4 Strategies for Successful Blogs.

Having read the blogs of many successful bloggers I have tried to analyze what are the strategies they follow to take their blog to the top of the blogosphere. What makes the A-list bloggers tick? What are the characteristics which make the successful blog stand out?

I have classified the strategies followed by highly effective bloggers under four main types..............

CREATE A BLOG

The first step is to create a blog as obviously you cannot have a successful blog without going through the agony and ecstasy of creation.

1. Choosing a subject : If you want to blog successfully you have to choose a subject close to your heart. A subject which you should be passionate about. This has two advantages. One you will never get bored and stop posting to your blog. Secondly since you are passionate about the subject you will probably already have a large amount of information on the subject and - as the heart rules the head - are actively involved in finding more about it. It will also help a lot if you are blogging about your career and area of expertise. It will help even more if you choose to provide solutions to common problems in your blog. This is better than having an opinion blog full of rants and raves unless you are already a top-notch journalist with an existing audience.


2. Choosing a Blogging Platform : If you are a beginner go for the free options like Blogger.com or Wordpress until you get in a rhythm. If you are undecided consult the Ultimate Blogger-Wordpress Comparison Guide before making your decision.


3. Choosing a Domain Name and Hosting : Until you become set try out your skills on a Blogger or Wordpress domain. After reaching perfection you can transfer to a well thought out and keyword researched domain name. Blogger offers Custom Domains where you can have www.MYBLOG.com rather than http://MYBLOG.blogspot.com. Blogger gives free hosting to go along with that so you only have to shell out a small sum for the domain name. You do not have to worry about bandwidth or space. Researching keywords is important before choosing your domain name.


4. Choosing a Design : This is very important as having an attractive template increases traffic to your blog. Also your blog should load fast even over slow dial-up connections.


5. Optimizing your Blog : This forms an important part after creating your blog as you want your blog to appear on the first page of the search results returned by the search engines. This is also known as Search Engine Optimization.


6. Monitor blog and blog traffic : Keep a hand on your blog pulse. Install a counter to see how many hits you are getting. For full and detailed stats install Google Analytics. Keep track of your backlinks by claiming your blog at Technorati.

ADD CONTENT

After creating a blog you have to add content to it. As CONTENT IS KING remember to :


1. Add attractive content to your blog which will attract traffic.

2. Add content regularly without lapsing.

3. Add content frequently. The more frequently you add content to your blog it will attract more traffic and subscribers. Each post will attract some traffic. Hence as per the Long Tail theory the more posts your blog has the more traffic it gets.

4. Add original content. If not original provide links to the credits. Do not copy and paste blindly. Add your own spin to the originals (think The Departed, based on Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs which inspired Martin Scorsese to create this blockbuster.)

5. Controversial content can attract traffic but may prove to be a two edged sword.

6. Add Readable Content. Long posts with bulky paragraphs are difficult to read on the screen. Lists of items are easily read and imbibed by the viewer. Implement the expandable summaries hack to show a small paragraph (teaser) followed by a 'Read More' link.

7. Upload pictures to your blog to illustrate your point. Not too many and not too large or page will take long time to load.

8. Check spelling and grammar before publishing.

9. Make one post on one subtopic only. Do not make one long post about your Italian tour! Make multiple posts each dealing with what you saw on each day and interlink them.

10. Conduct a conversation with your readers. Finally write your posts as if you are talking with your viewers. This is because a blog is an ongoing conversation between the author and the viewers.

PROMOTE BLOG

This step goes hand in hand with adding content :

1. Submit blog to search engines.

2. Submit blog to blog directories as these are frequently crawled by Google and other search spiders your blog will get indexed quickly.

3. Submit blog and blog posts to social networking sites.

4. Submit articles to article directories with signatures linking to your blog.

5. Join forums in your niche and solve members' problems. Put your blog link in your forum signature.

6. Post constructive comments on other blogs.

7. Provide easily noticed feed icons to make for easy subscriptions. Subscribe to blog feeds in your niche and read them.

8. Reply promptly to viewer emails.

9. Enable, moderate and reply to blog comments.

10. Advertise large subscriber counts.

MONETIZE YOUR BLOG

Undertake this step with caution. Do not hasten into adding adverts to your blog before building up a sufficient traffic or subscriber base. There are many methods to monetize blogs :

1. Advertisements : Adsense, Text Link Ads, Bidvertiser, Feedburner monetize Feeds, Kontera etc....

2. Affiliate Programs : Amazon Associates, Commission Junction etc...

3. Get Paid for Posts with Pay Per Post etc....

4. Get paid for Reviews.


Thus to summarize - the four cornerstones of successful blogs are shown in the picture below :

Adsense, Amazon Within Blog Posts.

Ever since the debut of the New version of Blogger with the Layout Template, bloggers have been struggling to find ways of inserting Google Adsense and or Amazon Advertisements within blog posts.



The difficulty arose from the fact that most of the advertisements use Javascript code which needs to be pasted within the Blog Posts. In the New Blogger Layouts template Html/Javascript Page Elements were introduced so that Ads. could be put in them. These could then be added to the Header, Footer, Sidebar and the Main Posts column. However, the Blog Posts Page Element being a widget in it's own right does not accept another Html widget inside itself. Check out the Amazon Advertisement to the right --->. I have given it a title : "Amazon Ads." but that can be omitted to make it blend more with your post's content. You can see that it is not a picture/image by hovering your mouse cursor over the links. It will change to a hand icon and the amazon link to the product will be displayed in the status bar of your browser at the bottom.



Thus bloggers were able to add Google Adsense Ads. all round the blog posts and now in between ( Inline Adsense )the posts also. Some hacks were developed to incorporate Adsense within the blog post but most involved modifying the advertisement code which went against the Google Adsense TOS.



Here is a method to incorporate any advertisement within your blog post so as to fully blend in with your content without modifying the code..........

GETTING THE CODE

The first step is to get the code from the respective sites. For this login to your Google Adsense or Amazon account and navigate to the code generating section. Customize your advertisement to the size ( It should fit the width of your posts column. )and color you want and copy down the code provided. You can select the channels you want in Adsense and the Advanced Settings tab for Amazon Omakase Ads. allows you to set upto five keywords or phrases to target your Ads.

MAKE A GOOGLE GADGET

Paste the code obtained in a new Google Gadget. Follow the same steps as shown in "Increase Traffic | Create a Google Gadget". Load the sample "Hello World" Google Gadget and replace the "Hello World" with the code obtained from Adsense/Amazon. See picture below :




Delete "Hello World" and paste the code instead. Click on picture to enlarge it.
Save the Google Gadget and publish it to get the code. Copy the code for the Google Gadget which you have created.

PUT GOOGLE GADGET IN BLOG POSTS

Go to Blogger Home and login to the Blogger Dashboard. Click on 'Posts' link and it will open your list of Blog Posts. Click 'Edit' link next to the post you wish to insert the advertisement in. The post will open in Post Editor. Click on Edit Html tab in the top frame of Post Editor. Paste the Google Gadget code where you want it. If you wish to float it left use the following code :

<span style="float:left;">
GOOGLE GADGET CODE
</span>

To put it to the right of your text use 'right' instead of 'left'. Replace the CAPS with actual code for the Google Gadget. The gadget will not be seen on Preview. Publish the post and click on 'View Blog' to see your Advertisement. Check out my Google Gadget with Amazon Advertisements in this post. To blend it within the post content first make sure that you choose "No borders" while customizing the code for the advertisement in Step 1 above. Then when you generate the code for the Google Gadget you will get something like this :

<script src="http://gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/115706042431009629871/AmazonAd.xml&synd=open&amp;amp;amp;w=305&h=255&title=Amazon+Ads.&border=%23ffffff%7C1px%2C3px+solid+%23999999&output=js"></script>

Change the numbers for the borders to 0 px in the code above to delete the border for the gadget. This will make your advertisement blend in effectively within your posts.

ADVANTAGES OF THIS METHOD

1. The advertisement code need not be modified.

2. Advertisements blend in with the posts.

3. You can target each advertisement to the specific content of that post.

4. You can put Google Analytics within the Google Gadget to track it's statistics.

Monetize Your Google Gadget.

Inspired by the response to Increase Traffic | Create a Google Gadget ( Topping the popularity chart on this blog for the last month ) I researched methods to add advertisements to Google Gadgets.


Here is the method by which you can add any type of advertisement to your Google Gadget. Since you can put a Google Gadget within a post ( in contrast to Blogger Widgets ) this method also allows you to add Google Adsense Ads. within your post as demonstrated here ........





First create your Google Gadget. Looking for content to put in your Google Gadget? I have created one which shows the pictures from my picasa gallery as a sample. You can create a similar one based on your photo album collection. After creating the gadget and adding the Google Adsense or Amazon code as shown below submit it to the Google directory for syndication.






In the below code substitute the items in red with your own code :

1. Change the Module Preferences to those of your own.

2. Change the image URLs' to those from your Picasa gallery album.

3. Change the Amazon Ad. code to your own code.

4. Change the Google Analytics code to your own code.
























The code for the Picasa photo albums Google Gadget is shown below :

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Module>
<ModulePrefs title="Aishwarya Rai Photos"
title_url="http://betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com"
author="Vin."
author_email="drbhatns+coolgadget@gmail.com"
author_affiliation="http://betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com"
category="Fun & Games"
screenshot="http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g7/vinayak06/ashgadget.jpg"
thumbnail="http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g7/vinayak06/DummiesGuideBttn120.png"
render_inline="optional"
height="375"
width="175"
description="Aishwarya Rai Photos">
<Require feature="analytics"/>
</ModulePrefs>
<Content type="html">
<![CDATA[
<div id="ashcontainer"
style="text-align:center;">
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">

var counter = 0;

// Preload the images using _IG_GetImage().
var images = new Array();
images[0] = _IG_GetImage("http://lh4.google.com/drbhatns/RuUOIxWr19I/AAAAAAAAAic/xXD5IfB-_LY/s144/ash1.jpg");
images[1] = _IG_GetImage("http://lh4.google.com/drbhatns/RuUOIxWr1-I/AAAAAAAAAik/kYxo3nxP4Vg/s144/ash2.jpg");
images[2] = _IG_GetImage("http://lh4.google.com/drbhatns/RuUOIxWr1_I/AAAAAAAAAis/pL6I66h9h4I/s144/ash3.jpg");
images[3] = _IG_GetImage("http://lh4.google.com/drbhatns/RuUOIxWr2AI/AAAAAAAAAi0/Me2ac0M4gxo/s144/ash4.jpg");
images[4] = _IG_GetImage("http://lh5.google.com/drbhatns/RuUOJBWr2BI/AAAAAAAAAi8/RJXOS6p68ms/s144/ash5.jpg");


// Browse through photos sequentially. When you get to the end of the array, start over.
function browse(){
if (counter == images.length)
{
counter = 0;
}
_gel("ashcontainer").innerHTML = "";
_gel("ashcontainer").appendChild(images[counter]);
counter++;
}

browse();

</script>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<input type=submit value="Next ->" onClick="browse()">
<br/><br/>
<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=xxxxxxxxxx-20&o=1&p=21&l=ur1&category=beauty&banner=00AFNRTEE7XXVA2G6TG2&f=ifr" width="125" height="125" 

scrolling="no" border="0" marginwidth="0" style="border:none;" frameborder="0"></iframe></div>
<script src="http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js" type="text/javascript">
</script>

<script type="text/javascript">
_IG_Analytics("UA-xxxxxx-xx", "/ash");
</script>
]]>
</Content>
</Module>

Then paste the whole code in Google gadget editor online scratchpad and save it as an xml file. Publish the Google Gadget and get free publicity for your blog.



Lastly in Google Gadget editor go to File--->Publish----->Add to a Webpage. Customize your gadget and click Get Code button. Copy and paste the code in the Edit Html tab of post editor when creating post and Publish.


See my Google gadget with Amazon Ads. on the left side of this post.

Make Money with Inline Adsense for Bloggers!

Blogger has now made it possible for you to make even more money! You can now add Inline Adsense advertisements between your blog posts.


As we have seen before you can add Adsense Ads. by selecting the Adsense Widget when adding widgets to your blog. If you want to include channel information also copy and paste the Adsense code into a Html Page Element.


Now with this method (Inside AdSense: Get inline) you can add Adsense Ads. between your blog posts inline with them. To do this login at Blogger.com and click on 'Layouts' link for your blog. In the Page Elements tab click on 'Edit' link in the Blog Posts widget. Scroll down in the popup window and check the box next to Show Ads Between Posts. You can then select how often you'd like your ads to appear, such as once after every post or once after every other post.


It also allows you to Customize your Adsense Ads. After customizing save the changes. At the moment search boxes and referral units cannot be added in this fashion. Since the optimum method is to have most of your Ads. above 'the fold' ( which is the viewable area of the screen when you open a site without having to scroll down ) use the Expandable Summaries hack to show only a summary of your posts on the Main Page with a 'Read More' link to the full post.


Using this method your posts on the Main Page will only contain a sentence or two and thus more posts and Adsense will be seen above the fold.