Notice the headline said to promote yourself, not your blog or website. This blogging tip is designed to promotes yourself to the socialites around the various social sites.

All social sites provide a way to promote yourself through profiles. They may even provide a page that you can tart up to look fancy and maintain your complete bio. However, if you are active on a range of social sites then it may become a pain having to go through all of them to make updates. This blogging tip may make life a little easier.

When completing profiles on social sites, submitting to directories to creating a profile box for article submission, include a link to your ‘about me’ page on your blog. If you wish to keep your about me as a more formal page, then one blogging tip is to simply create a dedicated social media landing page. This page could contain all the pertinent information about you along with links to your profiles on each of the social sites you are on.

If anyone ever asks, ‘what sites are you on’, just send them to the landing page. There they will find all your social links in the one place. If you ever add more networks to your activities, you only have to update the one page. Likewise, if your details change then you can simply update the landing page first, and over time slowly go through the other sites.

A simple blogging tip that would take about an hour to put together but could make life so much easier for all your new friends through the social networking scene.

Most people don’t look too closely at their domain names. If they did they would probably think twice before registering them. Then again, what a great marketing idea. Find a great domain name that has more than one meaning to it.

A post by Jared Stenze at webupon.com lists a group of domain names that have double readings and certainly look interesting.

Just to give you a taste:

Choose Spain dot com becomes Chooses Pain dot com - (choosespain dot com)

Teachers Talk dot com becomes Teacher Stalk dot com - (teacherstalk dot com)

Therapist Finder dot com becomes The Rapist Finder dot com - (therapistfinder dot com)

Find the right word combination and you could have a very novel domain name. Find the wrong combination and it could prove to be very embarrassing. Blogging tips are everywhere but it is not often you come across one that encourages double readings (meanings) for domain names.

“You say that having a blog can increase traffic to my website but first I have to increase traffic to my blog, right. Cut through all the baloney and give one good blogging tip that will help me increase my traffic on my blog.”

I received this in an email a couple of days ago and it is becoming apparent that many users are turning away from posts that have a lot of tips. Post such as ‘ten blogging tips to …….’ or ‘50 sites to…..’ are too much. It is a sign of the times. People want instant information, they don’t want to wade through long lists to find what they need. In fact it seems they want us to do the job for them. Give me one good blogging tip that I can go and put into place now and I will be happy.

When you get a specific question it is easy to provide the information. Without specifics however, where do you start. Blogging tips are everywhere but for many users, that is all they see: a list. Many blogs do not provide any substance to the list items leaving the reader to wonder what each item is.

If you are going to have a list, say a list of plugins, don’t just list them by name. If necessary, reduce the number of items in the list but include a good review of each item in the list. In this day and age, blogging tips that are made up of simple lists will no longer cut it - readers are after substance - a little depth - but delivered in an easily to scan way.

Oh - and to the answer the opening line - one good blogging tip to increase traffic - provide great content that your readers find valuable and worth talking about to others.

Being able to keep your blog fresh is often a very difficult task. It is to easy to fall into an everyday blogging habit that becomes dreary and tiresome - it then starts to show in your content. These blogging tips may just help to keep you on track, keep you alive, and keep your blog looking alive and fresh.

1. Provide variety in your content - whilst you may need to stay within your niche, that doesn’t mean you cannot provide a bit of variety through the use of graphics, video and perhaps even some humor.
2. Spend as much time writing an eye catching title as you do your content.  Titles hook the reader.
3. Work on that first paragraph. After the title, the first paragraph is what will keep your visitor reading the balance of your post.
4. Using contrasting layouts. Don’t just stick to writing paragraphs. Include bullet points, numbered points and formatting features such as bold and perhaps color. Learn to create style sheets for your posts.
5. Mix up the length of your posts. Quick short posts are less draining than long in depth posts. Use the short posts to give yourself a break and to break up the page.
6. Make the page easily scanable highlighting relevant points. Most visitors these days are looking for a quick summary read - they can then file the post away for future reference or move on.
7. Proofread your content. Don’t always try to proof read your work immediately. Come back an hour later and proof read it. You will be surprised how many more errors you will find with that one hour break.
8. Knowledgeable - if you are not totally sure of the subject matter, do a little research. If you are still unsure then either don’t write about it, or turn it on its head and admit your limited knowledge; ask your readers for input. You will often find that people just cannot help but stick their noses in and add their little bit.
9. If it is appropriate, provide relevant links to further information on within your own site or on another site. If you feel readers may jump ship to another site then either create the links to open in a new window, or place all the links as further reading links at the end of the article.
10. Use comments from previous posts as starting points for a new post. The commentator will love you for the exposure and your readers will be encouraged to comment more often.
11. Learn to write commentaries about other blogs and their articles. This is particularly useful if you have something to add to the article or have a valid counter opinion. Readers like to see debates, or alternate views.
12. Get to know to your regular readers and acknowledge them occasionally. One sure way to increase your reader base. As new readers arrive they see that regulars are being mentioned, their comments referred to and of course your posts referring (with links) to their posts. Serious bloggers will want to get in on that action.

One more blogging tip. One of the best ways to freshen yourself up is to read other blogs. Putting together a list of blogs that inspire you is not overly difficult. I bookmark half a dozen blogs that I like and place them into the one bookmark folder. When I am a little bored or lacking inspiration I just go to that folder and open them all at once (using Firefox). I can then move between them, reading, comparing and always gaining more inspiration.

These 12 blogging tips should help to keep you fresh and if you are fresh, your blog will be fresh.

Spam is one a nuisance that all bloggers seem to face on an almost daily basis. You can at least put in a few obstacles to either slow down the number of spam attacks. These blogging tips can help to at least prevent the spam comments from being published.

Use an anti spam plugin: There are several plugins you can install that will either prevent spam or at least remove it into a moderation area for you to deal with at a later date.

Use a Captcha plugin: These plugins are often considered to be a nuisance by many bloggers, however they quickly put a stop to any robot spam attacks. Captcha works by making the commentator type in a series or numbers or characters. A robot cannot read or insert these Captcha characters.

Hide your email address: You can publish your email address while hiding it from most email trolling robots. These robots search the web looking for email addresses to add to their databases. Rather than using your email address in the traditional format - publish your email address in the form of name (at) domain (dot) com. Your readers will immediately identify it as an email address but the robots cannot.

These three blogging tips will help to at least reduce the amount of spam you may get on your blog.

Blogging income is difficult to generate these days. There is the constant problem of banner blindness to contend with. Often what are supposed to be context based ads appear to be totally unrelated. Affiliate advertising can be hit and miss and can often depend on trends.

The question is, what can you do to maximize any opportunities that come along. These tips may just help a little.

• Remove any under performing ad units, particularly Adsense. Adsense will pay all ads in your account based on the poorest performing. If you do receive a click, you want to receive the maximum benefit for it. If you have any Adsense ad units that have less than a 2% CTR, remove them.

• If you have affiliate ads running, take a moment ever now and then to write about them - promote them a little. A 125 x 125 banner sitting in your side bar will not often sell itself. A little promotion goes a long way.

• Rotate your banner ads. Take a moment every now and then to rotate your banner ads. When using affiliate banners, check and see if they have a range of banners available. Rotate through the range until you find one that is more successful than the others, or just keep rotating them. This helps to ease banner blindness.

• Change the location of the ad units. Trial different places on your site to see which area has the highest return - you may be surprised.

Be selective in your advertisers. If after trying out some of the above, the ad unit is still not earning, remove it and try something else. Not all ads suit all sites.

By following these blogging tips you may at least increase your blogging income opportunities. The key is to maximize the available space to get the best return possible.

One final tip - make sure your site is attractive and welcoming to your visitor and that there is something there for them, that is, content. If you don’t have content and you site looks over commercialized, they will not come back and no visitors equals no blogging income no matter how well placed the ads are.

If you write frequently or if you write for more than one blog then this lazy little blogging tip may not only save some time, it may help boost your reader numbers. The terms ‘content is king‘ and ‘avoid duplicate content’ are probably going to ring loudly after reading this blogging tip, just give it some thought before being too critical.

One of the joys of blogging is when you write that post that not spikes your traffic a little, it also gets a  decent response in the comments area as well.  One option you have is to try and follow up the post with a new one that builds on the previous. If you are a good writer and have plenty of material, this is fine. If you don’t, then just like in the movies, the sequel is often a disappointment.

You can however use the success of the article further down the track. This can be done on either the posts blog or on one of your other blogs. Using a second blog has several benefits. It not only increases the traffic on the second blog, it can also drive traffic back to the original article.

I am of course talking about republishing but republishing with a twist. Rather than republishing in full, you need to be able to republish a really good teaser together with an introduction and of course deep link to the original article.

This tactic introduces new readers to the article and refreshes the memory of those who have been before. If you do get that good article that can be used in this way, wait for the right moment to republish. Some of the best bloggers have the knack of grouping some of their old posts and writing a post that simply links them together.

This blogging tip can serve several purposes. It does of course provide a suggestion for a quick and easier blog when your stuck for time or inspiration. If you use this tactic then you are also going to provide your article with either deep links or good internal links - all of which are good SEO practices. What a lazy way to get more traffic.

Content theft is now rife within the blogging community and this blogging tip will help you combat some of the content thieves. One of the most irksome trends now is to find a blog that is ‘parked’, filled either with every post that you have written or filled with a variety of posts, some of which are yours and others you recognize from fellow bloggers. Not only that, these ‘parked domains’ are optimized to the hilt with income earning ads, generally but not limited to, Adsense.

How do you combat this type of activity? Once you identify a site that has ’stolen’ your content you should try to follow these blogging tips:

1. If possible, notify the domain owner that the content is yours and that you want it removed.
2. If the domain owner does not respond or if you cannot identify the owner then contact the domain host and advise them of the content theft - or being politically correct, breach of copyright.
3. If Adsense ad units are being used then notify Google - provide them with as much detail as possible - the domain’s URL, the URL of the post with copyrighted content, your URL and contact details and the URL of your original post.
4. While you are at it, request a ban from the search engines. These guys rely on getting referrals from the search engines to get their traffic.

These are quick and easy blogging tips to follow. However it is still a pain in the butt to have to go through these processes particularly if you are busy. The question is, how do you prevent them. There are a couple of blogging tips I can suggest which, whilst it may not stop them, will reduce the damage that stolen content can do. These blogging tips include:

1. Adding your own details to the foot of each post - your blogs name, your blogs URL and the URL of the post (you will need to publish - determine the URL and then edit the post to add it in). Content thieves often don’t actually read all of what they take, they just step in and copy and paste. With your details in the foot of the post you will at least get a link back to your post and of course it is advertising the source. It also makes it easier when you report it to advertisers such as Google. If enabled, this link will also send a trackback when published on another site.
2. Some content thieves are smart enough to remove the footer so also use links within the post that link to other posts on your own blog - it is good SEO practice anyway. Again you will at least have links back and of course some proof of the origin of the post. Again, if enabled, these links will send trackbacks when published elsewhere.
3. If your content is being regularly taken, try to determine when. If you post at the same time everyday, change your routine. Post your article and then keep watching the site. You can bet if your content is being regularly taken then they are watching at the same time each day.
4. This tip is a sneaky tip. If you notice that your content is being taken within 15 to 30 minutes of posting - post a dummy post. You can get cheeky and just write a dummy post that says very little except that it has been stolen from your site. Wait until it has been posted on the thief’s site then delete it from yours and post your normal article. I read one blogger who actually filled the bogus post with totally unacceptable content, waited for it to be posted and then reported them to the domain host. It doesn’t always work, and in the meantime you may get reported - interesting concept though.

My main blogging tip is to act quickly. Report them to Google. Report them to their domain host. With luck they will be closed down before they can do to much damage.

This may sound like a strange blogging tip, but for some blogs it may be very useful. Do you have a blog that is filled with ‘how to’ posts? Do you have a blog that has articles that are quite long? If so, then this blogging tip will be appropriate.

It is possible to publish short 55 word excerpts for each post. This forces the reader to click through to the post’s page to read the full version. This has pluses and minuses. It will either dramatically reduce the number of ‘bounce’ pages, or dramatically increase them as readers disappear before reading the post. Think carefully before using this blogging tip.

The process is fairly simple. Goto your Main Index Template and find the following text:

< ?php the_content(); ?>

Change this to:

<?php the_excerpt(__(’Continue Reading This Post’));?>

That is it. Done. This will only publish a short 55 word excerpt on the front page. The excerpt will not print any formating or images from the post. If you wish to maintain your formatting or images then the alternative is to use the “More” option in the editor window. Another word of caution, using the ‘more’ option will truncate your RSS feed at that point. If you want the complete post in your feed then you will need to install a plugin like the Full Text RSS Feed WordPress plugin.

This blogging tip will suit some blogs - for others, the full post is more appropriate. Overall, a better blog equals better blog marketing!

This is a short blogging tip. At least, a tip to shorten some of the URL’s on your blog. Are there times when you need to forward one of your URL’s to someone and it gets chopped off in the email.

There are several services available that enable you to take a long URL and shorten it considerably. These are really URL forwarding services. If your URL is something like this:

http://blogmarketingjournal.com/2008/02/04/blog-marketing-using-email-surveys/ (this is yesterdays post URL).

Using the Tiny URL service as an example, this URL of 78 characters is reduced to

http://tinyurl.com/ynklvb which is only 25 characters long.

You have to agree, 25 characters is much shorter than 78. When someone clicks on this link they go to TinyURL who then redirect them to the correct URL. It all happens in a fraction of a section so the time lag is hardly noticeable. What is lost of course is your brand - your web name is not in the URL. You will also lose link benefits if using it in comments or other possible link opportunity situations.

For emails and other activities like twitter, then a tiny URL may just be the blogging tip you need. When it comes to blog marketing - not so much.

Your old posts are a blog SEO goldmine if you know how to use them. These five tips will certainly make the most use of those old posts.

Tip 1: Whenever it is appropriate link a keyword back to an old post. This post relates to Blog SEO so I can effectively link to any of the older posts that relate to that topic. I am able to create three internal links just through this post.

Tip 2: I mentioned in a previous post that a lot of blogs waste their 404 Page Not Found error. Use the page to list your top posts.

Tip 3: Write a series of posts on related topics. This not only provides the opportunity to link each page, it has the added bonus of bringing your readers back.

Tip 4: Create static info pages that you can link to on a regular basis. Don’t forget to link to your About page when appropriate.

Tip 5: Make sure your sitemap is always up to date for search engines. Create a static site map for your visitors as well. While time consuming you can list every page which becomes another internal link.

Never underestimate the value of internal links. Whilst not as powerful as inbound links, internal links increase the value of the pages linked - a quick and easy blog SEO tactic.

This is an unusual blog marketing tip, but one that is probably not utilized by most bloggers. For the initiated, this may serve as a reminder, for every one else, you are probably asking - what is a 404?

You have probably come across 404’s before - it is simply a page not found error - and a very frustrating error. Think about it. You click on a link and get an error message. The page cannot be found. What have you done in this situation? Clicked refresh just in case; hit the back button; or just moved on? The majority of people just move on. If that was your page, you have just lost a visitor and every visitor is a potential customer.

How do you resolve the problem. For the big time bloggers, their 404 Page Not Found is a blessing - they use it to promote their main pages, their affiliate pages or their products. The easiest solution is to make sure that every link is unbroken and does not result in a 404. It is always good to have a backup for those times when you cannot repair the link, for example, a link that is normally unbroken is temporarily broken due to server errors.

It is very easy to redirect your Page Not Found to any page that suits. I will concentrate on WordPress, however the concepts are the same for any blogging package. Before moving on, a blogging tip for everyone - make a backup of the file you intend making any changes to.

WordPress normally has a file aptly named, 404.php. To redirect the browser to a page of your choice, open the 404.php for editing and add the following:

<?
header ("Location: http://your page url/");
?>

Replace the ‘your page url’ with the url of the page you want to have displayed. The best choice is either to redirect to your very best post or back to your home page. Even better, if you have the skills, is to have a dedicated page that advises the visitor that the page requested is not currently available, has a search option to find similar pages, at the same time promotes who you are, you current posts, products or services. This WordPress tip is very straightforward. For those using other platforms it is just a matter of finding your 404 file in your blog design and making the adjustments.

As a marketing tool, the 404 Page Not Found error should never be wasted - it is an opportunity to promote your business.

I have not seen this WordPress tip in many places, however I think it can be a worthy blogging tip to put into practice. If you receive a lot of trackbacks on your blog you will notice that they get mixed in with the comments. First, a simple definition of a trackback.

[source] A Trackback is one of three types of Linkbacks, methods for Web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking to, or referring to their articles. Some weblog software programs, such as Wordpress, Movable Type and Community Server, support automatic pingbacks where all the links in a published article can be pinged when the article is published.

So essentially a trackback is one blog advising another blog that there is a link connecting them and that the link comes from a particular article. The receiving blog pings back and it is that ping back that often ends up in the comments area. You have two choices, delete the trackback or leave it inplace. Trackbacks can be valuable for linking so it is often wise to leave the trackback in. However the trackbacks dotted through your comments make it look a little untidy. Follow these steps and our comments will not only look tidy, they will look professional. Before starting - make a copy of your comments.php file, just in case you make an error.

Step one: Open for editing your comments.php file and locate the following code.

<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?> immediately after this code place this:

<?php $comment_type = get_comment_type(); ?>
<?php if($comment_type == 'comment') { ?>

Step two: locate the following piece of code:

<?php endforeach; /* end for each comment */ ?> place this code on the line before:

<?php } /* End of is_comment statement */ ?>

Step three: locate this piece of code:

<?php else : // this is displayed if there are no comments so far ?> immediately before place this code:

<h3>Trackbacks</h3>
<ol>
<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>
<?php $comment_type = get_comment_type(); ?>
<?php if($comment_type != ‘comment’) { ?>
<li><?php comment_author_link() ?></li>
<?php } ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ol>

All done. Save the file and go into any post that has a mix of trackbacks and comments. This WordPress tip is easy to put into place and provides a nice neat look to your blog software.

If you consider these four blogging tips when creating your blog and writing a post you will increase the chances of engaging your readers and consequently increase the number of return visits.

Tip One: Write with the intent of creating a viewpoint.

It doesn’t need to be controversial, however if your post leads to a viewpoint that can be argued, your readers are more likely to add their opinions. If you could also conclude by asking “what do you think?”

Tip Two: Respond to comments as quickly as possible.

When comments are left, respond to them - the sooner the better. Respond to them in such a way that it commences a dialog. People like to participate in a dialog. Be sure to treat the commentator with respect - allow them to disagree with you.

Tip Three: Provide a means to continue the dialog.

Use a plugin a that enables the commentator to either subscribe to the comments or to at least receive follow up comments on that post by email.

Tip Four: NoFollow DoFollow

Install the DoFollow plugin and advertise the fact. If readers know that their comments may gain a little PR juice they will more willing to comment.

If you use these four blogging tips, a visitor to your blog will read your article. You will have inspired them to create a response. They see that you use the DoFollow philosophy so they proceed to write a comment. They request a follow up email to any further comments. Half an hour later they receive your response to the comment, this prompts them come back again to add a bit more.

You have just turned a single visit into a repeat visit. The longer you can keep someone on your page, the longer they will be exposed to the content of that page.

BTW - How do you get your readers to leave comments?

A lot is written on the topic of Blog SEO but I see very little written about the use of graphics.  Your graphics are just as important as the text, in fact more so if they do not render well on the screen.

Each browsers uses a different set of rules to render the graphics to the screen. If you use FireFox, particularly some of the older versions, you may find that when hovering your mouse over an image nothing happens. Internet Explorer on the other hand will display the ALT tag text. Some users prefer to have the graphics function of the browser switched off - in other words, they do not want graphics displayed. This can make a page look rather strange unless you code the graphics correctly.

The Insert/Edit image function in WordPress has a very limited capability. When inserting an image into your content you can use the Insert/edit image function but you will need to enter the code window to clean up the graphics tags.

Optimized  Graphics Tags:

<img src=”http://yourimage-url.here” alt=”name of image” title=”name of image” border=”0=none 1,2,3 etc for thickness” width=”xx%” height=”xx%” align=”left, right, center” vspace=”10″ hspace=”10″>

That is a long tag. A quick look at each component.

The IMG SRC (image source) tag tells the browser where to find the image.

The ALT  tag is the text that is placed on the screen if the browsers image function is switched off or if the path to the image has been broken (the image may have been deleted for example) - use keywords in this text.

The TITLE tag is the text that is displayed when the mouse hovers over the image (you can get clever and use promotional text here - for example - “click here to see more on blog SEO“) - again, use keywords in the text.

The BORDER tag sets the thickness of the border - zero for no border or you can leave the tag out altogether.

The WIDTH and HEIGHT tag allow you to render the graphic in a size other than the original. You can use sizes greater than 100% but always check how well the graphic appears. You can use just the width tag as most browsers will automatically resize the height according to the width. I find it best to use both tags.

The ALIGN tag places the graphic to the left or right of the text or centers the graphic with text top and bottom. If you are looking for a magazine affect with the text wrapping around the graphic - use the left or right attribute. (note again, not all browsers render this correctly).

The VSPACE and HSPACE are measurements in pixels that tell the browser how much ‘white’ space to place around the graphic. If you leave this tag out the text will placed hard up against the graphic.

Once you have placed the graphic, if it is a third party graphic (taken from another site) then it is always a good idea to link to the graphics source  in the accompanying text.

If you follow those tips, your graphic should render well in most browsers and search engines will know where the graphic came from and its importance to the content.