Blogging Tips for Newbie blogger

My blog is nearly one month old on this day , and till this time , I think i have enough experience to atleast create a post like this. Blogging could be a tough task for a newbie, and thats where these tips might be helpful. The tips will mainly focus for a blog powered by wordpress (as i dont have any clue for theme concepts for other blog softwares).

Choosing Your own domain name

Its always advisable to chose your own domain name before other person take it. If you take some free hosting , you will always have some limitations as such . So its always better to have your own domain name.

Selecting the right theme

How to chose the right theme, thats always a big question amongst a new blogger. Not everyone is a designer hence you can always find the right theme here at arpit’s article of top wordpress themes part1,part2,part3.

How many column theme you need

Your initial traffic will mainly depend on your content. Selecting a theme , which can show the maximum content can be a criteria for selecting the theme. Hence according to me having a 3 column theme can be a good idea. But rest depend on your choice.

Selecting the color combination

I agree with my friend arpit that having a theme with dark background doesn’t give a reading pleasure. At initial stage you need to be very particular with the sites look and feel factor else you will end up visually troubling the readers. Hence at initial stage choosing a theme with light background with properly arranged text and content would keep you going.
For example just check out my journey during one month :-
Finally I am very much satisfied with this theme as it matches perfect with the content.
You can even visit various sites related to your blog topic and check how they have arranged content and look and feel , to get a better idea.

Test on local system
If you have little idea of installing web server etc. then its highly recommended that before publishing your website or blog , first test it properly on a local system with the theme etc you have choosen. You can download free web server xampp and wordpress.
Moreover if you have little idea of style sheet , and you use mozilla or firefox browser you can use the following two firefox extention to customize your theme in a much better way :
1.Firebug
2.Web developer toolbar

Having a Faviicon
Faviicon is the small icon which appears at your address bar before “http://”. This gives a unique identity to your website. If you have a little idea of photoshop you can design your own faviicon very easily with this tutorial by shankar.

Using plugins

Now you have chosen your theme and color combination. You need to know the important plugins you may need as a beginner which are as follows:

• Contact form : For users to contact you.
• Meta tags plugin : For setting up the keyword for search engines.
• Sitemap : For better indexing of your webiste at google and other search engines.
• Feed burner plugin : Giving user and option to subscribe to your blog and keeping track of the subscribed users.
• Reated post plugin : To expose more realted content at your website.

Ready for blogging ?? now Need For Traffic !!

After installing the theme and the plugin, you are ready for blogging. Post atleast 10 quality articles before formally announcing your blog. Normally its always best you chose the top 10 current stuffs for ex : top 10 blogs , top 10 plugins etc etc (just a suggestion ).
Once you are done with atleast 15-20 posts , you can start the publicizing the blog. You can join various communities like mybloglog, spicypage , technorati etc and can start interacting with other bloggers.
Read other blogs and comment and give appropriate links while posting. This will make big bloggers aware that you exist when they receive a pingback. Moreover , readers of their blogs will also be able to see the pingback and hence it can help you in getting some traffic.

Posting off beat topic at times
You have chosen a theme and topic and you are constantly posting something related to your blog title. But at times , posting some off beat topic , which caught your attention somewhere, is also worth posting attract lot of attention . But prevent doing it more often as your this will confuse reader about your blog. This offbeat topic could be some youtube video , or some couple of pictures , or some news headline which is worth mentioning at your blog. Prevent getting into some controversial topics and getting into an outrage. Better make your point clear and do mention that its an offbeat topic not related to your blog title.

Use social bookmarking sites

Once you feel you have put some kind of quality content, You can always submit it to the social bookmarking sites like digg, stumbleupon etc . You can read more about it at doshdosh.

Arranging the look and feel of your content

Not everyone likes reading lots of paragraphs. Make your post worth reading by

1. Adding couple of pictured related to the article.
2. Using list to make the content most more crisp and highlighted.
3. Posting conclusion and your opinion at the end.
4. Giving credit to the site you have taken the article.
5. Prevent continous paragraphs without lists and points.
6. Prevent long sentences.
7. Asking user to take part in discussion and posting comments.

Points to remember

• Always post Quality content giving your point and comments at the end.
• Prevent copying and pasting full content from other website. Do some research by reading similar article and other sites and post combination of both with your point of view.
• Bookmark your own post when you feel it can draw user’s attention.
• Never forget to give credits .
• Try to link your post with internal posts and use related posts plugin.
• Do post off beat topic at times.
• Choose proper theme till you make your own.
• Never do experiment on live blog and site. Use local computer for this.
• Visit related blogs and comment to some posts.
• Do keep adding new thing and slightly modify the design without compromising on user’s browsing comfort. It will always keep your website fresh.
• Always add your own post to social bookmarking sites like (digg) etc , if you feel the content is worth and can interest readers. This will help in bringing some traffic to your site.

Have any more points to add ?? Help others by leaving comments

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