to Start a Blog

Today's post is a collection of free internet tools essential for any Blogger Blogspot webmaster but particularly beginners who wish to improve and grow their blog. While there are lots of tools on the internet that are of use to a Blogger Blogspot blogger you have to hunt for them. Chances are that you may have already discovered some of these while others may be quite new to you. Here is my list of some free internet tools that I find invaluable in building my blog. This is not a definitive list by any means. I will update it regularly as I discover more and more tools. Free Banner Generator Banner Sketch is an easy to use tool to help you create a title banner and other banners for your blog Free Icons for RSS Feeds Find stylish rss feed icons for your blog at Hongkiat Ultimate List of Feed Icons Free Image Watermarking Service Add a watermark to your images to deter image theft on your blog with this free image watermarking service from Pictureshark.com Free Fav Icon Genera...

Want to improve SEO on a Blogspot Blogger blog? This tutorial discusses how bloggers can optimize their blog using SEO techniques to improve indexing of their Blogger Blogspot blog and achieve a better ranking in search engine results. In this article I will be discussing the following Blogger help tips for SEO: Adding Your Blogger Blog to Major Search Engines Optimizing Blogger Post Titles Utilising Meta Keywords and a Meta Description Using Keywords in Alt Tags and Image Titles Using Target Keywords in Your Post Content Optimizing Blogger Title Tags Optimizing Your Blogger Permalinks Making Use of HTML Heading Tags Within Posts and Post Titles Adding Breadcrumb Navigation to your Blogger Blog Get Your Blog Listed by Major Search Engines Getting listed in the major search engines is a must if you want to get traffic from search engines. I have written several in depth articles about how to add a sitemap to major search engines and how to add your blog to Google , Yahoo and MSN so ...

Do you want to get more comments on your Blogger Blogspot blog? Maybe you are wondering why you are not getting the level of comments on your blog that you had hoped for? Well don't panic. Traffic takes time to build and commenting on new blogs is always slow at first. You could resort to creating your own comments but I strongly advise against it. Apart from being unethical I find you can often spot ingenuine comments a mile away and its a major turn off. Instead take heart. In this article I will be focusing on 7 strategies you can employ to encourage your readers to comment and to build a great community around you in the process. Reasons Why a Visitor Might Post a Comment To start with let's look at some of the reasons people comment in the first place. I find readers tend to comment on my blog when they have found a solution to a problem or understood something that they haven't known about before. Another reason to comment is that they may ask how to questions ...

One of the things that makes Blogger such a great blogging platform is the facility to add advertising to your Blogspot blog and make money from it. In this article I will be discussing how banner advertisements on your Blogger blog can make money for you. By banner advertising I mean advertising in addition to Google Adsense or Adbrite that you may have already added to your Blogger blog. For information on adding Google Adsense to your blog please read my articles on Google Adsense . Banner advertising is FREE. And Banners Do Make Money . It is no secret that banners make money provided you choose your merchant program carefully and have enough traffic accessing your site. In my experience once you reach around 100 visitors a day is a good time to add a few banners to your blog. How Do I Make Money from Banners on My Blogger Blog? Affiliate marketing banners make money for the publisher - that's you. When you place a banner on your blog the affiliate program gives you a snippet o...

If you want your Blogger blog to sizzle and really take off there are some pretty important blogging pitfalls that you need to avoid. In today's article I will be talking about 6 of the most common mistakes new bloggers make on their Blogger Blogspot blog and how to avoid them. 1. Avoid Poor Content I can't emphasize enough that the standard of your content will make or break your blog. Poor content = few return visitors. Good content on the other hand will attract visitors and keep them coming back to check out what's new. Successful bloggers write clearly, know their subject and develop their own unique voice. A conversational style is often recommended but I suggest just write naturally and that naturalness will shine through. Post quality well researched content that is interesting and topical. To do this you need to know your audience. Who are your readers? Do you know? If you don't know your target audience it will be hard to put yourself in their shoes wh...

As the Blogger platform is owned by Google it is not surprising that Blogger makes it very easy to add Google Adsense to your Blogger Blogspot blog. In this tutorial you will learn about different ways to add Google Adsense to your blog . Along the way I will be offerring a few tips about best placement of Google Adsense units. I have aimed this Blogger tutorial at new bloggers and beginners and assumes no prior knowledge of Google Adsense. Bear in mind that before you can start to add Google Adsense to your Blogger blog you will need to have created an Adsense account. 3 Ways to Add Google Adsense to Blogger There are two main ways to add Google Adsense to Blogger: one is to use a Google Adsense widget and the other is to use a HTML/Javascript widget . There is also a third way, which is outside the scope of this article, which is to hard code the Adsense code directly into the template. Adding a Google Adsense Widget to Blogger An Adsense widget is a container for the Google Adsen...

This article discusses 10 easy ways Blogger (Blogspot) Bloggers can build site traffic and in many cases improve SEO - search engine optimization. By implementing these steps you will improve the likelihood of your site ranking more highly in search engine results of major search engine players Google, Yahoo and MSN and as a result increase the number of visitors accessing your site. 10 Easy SEO Tips for Blogspot Bloggers to Improve Search Engine Rankings 1. Make Your Title Tags Search Engine Friendly One of the most important tweaks necessary for Blogspot Blogs is the adjustment of the title tags of your website because Blogger.com by default has not optimized these for search engines. To prove this point navigate to an individual post on your blog and you will see that the blogname appears first in the title bar at the top of your browser followed by the post name. As search engines place greater value on the first words of an entry this puts your site at a disadvantage in search en...