3 Step Ladder To Publicize Your Blog And Drive Traffic To It

Have you just started a new blog by any chance? Then you would be struggling to get your blog noticed, right?

I have said this fact earlier too and I will repeat it here that just creating a brand new blog doesn't mean that strangers will start stumbling on your blog!

Unless you show your new blog to the world and promote it the proper way, you won't be getting any eyeballs focused on your blog, no matter how unique and creative it is.

I bet if you are struggling to get a few daily visitors to your new blog, it is solely because you didn't pay attention to publicizing your blog. You are not aware of its importance and you don't work on a blog promotion strategy- a proper strategy to be more precise.

What Is The Need To Promote My Blog? I Will Get Traffic From Google, Right?

No...

Getting traffic to your blog from search engines is something that takes a long time. And a really really long time sometimes. To get traffic from search engines, you need to rank high on them, and this requires at least some intermediate skills.

So don't expect Google to flood your site right from the first week of starting your blog.

If you are building a blog from scratch, it would take at least a month or so for your blog to get indexed in popular search engines like Google and after that, some day you would start getting a few visitors to your blog from them.

And slowly and steady you would start getting lots of visitors from search engines. But never from the first day itself!

So what should I do to drive lots of traffic to my blog?

You need to plan an effective blogging strategy which starts right from publicizing your blog.

Here I will discuss my 3 step ladder that I used with this blog to drive traffic to it.

The first step to this ladder is...

Step 1: Spreading The Word About Your Blog

If you have just started a new blog, chances are that nobody would be aware of its existence. And as I said before, you CAN'T rely on search engines to bring the first few visitors to your blog.

The first step to driving lots of traffic is to bring small traffic. And you will be getting this first traffic from your online as well as offline friends.

So the first step to drive traffic to your blog would be to publicize it. You must spread the word about your new blog to your online as well as offline friends.

Share about your latest blog on your social networks with your online friends and tell them to have a look at it. It would be better if you share about your new blog with some of your friends who are already bloggers and who would like to connect to your blog.

My case - I have a few blogger friends at Facebook and Google+, so when I started this blog, I requested them to have a look at it. Some of them liked my blog especially and now they are my regular readers. And at the same time I am their regular reader too!

I got about 10-50 of my first few daily visitors in this way.

Pro tip - Connect to other bloggers of the same niche on social networking sites specially Facebook and Google+. You can share about your new blog there and get your first few visitors easily. Just by sharing your latest blog posts, you can get little to much traffic to your blog right from the first day depending on your social presence.

[Don't Miss: I Have Just Started A New Blog - Now What To Do?]

Step 2: Social Publicity - Forcing The Same Visitors To Come Again!

Now that 100s of people know about your blog, you would like them to visit again and again and again. Right? 

You want them to become your regular readers, right? 

To make your first time visitors come again and again, you need to build a strong social presence. You need to inform your friends and other first time visitors whenever something new gets published at your blog.

You can’t actually force your first timers to come back again but you can give them a solid reason to. 

When I started getting some few visitors daily, I started focusing on giving them a reason to come again and a medium to connect to my blog.

That is how I got a few regular readers.

I made a Facebook and Google+ page for my blog and also started sharing my latest posts on twitter. As a result, those people who were interested in my blog’s content connected themselves to the social pages of my blog and then they would receive a notification whenever I posted something new at my blog. 

One more method other than social networks is the use of email subcribtions. 

I use feedburner to manage my email subscribers. They get an email delivered to their inbox about the latest updates of my blog. 

Slowly and steadily, I was able to publicize my blog to a good extend and establish a small readership of 200-250 daily visitors.

Pro tip – Build and manage a Facebook,Google+, Twitter and Pinterest page for your blog. Also build an email list. Give your first visitors a medium and a reason to stay connected to your blog. 

Step 3: Search Engine Publicity - Bringing new visitors from Search Engines… Time To Learn About SEO

After you start getting some daily visitors which mainly consist of your online friends and other bloggers, now is the time to start bringing some more traffic full of new visitors from… none other than… search engines! 

Search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and many others can prove to be a major source of traffic for any growing blog.

But getting traffic from search engines is not that easy.. Remember, I would never say it is difficult either!

You might know that those search engines are not handled solely by humans. Because with millions and millions of sites all over the internet, it is just impossible! So the major work of managing all those sites are done by bots (robots or you can say super computers). 

They visit your site automatically, regularly and during each visit, they scan your content and decide whether it is good and informative or not. Not only content, but they also scan through your site’s design and layout to determine the quality of your website. 

Now it might be easy to impress a human visitor with your good writing skills and important information, but to impress a search engine bot… you need to optimize your blog for them. 

And this is what SEO – Search Engine Optimization is all about. 

If you don’t have any idea about SEO and how to practice it, then don’t worry.

Read this article which is all about the basics of SEO: What is SEO?

Pro tip – You can also read some e-books about ‘SEO and how to practice it’ to increase your knowledge of SEO. 

Here comes the top of this ladder!

Now these 3 steps continue forever like an infinite loop.

How?

You get new visitors from search engines, you make them stay, you publicize your blog better, more visitors, again you make them stay connected...and so on.

Summary 

Let us have a quick look at what we discussed here. 

Here is the 3 step ladder that I used to publicize my blog and to drive traffic to it. 

I told about my blog to my friends and other bloggers – I made social profiles and an email list so that those friends stay connected – I used search engines to drive more traffic in the form of interested people to my blog and expand my blog’s readership. 

How do you publicize your blog and drive traffic to it? 

Which kind of strategy are you using to expand your blog’s readership? Any ladder similar to mine? 

Do comment and share with us!

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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The Top Secret Recipe To Blog Like A Pro

Want to know how to become a professional blogger?

Want to know the secret recipe used by all those pro-bloggers?

OK then... I will tell you the top secret recipe to blog like a pro!

Shhh.... But remember! Don't share this secret with anyone else! OK? Especially not on Facebook, twitter or Google+ ?!? OK?

Are you ready? Then let us start mixing the ingredients!

Write Like A Magnet

What attracts iron pieces from far away? Magnet.

What attracts lots of readers to your blog posts? A blogger's magnetic writing!

Whether your latest blog post gets hit or flop, viral or unnoticed, it all depends on your writing skills. And why do I use the word magnet with writing skills? Because I have always said that 'people don't prefer reading an encyclopedia'. If your blog post doesn't have the power to attract a stranger and to get involved, then your blog would lose most of the potential visitors.

The first step to writing attractive magnetic blog posts is 'writing magnetic headlines'. Use attracting phrases, surprising negations or even place a question in the title.

Eg- If a blog post is about some tips to make your blog post go viral, you can give it a title - 'How To Make Your Blog Post Go Gangnam Style'! This is what I did in one of my blog posts and this attracted a lot of people to my post.

After magnetic headlines, the second most crucial thing is the beginning of your blog post.

In the very first paragraph of your blog post, you must make your concept clear. Convince your audience that whatever they had been searching for, is available on this very page. That is because you have very less time to convince your new visitors that your blog is different than other article directories and that it really has something worth reading.

In another approach, you can make things so mysterious that your visitors are forced to stick to your blog post, to find the answers.

But whatever you do, don't let the first paragraph make your whole post go unclear.

Sprinkle Your Posts All Over The Field (Internet)

If a farmer sprinkles seeds only on one square feet area of his farm, how many plants would he be able to grow?

Same is the case with your blog! If you don't share your blog posts all over the internet, you will miss many potential visitors.

Have a profile of your blog ready on all major social networks with a strong followers base and regularly share updates from your blog on these networks. Some of the most important social networks and bookmarking sites for a blogger are Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Bloggers.com and Digg.

Maybe I missed some names. Do remind me in the comments, please, OK?

Social networks play a large role in popularizing your blog. So start wasting some time on social networks too from now on ;)

Don't Be The Mr.Lonely

Admit it. Blogging is like building a community. You can't live here while keeping yourself isolated from the rest of the bloggers.

Don't ever think that all you need to bring traffic to your blog is Google search! And don't even think that successful blogging is all about traffic and money, OK?

What is the use of lots of search engine traffic if no other blogger even knows your name? Wouldn't you like to become the gurus for those beginners out there? Wouldn't you like to get yourself recognized as 'The owner of so-and-so blog'?

My dear friend, blogging is about building an online reputation, learning something and teaching something. Do interact with other bloggers out there. You would get to learn a lot from them.

Comment on other blogs that you like to read. Tell them that you like their blog. This will encourage others to have a look at your blog too. And who knows, maybe you can get many followers too in a similar way!

Don't Try To Build Another Wikipedia

I am a fan of Wikipedia myself, but please! If you make your blog very very serious, using ultra sophisticated words and dictionary references all over...then you are probably building a 'website' not a 'blog'.

It is the interaction and the human touch that separates a blog from a website.

And the most important part of interaction is the 'comment section'.

It is suggested that a very new blog with little traffic must not place a comments box so that its few visitors don't get to see a '0 comments' status, because this '0 comments' status sets a low impression about the blog and even if the visitor was interested in subscribing to the blog, he may refrain from it. But I won't recommend any blog which has started to get some regular visitors to avoid using a comment section at their blogs.

That is because comments build a lot of interaction in a blog. Through your comments section, you can get to know about the feelings of your visitors, you will understand whether you are doing a great job or not. Sometimes when you make mistakes, your readers will try to correct them using comments.

In any condition, the comment section is a MUST have for any blog.

Next is the human touch.

If you are reading this post carefully, you would have noticed that I use the words 'I' and 'You' to talk with you. Right?

Because such a language creates a sense of interaction and gives a human touch to your blog.

You can feel this too, right? I, Mahaveer Verma, am talking to you!

This is what creates a lot of interaction and adds much feelings to your blog. Otherwise what would be the difference between your blog and Wikipedia?

Blogging In The Frontend, SEO In The Backend

SEO is just too important to be neglected when it comes to blogging like a pro. But don't let SEO ruin your reader's mood and interest.

Whetever SEO you want to perform, just do it in the backend and don't disturb your readers.

Because any pro-blogger would say - 'Reader first, search engine second'.

Don't let any of your SEO methods make your readers remain unsatisfied with your writing. Proper SEO involves decent keyword density, proper anchor text, heading tags and all that. But remember that your readers won't like to read the same keyword phrase again and again everywhere sometimes even without any meaning.

And then, what is the use of lots of search engine traffic if people just come and then run away from your blog?

Less but targeted, interested and loyal readers are better than lots of people who come to your blog by mistake.

So whenever you work on your blog, remember to give preference to your readers in the frontend and restrict SEO to the backend.

I Know You Have Some Pro-Blogging Tips Too, Right?

Yes, I know there are lots of other things one should consider to blog like a pro. And I know that you have something running in your mind now!

Stop thinking and start commenting now! Let me know what you think about this post and also about the top secret recipe!

And once again... Shhh.... Don't share it with anyone else ;)

Image courtesy of depositphotos, Stuart Miles and stockimages from Freedigitalphotos.net

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I Have Just Started My First Blog - Now What To Do?

This article is a part of "How To Start A Blog" series.

Have you just started you first ever blog?

Then you might be confused on what to do next. Right?

Credit: digitalart/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Speaking theoretically, a blog is made of blog posts. So the first and foremost thing would be to start writing some blog posts for your first blog.

But blogging is not just about writing blog posts. There are many other things you will run into in your blogging life. You will get to learn about most of those extra things steadily as you gain some experience with your blog.

Here, we will discuss about them in short. Because according to me, you should at least have an idea about the things you would be learning with your blog.

So let us have a quick look at a to-do list after starting your first blog.

1. Write Content

Content, i.e. blog posts are the main ingredients of a blog. It has the same importance in a blog as water has in our body.

Credit: Suat Eman/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Writing blog posts regularly is very crucial for the success of a blog. 

It is not at all necessary to write content everyday, but writing content on a regular basis is a must. You can plan to write any number of posts from 1 blog post per week to 14 per week, anything which is convenient to you. It also depends on the type of blog. For example a news blog needs to be updated daily and even hourly sometimes, because you have to cover each and every latest news at your blog to stay in the competition, whereas a blog about computer tutorials can be updated 2-5 times a week and can get a great feedback.

So start planning on a content schedule and try to work with it.

[Don't miss: The Top Secret Recipe To Blog Like A Pro]

2. Enjoy The Traffic Stats

Once you start working on your blog and attract a few people to it, you will get curious about knowing the number of visitors to your blog, the number of page-views,etc.

Some of the blogging platforms have their own stats system for this. But here, I would like to mention the name of the most preferred, easy to use and completely free stats system used by almost every blogger - Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a powerful yet easy to use stats system. And the best thing is that it is completely free to use. All you need is an Analytics account and your blog. Setting up Google Analytics requires you to place a piece of code into your blog's source code. This process is very easy in case of WordPress and Blogger.

Google Analytics lets you not only view the number of visitors or pageviews, but it has a vast tracking system that lets you find out the visitor's country, the OS, language, average time spent on the site, the visitors flow and many more things.

Other than that, Google Analytics also let you analyse the source of traffic to your blog like search engines and direct visits. Analytics helps you in finding out the keywords that bring traffic to your blog through search engines.

Because of its powerful features at no cost, I recommend every blogger to install Google Analytics at their blogs for a better stats system.

3. Socialize Your Blog

Let me tell you one major source of traffic for pro-blogs.

It is - Social Media

Credit: Kromkrathog/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Social Networks play a very important role in popularizing your blog. Because if you have just started a new blog from scratch, you can't expect strangers to jump into your blog from nowhere!

When you create your first ever blog, social networks are the best and foremost source to bring the first few visitors to it. You can share your blog posts with your online friends and get some feedback from them.

When talking about pro-blogs, they have a large number of followers on social networks. Just when they share their posts on their networks, their followers just flow into their blogs. Establishing a large number of followers will take a lot of time, but you can start from today itself.

Create a Facebook Fan Page, a twitter account and other social profiles for your blog and start gathering some followers for your blogs.

Be sure to regularly update your social profiles with the latest updates of your blog.

4. Gather Some Loyal Readers

As I said earlier, if you have just started your first blog from scratch, then you can't expect people to jump into your blog from nowhere.

Then how to get your first visitors?

I had mentioned the role of social media in the previous point. Other than your online friends, you can give a call to your offline friends and family members to have a look at your site.

You can also start building an email list for your blog subscribers. 

What's this? 

An email list would contain the email addresses of people who are interested in receiving regular updates of your blog via email. Using such a list, you can inform your subscribers whenever you publish something new at your blog.

There are many third party tools that make this task easier for you like Feedburner and AWeber. Out of these two, Feedburner is a free tool wherever AWeber is a paid service. AWeber is a more professional tool in many ways wherever Feedburner is basic yet sufficient enough tool for managing email subscription.

These tools let you create an opt-in form using which your regular readers can subcribe to your blog's email updates easily with the help of just an email id.

Create useful, interesting and unique content, share it with the world and let your readership expand.

5. Learn Something About SEO

The first question in your mind would be - What the hell is SEO?

Well, let me explain this with an example.

Suppose you have created a site on technology news. Now today you have written a post on 'ABC Mobile' getting launched at so-and-so price. Now if someone searches Google for 'ABC Mobile launch' he would get crores of results.

So what is the possibility that the person will see your site in the result page and visit your site?

This depends on two things - Content and SEO. And actually SEO depends on content a lot.

Now getting back to SEO, SEO is the method or you can say the practise that improves your performance in Google and other search engine results. SEO helps your site get on the top pages of a SERP (Search Engine Result Page)... SEO means Search Engine Optimization...

The full form of SEO itself explains a lot. Isn't it?

Here is an article that will help you understand the meaning of SEO better: What is SEO

So how is SEO performed or done?

You will have to wait a bit. Why? Because if you have just created a blog, you won't be able to understand any term related to SEO. Then why did I mention the word here? So that you bookmark the name for future. After getting some experience in blogging, you would be able to understand SEO and then, it would be the right time to start learning about SEO.

So when to start learning and practicing SEO?

That depends on your learning capacity and the amount of experience gained in the blogosphere. You can start reading SEO guides from the very first day or can start learning the basics after a month or so.

It totally depends on you.

How important is SEO?

Very important.

SEO plays a supporting role to your content. It is SEO + Content that improves your site's performance in search engines and helps you bring traffic to your blog, whereas it is Content + SEO that helps you build a strong readership at your blog.

6. Also Learn Something About These Things...

Apart from writing content and SEO, there are a lot of things you would run into in your blogging life. Whenever you get some extra time for researching about blogging, have a look at these concepts too-

• Dofollow and Nofollow
• Index, Follow and other Robot things
• Alexa Ranking
• Google PageRank (PR)
• Moz Rank
• Domain/Page authority
• Backlinks
• Guest Posting
• Author Rank

I know all these things may be completely new for you, but one day you will have the knowledge of all this. And I assure you that all these things are not as complex as they may seem. It is just a matter of time to understand all these things.

Set Your Goals And Get Started!

So are you ready to start off your blogging life?

Are you determined?

Then go set your own goals and start working hard to achieve them! In this world of blogging, there is nothing so easy, but at the same time, there is nothing so difficult.

Credit: bplanet/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

With some smart working and great determination, you can achieve great heights with your blogs.

So get started now!

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Try WordPress On Free Web Hosting

MOST IMPORTANT NOTE: I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE TO START A WORDPRESS BLOG WITH FREE HOSTING. ANY FREE WEB HOSTING MUST BE USED FOR ONLY EXPERIMENTING PURPOSE.

That is because there are too many risks of hosting a WordPress.org blog on free hosting. More information below.

In the previous article we were discussing about starting a blog with some little investments like a domain name and a web hosting. Then we discussed about the 3 best web hosting providers for a WordPress blog.

Image credit: Staurt Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Now if you are hesitating a bit before investing in a web hosting plan, then you can use a free web host to try WordPress for free. You can also get a free sub-domain from these sites to point your WordPress blog to. And after trying out the basics of WordPress, you can get a web hosting plan and host your new site with it.

Before having a look at these free web hosting providers, let us have a look at the disadvantages and risks with free web hosting.

Risks and Disadvantages of using a Free Web Host

• Very low disk space.
• Low bandwidth.
• No support team with most of the free web hosts.
• No guarantee of uptime and even your whole blog! (Even if they say so).
• Your blog may be deleted any time! (Even if they guarantee your safety. I have the proof myself because my test blog was automatically deleted after few weeks without my concern!)
• Forced advertisement on some free web hosting sites.

So that is why I don't recommend anyone to trust these free web hosting providers for their commercial blog.

Free Web Hosting Providers

Here I will mention 3 of the best free web hosting providers for hosting a WordPress blog. These web hosts are chosen on the basis of web space, bandwidth and other features along with their nature of forcing advertisements or not.

1. Byet Host

For my test blog, I used Byet Host and I was able to install WordPress very easily on it. Also I found the uptime to be very decent.

Some of the main features of Byet Host are:

• 1000 MB Disk Space
• FTP account and File Manager
• Control Panel
• MySQL databases & PHP Support
• Free tech support
• Addon domain, Parked Domains, Sub-Domains
• Free Community Access (Forums)
• Clustered Servers
• No forced ads.

More info here.

2. 000WebHost

000WebHost is actually a very famous free web hosting provider. This web host has been providing free hosting options since the last 2 years.

Some of the main features of 000WebHost are:

• 1500 MB Disk Space
• 3 GB data transfer
• 99% uptime
• Automated weekly backups
• Autoinstaller for 10 scripts including WordPress.org
• PHP with MySQL database support
• cPanel Control Panel
• No forced ads.

More info here.

3. 100WebSpace

100WebSpace.com provides two basically free plans. One with forced ads and other without ads that cost $0.99/month.

Some of the main features of 100WebSpace are:

• 100 MB Disk Space
• 3 GB data transfer
• 24/7 Customer support
• 1 domain and 10 sub-domains supported
• FrontPage extensions support
• MySQL database with 5MB storage

More info here.

Beware!

Once again, I would like to remind you all that you SHOULD NEVER go for free web hosting if you are serious about your blog.

Use any of these free web hosts to experiment and get the feel of WordPress and then go for paid WordPress hosting.

What do you say about them?

Do comment and let us know!

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Starting A Perfect Blog With Little Investment

This article is a part of "How To Start A Blog" series of tutorials.

In the previous articles of this series, we had discussed about starting a blog with zero investment, i.e. starting a completely free blog. Now if you are reading this article, then most probably you have a small or large budget with you to invest in your blog, to start your blog more professionally.

Earlier in our discussion, we had come to the conclusion that Blogger and WordPress.org are the two best blogging platforms to start a blog.

With both these blogging platforms, you can start a perfect blog with little investment.

Let us consider the investments one by one.

A Domain Name

To start a professional blog, you would need a domain name. A domain name is the web address of your blog. Eg- bloggingpanorama.com . This is how a visitor may enter your blog.

If we talk about Blogger, then it has the option to use a free sub-domain with your blog. But if you are looking for a more professional start, then you MUST buy a domain name for your blog. While buying a domain name for a WordPress.org blog is compulsory.

Read some tips on choosing a domain name for your blog.

Remember! The domain name suggests your blog, so choose wisely! And after choosing a domain name according to your blog's topic, go ahead and register it through any of the best domain registrars.

A Web Hosting Plan

Web hosting is a kind of storage facility that lets you store things on the Internet. If you are creating a website or a blog, then you need such web space to store your blog's contents like images, videos, themes, your blog posts and everything else.

In case of blogger, there is no need to buy a hosting plan because Google provides free hosting to blogs hosted on Blogger.

In case of WordPress.org, you need to purchase a web hosting plan for your blog. Don't worry about this. Read this article about the 3 best web hosting providers for your WordPress.org blog.

Also, if you want to try out how a WordPress.org blog works without spending money on web hosting, then for you, here is an article about a method to try WordPress.org for free.

Now after discussing about the investments, let us continue with starting a blog with Blogger and WordPress.org

Starting A Blog With Blogger

Starting a blog with Blogger (also called Blogspot) with these little investments is as simple as starting a free blogger blog. And actually it is the first step itself!

First of all, even if you have bought a domain name for your blog, you will have to create a blogger blog with a free sub-domain and then redirect your blogger blog to the newly bought custom domain.

Starting A Blog With WordPress.org

WordPress.org is in some cases, an even more preferred blogging platform than Blogger. Though not as easy to set-up, WordPress.org is a very user-friendly platform that lets you do many powerful things with your blog with just a click of your mouse.

With WordPress.org, you get a huge list of plugins and themes that you can't find in Blogger. One can say that WordPress.org is a professional blogging platform.

Here is a tutorial on installing WordPress: How To Setup A WordPress Blog

Over to You!

Which is the first blog you spent some money on? Wasn't it a great experience?

Do share it with me and our going-to-be-blogger friends!

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Blogger vs WordPress.com - Think Before Starting A Free Blog

Blogger and WordPress.com are the two most well known blogging platforms for starting a free blog.

Both of them have their pros and cons and also many differences. If you are planning to start your first ever blog, then there are chances that you are not completely aware of the various blogging platforms you can choose from. 

In this case, to choose the best blogging platform, you need to consider the pros and cons of each platform and according to your needs...Choose the best one.

Image Credit - Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In the previous article (here), we were discussing about starting a completely free blog, where I mentioned about Blogger and WordPress.com as the most famous free blogging platforms. Both these platforms solve the basic necessity of building a blog - i.e. domain and hosting, by providing free sub-domains and free web space.

Note that we are not discussing about WordPress.org here. WordPress.org is almost completely different that WordPress.com though both of them work on the same core system. To start a blog on WordPress.org, you need to buy both a domain as well as hosting yourself.

Here, we are going to discuss about WordPress.com and Blogger only.

Both these blogging platforms have a huge list of differences which you MUST consider before choosing the best one for yourself.

Let us have a look at the general pros and cons of each of them first.

1. Blogger

Blogger is a widely used and completely free blogging platform by Google. It provides a free sub-domain of its site, eg. xyz.blogspot.com as well as truly unlimited web space on its own server.

Pros: 

1. Easy to setup and maintain.

2. Truly unconditional unlimited web space.

3. Free sub-domain.

4. No Third Party (or even Google) Ads run on your blog for their profit against your will.

5. 1 GB free images hosting with Picassa which can be extended at a minimal cost. No limit of web space for blog posts though.

6. Can customize your template (blog theme), add new HTML codes and create your own theme without any restriction.

7. Can run HTML as well as Javascript codes on your blog, thus enables use of Google Adsense and other advertising services.

8. Almost 0% chances of your blog getting hacked.

9. Huge collection of free themes available online to give your blog a new fresh look.

10. In-built stats counter to check traffic to your blog. Also Google Analytics (another better traffic stats indicator) can be installed.

Cons:

1. Editing the template requires knowledge of HTML.

2. Psychological effect - Now a days, more and more spam bloggers prefer 'blogger' platform because of its ease of use and so the first look of a blogger blog hosted on free sub-domain raises the impression of spam. 

This effect can easily be removed by buying a domain and shifting your blogger blog to that custom domain. Anyways, talking about starting a blog with zero expense...people prefer the name xyz.wordpress.com than xyz.blogspot.com

3. SEO, i.e. Search Engine Optimization is a term used for the methods used to improve a blog's ranking in search engine result pages. 

No need to worry about this new term yet! 

I am just saying that SEO is a bit more difficult in Blogger than WordPress.com or I must say that it is difficult if you are lazy. Because WordPress.com provides some features for automatic SEO while some of these features are absent in Blogger.

But once you learn the basics of SEO, you can easily optimize your blogger site with little effort.

2. WordPress.com

WordPress.com is another almost free blogging platform by Automattic. WordPress.com also provides free sub-domain. eg xyz.wordpress.com and a limited amount of free web space.

Pros:

1. Easy to setup and maintain.

2. Free sub-domain.

3. 3GB free web space that includes space for your blog posts as well as images.

4. Easier, direct and automatic SEO compared to Blogger.

5. Highly secure system with very rare chances of getting hacked.

Cons:

1. Did you notice that I have underlined the word 'almost' in the first paragraph about WordPress.com? That is because most of its features are free up-to a limit and also, there are some extra features which are not compulsory, are available by paying some annual price.

2. 3GB of web space, which can be extended at a cost starting from $20/year.

3. You cannot modify the CSS used on your blog, thus disabling you from making changes to the design of your blog.

4. You cannot add any plugin or HTML/Javascript code to your blog. Thus no Adsense, no Analytics. Though advertisement can be enabled if your blog receives more than 25000 traffic/month by using a feature called Ad control where you have to share 50% of your income to it.

5. Third party ads seldom run on your blog by WordPress.com for their profit. Disabling these ads require a feature costing $29.97/year

6. Can't use your own theme. You have to choose a theme from the list of about 200 themes provided by WordPress.com itself. Not a large problem though.

Conclusion For Blogger vs WordPress.com

If you are just looking for the best platform for building a small blog without any big future idea for it, then both Blogger and WordPress.com can offer you the basic platform to start your blog.

If you have some future ideas of building a larger blog with an eye on monetizing it, go for Blogger.

And if you are looking for a more professional blog with large scale ideas...then consider investing some money on your blog and avoid a free sub-domain. In this case, remove WordPress.com completely from your mind and think about only Blogger and WordPress.org. 

Over to you!

Planning to start a blog on any of these two blogging platforms?

Which one did you decide? Blogger or WordPress.com?

Do comment and let us know.

And do remind me if I missed something in this article, OK?

Happy Blogging!

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How To Start A Completely Free Blog At Zero Cost

This article is a part of the "How To Start A Blog" series of tutorials. 

If you’re reading this article than most probably you’re on your way towards starting your own blog. I had mentioned in the earlier article that you can create a blog either by investing a little amount of money or even at zero cost. 

This article deals with starting a completely free blog i.e. at zero expense.

There are many blogging platforms that will let you create a blog without any charges. Two such blogging platforms that are used worldwide and are most famous are Blogger and Wordpress.com 

(Note- there are two different versions of WordPress namely Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org out of which Wordpress.com is a completely free one. Creating a Wordpress.org blog requires a little investment about which more information will be available in my upcoming articles.) 

The Basic Idea Behind “Free” Blog 

You would be wondering how these two blogging platforms our completely free, wouldn't you ? 

So here is the basic funda behind these two platforms. By now you would be familiar that creating a blog or a website requires two things- a domain and a hosting. 

Blogger and Wordpress.com offer a free sub-domain of their sites blogspot.com and wordpress.com respectively. That is why blogs created on these sites have a web address like xyz.blogspot.com or xyz.wordpress.com 

So this solves the problem of getting a domain. Now the only thing that you need is hosting. 

And yes, let me make it clear that getting a sub-domain from these sites is not a compulsory choice because you can also buy a domain name yourself and use it with blogger and wordpress.com but as far as this article is concerned we’re talking about creating a blog at zero expense. So getting yourself a sub-domain from these sites is the best choice. 

Also be sure not to fall in the scams related to free sub-domain registrars. 

The second thing needed is hosting and fortunately both blogger and wordpress.com offer free hosting on their own servers. 

Benefits Of Starting A Completely Free Blog 

If you’re completely new to blogging then it would be better to try out your newly learned basics on a free blog. I don't want to make you worry but it is a simple truth that most of the bloggers fail to get any success with their first blogs. I don't want any of my readers who are going to be bloggers to quit blogging with a loss. 

And that is why I recommend every new blogger to first of all experiment with a free Blogger or Wordpress.com blog. 

And that is what actually even I did. I started my first blog on the Blogger platform on their free sub-domain. And eventually when my blog started making money, I purchased a domain name for it. 

Disadvantages Of Starting A Free Blog On Free Sub-domain

The only disadvantage that I've noticed with a free sub-domain is that people don’t take you seriously. People think that you are not serious about your blog. 

Unless you buy yourself a domain name for your blog, people recognize your blog as just another free Blogger or Wordpress.com blog and not as some author’s blog. You do not get your own brand, your own identity unless you buy at least a domain name for your blog. 

But still I recommend trying out an experiment blog on either Blogger or Wordpress.com platform. Just to get the primary practical knowledge and experience about blogging. And once you gain confidence and think that you can maintain your own blog, just go for spending some money for the blog. 

So far in this article we have discussed about platforms for starting a free blog, its merits and demerits. 

Now let us move on to creating a completely free blog. 

But wait! Which free blogging platform should you use? Confused? 

Then just read this article – Blogger vs Wordpress.com 

After reading this article about Blogger and Wordpress.com, let us move on to starting a free blog on either platforms. 

If you have decided to go with Blogger, then read this tutorial for creating a Blogger blog.

If you have decided to go with WordPress.com, then read this tutorial for creating a WordPress.com blog.

What Do You Say? 

Have you ever started a blog on the free sub-domains on blogger or wordpress.com? How was your experience? Do comment and share your views with me and our going-to-be-blogger friends.. 

And feel free to ask any question arising in your mind. Your suggestions are also welcome…

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9 Tips to Choose The Best Domain Name

This article is a part of the "How to Start a Blog" set of tutorials for beginners.

Choosing the perfect domain name is the first and most important step in pro blogging. And getting your hands on the best available domain is a very difficult task. Today, with millions of websites online, it becomes very hard to get the domain name you like.

I would suggest anyone to buy a domain from godaddy.com because of the following reasons:

• Cheapest domain name registration
• Promo coupons and discounts
• Easy to set up CNAME records for Blogger
• Good customer support

These reasons are enough I guess? You can always get a promo coupon by doing a Google search for them. These promo coupons let you buy your .com/.net/.org or any other domain at a much cheaper price. When I registered Blogging Panorama, I got it for $2.95 only.

And one line of recommendation from my side: NEVER go for free subdomains like .co.cc or .tk. If you are serious about your blog, then buy a domain and as I said earlier, you can get one for as low as $2.95 (by using Godaddy promo coupons)

Also read: Top 3 Affordable Domain Registrars

While looking for the best available domain name, always consider these 9 tips:

1. Keep the domain name related to your blog's niche. And avoid using your own name as domain name unless you site would be a personal blog or you are going to share personal success stories. Though there are good examples of blogs with domain name the same as the name of their owners like ZacJohnson.com. But you should consider your blog's niche more than your own name.
2. Do check if the name you are interested in buying is a trademark of any existing company. You should never do a mistake of registering a domain name which contains any commercial company's trademark in it. They may register a complaint against your registration and it can lead to the end of your domain. For example you cannot use 'WordPress' in your domain name because it is against their permission. Also you can't use any offensive word from any language in your domain name.
3. Try to keep your domain name understandable and short. I give more preference to 'understandable' than 'short' because it is more important that your visitors remember your site's address than they remember a random phrase like 'mpvr.com' and even if your domain name is 10-15 characters long but it is understandable and related to your blog's content, the search engines won't mind the long domain name.
4. AVOID exact keyword match domain because they are getting penalized by Google thanks to their latest algorithm updates.
5. Check if a similar name is already on the first page of Google. For example if you are thinking about the name 'TechyPC' then do a search for the words techy and PC. Suppose if there is a site with a name 'TechyGuy' or something very near to your interested name, then drop the idea. You won't want to compete with the other site to get on top of Google from the very first day of your registration.
6. Look for the domain name that matches your site's name like bloggingpanorama.com for 'Blogging Panorama'. Though there are some blogs who have different site name and domain name. One of them is Digital Inspiration (labnol.org)
7. Give more preference to .com/.net/.org than to .info/.co/.us/.uk/.in or any other country-TLD. Country TLDs are not good for global SEO as they tend to target only a specific geographic region.
8. Buying an old domain can be benefitial in some cases. Old domains have are more trusted by Google and can rank easier with all those ready made backlinks and traffic. Though today, the meaning of SEO is changing and it doesn't matter very much, but still it can be a little benefit. But be sure to check that the domain was used for the right purposes and was not blacklisted or banned from Adsense.
9. Check the existing PR and Alexa Rank of the domain if you are buying an old domain. Also check Internet Archive to find out how the domain was used earlier.

So these were my 9 tips to choosing the best domain name. Do you have any more suggestions? Do comment and let me know.

Image credit: Digitalart/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This article is a part of the "How to Start a Blog" set of tutorials. Do read the remaining parts :)

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How To Start A Blog - Beginner's Guide

Hello and welcome potential future bloggers!

Did you by any chance hear about blogging from anywhere? Maybe some of your friends are bloggers? Maybe you read about blogging and how you can earn a living by working online. And maybe you want to start blogging too? And so you searched about how you can start your own blog and this is how you reached here!

Confused about what is blogging?

Let me give you an example, this article that you are reading just now belongs to a blog, ie Blogging Panorama and I am a blogger :)

What is a Blog?

In simple language, a blog (or Weblog) is some kind of website; basically a kind of journal that is regularly updated. And the person who blogs is called a blogger.

At a blog, a blogger writes about some topic; it can be anything like technology, cooking, sports or anything that comes to your mind. People who come to your blog are called visitors.

This is the basic introduction to this huge world of blogging. Below is a short set of points that would let you understand more on what you would be doing if you create your blog:

• You will choose a name and a design.
• You will be writing about your favourite topic.
• People will come to your blog.
• People will read what you have written.
• You will get "famous" if people like what you read :)
• You will get a chance to earn money online from your blog if you get many visitors to your blog!

I hope this was enough to clear the basic concept.

Recently I got many requests from my friends to teach them how to make a blog. So I decided to add a "beginner's guide" section to my blog. Here I will be posting articles related to starting a blog.

I have already written some articles that a going-to-be-blogger MUST read before starting a blogging life. You can find a link to those posts and many other important posts further in this article.

Articles You MUST Read Before Starting A Blog

Here are some of the hand picked, very important articles you must read before creating a blog. You should know what you will have to face (and also enjoy) during your blogging life.

• Why Millions Of People Start And Quit Blogging
• Basic Blogging Guide For Beginners
• Top 5 Blogging Platforms To Choose From

And if you have some extra dollars to spend for your future blogging career, then I recommend you to get a copy of "31 Days To Build A Better Blog - Darren Rowse". Darren Rowse is a great name in the field of blogging and is a real expert.

This book may be of great help and guidance while starting your own blogging career.

So now have you decided to start a blog? Then go ahead and read these important posts and tutorials:

Starting A Blog - First Step - Choosing The Best Niche

A 'Niche' means a range of topics.

For your blog, choosing the best and most appropriate topic is the most necessary and crucial step. Because it is the topic that would run your blog. An ideal niche is something you are an expert in, and can share many interesting posts about. Don't choose a topic just because you have seen many great blogs about it and you think you can copy their success.

Even a completely different niche can work great. You would have noticed that most of the blogs today cover either tech or blogging niche. But that doesn't mean that a blog about food or travel can't get success. A blog runs the best when its owner is well versed with the topic it covers.

I can't offer even a single tip for choosing the proper niche other than this - Just start a blog on the topic that you think you know more than most of the people in this world.

The Next Steps...

This whole set of tutorials would be divided into various parts which would cover all the topics related to starting a blog. Primarily this tutorial will be divided into two parts for the first few posts. One for those who are willing to start a blog at completely zero cost and second for those who are willing to invest a bit in their blog.

Links to all the parts of this tutorial are available below.

Note- If you are interested in building a blog with zero investment then skip the domain registration part and jump to the article about starting a free blog.

Part 1. Getting A Domain Name

Unless you use a free sub-domain (more information below); the first step to start a blog is - choosing a domain name for it and buying it. A domain name is the web address (URL) you choose for your blog. Eg- www.bloggingpanorama.com

For free blogging services like Blogger and WordPress.com, you can skip buying a domain and use one of the free sub-domains they provide you. More details about free sub-domains and domains will be included in the upcoming post "Starting a free blog".

So coming back to domain names, here is a post that will help you in deciding a great domain for your blog: 9 Tips to Choose The Best Domain Name

After choosing the perfect domain name, it is time to register it. There are lots of domain registrars available on the net but finding a reliable and really affordable one is necessary.

Fortunately there is no need for you to wander here and there to find the best one :) You can find the best ones here: Top 3 Affordable Domain Registrars

Part 2. Starting A Free Blog (Zero investment)

Starting a completely free blog is the best way to start a blogging career because this makes your blogging career risk free and loss free. Though it has its own merits and demerits as well.

For those who want to start their first blog at zero expense; hoping that you have skipped the domain part (part 1); here is the article about creating a free blog: How To Start A Completely Free Blog At Zero Cost

For those who are willing to spend a few dollars to give their blog a more professional start, skip this part and jump to Part 3 about Blogging with little investment.

Part 3. Starting A Blog With Little Investment

If you have some extra dollars to spend on your blog, then you would be more interested in starting a professional blog right from the start.

In this case, read this article: Starting A Perfect Blog With Little Investment

The investments needed are - a domain name and a web hosting. All the information regarding them can be found in the above mentioned article.

Part 4.1 Started A Blog? Now What To Do?

Phew! So now that you have created your first ever blog, you would be wondering.. what's next?

There are a lot of things associated with a blog other than just writing blog posts. You would be wondering how to write posts? How to bring visitors to my blog? And many other things, right?

Don't worry. You will grasp everything in a short time.

Read this to-do list that will guide you on what to do after you have started your first ever blog.

Part 4.2. Basic knowledge about Blogging skills

After reading the to-do list, get ready to read the top secret recipe for blogging like a pro! 

These are the skills and requirement you should read to learn about professional blogging and how you can become a professional blogger too.

Part 4.3. Promoting Your Blog and Driving Traffic (Visitors) To It

After you have written a few posts at your blog, you would be waiting for some visitors to read them, right? But maybe after few days of waiting you find no-one visiting your blog..

If you are struggling to drive traffic to your blog, then here is my guide to bring the first visitors to your blog!

It all starts with promoting your blog.. Read the whole 3 step ladder I used to build traffic for this blog here: Publicizing Your Blog And Driving Traffic To It.

Part 5. Learning Search Engine Optimization and Driving Traffic From Search Engines

Once you have succeeded in bringing the first few visitors to your new blog, your next target would be to bring lots of visitors from search engines.

But bringing traffic from search engines is not that easy...Though it not difficult either!

All you need to do is optimize your blog and blog posts for those search engines, i.e. you must practice SEO!

SEO is a completely new word for you, isn't it?

Don't worry. Just read this post where all your SEO related questions are answered: What is SEO?

Got the idea about SEO? After that you should start implementing SEO in your posts and also you should focus on optimizing your blog for search engines.

When you start getting familiar with SEO, you would be able to understand this most important factor on which the whole idea of SEO is established - i.e. Keyword Research.

So now your need for starting traffic and search engine optimization is over!

Now after you start getting some decent daily visitors and start building a solid readership, you would be interested in earning some money from your blog, isn't it?

This is not the end! There are many more important posts yet to come. A list of upcoming post:

Upcoming posts:

• Making money from blog - A Basic Concept
• Google Adsense Approval Process
• Basic knowledge about affiliate marketing
• ...And many more to come...

So stay subscribed to this blog to get the latest updates and posts about starting a blog directly to your inbox!

Now its your turn!

Are you planning to start a blog? Decided? Determined? Or have any questions in your mind? Feel free to comment and ask your questions here. You can also share your ideas about starting a blog here.

So do comment and participate here!

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