5 Ways to Improve Your Blog Right Now

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You can always find ways to improve your blog -- some are quick and simple, some take a bit more time. Here are some ideas! Create an Email Newsletter Why should you create an email newsletter for your blog? The real question to ask is why shouldn't you (hint: there is no reason not to). Launching an email newsletter will allow you to collect the email addresses of your blog's readers, which you can then use later for marketing and advertising purposes. Just place a newsletter signup widget in a highly visible location of your blog and ask visitors to enter their email address. Respond to M...
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Local Search Optimization Tips for Blogs

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Still struggling to achieve a top search ranking with your blog for local, Geo-driven keywords and queries? If you own a small local business, a blog can help to attract new customers -- but only if people in and around your area see it. This is where local search optimization (LSO) comes into play: by performing various on-site and off-site optimization tactics, you can encourage higher search rankings for local searches. Include Contact Information as Plain Text If you aren't doing so already, add your business's contact information -- in plain text format -- to your blog. This includes yo...
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How to Attract More Comments on Your Blog

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A blog is an excellent platform for showcasing content while generating a strong response among readers. Because they are more personal and time-sensitive than traditional websites, they typically receive more comments. But you can go one step further by utilizing the following tips to encourage even more visitor comments. The Importance of Visitor Comments Why are visitor comments important for blogs? While there's no rule stating that you must allow visitors to submit comments, doing so will almost certainly prove beneficial. Fresh Content: For every comment a visitor makes, your blog re...
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Common Myths and Misconceptions About Blogging

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Blogs Cannot be Monetized This is one of many myths that couldn't be further from the truth. Regardless of your blog's niche, it can almost certainly generate revenue -- assuming it has a decent amount of traffic. One of the easiest ways to monetize a blog is to display cost-per-click (CPC) advertisements like Google Adsense, which pay you a small amount (usually $0.05 to $0.25 cents) for each click. That being said, don't quit your day job and expect to support yourself on blogging revenues! The vast majority of bloggers who try to earn money from blogging do not earn enough to replace a ...
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Using Social Media to Promote Your Blog

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Can't seem to gain any traction with your blog no matter how many posts you publish? In most cases, you'll need to invest some of your time and resources into promoting your blog. By spreading the word, other users will see your blog and share it with their network. Today we're going to reveal how social media networking sites can be used to promote blogs. Encourage Users to Share If you look at some of the most popular blogs like Huffington Post and , you'll notice they all have one thing in common: they feature a variety of social "sharing" buttons. These buttons allow users to share the b...
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Best Online Tools for Bloggers

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There are dozens of online tools available that can help bloggers write better posts. Maybe you already use some of these tools, but others may surprise you. Word Counter We all know the importance of writing blog posts with X amount of words. Depending on your niche and intent, this might be 300 words or it might be 2,000. Regardless, you'll need some way to keep track of how many words you've written. Fortunately, WordPress and most other blogging platforms have built-in word counters. If your platform lacks this feature, you can use Word Counter to check the length of your posts. Google ...
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Top 3 Security Plugins for WordPress

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Powering approximately 60 million websites -- or 25% of the entire Internet -- WordPress is by far the world's most popular content management system (CMS). It's free to download, loaded with features, and offers both a WYSIWYG "visual" editor as well as a code editor. But one of the drawbacks to WordPress is its lax security. According to W3Techs, 17.8% of all WordPress sites are running outdated versions of the CMS, which subsequently places them at risk for hacking. Even if you are running the latest version of WordPress, it's still a good idea to strengthen your site's security by using...
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How to Use the Rule of Three When Blogging

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If you are a blogger who's looking to create stronger engagement with your target engagement, you should consider following the rule of three. Basically, this principle is based around the idea that our brains are hard-wired to respond when confronted with groups of three. To learn more about the rule of three and how it can be used to create a successful and engaging blog, keep reading. Rule of Three: the Basics Even if you are unfamiliar with the rule of three, chances are you've seen or have encountered groups of three before. From stories like the Three Little Pigs and Three Musketeers, ...
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How to Make Your Blog Easier for Search Engines to Crawl

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Are search engines able to crawl your blog's content with ease? If not, it could have a significant impact on both your search rankings and traffic. Google, Bing, Yahoo and even some of the lower-tiered search engines work by scanning, or crawling, websites to determine what they are about. If a blog site was designed in a manner that prevents proper crawling, however, it won't be able to rank it accordingly. Don't Use Images as Text It may seem harmless enough, but avoid using images in place of text on your blog. Some companies, for instance, will display their name, address and phone numb...
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Top 5 Reasons to Choose WordPress

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Powering nearly 1 in 4 websites, WordPress remains the world's most popular and widely used content management system (CMS). Of course, there's a good reason for its popularity: WordPress is fast, efficient, cleanly coded, and can be used for all types of websites and blogs. Today we're going to reveal just a few of the many awesome features included in the platform. Import Posts from Another Blog Do you currently have a blog hosted on LiveJournal, Movable Type, TypePad or Tumblr? Well, you can import the posts to WordPress using its convenient import feature. In just a few clicks of the ...
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