It is understandable that you want to make your blog more interesting by adding as many widgets, photos, and videos as you would like. However, overdoing it may in fact cause you to lose visitors and potential customers. Too much multimedia and unnecessary page elements can slow down the loading time of your web pages. Given the short attention span common to Internet users nowadays, you can get traffic on your blog but fail in getting conversions.
“Accidental” visits happen when people click your link through referring sites or search engines. Upon arriving at your blog, web users decide within a few seconds whether your blog is worth digging deeper into or not. They also take about the same time to decide whether your blog is worth bookmarking or even sharing. This decision is based on the overall impact of your blog and the time it takes to download your pages and navigate through your website.
WordPress is one of the top blog subscription services around – it is search-engine friendly and easy to use. However, you can improve the loading time of your WordPress blog further by taking the following steps:
Measure your blog’s loading speed. You have to know whether your loading time needs some improvement before you act. Refer to online resources to help you gauge how long it takes to load your pages. Selfseo.com tells you whether your pages take more than eight seconds to load. Websiteoptimization.com offers more in-depth analyses. Firefox Firebug and Chrome Developer tools help determine which sections of your blog cause delays in loading time.
Know your download cycle. Take note of the sequence according to which, parts of your blog load. Observe which among the header, the columns, and the banners load first and which one go last. Based on your blog’s download cycle, position the slower widgets in sections that take slowest to load. Likewise, place the elements you would most like your readers’ attention drawn to in parts that load faster.
Compress photos. Posting pictures help get traffic on your blog, especially from search engines, but can also affect your blog’s usability. Downloading time for photos depend on how many kilobytes a picture is worth. To find out the data size of a photo, right click on the thumbnail and select Properties. Photos more than 100kb in size can slow down your blog’s loading time significantly.
Export photos from online albums, such as Picasa, that allow you to pre-define your picture size, quality, and compression rate before posting. Blog subscription services like WordPress feature photo galleries wherein you can customize your photos.
Choose your widgets carefully. Do you really need a widget that tells your readers what kind of weather you are having in your area or one that displays what from countries your web visitors came from? Limit your widgets to those that are important and you think can help get traffic on your blog. Get rid of those that you can live without, especially ones that are slow to load. If a widget is so important you can’t part with it, put it at the bottom of the page so that your readers will not notice how long it takes to load.
For many experienced bloggers, writing an entry usually follows a process. For each one, the steps may be differ depending on the person’s personality and the coverage of his topics but for everyone, especially the serious bloggers who produce content with their own sweat and blood, it is normal to feel anxious, excited, curious, and tired with every new blog entry produced.
As you write, several thoughts can go across your mind all at once such as whether a particular post can get traffic on your blog, would people agree or disagree with you, whether it is a mistake of writing about any topic at all, and many other concerns. In many ways, writing a blog post is very much like delivering a child. It is an activity however that offers many rewards. Not only do you get traffic on your blog, you also get a sense of accomplishment every time. Read more…
Bloggers have many times decried the unpermitted duplication or copying of their original content by other authors online. The Internet is so vast and volatile that even though anti-plagiarism laws have been around for centuries, the rights of online writers and website owners remain unsecured. With the development of Copyscape, bloggers and online writers have found some form of security when it comes to their work.
Plagiarism is a growing threat in the online community. Content found in websites, blogs for business, personal blogs, and even your notes on Facebook can be stolen by anyone at anytime and basically, there is nothing you can do about it. Read more…
The Importance of Proper Grammar in Blogging
Anyone can blog but not everyone is well-versed in language, grammar, and word usage. That’s a fact. The good news is, anyone can learn the basics if he is willing and determined enough. Not all of us are English majors; even native English speakers experience spelling, grammar, and syntax lapses once in a while. This is where online grammar checking software comes in handy.
Imagine this scenario: You get blog traffic because somehow, you got people interested. Then they start reading your entries and think that they can relay this kind of information better than you – all because you did not run a grammar check or even proofread your work before posting. Internet users have a short attention span. When you lose credibility, there is a small chance of them giving you a second chance; or more appropriately, a second visit. Read more…
We’ve been talking about all the different aspects of blogging. Let’s get back to basics and remember, what is a blog and what’s it all about.
The term “blog” was derived from the word weblog, which was used to define websites that provide a continuous stream of content. Over the years, blogs have evolved from personal online journals to cover a wide range of topics including politics, sports, religion, technology, sand health, among many others. Some people get a blog to advertise online and offline businesses.
Various blogging styles and techniques have eventually been developed. Blogging is now seen as both as an art that take talent, creativity, diligence, foresight, and technical skills. At present, there are several tools and resources available to assist bloggers in content development, online visibility, usability, and blog management. Virtually anyone who has something to say can get a blog and be heard. Read more…
You’ve got nothing to lose by taking the opportunity to do guest-post on other blogs or inviting other bloggers to post as guests on your own. If done correctly, guest posting is an effective way to promote your blog and your business. To make guest posting work for you, you need to have shown that you are an authority in your business field and that your blog contains updated, original, and useful information.
Blogs for business are aimed at providing a direct channel of communication with your target market. You must develop strategic relationships with other bloggers related to your business as well. Consumers are constantly looking for new and diverse products and services so that although you may see other bloggers as competition, sharing the market also has its advantages. Read more…
Have you ever visited a website or a blog that you found interesting and you agreed to sign up for a free eBook or newsletter the site is offering? This sign-up feature often found in blogs today is called the opt-in feature. Usually you would have to type in your name and email address to receive a free product. You may not be aware of it as you are mainly interested in the freebies or information promised during the time when you were signing up but opt-in is actually a very effective Internet marketing strategy to get traffic on your blog.
As opposed to Spam emails, opt-in emails are welcomed by users. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have signed up at your blog. Enabling this feature helps you generate a list of emails of people interested in your business, ergo, potential clients. What makes opt-in so popular and effective is that it supports your blog’s goal of establishing a personal relationship with your target market. Read more…
Posting quality content on your blog should always be a top priority but this doesn’t mean that choosing the right blog template should not be given proper attention. Layouts also play an essential part in the success of blogs for business. You may get traffic on your blog but lose visitors as fast as they came anyway because of a faulty template and complicated navigation.
So what should you consider in picking a blog template?
You search online and see various available templates for blog hosts like Blogger and WordPress that you can download for free. Some designers sell templates exclusively. You might also want to consider hiring a designer offering custom blog services. Depending on your budget, you can decide on which option is best for you. Read more…
The Internet never ceases to offer wonders. Latest developments have made it possible for bloggers to automate blog posting. Thanks to this kind of technological breakthrough, anyone can invest in software that provide blog posting services so that your blog is updated regularly without you having to stress about your content every other time. Learn more about blog update services and see how you can manage your time better as a blog owner and post your content error-free.
How do you automate blog posting?
With automated blog posting services, you wouldn’t be as drained thinking up of ideas for blog posts and then on top of that, having to mind formatting, tags, and other posting concerns. With automated blog posting, various blog and web content are immediately generated and the posting process is made more convenient. Read more…
Anyone can start a blog but not everyone have the discipline and the determination to do what is necessary to make a blog successful. The most successful blogs for business are those that are managed by people who do everything in their power to make the most out of the blogs they started. Having a full-time job is not an excuse to abandon a business blog. All it takes is committing at least a couple of hours a day to see your revenues grow significantly in no time.
There are many ways to manage your time as a hands-on blogger. The key is to ACT and not to procrastinate. Easier said than done, right? At this point, maybe you still do not have the budget to pay bloggers for hire or maybe you are not too eager to let others write for you. When you commit say, a couple of hours a day to perform blogging tasks, make good use of the allotted time to write your blog posts and study other concepts that can help your blog succeed. Read more…
