How I have moved on as a Blogger!

I have learned a lot about blogging since I last posted to this blog last. And I have put all the information I have learned into one blog. This blog used to be an old blog of mine called Create Blogs, but I have made a lot of changes to it including the name.

It is now called Build a Blog and I strongly recommend you take a look, as there is a lot of new information on the blog now, that would be very helpful to anybody who is starting with blogs, or who is a beginner blogger.

It has been a very interesting journey for me the past couple of months, so if you would like to take a look and see what I have been up to visit: Build a Blog and let me know what you think!

Thanks

Mandy

Create Blogs

Taking Stock of Create Blogs

I haven’t been able to post as regularly as I would like recently, for reasons I won’t go into. But my break away from posting to Create Blogs did give me a chance to take a fresh look at how things are going, and whether I am reaching my goals with this blog.

And although I worry about losing traffic and momentum, it has been time well spent for me, and I have made some changes to my blogs and the way I want to blog (that I will share with you). But for now I am deleting 2 of my older blogs so I can focus on building Create Blogs (for the time being).

I will be starting another blog soon that I am researching at the moment. I am also going to talk about how I create it on Create Blogs, and show the steps I am going to take to do that, and what information has influenced me in making those decisions.

So stay tuned there’s more to come.

Why am I telling you all this! Well it’s what Create Blogs is all about. It’s easy to read a pro blogger’s blog and see how they’ve done it, but it can be hard to relate to, as they already have a successful blog that seems a million miles away. I am still an amateur, and found it hard going finding the information you need at the beginning, to fill in the blanks. So that is why I started Create Blogs, to help similar bloggers to myself by sharing the information I have found, and what I have learned. Hopefully making your blogging path that little bit easier!

I love blogging and really enjoy it. There is always something new to learn to help you move forward, and I know I will learn just as much if not more, than what I hope to pass on.

Create Blogs

Classified Adverts - Online or Offline?

Just because you work online doesn’t mean all your promotion needs to be done online! So why not try an offline method, and place a classified advert in a local newspaper to drive traffic to your blog. Depending on where you live and which newspapers you pick, the fee can vary a lot from free to big money, so pick wisely!

Or you could place classified adverts online. Now if you searched in Google for classified ad sites I’m sure you would have a huge list. So I would like to talk about 2 sites for classified ads that already receive huge amounts of traffic every day. Craigslist.org and Ebay.com.

Craigslist
It’s a free classified ad site that’s world wide, and in the top 10 most visited sites in the world (= lots of traffic). You just pick a city and place a free classified ad promoting your blog. It doesn't really have to be near where you live, as your directing them to a blog, so they won’t be collecting something they have bought (depending on what you are selling!). The only problem I see with this, is you have to submit per city - rather than countries (as with Ebay), so you would have to submit to a few cities to help get traffic - I presume. It also defaults to the San Francisco Bay Area site, so you have to pick a city from there.

Ebay
Again another site in the top 10 most visited sites in the world. You can place a classified ad on Ebay ($10 for 30 days). Now it’s not an auction, you’re not selling anything, but you can promote your business or blog in them and hopefully drive traffic to your blog. I know this service is available in the US, but may not be available on all of Ebay's sites, so use ebay.com (it gets the most traffic).

And that’s 2 ways to get your links onto high traffic sites and hopefully drive even more traffic to your blog.

Create Blogs

Creating Blog Traffic with Forums

To be honest I have only recently started to use forums for creating blog traffic - and realised their potential. They are more than just somewhere to post your news and articles to, to enable you to generate traffic. They are communities that you can tap into, and interact with a wide range of people, make friends, ask questions, learn more and even make deals. All on top of the basic fact that they can drive traffic to your blog.

You can find a forum (or message board) on pretty much any subject you can think of. Search for ‘[your subject] forum’ and see what comes up.

I’ve recently joined the Warrior Forum which is an Internet Marketing forum. It’s really helpful and motivating reading the different threads. There’s the chance to see how other people do things, and the ability to network with a lot of people in your chosen field. When you start to post don’t forget to add your signature, where you can place links to your blog or any other site you would like to send traffic to. So every time you ask a question or reply to a post your signature is added and also the link to your blog, giving you more exposure. So the more questions and replies you make the more traffic you may be able to generate. The potential of forums is undeniable.

I was going to add another list here of forums, but I’ll let you explore on your own!

Creating Blogs

Have you tried Blog Directories?

They are a great source of free traffic for your blogs, you never know who could be searching for your topic? And there’s loads of them. Some are more popular than others, like Technorati, you can open an account and bookmark your favourite blogs (if you search on Google for a topic you will also notice Technorati is in the top 10 results a lot).

Once submitted to a directory your blog will most likely be reviewed and then entered onto the directory when approved, they email you to let you know if it’s been approved or not. Here’s a list of some of the ones I use (sorry about all the lists):

• www.technorati.com
• www.daypop.com
• www.getblogs.com
• www.globeofblogs.com
• www.blogcatalog.com
• www.blogtoplist.com
• www.blogarama.com
• www.britblog.com (only British blogs)
• www.myblogdirectory.net

Create Blogs - blog traffic series part 2

Create Blogs That Last

Don't lose your Blog!

So you've set up your blog after deciding what you are going to blog about and you have started posting and adding different features to your blog, like I have just added email subscription (as mentioned in the last post).

But don't forget to protect your blog and download your template at regular intervals (in Blogger you can do it from edit html) for safe keeping. Now I know that sounds obvious and I am sure that everybody knows that. But I thought it was worth a mention, I downloaded mine the other day before adding the subscription.

As good as the internet and hosting companies are at the moment it's still possible for 'technical difficulties' to happen. Or more likely for some reason they have taken a disliking to your blog and decide to terminate it! That doesn't matter if you have a downloaded copy. Also if I am pasting code into the template, I download it as I still don't trust myself to do it right!

At the end of the day there is a lot of love and hard work gone into creating blogs and the last thing you want to do is lose it all!

Create Blogs