A – Z Blogging Guide for Beginners

Ask and thou shalt receive. In what I’ve come to learn, the blogosphere has its fair share wonderful people who are always ready to offer their help and point you in the right direction if you need one. All you need to do is “Ask”

Backup your blog. Losing your data is one thing, being unprepared is another. I really can’t stress enough how important it is to back up your data and take precaution lest anything goes wrong. If you are not doing it yet, let WP Database Backup automate the whole process of daily backup for peace of mind.

Commenting is the way to go. No question about it, blog commenting is a great way to build relationship with other bloggers. It is the most effective of method of driving traffic to your site. If commenting isn’t your kind of thing, grab a copy of Commenting Blueprint before you are out of the game.

Don’t fake it. Unless you are damned sure of what you are talking about, it’s smarter to write something you are knowledgeable about or at the very least have put into practice before. It’s never difficult to tell when a blogger is faking it. The blogosphere is too small for you to lose your credibility this way.

Entertain your readers. Facts and details are deemed to be boring, you need to pay attention that not only your article should be informative, it must also be entertaining.  Jay from SuiteJ did it really well here with his video review. Tell me what you think about it (…mind ya it’s addictive).

Focus on your chosen niche. One of the key factors to blogging success is the ability to define your focus and stay on topic 90% of the time. It’s nothing wrong to write off-topic articles once in a while but unless you are John Chow, no one is interested to know where you had your lunch.

Google tools. Having the right tools such as Feedburners, Webmaster Tools, Analytics makes a whole lot of difference to your site. With all the information at your disposal, it’s easier to stay on top of the game.

Help fellow blogger in need. Your sincerity and willingness to help, no matter how trivial the issue is, will come in handy when you need help from one of them in the future.

Interaction with your readers, in whatever form, is an important part of maintaining a healthy community around your blog. In such an impersonal world of blogging, responding to your readers’ comments adds a little more personal touch to it. Use your blog to start a conversation.

Joining social sites helps to extend your blog exposure to a wider audience. However, it’s best to choose which social sites you’ll join before it turns into “social networking overload”. Personally, I find BlogCatalog, Twitter and StumbleUpon have all worked pretty well for me thus far.

Know your competitors and yourself, you will win every battle – Sun Zhu (the Art of War). Well, I’m not referring to a ‘seek and destroy’ strategy here but rather spying on your competition to understand their strategies and learn what makes them more successful than you.

Link building is the art of building credibility in the eyes of search engines, thus placing your site higher in their search results.

For the uninformed, it’s the process of building inbound links pointing to your own site which can be achieved in general through reciprocal link exchanges, article marketing or commenting on dofollow sites. Either way, it helps in creating awareness, visibility and credibility of your site.

Marketing is the pillar to your online success. The best contents in the world won’t do you any good if you fail to market it to your target audience. As the blogosphere is getting more crowded, it’s much harder to stand out so having the right marketing mix ensure that you can stay longer in the game.

Networking is an integral part of your marketing strategy and building relationship with fellow bloggers should never be the last thing in your agenda. Whether you are looking to improve your blogging skills or increase your readership level, networking is the way to go. Don’t be alone in the blogosphere.

Optimize your site for search engines. The key to SEO success is persuading search engines that your site is relevant in any search query. For a start, let’s take a look at 15 SEO Tips for Beginners that will push your site higher in search results.

Passion is the single most important ingredient that keeps your motivation alive. If you don’t have a passion in what you do, there will come a point in time when blogging becomes a drag and is no longer a fun thing to do anymore. In the absence of it, usually the slightest setback opens the best exit door.

Quality Article. Write from your heart, proofread and speak to your audience through your writing. These are the obvious points yet pretty much overlooked by the majority of beginners. Just remember that it all comes down to quality vs quantity.

Read more. The more you read, the more ideas you will get. I simply can’t think of  a better way to learn from success of others than subscribing and reading other people blogs. It’s simply a great way to improve your knowledge and give you a different perspective of what you have already known.

Speed up your blog. Apart from choosing the right hosting provider, it is also important to ensure that your site is able to handle sudden spike in traffic and WP Super Cache does it pretty well. Here’s 5 possible ways to speed up your blog.

Tracking your stats is an essential part of managing your online presence. Knowing how many visitors you have, where they come from, on what search terms they arrive, which pages are more popular and using all these information is the best way to optimize your site for better results.

Understand your audience. They are the very reason why you blog in the first place. Listen to their feedback and provide the kind of stuff they want to read and not what you want to write. Don’ t be shy to ask your readers what they want more of.

Vote for others’ articles. I often refer to it as “link karma”. You see what goes around comes around eventually. When you link out to others, not only you are providing additional resources to your readers, you are exposing yourself to them in the hope that they will visit your site and link back to you.

Walk the talk. Practice what you preach. Don’t try to be someone you are not. Your honesty is probably the biggest asset you can leverage to gain more loyal subscribers. Again it’s more realistic to choose the subject you are passionate about.

Xchange link. If you just enter into the blogosphere, you are better off exchanging links with fellow bloggers within your niche as part of your initial link building exercise. The key here is to be proactive.

Yan can blog and so can you. Don’t let the fear of uncertainty leads you to inaction. If you are still contemplating to start your own blog, all the reading and learning will not do you any good if you don’t take the first step to just do it. When in doubt, let me hold your hands and help you in your journey. See #1.

Zoom to the top commentator list. It’s no longer a secret that the easiest way to get one-way quality backlink is to comment on other blogs that rewards its most active commenters with a piece of a valuable real estate on their sidebar. If you ain’t sure where to find one, here’s the best places to get quality backlink.

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