10 MUST Follow Twitter Marketing Tips

Social media has changed the trends of online marketing. Few years back search engine optimization was the only way to increase web visibility and building traffic for websites or blogs. But today social media has become an effective platform to create branding.

Twitter is one of the pioneers to create impact on the internet. Celebrities, Sport personalities, Entrepreneurs, bloggers, small business owners, and students are using Twitter because it is short and quick to share with the rest of the world. Intelligent people around the world use the social platform as a marketing tool to create and promote brand awareness. 

But the question is how? 

So, I’m sharing a quick guide of twitter marketing. 

1. Profile: Set your twitter profile with your own picture. Describe something cool about yourself like who you are, what do you do, which industry you are related with in brief and certainly mention your website or blog if you have one. You can also use other social profile links like the Facebook or G+ profile.

2. Be Active: Twitter is a place of active people. If you want to grab the attention of people, you need to be very active with the audience on regular basis. Generally twitter buddies don’t like to follow inactive user accounts.

3. Sharing: The more useful thing you share, the more followers you’ll gain. It is a simple equitation. Share what you have discovered or created today,which you think would be useful to your twitter audience. It may be a tutorial, picture, video or funny quotes. Be gentle and humorous with your followers.

4. Interactions: Interaction is a vital point in Twitter Marketing. Interaction includes Retweets, Mentions and Replies. If you find a tweet, which you think, is very useful retweet it. If your tweet has been retweeted, don’t forget to mention your twitter buddy with a “Thank you”. If you get direct messages reply with it.

5. Conversation: Participating in a conversation is a tactical strategy to get attention. Share your opinion with others and express what you think about conversing on a subject. Be gentle and don’t use any sensitive language. If you are searching to participate in a conversation on twitter. Just follow “Twitter Trends”.

6. Use #(Hash) Tags: Using “#” on Tweeter is about relevancy. Use it while updating your tweets. It is the best way to describe about your website, blog, content, pictures, videos, business, industry. Put “Hash” before keyword within 140 Characters. So that other people related to your industry can find you, know about what you are sharing.

7. Real People: There are millions of twitter accounts, but you should try to follow real people. If you are thinking to follow new people, check their twitter updates, date of updates, profile picture and real people would love to interact with you. You’ll also get nice and useful stuff from them.

8. Follow back: If you are having new followers, it is wise to follow them back. Your followers would be glad if you are also following them and that increases the chances of interactions. Popular twitter buddies are always engaged with interactions. If you don’t follow back, people will generally un-follow you. But there are some expectations like Global leaders, celebrities. It is for people like us.

9. Twitter Buttons: Twitter is a massive marketing tool because twitter provides awesome widgets like twitter follow, share a link, Hashtag and mention buttons and you can integrate it with your blog or website. So that your website or blog visitor can easily follow you on twitter, share contents, picture, etc. with other people.

10. Twitter Manage tools: There are several twitter accounts manage tools or apps that are available like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Tweet deck (already acquired by twitter), manage filter, etc. All you need to do is to integrate your twitter account with these tools. You can schedule your tweets, auto responds to direct message, send tweets to other social media and many more.

Marketing in twitter is really tactical. Don’t try to push your product or services, just try to build good relationship. Share some useful stuff that people really want to know. If you are getting popular in this social platform, your website, blog, product or service would be popular soon. Many internet marketers, bloggers are using twitter to create a new brand and many of them have achieved success. 

Keep going on with twitter.

Author Bio: Samrat Bhattacharya is working as a seo and social media strategist in a leading link building service providing company.

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Enjoy Your Holidays With Proper SEO Activities

This time of the year is really a time to be engaged with shopping and holidays. All the festivals from Halloween to Thanksgiving, from Christmas to New Year surrounds throughout this season. It is obvious that holidays will slow down your natural traffic. But if few activities are taken care of properly, then your SEO efforts will not go into vain.

Credit: photostock/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Get Suitable holiday keywords using Google Trend:

The ‘Google Trend’ tool will help you to get suitable keywords that match your requirements in this special season. This analytic tool will also help to provide keywords that were successful for the previous year. You will also have to look out for the keywords that lead to conversion for getting your desired result. 

Create content which is holiday-focused:

Holidays are filled with fun, gifts, shopping, planning etc. So the content can be focused on keywords like ‘presents’, ‘gifts’, ‘fun ideas’ ‘best buys’, ‘holiday plans’ etc. Some specific festival can be aimed by focusing on a specific content for ‘Christmas’ or ‘Thanks giving’. That fun-filled content will definitely attract more and more visitors. 

Create special gift set:

Few target groups can be created like children, mother, grandmother, uncle etc and then gift sets can be created for them keeping their age in mind. The company can send the gifts directly to their clients or can club the gifts with their products with special offers. Now this gifts and offers can be highlighted in the company site which will draw attention of the online visitors. 

Linking tactics:

Internal linking in the pages will be helpful in this case. Only highlighting the gifts and offers in the site content will not suffice. Linking them internally will help in increasing the page rank. You may follow the Pareto Principle of Link Building, which says that 80 percent of the effect/value comes from 20 percent of the causes. So that means 80 percent of page rank comes from 20 percent of the back links of the site. Re structuring your internal links with specific keywords targeted according to location or specific industry will be noteworthy for boosting up your page rank. But never overdo internal linking because Google suggests keeping your internal links in a page to fewer than 100. 

Use Blogs to attract traffic:

Publishing blogs with the content having a touch of this festive mood will surely attract more visitors. The content should be very lively and fun filled so that it easily connects the mood of the readers. You may share your own holiday plans or may describe the gifts you have received in these festivals. You can also share any gift ideas with your readers or can upload any video of making fun toys for children. 

Do not forget to update your Meta description:

Neglecting the on page activities will not give the desired result. So your meta description should also be updated with this festive mood. The meta description should also contain keywords like gifts, presents, holidays, Christmas, thanksgiving etc. It will certainly draw your visitor’s attention and will be advantageous for your SEO Company. Keep a list of all the pages you have updated and do not forget to change it back after the festivals. 

Use your Social Networking:

Use the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter , Youtube etc to send your wishes or messages to the online visitors. This will help to spread the messages very rapidly to a large number of visitors. 

In this festive season, enjoy your holidays keeping in mind these few activities and never forget your own SEO best practices with a slight touch of ‘holiday’ flavor. 

Author Bio: Arpita Bhowmik is an SEO analyst and also a passionate blogger who likes writing about digital marketing, SEO tips, blogging tips etc.

This post was written by one of our guest contributors. If you would like to contribute to our blog as a guest author, you can contact us.

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Why Millions Of People Start And Quit Blogging

According to an estimate, there were about 200 million blogs online in 2012.

But do you think that all these blogs are made by bloggers who are aiming for a future with it? Do you think that all these blogs are even readable and generate new content even once a year?

If you think yes (I know you don't!), then you are completely wrong :(

Yes, it is true that there are about 200 million blogs, but most of them are just rubbish 2-3 page blogs or just another "cracked games" or "wallpapers" blogs. Agree??? I am sure you would agree to me. Want a proof? Whenever you search for anything on Google, you get to see lakhs of results but just click on the last page's last result link and see yourself...

No. I am not talking about their lack of SEO and content that sends them to the last page. I am talking about their useless blog. Sorry to use a bit rude language but that is because this topic makes me a bit angry. Specially when statistics add those blogs also. If we count the number of really readable blogs, then it would not exceed 50 million.

Today, people just start a blog for nothing and abandon it like anything. I feel that it is an injustice to the blogoshere because due to these "start and quit" bloggers, people hesitate before starting their own blog. And most of the times, it is the mistake of such bloggers themselves that they abandon their incomplete blog.

So what is the reason behind all these people who quit blogging?

"The reason to end lies in the reason to begin." - Mahaveer Verma

So Why Do People Start Blogging Such That It Makes Them Quit In Future?

The main reasons for starting a blog are -

• Hobby
• Time-pass
• The worst reason - MONEY

Yes! You got it. MONEY is the thing that most of the people start their blogs for. And this reason is the most foolish and worst ever reason according to me.

If you are planning of starting your own blog because you know you can earn from it....then I assure you that you have 99.99% chances of FAILING :(

Read the last line again. I said FAILING and not succeeding. This is one statement that every going-to-be-blogger should remember well because the 150 million useless and un-readable blogs I am talking about belong to bloggers who started blogging just for money.

My story - And it is NOT about Money!

When I started my first blog, I kept it secret from my physical friends, who interact with me in my physical world like school and my home. Because I started my blog as a hobby, I was even unknown that I could earn something from it! I didn't want many people near me to know about my blog until it has achieved something great.

And when I got my first Adsense Check, I just showed it to some of my best friends and asked them to keep it a secret. Because I still believed that I had not achieved what I really wanted. It was not money that I took as my success. And this is something everyone should keep in mind.

Today, even though I tried to keep it a secret, most of my friends know that I am a blogger and I earn from it. Many times, when I am chatting with my Facebook friends, I get a friend who says -

Friend - Do you have your own blog?

Me- Yes.

Friend - Why do you write a blog?

Me - It is my hobby and I like it :)

Friend - Do you earn money from your blog?

Me - Yes. A little bit.

Friend - I want to make a blog too! Teach me how to make a blog. Plzzz...

This is an example of a typical chat that I had experienced many times by now.

What can be concluded from this?

1. People go crazy after hearing the word 'money'.
2. People think blogging for money is easy like peeling potatoes.

If you are one of those people who get excited by hearing the word 'money' associated with the word 'blogging', then forget it. Blogging is not for you. Sorry!

How to test yourself if you want to start blogging for money

Answer this question in less than 3 seconds - Your blog will cover which topic???

If you can't answer this question easily, and still want to start a blog...think again.

I have got many friends who ask me ideas about starting a new blog. I ask them about the field they are an expert and can write hundreds of words about it, but they don't have any answer for that. They say, I will share wallpapers, cracked softwares and games and so on... There are over 150 million sites for such rubbish crack sites! Why do you want to create another one???

Some say - I will read some blogs and write about the same thing in my own words at my blog....OK. Now that is article spinning literally!!! If you don't know about chemical properties of Oxygen, then how can you write about it just by reading from other sites???

If you find yourself in the same situation as some of my friends.....sorry to say again but you need to think over.

Blogging is about providing unique and simply awesome content to people.

Small blogs - Love it/Hate it

I am not against small blogs that post content only 1-2 times a month. Actually I do like them more than those "crack sites" that post 10 pages per day.

Why?

Suppose you have a personal blog. No you can not write on it everyday! Can you? Or if you are a really studious student and cannot manage blogging with studies, so you can post content only on Sundays. No problem at all. I am sure if you blog genuinely, then your blog will be followed by many readers even if you lack new content.

Third and most important example - You really want your blog just as your hobby and nothing commercial. Hats off to you if you have this mentality :)

It is not at all a bad idea if you want to create a blog just for fun and don't want to go world-famous or earn thousands per month. Actually it is the best reason to start your blog! Keep it up!

So keeping a small blog is never bad and I don't think that those blogs are any burden on the blogosphere :)

Summary:

1. Starting a Blog for money never works.
2. Being unknown to what you should write on your blog is like being blind.
3. Small or large, home or commercial, a blog should be genuine.

Above we discussed about how the wrong start disturbs and indeed destroys one's just started blogging life. Now there are also people who start blogging and then abandon it because of failure or something else. What are those "something else"s?

Why People Quit Blogging

Most people quit blogging due to failure.

But how do you know that your blog has failed? This is the main point where most bloggers fail to judge themselves. People think that they have failed when they are not able to earn good money from it.

That is the worst way to judge a blog's success. Your blog may not earn anything but can get on top of the stairs of success. Your blog's name would be on the tip of everyone's tongue and you can still top the Google search engine results even if you don't earn anything!

And even worse - some people think that they have failed because they were banned from Adsense! No comments here. You know what I mean to say!

Many people start with more than 1 blog and this is where they get to nowhere. When you are completely new to blogging, you should start with just one blog that you can give your complete attention to. I also own two blogs, but I started with just one and I still concentrate on that one.

If your blog does not cover good content on a single topic, if it does not sport a nice design and if you don't give any time to it...then your blog will fail. I know this is true. And you should know this too. I don't want any person who is reading this to contribute to the 150 million rubbish abandoned blogs!

Why am I repeating the words like "rubbish abandoned" and "crack blogs"? Because personally I have seen many people starting their blogging life with such sites. Most of the people start with wallpaper sites or share cracked games. That's it. Now how can you get any success with it???

In short, people quit blogging due to -

• Failure
• Not earning money

Another short one, people fail when -

• Blog doesn't get visitors
• Blog has no subscribers
• Blog doesn't get noticed

I should also add some points why people fail:

• Low quality content
• Improper blog designing
• Over Inactivity by Blogger

Now your turn!

I am sure that after reading through this post, if are a new blogger or are just going to start blogging, then you would start and continue your blogging life with complete determination. I have one request for everybody reading this - Don't start a blog just because you heard the word 'money' and don't contribute to the already large 150 million blog list that are just another abandoned spam blogs.

Did you like reading this article? What are your personal views on blogging and why do you think people get lost and quit blogging? Do comment and share your views here!

Image credits: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Blog Commenting Safely Even After Penguin

Credit: JamesBarker/FreedigitalPhotos.net

After Google Penguin update, webmasters who use SEO techniques around the world thought that blog commenting as a link building strategy may not have value anymore. In this article, we tackle on how you can still use blog commenting to benefit your website's SEO even after Google's "revamp".

Also read: The Best Practices In Blog Commenting

Safe Way of Blog Commenting

1. Value Sharing

Google is trying to drive relevant quality content creation. So stay away from posting a comment and then leaving your website URL thinking that people will click it. Gaining page views does not have to be this way. Practice the ideal way of blog commenting, which is value-sharing. 

You comment to add on to the blogger's content.

Share your insights, lessons learned and related experience or sentiment about what was written. If you are replying to comments on your own blog post, provide additional value by engaging with your readers. You can agree or disagree to their notions. Just make sure that whenever you do so, compose with a thoughtful comment. There should always be something they can be satisfied with. 

You will even have more chances to be offered the opportunity to make a guest post in related websites. Through your comments, webmasters will know who you are and what your blog is about. They will spark realizations that it will be advantageous to them if you can then share or exchange contents to generate a larger fan base.

2. Commenting Within your Niche

Google acknowledges those who contribute to be part of real active conversations. SEO will be all about relationship-building. Don’t go on blog hopping and comment for the sake of adding one. The right way to do it is to share valuable comments within your own niche.

This is not only to build community but also foster camaraderie among networks of relevant fields. Posting a comment in sites not related to your expertise might wander off interests of potential viewers to go to your website. This will only invite stray readers’ best concerns.

3. Blog Comment with Interval, Naturally

Include not only composing blogs to your schedule but also blog commenting on them. But don’t get into hiring folks or setting up robots just to comment a hundred times a day. Google knows what's happening and it knows when there’s something unnatural and fishy going on.

In the eyes of Google, if you participate by commenting in your community’s reach and get answers to questions posted regularly, you will be regarded as a good practitioner of SEO. Just act like any other human in your related field and comment with intervals.

4. No Keyword Stuffing

Organic blog comments carry on weight in search engines. You won’t yield good results if you post trashy comments made out of stuffed keywords in your niche. Still, posting genuine blog comments is highly recommended. Google will only trash those with weaves of keyword garbage.

Likewise, readers will be frustrated in finding out they have reached unrelated content through searching by keywords in the comments page. Remember, your aim in blog commenting is not only to get readers view and click your link! If you do that, you’re getting yourself into trouble.

See the big picture.

When you leave a comment, you’re like creating brand awareness. A better byproduct is to comment and start the discussion to send readers to visit your site with growing interest and anticipation.

Conclusion

Submitting your blog page links to online directories are performing work for your SEO. Another way is link-building in a form of blog commenting. However, writing only rambling comments may simply do harm than good in boosting marking programs, sales or driving lasting traffic to your website. Turn positive and attract readers by writing well-written comments in a unique perspective. In this right course, you will get lots of link juice to your blog in time regardless of "scary" SEO algorithm updates by Google. 

About the Guest Author:
Celina Conner is a Yoga Instructor, a holder of a Marketing Diploma from Martin College Australia and a mother of a beautiful daughter, Krizia. She has a passion in cooking and formulating vegan recipes.
Follow her adventures on Twitter.

This post was written by one of our guest contributors. If you would like to contribute to our blog as a guest author, you can contact us.

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4 MUST Seo Tools For Your Site

When you want to create something efficiently, you need to use right tools. This also applies when you are building your SEO strategy. To build an efficient SEO strategy to rank high on search engines like Google you must have right SEO tools. 

Image courtesy to Kromkrathog/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

SEO tools enable you to evaluate your website and analyse its position. To do this for your site you can approach an online marketing agency that implements best SEO and SMO practices to improve your website rankings. Below are some of the best SEO tools which help you in assessing your site. 

Google webmaster tools:

This tool provides you with the details of your pages’ visibility on the search engine. This will help you in identifying the crawl errors like 404 pages and redirection problems. You can also find out the duplicate content issues and site indexation status. You can also find out how many click-throughs and search queries your keyword is receiving. It is a free tool and works with mobile sites also.

Google Analytics:

This tool allows you to monitor your site. You can easily track the visitors and identify which page has been visited and in what order. You can also find how much time the visitor had spent on each page. You can track which page gets more traffic and which keywords are most popular. If your site is a sales site then you can track the complete process from the time the visitor searches the keyword to the point when they complete their transaction.

Screaming Frog SEO spider: 

This tool is marketer’s best friend. This tool will analyse titles throughout your site. If your site is filled with more lengthy titles then Google and other search engines ignore those titles. Screaming Frog SEO spider provides you with a quick snap shot giving quick reference to where the changes should be made and help to optimise the page. 

Hub Spot’s Marketing Grader:

This tool helps you to differentiate between B2C and B2B. It also allows you to analyse the social media activities. This tool offers you tips to increase your website’s rankings. This tool grades your site based upon 2 key areas of the sales funnel namely TOFU (The Top of the Funnel) that examines the efforts made to grab the customer’s attention and MOFU (Middle of the Funnel) that checks how good your conversion strategies are working.

Now your turn!

What are your views on these SEO tools? Do comment and share your views here.

About the Guest Author:
This guest post was written by Jessica Williams, a blogger who is currently focusing on ppi claims. Catch her at @financeport.

This post was written by one of our guest contributors. If you would like to contribute to our blog as a guest author, you can contact us.

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Top 5 Blogging Platforms To Choose From

Every internet addicts love to maintain a blog. Blogging is one of the amazing ways of giving a sharp edge to our writing skills and also to spread knowledge and unique ideas to the visitors. Blogging can be considered as the best way of earning online while it is also believed to be the ideal source of relaxation for some.

Source: archcityhomes.com

Depending on his requirement, a blogger chooses the blog that suits him best. Just as WordPress blogs would be the perfect platform for all professionals, similarly on the other hand for newbie or amateur bloggers blogger.com would be the best fit for them. Therefore, being a blogger it is necessary to concentrate more on your requirements and not to hop around the popularity of the blog. 

Sometimes it does happen that a blogger simply gets confused of choosing the perfect blogging platform from the dozens of service choices that he gets. In order to narrow down this confusion, following is a list of top 5 blogging platforms which would rather help you to make your decision a bit more easily. 

WordPress

This is one of the largest blogging platforms in the world designed for both novices and professionals and also has an infinite customization options. It is a blog with modular backend and has also got a large number of extensions. So, it is also referred as the “do-it-yourself” blog. 

WordPress also allows bloggers to modify their blogs using either their pre-designed themes or by using HTML, CSS or PHP. Their extensions also give extra features to their users such as editing calendars, tag clouds, twitter feeds, etc. 

So, if you are looking for a stout blogging service with enormous options for you to edit it as according to your choice, then WordPress is your platform for sure. 

Blogger

Google’s blogger platform is considered to be the most popular as it is being coupled with your Google account. Getting started is quite easy. All you need to do is to select a title, what the address should be like (name.blogspot.com) and then select a template followed by the content which you want to update in it. 

Here, you can also follow other blogger’s blog and the dashboard keeps on tracking the latest update and will continuously alert you with latest updates. Some additional features also include comment moderation, layout modification, etc. Bloggers were very well-known among teenagers and mommies to express their feelings but nowadays, it has also officially gained the importance of professionals to express their messages through this service. 

Tumblr

Thinking of Tumblr, the first thing which comes right to our mind is all about a true “micro blogging site”. But yes, apart from being a good micro blogging site, tumblr is one of the best and rich blogging platform offering professional and fully adaptable templates as well as many other services. Users can easily access their free tumblr accounts and can manage posts directly from apps via mobile, web and other dedicated apps on the PC. 

Tumblr pages are well maintained with clean designs thus help you more to concentrate on your content rather than customization. If someone likes your content, then he can “favorite it” or “reblog it” which reposts a clip of your post to their page with a link coming to your source page. The most interesting part is that tumblr can import blogs as well can export it if you want to migrate it to a different service. So, if you are a casual blogger and you concentrate more on content rather than on designs, then tumblr is just the best option for you to opt for.  

Posterous

The best way to share your messages with the public, a specific category of people or even yourself, then Posterous is just the right option for you. 

Once you are ready with your account, you can set up “spaces” for people to follow. Permission can be set for each space but you are free to set as many space as you want. This is definitely the best blog and most widely used by professionals to share their messages through this platform. 

Movable Type

This blogging platform was originally developed by Six Apart in 2001, and has appeared as the “power blogger’s platform”. It also offers plugins like WordPress to modify the experience of both blogger and reader. This is one of the best blogging platforms being available in two flavors- the.com version and .org version. The .com version is designed for non-developers who want their blog for free by movable type and again there is .org version which is designed for the professionals who want to host their site using various external services. 

Although you will find a lot of similarities between Movable Type and WordPress, so it totally depends on you which platform you would prefer after judging the best services that it offers such as features, plugins and support that you would be getting in order to keep your content highlighted as always. 

Yes of course, these aren’t the only blogging platforms out there, but yes these are one of the top five blogging platforms being widely used by both professionals and amateurs. So, now that you have got some good platforms to jump-off, it is better to build your blog and start jotting down your points in it. It is the best way to show your visitors the only thing that you are actually good at.

And do read this basic blogging guide before starting you own blog.

Its Your Turn!

Which blogging platform do you prefer? And how good have your experience been with it? I would love to hear from you! So do comment and share your views.

About the Guest Author:

Aditi Datta is a specialized social media organizer who works in a leading SEO company in India. She loves to analyze on recent search engine algorithm changes and user engagements in social media websites.

This post was written by one of our guest contributors. If you would like to contribute to our blog as a guest author, you can contact us.

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Pinterest: How to Create a Secret Board

For those who are unaware of Pinterest, it is a social networking sites based on sharing photos (pins here). Photos are pinned into boards created by the user and that's why it is named Pinterest.

Source: Pinterest Blog

Pinterest has introduced a new kind of board for users that can keep their pins secret and hidden from public. The secret board is just visible to the creator himself and the people whom he invites. Currently, a user is allowed to make 3 secret boards.

Read the post on Pinterest blog about the announcement of secret boards.

Pinterest users like me got an email notification about this latest update. Here is a small part from the email notification-

Over the last year, there have been so many ways, big and small, that the Pinterest community has made my life better. I’m happy to say that I’m not alone. We’ve heard from teachers who use Pinterest to plan lessons, chefs who share recipes, and museums that pin their archives. We've also heard from millions of people who’ve been inspired to pick up an old hobby or try something new. It’s honestly more than we ever expected when we started Pinterest. We’re humbled to be part of such a positive, warm and creative community.

Today, we’re excited to continue this tradition with a new feature we hope will make Pinterest even better—secret boards. Secret boards give you a place for things you’re not quite ready to share yet, like a surprise party, special gift ideas, or even planning for a new baby. We’re testing out the feature by giving everyone 3 secret boards. You’ll find them at the bottom of your profile. We can’t wait to hear what you think!

On behalf of our team here at Pinterest, thanks so much for pinning, inviting your friends, and sending us ideas for how we can improve. Most of all, thanks for sharing your inspirations. With your help, we’ll make Pinterest a little better every day.

—Ben & the Pinterest Team

Now let us move on to creating our first secret board...

A secret board can be created like any other board. Actually keeping a board secret is just like an attribute only.

On the top right corner of your Pinterest profile, click on the Add+ button, then select Create a Board.

Set the Secret button to ON. Enter the name and category of board and click on Create Board.

What would be the benefit of creating a secret board?

Creating a secret board can prove helpful if you are planning something secret and don't want the public to know about it now. Like if you are planning a campaign, it would help in managing future pins.

What do you think?

What do you think about this new feature introduced by Pinterest? Will these secret boards be helpful to you? Any ideas on it?

Do comment and share with us! And do follow us on Pinterest: @BloggingPanorama.

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Google And Bing Play With Mirrors

Just when I was spending some of my free time on Facebook, I discovered about another cool easter by Google. And after doing some more research, I found the same about Bing too!

And this time, its not made by Google, but some other site. What is the easter? You would have guessed by the title, right?

Google Mirror - elgooG

This easter site was created by a company named 'All Too Flat'. And its a really old one actually but it was worth sharing. On this site, as the title suggests, you see all the text in a mirror style view, i.e. flipped horizontally.

Visit elgoog.im and check yourself.

I have also seen that there is one problem with the site and that is, when you enter any term to search, it returns an error that the doc has moved. So you can't access the result page full of flipped text. But anyways, you can get an idea from the homepage about what it really meant.

And not only that but at the bottom of the page, I found links to some other Google Easters like- Underwater Google, Gravity Google, Guitar and many more. Just visit the site and check it out!

Bing Mirror - gniB

The same thing here. Visit gnib.org and look for yourself. And this time, the search function also works properly. So you can type a term to search and you'll find that the whole SERP (Search Engine Result Page) has mirror like flipped text.

This is what I got when I searched for 'Bing'. Are you able to understand anything? Open the full sized image, then maybe you would get something more clear.

There are still lots of cool mysteries to unfold and there are many interesting secrets hidden in this hugh online world what we call Internet. What do you think about these easters about Google and Bing? Do comment and let me know...

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Google PR Update Nov 2012 - Blogging Panorama is Now PR2

Finally after taking away many nights of sleep from excited bloggers, Google has updated their Page Ranks! Like every other blogger, I was also excited for this month's PR update and the main reason for this excitement was this blog.

Blogging Panorama was started two months ago in September '12 and since then, this PR update of November 2012 is the first PR update and so I was excited to know the results of my two month's hard work.

And the results are very good  indeed - Blogging Panorama got PR2 and I think it is good enough for a 2 month old blog created from scratch. My other tech blog- Genious PC retains its old PR3. So I am happy with the performance of both my blogs now.

I know that PR2 is not something to boast about but I am happy with my blog's two months progress.

One should note that Page Rank is not the only means of grading a site, because even a low PR site can also have good traffic and sometimes very good quality blogs get low PR. And then there is the Alexa Rank also. But even if they possess very less importance and are inaccurate methods to grade a site, advertisers generally look for a site's Page Rank and Alexa Rank before making a deal. So it is very important indeed.

One cool fact that I found about these updated page ranks - Google itself has PR9 whereas Twitter has PR10!

How I got a PR2 in just 2 months?

Actually getting PR2 in two months is not a very difficult task. And it would be a very common thing if a regularly updated site gets a page rank of 2. Because getting to page rank 1 or 2 is very simple. But moving in the graph further is difficult. I mean to say that getting a page rank of 4 from 3 or 5 from 4 is very difficult.

In my future post, I will discuss what steps I took that I think would have resulted into this short victory. So stay connected with us.

And now about some secret...

Also let me declare something about a secret.... Um.. Its secret for now...But I can tell you what it is about.

Its about a giveaway for my blog subscribers and active blog commentors. I would be giving something for free to all those people who are actively following my blog. Not just to 1 or 2 but to at least 10 people.

Stay subscribed so that you don't miss the official announcement about the real secret...

What's your new PR?

Hope you all got good response from Google's PR update this time. I would love to hear your thoughts about this latest PR update of November 2012 and how it turned up for you. Do comment and share your new page ranks with us! 

You can also post an extra link to your blog's home-page so that our readers can get to your blog. And your blog will also be featured in the 'High PR Blog List' which is coming up shortly at this blog...

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Make Your Blog Post Go 'Gangnam Style'

First let me clear your doubts.. I am not going to teach you some dance moves here! And that is obvious. Even I don't know how to dance. But I know some tricks about blogging. And that is what I am going to share with you.

OK. Let's move on to the real topic - Making a Viral Blog Post. 

So what actually is viral? 

The best example of going viral is 'Gangnam Style'. Going viral means gaining such a huge exposure and popularity that you can't even imagine.

What are the benefit of going viral? 

Ummm... There are tons of benefits like traffic explosion, popularity, exposure to the blogosphere and many more. Take the example of the South Korean rapper Psy. He got his name known to the world just because his Gangnam Style went viral. And if you are not a well known blogger, then going viral can also help create a name for yourself in this world. 

The list of benefits is too long. Just think over it...

How do things go viral?

Sometimes some of the most common things go viral. Sometimes the most unusual things go viral. It's about luck and some tricks. I believe that there are very less chances that if your blog post has the best content then it would go viral only due to that content. I think that that way your blog post can become very famous and can receive good response but content is not enough to make a blog post go viral.

I believe that a blog post (or anything else) can go viral if it has completely unique features and something that the world has never seen before. And then you require God's blessings in your favor to turn some roads for you. (What do you think? Does Gangnam Style have the best dance moves ever???)

I have always been experimenting with my blog and my blog posts. Different writing styles and posting times, everything affects the popularity of a blog post.

And I have come to some conclusions about going viral. What are they? Read on...

How to Make Your Blog Post Go Viral

Pro Tip- Imagine you are a reader yourself. This way you can decide yourself what can make your post viral. Right from looking at the title to the ending quotes, think what can make you go viral.

Magnetic Headline Titles

The title of the blog post is the first thing what a reader reads and decides the importance and uniqueness of the content without even reading it. So try to make an attractive and you can say Magnetic title.

Example- Why did you click on the title of this blog post you are reading now? Consciously or subconsciously your mind, after reading the title, decided that it has something interesting in it. Right?

Source: achievedstrategies.com

That is the key to it. Suppose your article is about SEO tips. Now consider these two titles - 'Best SEO Tips' and '10 Killer SEO Tips and Tricks'. Which title would you click on? Obviously the second one. Because it creates a feeling of excitement and it would be more appealing to your subconscious mind.

Using Attractive and IRrelevant Photos in Post

"A picture speaks more than a thousand words" - People of the world

"A picture speaks directly with subconscious mind" - Mahaveer Verma

Pictures are the most important element of your blog post after the content itself. And actually photos are a part of your content. And photos not only add important information to the article, but also they add more feelings into the article. 

Pictures in a blog post need not to be relevant always unless you are writing a tutorial. You can also use pictures to decorate your blog post and to encourage more feelings in your reader's minds. Take this article as an example. The photo of the Gangnam dance in the starting of this article is not related to the content but it creates a different feeling and a good impression in the minds of readers.

If you are writing about 'blogging challenges', then feel free to use a dog's photo who is jumping across a obstacle. These type of semi-off-topic pictures tend to higher readership for your blog posts. Also if the blog post you are writing is too long, then add some other photos here and there between the contents so that it entertains your readers and they don't run away.

This is just to create a feeling of casualness. The more casual and fantastic your blog post is, the more viral it may go.

Trending Topics

Sometimes writing about the most recent trending topics can do the trick. Once at my tech blog, I posted a trick to unblock some sites and in those days, many sites were blocked by the ISPs. And what kind of response did I get? I got 1000 pageviews for that post on the very first day! But this didn't remain too long. For few days I got nearly 500-700 pageviews daily for that post and then day by day the viral post went cold. But it is still one of the most viewed blog post on daily basis.

So writing about the trending topics did a trick to me. But the success of such trend based post can't be predicted. But yes, it does work very nice and you have a lot of chance to go viral.

The Funny Attitude

Humor is almost compulsory if you want to make a book or a blog post go viral. Because people love friendly, casual and funny things and you know - Nobody likes reading a dictionary!

Whenever you write a blog post, add some sense of casualness like you are sitting in front of them and talking to them. Also don't be over serious in your posts. If your article is full of humor and casual attitude, then more people will tend to read the complete article.

And remember - A funny man makes 100 friends while a serious one would get only another serious one!

Blog Posting Schedule

After discussing all the writing style stuff, let's move to some 'God's favor' things. There are some unusual tricks that can make a blog post go viral.

Image credit: jannoon028/Freedigitalphotos.net

One of them is the time when you publish your post i.e. the time of the day when your blog post goes live. You should set such a time for publishing your posts when most of your readers are online and reading your blog. The evening or early morning is a good time because at those hours people have some spare time to read blog posts. And they won't be able to neglect your magnetic headline :)

According to my experiments, I'll say - never publish in the afternoon. Because at that time most of the people are busy at office or colleagues and other work places. So there is a chance that your blog post may get buried there. 

But after all, your blog post would be still available at the top place at your blog's recent list. So it is not that necessary and it can't completely ruin your work. The more important scheduling is the scheduling of your post sharing time. Why? Read ahead.

Post Sharing Schedule

You have written a high quality article and now, you are going to promote it on the social networking sites. There are hundreds of people constantly sharing updates and photos on these social sites, so you won't like if your share doesn't get noticed.

First let me tell what not to do. This will help you in understanding what to do. Don't share your posts in the afternoon especially on Facebook. Because very few people will notice your share in the afternoon and by the evening, when most of the people get online, your share would get buried very deep by the newer updates and shares. So a waste of sharing your high quality article?

Always share your content when most people would notice it i.e. when most of your fans and followers or even friends are online. And if the time favors you, then you can go viral!

Newsletter Delivery Schedule

Same trick here. Set your email newsletter to deliver when most of your readers have spare time. For newsletter, early morning is the best time. Even than evening. Because people tend to check their emails early morning with a fresh mood and they would be sure to read your article.

If you send the same newsletter in the evening, then there are somewhat less chance that people will care about like they would do in the morning. Generally people tend to give evenings to friends and family so they tend to be more active on social networking sites in the evening.

Its all about finding out the best time for your blog post.

Over to you...

As you read, I didn't mention the importance of 'content' anywhere. Why? Because you have already read it a hundred times that 'Content is the King'. And even though it is... It is not enough to make something go viral.

In short, you make your blog post go viral by - attractive writing style and the best timings for publishing and sharing/promoting your post.

What do you think about going viral? Do comment and let me know. And if you think my article was nice, why not share it? Who knows maybe this post can go viral!

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Basic Blogging Guide For Beginners

Starting a blog of your own is very easy, but continuing with the blog to achieve new heights is a different thing. As a hobby you can write a few posts and a hundred people will read your blog daily. That is easy. But if you are really passionate about blogging and want a successful blog, then remember: 'It is not that easy.' 

I said not that easy but I would never say very hard. Why? Because if you are really interested in blogging and can afford to give hours to your new blog, then for you, this can be very easy too! From my experience, I can say that my first blog took good enough time to establish as a successful one, but because I was working hard on it from the very first day, I was able to get at good height of success. 

And I am still working to achieve more. This is the first step towards a successful blog- Always work smart in a positive direction. And never sit idle after achieving something. Target for more and one day you will surely get more. 

If you are thinking of making your own blog, then here is some basic stuff you should read well before leaping into the world of blogging.

Platform 

First you should decide which blogging platform would be best for you. Blogger and Wordpress are the two most famous blogging platforms and they both are free. If you are completely new with blogging, then I would recommend to start with Blogger because of its simplicity. Both of my blogs run on Blogger and I am happy with it. 

Topic and Content

Next, you should decide what would be your content. It can be anything like Tech, News, Blogging, Automobiles, Games, Archive, Photo Gallery or anything else whatever is in your mind. You should keep in mind that you should write about that one specific topic only. It is better if you write a blog with a targeted topi, this helps in getting more audience from Google and other search engines. 

And it is not good to write about multiple topics at once. Eg: Weight loss tips+ latest laptop price+ Gaming accessories+etc. These types of blogs are usually facing failure. So it is your first step to success to decide a topic you can write about. Also you should write good quality content that your readers will find useful. 

SEO

SEO stands for 'Search Engine Optimisation'. What is it? You know Google, Bing, etc are search engines. Methods that help you get more traffic from them is called SEO. 

How? 

SEO helps you get a better rank in these search engines. Rank decides where will your site be shown on the SERP- Search Engine Result Page. Imagine you are searching on Google about 'buying a home theater'. You see many results on the 1st page of Google. Most of us don't go further upto 2nd or 3rd page. So if your blog is on 4th Page, you will lose most of your audience. 

There is a competition between the best sites to get on the first page. So here comes SEO. 

SEO will help you get a better rank and thus help you to come to 1st page. But in a nutshell, SEO doesn't guarantee success. The first step towards SEO is CONTENT. The blogs and websites with the best content usually get to the top of SERPs without any other special efforts. After content, there are many small steps for SEO which you should consider. When you start your blog, the thing with the most priority must be- 'Content, content and content'.

It is good if you start working on SEO right from the first day of your blog. But for those beginners who do not understand a single word about SEO, you should wait for some time. After you have established a blog with a good 5 posts, then you should start learning about SEO. SEO does not require all of your efforts and time, but with a good combination of techniques you can achieve the best rank on Google also! A search on Google about 'SEO Tips' will give you links to some of the best sites offering help on SEO. 

Some of the SEO tips you should consider are- keyword density, meta tags, SERP optimisation, backlinks, etc. Once you fall in the ocean of blogging, you will find many other important SEO methods. 

The SEO Robot - Image credit: David DeHetre (Creative Commons)

Social Media 

When you start writing a blog, side by side you should also promote it through social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the best one according to me- Google Plus. This will increase your number of audience and your blog would spread across the world. There are many gadgets made by these social networking sites which you can use in your blog and watch your blog grow. 

Reading other blogs for inspiration

The best way to learn more would be to learn by observing well established blogs of the same topic as your blog. This would give you inspiration and new ideas for your blog. 

Also a good looking theme is must for your blog. From my experience white themes work better than dark ones, because they are easier to read by everyone, but it depends on your blog topic. 

Try and Try! 

Keep experimenting and you will find new and better ways of building a successful blog on your own. Experimenting is the key to success. 

In the end, here are links to some of the great sites I consider as inspiration and you should also consider bookmarking them:

ProBlogger

We Blog Better

Basic Blog Tips
Shout Me Loud

Digital Inspiration
Copyblogger

And remember: Hard work is the key to success! 

Over to you!

Are you a new blogger?

Or are you just going to start your own blog very soon? 

Or are you already a blogger looking for some basic tips? If you liked the article, then please give some time to share it. And do subscribe to our blog's newsletter to receive latest updates on blogging tips.

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How to Redirect Blogspot Blog to Custom Domain

This is the second part of my tutorial on setting up a blogger blog on custom domain.

Read the first part here: Setting up Custom domain for Blogger.

In this part, I am going to guide you to on redirecting your old blogspot.com blog to your custom domain.

Eg: From yourblog.blogspot.com to yourblog.com

Second, I will guide you in redirecting naked URL (non www URL) to the www URL. Then I will guide you in updating your site links and other services to work with the new domain. I hope you have followed the part one and set up the CNAME and A records you need for your blogger blog to work on the custom domain.

Redirecting Blog to Custom Domain

1. Go to Blogger dashboard > Settings > Basic > Publishing > Blog address
2. Click on 'Add a custom domain' > 'Switch to Advanced Settings'
3. Enter your domain name with a 'www' as shown in the screenshot below. Eg- www.example.com

Set the 'Use a missing files host?' option to no. Select save and you are done!

Redirecting Naked URL to 'www' URL

Naked URL is the URL that doesn't contain a 'www' in it. Suppose you have registered a domain named example.com and then by following the above method, you set up your blog on that domain. Then there is still one problem left to solve. Because after successfully setting up your blog on custom domain, you can access your blog by the URL: www.example.com but if you enter the URL as just example.com then it would show a 404 error.

There are many users who do not enter the 'www' prefix and so they will not land on your blog, but will land on a 404 error page. To solve this problem, we need to redirect the non-www URL (known as naked URL) to the www URL.

Follow these steps to redirect the naked URL to the correct URL.

1. Again go to Blogger dashboard > Settings > Basic > Publishing > Blog address
2. Click on Edit > Check the option 'Redirect yourblog.com to www.yourblog.com'

Click on save. That's it!

Editing Site Links and other Services

After redirecting your blog to custom domain, the internal links within your blog do not change automatically. You need to change them manually.

1. Check for internal links on any blog post and correct it.
2. Open you blog's HTML template and search for your old blogspot.com links and manually change them to the new link with the 'www' prefix.

One important service that most of you would be using on your blog is Feedburner. Go to feeds.feedburner.com and edit your feed settings to the new blog address and the new blog's RSS address.

I should also remind you about some other places where possibly you have placed a link to your blog.

1. Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn or other social networking sites.
2. Forum signatures.
3. Reciprocal link exchanges. You can send an email to the other blog owner to update the link.

You won't be able to edit commentluv comment links on other blogs. But don't worry about it because the old blogspot.com links would be redirected to the new blog's address. Also in a few days, after Google re-indexes your new blog's URL, you will get back all the backlinks even if they link to the old blogspot.com blog.

In this process, you will lose your PR and Alexa rank but you will eventually gain them back without any special efforts.

Image credit: sheelamohan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Over to you!

Did the tutorial help you? Or do you have any doubts on this process? I would love to hear from you so do leave a comment.

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Setting up a Custom Domain for Blogger

This is the first part of my 2 section tutorial on setting up a blogger blog on custom domain. In this part I have discussed how to set up A records and CNAME records for the custom domain to use it for your blogspot blog according to the newly updated features and settings by Blogger.

After buying a custom domain for your blog, the next step is to set up CNAME and A records for it. Recently (in October 2012) Blogger had faced some issues regarding mapping a custom domain for its blogspot users and after that, they had introduced a new CNAME record to verify the ownership of domain.

OK. So let us move on to these settings. I have divided the settings in 2 parts. The first part is divided into two parts according to your registrant. That is because in Godaddy, these settings are easier compared to other registrants. The second part deals with the 2nd CNAME record required as per latest update by Blogger.

Part 1: Setting A records and 1st required CNAME record

Option 1: For domains registered through Godaddy:

Go to your account domain setting tool and enter the domain name you want to set up for blogger as shown in the figure below. In 10-15 minutes, the account will be half ready for blogger.

I said half ready because still there is one more CNAME record remaining to add. Now jump to Part 2.

Option 2: For domains registered through Namecheap, name.com or other registrants:

For other registrants, you will have to manually set up A records and CNAME records.

These are the required A records:

@     216.239.32.21     1800

@     216.239.34.21     1800

@     216.239.36.21     1800

@     216.239.38.21     1800

Here 1800 is the TTL (Time to live)

And this is the 1st CNAME record you need to enter:

www     ghs.google.com

Now move to Part 2 to create the 2nd required CNAME record

Part 2: Setting 2nd required CNAME record

Go to: Blogger Dashboard > Settings > Basic > Blog Address > Add a custom domain

Now click on 'Switch to advanced settings'.

Enter your domain name with www like www.example.com (as shown above). Now click on settings instructions.

You will be taken to a page of instructions. First select 'On a top-level domain (www.example.com)' option. Now find the second CNAME record details and note it.

Now open your registrant and go to account domain settings and manually enter the 2nd CNAME record as given in the instructions page. Note that in some registrants like Godaddy there is no need to (and you cannot) add the last dot (.) given in the CNAME destination eg "xyzabc.domainverify.googlehosted.com." There is no need to add the last dot so just type "xyzabc.domainverify.googlehosted.com" in the CNAME destination.

Congrats! You have completed the required tasks to set up a custom domain for blogger. Now wait for nearly one hour for the settings to show their results and then move to the next step of setting up blogger on custom domain.

Read the second part of the turorial: How to Redirect Blogspot Blog to Custom Domain

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