So you want to start a blog but are having trouble finding a topic that you want to blog about. The niche is the overall topic of your blog, so your going to want to take it seriously. Your niche is important because its what you're going to write about on your blog. Your niche determines how your going to monetize your blog also.
Finding a Successful Niche
Finding a niche is a pretty easy task, but there are a couple of things that you will want to consider before doing so. Your blogs niche should be something that you know a lot about, or are interested in. This way you will be able to come up with enough posts to make your blog successful. Before you choose your niche make sure you do know enough about it. Take some paper and write some potential post topics that are relevant to that niche. If you can come up with 25 - 30 that will be enough to at least get your blog started. There are some other things that you will want to take into consideration when choosing your niche.
1. Does it allow advertising - If you want to make money blogging, then you will want to choose a niche that plays into that.
2. Is it widely used - You're going to want to take this into consideration when choosing your niche. How much competition do you have?
3. Will you enjoy writing about it - If you don't enjoy the topic or at least find it interesting, then you will want to move on to another topic.
The niche is what your blog is based on so make sure you put in the time and effort to find a successful one. The main topic of your blog is what all the content will be based to.
Most bloggers are worried about seo for their blogs or what they can do to increase traffic from Google. The thing that they end up forgetting is the content on their blog. Lets face it, if your blog content stinks, so will your blog. Visitors might end up at your blog but they sure won't stay long because your posts stink.
Writing Good Posts
There are a number of tricks that a person can use to make his / her blog posts original and worth reading.
1. Research the topic of post - Researching your topic before you write your post is great way to learn about it as well as forming your own opinions about the topic.
2. Keep it original - don't copy and paste bits from this blog and bits from that blog to form your post. Write down what you think on the subject. Be creative, its your blog.
3. Input lists / numbers into your posts - Putting lists into your blog makes the content easier to read and more towards the point. What I mean by numbers is this... "The top three ways to make money." Adding numbers certainly makes your blog posts more appealing.
4. Not too long - When writing your blog posts, you don't want to ramble on. Keep it to the point so that the reader can learn what he wants and move on.
Your posts matter tremendously to your Blogspot blog. Make sure you take the proper time to prepare for a blog post. A unique blog post can drive traffic from social networking sites and can get indexed by Google because its original.
The Blogging Pro Template is a great Blogspot template that has a very professional look to it. Its one of the cleanest looking templates that I have seen for Blogger. There are many options and features that the user has with this template which is why I like it so much.
SEO stands for search engine optimization and is key to gaining blog traffic from Google, Yahoo or and other search engine. Blogspot blogs require a little more work in the seo department but its not that big of a deal.
Improving Seo on your blog
Seo can be a hard concept to master. There are many ways you can tweak your blog so that it has better seo. Improving seo often requires changing of the html to your blog. This can easily be done by going to the blogger.com homepage, selecting layout and then edit html.
Improving seo can rather complicated. Here are some simple ways you can optimize seo for your blog.
1. Write good content - If you decide to only do one simple seo fix, this should be it. If your content is original and fresh, Google will be more likely to index a higher number of pages.
2. Links - Higher blogs that have links to your blog will help your blog out in the long run.
3. Keywords in Titles - Keywords in your post titles are very important because they tell Google what your posts are about.
This post generalized seo in nutshell. There are tons more tips out there to help you improve seo for your blogspot blog. Stay tuned for tips in the future.
The template of your Blogspot blog can be very important when it comes to utilizing ad space and making money. The templates that Blogger.com provides doesn't really give you options when it comes to ads and banners. When looking for a successful Blogspot template, you must consider the following.
Enough Ad Space?
If your looking to make money with your blog, then you need a lot of ad space, Google Adsense, Button Ads and Banner Ads all require space on your template. You want to have enough space for ads but not too much where your blog image suffers.
Appealing / Easy to Follow
When visitors first arrive at your blog you want them to feel like they're in the right place. You want your template to feel professional. A visitors first opinion about the blog is very important. Another important issue regarding your blogspot template is how easy it is to navigate. The easier to follow the more time your visitors will spend looking through your blog pages. I recommend putting a categories widget as well as a search bar into your blog template.
There are some great blogspot templates out there. The best thing about them is that they are free. Stay tuned or subscribe for reviews on all the great blogspot templates.
Article Directories are a great way to gain traffic and links for new blogs. Its a splendid way for you to publicize your blog. There are many blog directories out there, but only a few are worth using. The key to generating traffic with article directories is to write posts that leave your readers wanting more. That way they are more likely to visit your site.
One Way Links
Many article directories have high page ranks. When you write an article you have your link in it and in your author bio you gain valuable one way links to your blog. Many of these article directories have very high page ranks. This is very healthy for new blogs because it increases the chances that Google will index them (since they have more one way links).
More Articles = Greater Traffic
The more articles you write, the more traffic you will get. In order to gain sufficient traffic, you want to be signed up with two or three article directories. After you do this write 15-20 articles for each directory. They should be relevant to your blog.
Once you achieve this then you will see some consistent traffic coming in. This is a great strategy for beginners. Some of the best article directories are Ezine Articles, Ehow and Article Base. These directories have very high page ranks and are great for beginning bloggers and experts alike.
Having a program that tracks your blogs visitors and stats is extremely useful. Almost all successful bloggers have some type of program they use to help keep track of their visitors. StatCounter is a free program that allows its users to easily track what their visitors are doing. Its a great little gadget for any Blogspot blog.
Setting up StatCounter
StatCounter works very well with Blogger. Here are the steps to setting them up on your blog.
1. Make a free account with them. After you do that, go to Add New Project.
2. Fill out your project settings. You will want to block your own ip address and make your stats private.
3. After you click o.k, a blue arrow will pop up and say configure counter, click on it. You will get to choose what kind of counter you want on your blog. I recommend the invisible one since it doesn't show up on your blog.
4. Next it will ask you to choose your blog / web page editor. Choose Blogger / Blogspot (if you use a different editor just follow their directions).
5. StatCounter will give you your code. It also has a step by step process to help you install your code onto blogger. Once you have completed this you are done.
StatCounter Features
StatCounter has a number key features that allow the user to easily keep track of their visitors. Some of the cool statistics that StatCounter has is
- Keyword Activity
- Recent Came From
- Visitor Path
- Exit Link Activity
- Download Activity
