After 3 years of blogging, I found the answer:  a blog written on a specific topic that is helping  the writer lead a group of likeminded people.  Building a community, and leading them. Google PageRank, RSS counts, Alexa, Technorati can always be improved.

As a person if you can not build and lead a community,  chances are you will never ever become a good blogger, and have a good blog.

So if you have a blog or about to launch a new blog, before everything, just think about how you can lead your readers on that specific topic? Try to gather a group of people around your blog who are sharing the same purpose. Why should they follow you?

Discover the hero within, and become a thought leader on your topic. Put targets for your community, empower your followers. Act like a big enterprise with your followers. The small is the new big today. That’s the secret formula…

This is possible if you also show them the “related posts”  just below each post. Even though there are various plugins so as to show related posts, almost all of them are too technical to setup for majority of bloggers.

I did not know that it is also possible to show related posts without using any plugins until I read How to show related posts in wordpress without plugin. I inserted the code mentioned in that post into my blog’s single.php, and now I can show related post to my readers.

If you haven’t done this little setup before, you better make this immediately. I have already seen the positive impact.

Well, it wasn’t an easy decision. Because I really liked the previous theme.  However SEO-wise it was terrible. The HTML codes of the previous theme wasn’t fully compatible with W3C standards.

Due to these errors, my blog’s search engine indexing rate has always been less than the real rate. In other words Google bots were not fully indexing my blog. These HTML errors were preventing them to spend more time on my blog. With that theme I will never ever achieve my blog’s true potential. So I decided to change the theme immediately.

Even though I am still making the last minute changes, I want to get feedback from you. How do you find my blog’s new look? Do you have any suggestions?

Right after your designer delivered your fancy looking new custom blog design, you expected a surge in your blog’s traffic, but nothing happened? Even if you have the best blog design ever, you need to promote it effectively to increase incoming traffic. The easiest way to promote a new custom blog design is to send it to CSS Galleries. They will bring good traffic and one-way backlinks to your blog.

What Is A CSS Gallery?

Before talking about a CSS gallery, do you know what is CSS? CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet. It is the  standard way of styling blogs and websites. If you use WordPress, you already know that every theme you use  have a style sheet built into CSS. It basically controls the look of your blog – the fonts,  the colors, spacing, layout, and more. It is the backbone of your blog design.

A CSS Gallery or a CSS directory is a website which showcases websites with good design. If your blog gets featured on these galleries, it will certainly bring good traffic. The most popular CSS galleries have PR4-PR5 Google PageRank. So it is also a very good way of having one-way backlinks to your blog.

You need to have a unique blog design so that your submissions to the CSS galleries will be accepted. You have no chance at all with a popular blog theme which thousands of bloggers are already using. The main purpose is to give the designers as many blog/website design options as possible to inspire from.

CSS Galleries List

Thanks to Caroline Middlebrook, she prepared a very good list in her post 101 CSS Galleries for Backlinks and Traffic. I suggest you to check the CSS galleries in that post, and start submitting your new custom blog design. I have already submitted, and my blog have been showcased on some of them. See my blog at CSS Creme (Don’t forget to vote!)

Don’t submit all the CSS galleries at one go. Google robots won’t like it at all. Also the galleries don’t accept all submissions. Try to pursue the ones with PageRank 5. If you notice my blog while surfing the galleries, do not forget to vote for me.

Having a custom blog design is a dream for many bloggers. You have to pay prices ranging from $300 to $3000 to have a good custom blog design. You need to verify whether your custom blog design meets some basic requirements before paying the full amount. I prepared a checklist for your easy guidance. Go over this checklist and don’t let your designer fool you.

1. RSS Button: Does your blog have a big RSS button which can easily attract your visitor’s attention? Tell your designer to place a big RSS button above the fold.
2. Widget Functionality: Check whether your new custom blog theme’s widgets are fully functional. Most probably you will face with a problem with widgets. Ask your designer to fix them.
3. Logo & Branding: Negotiate with your designer and try to get a custom logo design at the same time that is compatible with your custom blog design. First impression counts. A custom blog design with a good logo will rock!
4. Favicon: Tell your designer to create a favicon icon for your blog. Have you seen my favicon? It always appears before my blog’s URL on your browser’s address bar. It is a small version of my blog’s logo. You need to have a favicon for better branding.
5. h1 Tags: Ask your designer to wrap your blog titles with h1 html tags. This is good for the sake of SEO. Check this for more details on SEO for blog posts:The 5 Basic Steps Of SEO For Your Blog – Part 2
6. WordPress compatibility: Verify that your custom blog design is compatible with the latest version of WordPress. It is not an issue for quality designers, but chances are you may face with a problem.
7. Plugins: Make sure that your existing plugins are compatible with your new blog design. If you face with a problem, let your designer know immediately.
8. Search function: Verify that your readers can easily find a keyword or term easily with your search button. You don’t have any search button in your new blog design? Tell it to your designer immediately.
9. Advertising space: Ask your designer to create a space for sponsors.
10. Archive: Make sure your designer collects all your previous posts under an archive. If not, tell him to do.
11. Tag Cloud: Tell your designer a fancy looking tag cloud for your blog. This is good in terms of SEO and improving readership.
12. Add My Feed To: Look at my blog’s “Add my Feed To” section. Give a few options to your readers so that they can add your blog to Technorati, Google Reader, BlogLines, or Yahoo. This is a piece of cake for your designer. Don’t miss this one, it is quite useful.
13. Browser Compatibility: Make sure your blog looks good on both Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. If not, inform your designer immediately before the payment.
14. Check your blog’s loading time: If you have a fancy looking blog which is loaded in a minute on many browsers, chances are you will break a bounce rate record! Keep your blog simple, and check the loading speed on browsers. If you are not satisfied, tell your designer. Keep it simple, simplicity is the best!
15. Get Your Readers Comments: Ask your loyal readers about your new blog design. They will be telling you a lot of problems which you may not notice.

Let’s assume you verified all the items mentioned above, what is next? You need to promote your new custom blog design to get the maximum benefit from it. I will tell you about how to promote your new custom blog design soon. Stay tuned and make sure you are subscribed to Search For Blogging RSS feeds so that you don’t miss any updates.

Create your blog

Blog Master Joda Yaro Starak has done a great job again, and is about to launch the Become a Blogger mentoring program for both beginner and intermediate level bloggers. As an introduction of the program, he released free video tutorials in conjunction with his partner Gideon Shalwick. You may find below the links to these free tutorial videos. I strongly suggest you to join their early notification list by clicking here Become a Blogger. Their free report will be available by December 1.

Free Video Tutorials

Video 1 – Why You Should Use WordPress

Video 2 – How To Get Your Own Domain Name

Video 3 – How To Get A Web Host

Video 4 – How To Install WordPress

Video 5 – How To Upload Files To Your Webhost Using FTP

Video 6 – Choosing A WordPress Theme For Your New Blog

Video 7 – How To Install And Use WordPress Plugins

Video 8 – How To Create Your First Blog Post And Blog Page

Video 9 – What RSS Is And Why You Need It

Video 10 – How To Use Feedburner For Supercharging Your RSS Capabilities

Enjoy watching these videos. Don’t forget to subscribe to Search For Blogging RSS feeds for early notification of blogging news.

Deal with information overload

As the amount of information flowing into the blogosphere grow, there is also a growing need for tools and principles that help bloggers focus their attention on what should be the most relevant information for them. In this post I would like to share my own ways of dealing with information overload as a problogger.

Hack Google

Google

Google is one of the most effective tool to filter information. I use it effectively for my blogging Google requirements. I command my blogging with iGoogle, and create my own blogging archive with Google Notebook. If I need to share some documents with my blogging buddies, I use Google Documents. Both Google and Google Blog Search are quite useful for my blogging.

Clearly Define Your Blog’s Topic

I noticed that when I target a sub-niche area within a large blogging topic, my posts become much more popular. Idea is very simple. There is no point in competing with the high quality and popular bloggers in general topics. Discover the areas top bloggers don’t cover today, and spend your time and energy on those areas.This way I spend less time on broad topics, rather focus on uncovered areas. This is by far one of the best ways to become a better blogger in the long run.

Actually your blog’s topic changes as you and your blog evolves. Let me give you a good example. I quit my job, and become a problogger last summer. Thus I realized that I can become a very good role-model for the bloggers who want to earn their living from blogging, yet can not overcome their fears.

Less RSS is More

RSS

Do you really believe that top bloggers spend as much time as you spend to read so many RSS feeds? Steve Pavlina, who is one of the best personal development blogger, says he does not read any RSS feed. Surprised? Steve get blogging ideas from his own experiences.That is why he is unique and successful.

This is one habit all bloggers shall build up through the time. If you copy what top bloggers are already saying, eventually you will become a reporter, not a blogger. Having said that, I don’t mean to remove all your RSS subscriptions. Just limit it up to 10 leading bloggers in your sub-niche area. Use them for your brain to stimulate new ideas, and find the gaps in the top bloggers posts. At the end of the that you will have much more time to create new and innovative ideas.

Read Faster

Speed Reading

Time is the most precious commodity for bloggers. You need to read faster than before if you want to cope with your competition. Scientists proved that majority of the people can read 500 words per minute. Some clever ones (I guess they are talking about bloggers here!) can read even faster than 500 words.

Imagine reading a 300 pages book in a few hours, or reading this blog post at a glance! How would you feel? Is it too good to be true? Well, it is possible with Rapid Reader software. Bearing in mind the amount of time you will save, it is worth spending your money.

Master 80/20 Rule – Batch Processing

I mentioned 80/20 rule and batch processing in my previous post How I Quit My Job and Become A Problogger

These are my ways to deal with information overload. Tell me how you deal with information overload. Do you have anything to add my list?

Links for bloggers

• Read this insightful post by Seth Godin How to make money using the Internet
• Take a look at this treasure, maybe you can find a suitable WordPress plugin for your blog 130 WordPress Plugins You Could Ever Need: The Best Of : Part 1
• Do you want to increase your RSS readers? They you may take a look at this amazing post 50 Simple Ways to Gain RSS Subscribers
• Looking for Adsense optimized WordPress themes? Take a look at 18 Adsense Optimized WordPress Themes to Maximize your Contextual Ad Earnings
• A great recap by Darren Rowse 10 Innovative Blog Business Models

The most difficult part was to find a good and reliable contact form plugin for WordPress. Luckily I found cForms plugin, which I am going to post about it soon. You can see how the form generated by cForms look on my Contact page.

Stay tuned! There will be some more changes this week.

Blog Blazers Book

If you are looking for a gift to send your blogging buddies, you should consider the Blog Blazers, which brings you blogging secrets from 40 top bloggers including Seth Godin, Yaro Starak, and Aaron Wall.

You may find below the list of bloggers who were interviewed in Blog Blazers. You can also read the full bios of the bloggers.

• Aaron Wall from SEO Book
• Ades Tynyshev from Ades Blog
• Al Carlton from Coolest-Gadgets.com
• Alex Papadimoulis of Worse Than Failure
• Andy Brice of Success Software
• Anita Campbell from Small Business Trends
• Asha Dornfest from Parent Hacks
• Ben Casnocha
• Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog
• Bob Walsh author from 47 Hats
• Dan Lyons from The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
• Dane Carlson from Dane Carlson’s Business Opportunities Weblog
• David Armano from Logic+Emotion
• David Seah
• Derek Semmler
• Dharmesh Shah from On Startups
• Eric Sink
• Ian Landsman of Userscape
• James and Alex Turnbull from Google Sightseeing
• JD from Get Rich Slowly
• Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror
• Jeff Clavier from Jeff Clavier’s Software Only
• Jennette Fulda from Half of Me
• Jenny from 101 Reasons I Hate Being Fat!
• Jessamyn West of Librarian.net
• Joel Cheesman from Cheezhead
• Jonathan Snook
• Manolo from Manolo’s Shoe Blog
• Neil Patel from Quick Sprout
• Pamela Slim from Escape from Cubicle Nation
• Patrick McKenzie from Micro ISV on a Shoestring
• Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist
• Ramit Sethi from I will Teach You to be Rich
• Rob Walling from Software By Rob
• Rohit Bhargava from Influential Marketing Blog
• Seth Godin
• Stephane Grenier of Follow Steph (me)
• Steve Rubel from Micro Persuasion
• Trent Hamm from The Simple Dollar
• Yaro Starak from Entrepreneur’s Journey

There are three versions available: paperback ($16.95), ebook ($12.95), value bundle paperback + ebook ($20.95). You can buy it from Amazon too by clicking on Blog Blazers

Derek Semmler, one of the top 40 bloggers interviewed in the book, has arranged a contest. On Thanksgiving Day, he will be selecting 5 winners that will each receive a copy of the book Blog Blazers. You may join this competition too. Check his post Blog Blazers :: 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets

Even the most popular bloggers face with the writer’s block due to lack of inspiration and creativity. They still keep writing every day because they persist on some proven techniques.  Hub & Spokes is one technique you can apply for writing better blog posts. This technique can not only help you persuade your reader, but also distinguish you among thousands of bloggers.

Why Do Bloggers Need to Be Creative on Writing?

• Personal branding
• Increasing incoming traffic
• Standing out from the crowd
• Increasing the productivity
• Succeeding in persuasive marketing

How To Apply Hub & Spokes Technique into Your Daily Blogging?

Actually it is no different than creating a mind map with some minor differences. I suggest you to sign up an online mind mapping tool like Bubbl.us before you start.

• Start with drawing a circle, and jotting down a summary of your objective. This is going to be your hub, or title of your blog post. In the above example I summarized my objective as “creative writing ideas for bloggers”.
• Draw a few spokes with the ideas related to your hub or add mind maps at Bubbl.us. You need to stop when you run out of ideas.
• You should always remember that readers usually keen on benefits, rather than features. You better focus on highlighting their benefits while mapping your ideas. That is why I mentioned the benefits of creative writing for bloggers on the above mind map.
• Pick the spoke that interests you, draw a circle around it, draw some spokes from it, and repeat the process.
• Keep on going until you finish jotting down all the relevant ideas related to your hub.
• Now decide which is your best point. This should be the starting point of your blog post.
• Usually first level of spokes which are linked directly to your hub are going to be your paragraphs or sections.

You need to use this technique at least for a few weeks so that it becomes a habit for you. When the writer’s block hits you next time, use this proven technique to stimulate your mind.

Today I came across Seth Godin’s one of the most recent posts titled Leadership is now the strongest marketing strategy. I took below part from his post:

“It’s enough if the tribe you lead knows about you and cares about you and wants to follow you. It’s enough if your leadership changes things, galvanizes the audience and puts the status quo under stress. And it’s enough if the leadership you provide makes a difference.

Go down the list of online success stories. The big winners are organizations that give tribes of people a platform to connect. Go down the list of fashion businesses or business to business organizations. Same thing. Charities, too. Churches, certainly.

People want to connect. They want you to do the connecting.”

While I am reading Seth’s post, I realized that what we are doing with the new Bloghology Social Network is connecting bloggers and marketers in one platform. We are building Bloghology Tribe with it. It has potential to become big. The first two weeks results are very promising for the future.

P.S. : You may download a free copy of Seth Godin’s audio book Tribes from Audible. They are using the audio book as a freebie promotion. All you need is to register a free account.