Are you made contact-able to your readers?

You should be. This makes you more reliable. Allowing your readers to leave comments on your blog and replying to them prompt is a thumbs up! Readers tend to have questions and it will be easier for them if you have a contact page. You can place your email address or Skype id too.

Have you done it on your blog? Or have other methods of making yourself more contact-able? Share it here!

More activities will be coming up on Bloggitudes. A favicon design for Bloggitudes is currently in planning. If you are a good favicon designer or know someone who is, bring them to Bloggitudes! Prizes for the top 3 favicon design has not been finalized. Do feel free to share what prizes you might want to win.

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RSS is a type of web feed used to publish frequently updated content and is especially useful for bloggers. Your readers can use a wide variety of feed readers to subscribe to your RSS feed.

Both you and your readers will benefit from it. Firstly, your readers need not check your blog daily to see if there are new entries. If they have subscribed to your feed, the reader which they used will notify them of the new entry. And you will not need to worry that your readers will miss out on anything. However, RSS feeds are not updated regularly. So, you may need to check if the latest feed is the latest entry of the blog.

It will be nice to check out the blog occasionally and support the blog's sponsors. Some bloggers provide full feed while some don't. I provide full feed for my readers. Most readers like full feeds as they will be able to read directly from their feed readers.

You can try experimenting with full and partial feed and see which works for you. Partial feeds might increase your blog's traffic as your readers need to access your blog to read the entire entry. If you are looking for something to manage your feed, try FeedBurner. It is free to use and is user-friendly.

How has RSS feeds work for you? And do you provide a full or partial feed?

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FaceBook is increasingly popular amongst bloggers as a way to promote their blogs. It also allows bloggers to interact with their readers.

There are a few ways to make use FaceBook. FaceBook badges is an add-on to your blog which allows your readers to easily view your profile. One other way is to use bookmarking websites like AddThis, ShareThis, etc. It is a simple button like the one at the top of this post. It allows your readers to bookmark your post or your blog with just a click.

Also, make the buttons as visible as possible. Your readers will not want to look through your entire page to find the button. You may make it as big as your palm. But do make it blend with your blog's design. It is not wise to forgo your professional-looking design to add the bookmark button. Both the button and your blog's design are equally important.

A good blog design has to be appealing and leave vivid impression of your blog. There are many blog designs available for free and paid. Spend some time to look for a suitable and well-designed theme. It will be worth your effort. Most blog themes have integrated FaceBook bookmarks in it and you will not need to compromise your blog's design for the bookmarks.

Do you know websites that have such themes? Share it here!

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Have you wondered what is the best way to let people know of your blog?

There are many ways - those that require you to spend and some that don't. Most will choose not to spend a dime, especially when you've just started blogging.

Here is a tip to help you leave an impression on others and yet not spend anything! All that you need to do is to stay active on blogs that are of similar niche as yours. When you leave a valuable comment on someone's blog, that person will return a favor by checking out your blog. This will not take up too much of your time and at the same time, you will get to learn what to do and don't. Also, leaving a comment with your blog's link creates a backlink. This will help improve your pagerank and is a bonus for simply interacting with other bloggers.

Every bloggers hate spamming, including yourself. So, don't spam and leave comments about your views after reading their post. It will be beneficial for both parties.

Do leave a comment here too. Share your views and create a community of interactive bloggers.

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Firstly, you need to know your aim in blogging. Are you blogging to earn some earn money? Or blogging for fun.

If you are the former, you can start placing advertisements any time, even when you've just started. But remember - DO NOT fill your entire blog with advertisements. You will need a combination of good content and some advertisements. Quantity does not give you better results than quality. And I mean placing your advertisements at suitable and advisable places on your blog.

Most bloggers place advertisements at the top sidebars and amongst posts. Those are great spots. It is hard to miss out those spots when browsing through your blog. You need to choose the right type of advertising to optimize your earning potential.

Ad Spot #1 - Top Banner
Ad Spot #2 - Side bar
Ad Spot #3 - Within post

There are different types of advertising. Most bloggers go for advertisement networks, which only require you to add a code given by the network to your blog.

I have recommended different methods to earn money like affiliate marketing and becoming a publisher in advertisement networks. I have also taught how to make those methods work by providing quality content and generating traffic to you blog.

These are simple tips to follow and it takes less than an hour to digest them
Tip #1 To Making Money With A Blog
Tip #2 To Making Money With A Blog
Tip #3 To Making Money With A Blog
Tip #4 To Making Money With A Blog
Tip #5 To Making Money With A Blog

If you are blogging for fun, you may choose to register in advertisement networks that pays for impression. Place the ads in your sidebar which usually does not irritates your readers. You might even make enough to get your own personal domain! Give it a try for a month or so. If you are doing well, why not carry on?

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Being a full-time blogger does not mean that you will need to neglect your family. A blogger has a flexible working time. You do not need to blog everyday. Simply do the usual stuff and blog whenever you've got something to share.

If you are neglecting your family or spending too much time on blogging, stop doing it and change the way you blog. Although blogging is a job to full-time bloggers, they don't usually spend everyday trying to cramp up with something to blog about. Let everything come naturally and you will be able to provide good content. Don't force yourself to come up with something to blog.

Most importantly, you need to enjoy when blogging. And during your free time, check out other blogs for inspiration and learn new stuff at the same time!

Keep blogging and stay focus!

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Do you use pictures in your post?

My advice - start using now and appropriately. Pictures make your post more appealing. It can also cut down on your words. If you are explaining something, show your readers a picture with minimal words and you will be able to get your message out to them.

In my previous post, I've shown a picture to guide my readers along. Even without reading the post, they should be able to get the message.

Also, you need to use images without infringing any copyrights. Do credit if the image belongs to someone else. If possible, use images of your own.

Insert the html code: img src
All you need is the code above to display your image in your post. You will need a more complicated code if you want to align your pictures.

Share your views and tips to insert pictures here.

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Will it be too late to start blogging now?

The answer - no. There is no specific time to start. And it will never be too late to start. Although it doesn't matter when you start, you will be at a slight advantage over those who start later.

By starting earlier, your blog would have large 'database of information'. Your blog would have a better ranking compared to those who start late. This makes your blog much easier to find with the right keywords. You would have more readers and one of your readers might be the one starting to blog.

And if you are starting now, you may get some help from the pioneers and learn from their mistakes. This gives you a head start. Introduce your blog on the pioneers' blogs by leaving a link when commenting. Learn the basics of blogging and all that you should know to get started - "How To Set Up A Blog".

Feel free to ask any questions, I will be more than willing to help you. Do you think it is too late to start? Share it here.

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Tip #5: The Last Tip

This will be the simplest of all and that is to put all the tips together. There are endless tips to make a blog better. You will be able to find such tips on search engines. But it all depends on yourself. You control the fate of your blog.

A blog is an online journal, a blogger is an online journalist



Keep providing quality content and be consistent. Those are the fundamentals of having a good blog. This is the last tip to making money with a blog. Stay focus on your topic. Be sure that you have chosen the right topic and is something of your interest.

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Tip #4: Generate Traffic

It is important to have people visiting your blog. They will become your readers. It is impossible to make money without traffic. There are many ways to generate traffic. But generating traffic isn't all. You will need targeted traffic. These are the people who are interested in your topic. These people will most probably stay on your blog and read your contents. That is what you want.

Participate actively in forums and promote your blog to the users. Some might or some might not be interested. Check out other similar blogs and leave comments in their entries. Don't spam. Most bloggers allow other bloggers to leave links to their blog in comments. This not only generate traffic to your blog, it also creates backlinks. Search engines love this too, especially when the blog is of a higher page rank than yours.

Try out these methods. You will not see the results within a day. But over time, you will notice a few are coming from forums and blogs which you have left your blog link in.

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Tip #3: Deliver Consistent and Quality Content

As a blogger, you need to provide content for your readers. These contents help to build up your blog by making it a directory of information for people to look through. Initially, you may have little or no reader for your blog. Don't be dishearten. Everyone start out this way but it will not always stay this way if you are able to provide plenty of content for people.

Be consistent in providing content. If the entry is short, you can post it once a day. If it is long, do not post it too regularly as it will be too taxing for your readers. You will also need to provide quality content to get your readers come back for more. Search engines love quality content too. It will boost your page ranking in search engine.

There are also other methods of driving traffic to your blog. I will teach you how to generate traffic with other methods in the next post. Stay tune.

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