors you get the more money you can make! Offending a part of your audience will certainly cost you in the end.

That doesn’t mean you can’t voice your opinion or talk about controversy. No, it just means that you will have to keep comments and blog posts classy and within the limits. And if you do make a risky comment or blog, just remember you risk losing that audience.

Need a little extra cash? Looking for a way to earn money? Grab a computer or a tablet and start blogging. Just remember avoid these four common pitfalls and you’ll be on your way to earning money just for writing and blogging of favorite topics.

Author’s Bio:
Emily Green is a freelance writer and a lover of technology. For work or play, she prefers using an Android tablet . Follow her on Twitter as @emgreen85.

Blogging Tips: Finding Your Voice

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How to blog series

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Rob Pell

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Why Is Finding Your Voice Important?

If you’re just starting out, it’s difficult to know how to address your audience. From the first instance, that audience won’t actually exist; you will need to build it gradually over time. This makes it even harder, how are you supposed to know how to speak to someone if you don’t yet know who you’re speaking to?

This why finding your voice is important. The specifics of who you are addressing or talking to do not matter; what matters is finding a voice that suits your style, subject matter and personality.

Personality

Writing a blog is not the same as producing news copy. You might be writing a blog about a very recent or developing event and so are tempted to write it in a ‘newsy’ style: don’t, newswriting is a stilted, stripped back and very artificial style of writing. It is used to give the reader the information in the most clear and concise way possible, with little elaboration other than what is necessary.

Try to resist the trap of falling into a newswriting style because once you’re in it’s difficult to get out of. We’ve all read the papers and seen news broadcasts; we know all about ‘the news’ register. If you start your blog post with something along the lines of “Soft drinks giant Pepsi have announced record breaking profits following the release of…” you will very quickly get locked in to that newsy style.

The audience of a blog is looking for something more than just news; they require personality, rather than the cold and clinical form of news copy. Let this shine through; sprinkle your copy with opinion and comment; use a conversational tone; drop in clauses like “I don’t know about you but…” or “my thoughts on the subject are…” and give your writing the space it requires to breathe.

Structure

Of course a blog post does have its own duties to fulfill. For example, it must be interesting and informative. When you begin a post, note down the different points you want to cover beforehand and plan a structure which allows you to retain your personality and conversational tone without resorting to a banal listing of the facts.

Planning in this way will give your work structure and life and will allow you to tailor your article towards a specific outcome. It also keeps the blog sharp and concise and allows you to avoid losing your way as can happen when we become absorbed in our writing.

You will want to include your key phrases in your blog, but do not over do it with these. The primary thing to maintain is your blog’s quality; as long as it is engaging, informative and fun to read you will retain a good core audience. If your blog posts have awkward key phrases shoehorned in all over the place, are difficult to read or are nonsensical, it doesn’t matter how good your SEO tactics are, you are going to lose any new audience members you bring in for the simple reason that your page just isn’t up to scratch.

Finally, always remember to enjoy your blogging. This is paramount and will shine through in your writing.

What helps you find your voice, the voice that connects with your audience?

Author’s Bio:
Rob Pell is a technology enthusiast, all round geek and happy employee of Simplifydigital, the UK broadband, digital TV and home phone experts. Simplifydigital are accredited by Ofcom and provide independent consumer advice on digital services.

How to Get Blog Traffic Using Social Channels

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Jordan Mendys

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Gaining Blog Traffic

When you have a blog, and especially when you are starting one, gaining traffic is the most important thing. You want your work noticed, and the more traffic you get, the more success you will have with your business, services, etc. One of the best ways to get traffic to your blog is to showcase your work and website, and using your social media channels can increase that effort greatly. When you utilize your social networks, you will get more articles shared throughout your network, and if you have good material, people will come to your blog more and more often. So how can you utilize social media to benefit your blog?

How to Get Blog Traffic Using Social Channels

First, your blog should utilize a plugin that allows not just you, but anyone who comes to your site, to share your article on Twitter, Facebook, and more with the click of a button. A really good plugin for this would be WordPress’ Sociable. At the bottom of all of your posts will be a toolbar allowing easy share, and as we all know, that is the easiest way that you can get organic traffic. You should be sharing every post that you write anyway, but now when visitors come to your site, it’s easy for them to share.

Next, you should use your social networks to get guest posts. We all know that guest posting, and getting guest blogs on your site, is one of the best ways to drive up traffic. The more content you have, the better your site will look, and the longer you can keep the audience on your blog. To get guest bloggers, reach out through Twitter to have an open call for guest posts. It is an easier platform for people to contact you. Then you can get a pitch to from them to see if the article is right for your site. This is a good way to drive up the requests to post to your site, but be careful with who is contacting you, because you don’t want to waste your time with spam posts.

When you start getting guests to post, encourage (or make it a requirement for a guest post) for them to share their article, and then people outside of your own network will be drawn to your site. Allowing guest posts will also open up opportunities for you to contribute to others’ blogs in return. That way you will gain all of the benefits that come with guest posting.

These are the best ways to use Facebook, Twitter, and all of your other accounts to drive up traffic and exposure to your blog. Letting people contribute to your work will always garner excitement for your work, and encourage people to share your site with the world. The better content you have to share, the more people will come, and stay, for awhile.

Author’s Bio:
Jordan Mendys is a media professional and blogger based in North Carolina. He helps blog to help people find the best in cable internet bundles () around. Follow him @JPMendys

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