Patrick Vieira is legend in Arsenal and he is now 33 years old. He does not play for Arsenal anymore. For the last three years he has been playing for Inter Milan. However, his condition in Inter Milan was not that good. It is expected that he will join any English club and at first everyone thought that he may join Tottenham Hotspur. Now, it seems that there is more possibility of returning to his old club Arsenal. If he comes back to
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There are millions of blogs in the world and everyday thousands of new blogs are born. It is not that all the people join in the venture with money in their mind. However, I have to say that a significant portion of people who come to this field has something special in their mind. They want to be successful. Yes, many people are looking for money or else you would not find so many blogs on earning money. You would not find so many spam blogs whose only focus is to bring money with spamming. Of course, many people just love to share their thoughts.
What is a Successful Blog?
How can you define success in blogging? Money is an important factor- no doubt about that. The bloggers who earn full time income have become celebrity in Internet. As for me, I count blogging success with the following factors:
Huge Traffic
Large Number of Feedburner Readers
Many Comments
Google Page Rank
Many back links accord to Google
I guess that most of bloggers would agree with my idea of a successful blog. If you have these things then naturally, your blog will have good revenue.
Most of us dream to be successful in anything we do. The same goes for blogging. If you are not interested to make your blog a successful one then may be you can ignore reading the rest of this entry.
Anyway, in this entry, I am going to tell about the initial stage or setting up a blog in the right way so that it can become successful over the course of time.
First Read Some Ebooks before you start blogging
One of the best things about blogging is that you can find a lot of useful content for reading. I would suggest that you read some of them. I would suggest you to go here for this:
Here, you can find a list of 26 ebooks and the entry has provided links to download them at free of cost. My favorite is Who's There? By Seth Godin. So, if you do not have enough time then you can just go through the book of Seth Godin. This has given me an idea to write an ebook for new bloggers.
Blogspot, Blogspot Custom Domain, WordPress, Self Hosted WordPress
If you have no idea about them then no problem. They are just blogging platforms. Most people prefer Self Hosted WordPress blogs but I like Custom Domain with Blogspot/Blogger hosting from Google because it is quite affordable. All you need is just buying a domain and it costs only $10 per year (less than $1 per month). In fact, Blogger requires hardly any knowledge of technology and web design. WordPress is a bit more difficult but you can customize it almost anyway you like. Anyway, just remember that you cannot put advertisements in free version of WordPress but you can do that in free version of Blogspot.
I hope to write about them in the coming days. So, come to this blog regularly.
Your First Few Posts
In your first post, you should write an introduction about yourself. Many visitors would like to know about you as long as the blog exists. You do not need to give too many private details but you should write some information about your background. You should also write about the blog- what will be the blog about, what the readers can expect to have etc. You can also put a page for contacting you.
The Real First Posts
Now comes the real posts about the topic of your blog. Just remember that at first it is very difficult attract visitors to your blog. When your blog gets older and richer with more entries then you will regular get some visitors through Search Engines like Google. So, I would suggest that at first if needed post less frequently but try to post quality content. At least give decent of time and effort for your first few entries.
Sitemeter and Google Analytics
I am a fan of Sitemeter and Google Analytics. You should open your accounts there and both of them are free. They would give you all kind of information about your visitors and this information will be helpful for you each and every day of your blogging life.
Technorati Profile
Technorati is perhaps the most popular search engine for blogs. It tracks millions of blogs and inform you about the other bloggers are linking to your blog. Opening an account in Technorati is free and it should not take more than 10 minutes.
Feedburner
Feedburner is very helpful for the readers. If anyone wants to keep track of your entries in a Feed Reader or from their emails then they can do it through Feedburner. Feedburner is also free and if you have a Google account then just sign in with your Google account and it would not take much time. By the way, put your Feedburner subscription links in a place that people can notice well. For example, in this blog, I have put in right column and thus, it can be noticed easily by most visitors.
Membership in Social Bookmarking Sites
If you are a user in Internet then you must have heard about Social Bookrmarking Sites like Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon etc. You should become member in these social bookmarking sites. However, remember that it is time consuming. For saving time, you can go to SocialMarker.com and it will really save you time. Social Bookmarking sites will help you to promote your content to a wider audience.
A few words about Advertising
I am all for earning money through advertisements. However, I feel that you should not put advertisements in your blog from day one. First upload some content and get some visitors so that it becomes easier for you to get some regular visitors. Then, put the ad codes.
I hope that this entry will help you to kick start a successful blog.
If you are a writer then you must be aware of Writer's block. It is a condition when either a writer cannot write anything new or hardly can write. Also, in this kind of condition, they feel their best writing capacity is gone. The same way, blogger’s block has become a common expression these days as perhaps there are more bloggers than writers in Internet. I can tell you from my own experience that it is a very tough battle to fight. At this moment, I am suffering from it as it has become some difficult for me to update my blogs regularly.
Some more words about Blogger’s Blog
As for me, now the main challenge is to produce quality content. I like to think myself as an expert on South Asia and
Blogger’s Block bad for Earning Money
Anyway, my main problem these days is that I have lost some interest about doing the same thing. It is natural but a bad process. You know that blogging is kind of self employed type of job or business. You are on your own. If you are sick and can’t work then you cannot earn money. So, blogger’s block and earning money cannot work together.
Find the reason behind your negative Energy
Yes, this is the first thing you should do if you are suffering from blogger’s block. As for me, I have several reasons. My wife got very sick 3 week’s ago and it put a lot of stress on me. I was with her in the hospital and I became very worried. The stress and all the running made me physically some weak too. Naturally, when you feel weak in your body then it is some difficult to be productive like normal condition.
The second problem that I have been facing lately is financial worry. Well, because of economic recession, I have noticed significant drop in income for my blogs despite the fact traffic has improved compared to a year ago. Less income means more stress and less motivation for work.
The third cause of my block is some peculiar. I worked hard from December to establish two blogs. The first blog is about
All these things put a lot of stress on my nerve and I lost my capacity of blogging. It has happened for the last 6 weeks. Today, I thought about it and I searched a lot about finding a solution to this problem. Fortunately, in Internet, I found some very good articles about it. I will provide their links in the rest of this entry and you should visit them if you have similar problem like me.
The most important Tip: Don’t be Rigid
Yes, perhaps this was my biggest mistake. I was too much rigid about the entries that I was writing. I wanted them to be good and get linked by other websites and blogs. Instead, I should focus on writing for myself. It should not matter if the content is not upto the mark. I of all the people know very well that when you try for something honestly and with a lot of dedication then it will become good sooner or later. So, when you find yourself in a blogger’s block then try to relax a bit, and if needed compromise with your quality.
Accept the Block
I may sound like Dale Carnegie to you but it really takes away a lot of pain from your mind when you can learn to accept the problem. Just say to yourself that it is a natural problem and it happens to at least 90% of bloggers.
Read More Write Less
Fortunately, this is the thing I have done in the last few weeks. I tried to read a lot. This time, instead of reading about business or sports, I read mainly about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It gave a lot of happiness to see that I already follow many of the SEO tips given in different websites and blogs.
Try to celebrate and Find the Silver Lining
Even in bad times, some good things happen, don’t they? Yes, try to celebrate these good things. For example, in June 2009, I saw that Google page rank was updated twice. One of my blogs has now PR 6 which is really something to celebrate. When you are in a happy mood then overcoming any obstacle becomes easier. Also, think of the proverb that every cloud has a silver lining. I thought today that it was nice that all the problems happened in June and I am now free from most of them.
Try Something New
In this regard, Problogger Darren Rowse has written an excellent post: 20 Types of Blog Posts - Battling Bloggers Block
The title of his entry suggests that after reading it you can have enough ideas to bring some variation in your blogging life.
Write The Entries You Always Dreamt but You Couldn’t
Sometimes, you want to write something but may be you feel shy to write about it because you have fear that others may laugh at you. You may also feel that the thing you want to write is not related to theme of your blog. Or even, you may have thought that these entries wont bring money for you or even may lower your epcm. No problem, try them and I am sure that you will feel better.
Take Up a new Hobby or even Start a New Blog
I would not blame you if you become shocked with this kind advice. You may wonder that when you cannot cope up with your existing blog(s) then why you should open a new one. Well, I think that opening a new blog will take your attention away from the writer’s block. You do not need to earn money from the new blog. Just write about your hobby.
Have a positive Attitude, Have a Dream
I like to again stress on this matter because positive attitude can help you to overcome negative energy. Do you have any dream in blogging? I have several and the 3 of my dreams are: 1. To have 1 million page views per month for my blogs. 2. To have over 100,000 Feedburner Readers in at least one of my blogs some day. 3. One of my blog’s will get Page Rank 8 some day. I know that these dreams are too high and may be I wont get any of them. However, thinking of them bring sweet feelings even in worst of times.
Some other entries to read related to this topic:
10 Surefire Steps to Beating Blogger’s Block
10 tips for beating blogger’s block
So, read these entries and do not forget to come back here for more tips.
