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Dealing with Internet trolls – The Real Way!

May 17th, 2010

Ahh, the internet troll… what a fascinating creature it is. The limits of it’s hypocritical behaviour knows no bounds. On one hand it will talk shit, hate on you and rape you into verbal submission about whatever you decide to write about… while on the other hand the internet troll gets nothing done and has nothing to show for it’s existence. It’s like a little annoying terrier. It’ll run around and bark all day long trying to act tough, but the minute you stare it down and step the fuck up, it’ll retreat, cower and maybe bark some more.

*rawf!* *rawf!* *rawf!*

…And thank god for these creatures, because they are needed. You see, just as how the animal kingdom needs the mighty lion, the cunning fox and the fatty hippo, so too does the blogging world need the sweet ones, the sour ones, the bitchy ones, the intelligent ones, the boring ones, the hot ones and the straight up sexy ones.

The trolls keep everything in balance. People are so obnoxiously soft these days it’s actually pathetic. Let me give you an example: I got infractions and ban threats for swearing a few times at the ProBlogger forums… needless to say I go the hell outta there. Now I’m not hatin’ on the place, I actually met some GREAT bloggers there and I’m thankful for that (like Marko). But the few that were acting up… it’s like “Seriously?!” Can you believe people were bitching because they read a few potty mouth words?

Give me a break, grow the fuck up, and learn how to ignore words if you don’t like it… you’re not being forced. These people would likely crumble in the presence of trolls.

So back to my point. If you don’t believe in the idea of “balance” or if none of what I said about trolls floats your boat… then at the very least, I’m sure you can agree that they keep us entertained.

At least those of us with a sense of humour.

BUT…

There does come a time when the troll population starts to prop up too fast for our own good… and you need to shoot down a few to keep everything from getting buck wild and crazy. Just like your pubes. A little hair on your crotch signifies you as a MANLY man! But a forest signifies that you aren’t trying and therefore not getting laid.

Or you could be married…

TMI? Oh well, too bad.

So what exactly should you do when you encounter a stank-ass comment on your blog left by one of these hideous creatures?

Well I’ll tell you what NOT to do. Don’t follow the big “blogging guru’s” advice… which is to “just move on” or “just ignore it”. I mean, your blog is your HOME. It’s where you spend a lot of your time and effort and you should demand respect for it.

Think about your REAL home for a second. Would you let some random ass toolbag walk into your house and talk shit about you, your set up, your layout or anything else about your property? I seriously hope not.

So why the fuck is it OK to put up with bullshit from someone who is trolling your blog? Its not! So grow a pair (yes ladies, you too) and put them in their place. Now remember, I’m not saying “start useless fights” (although those can be fun at times). I’m saying put them in their place… there is a difference. Be authoritative, and let them know who runs the show. I believe you should practice this protocol 90% of the time. You’ll not only develop some killer leadership skills, you’ll also grow that “thicker skin” faster. And that’s never a bad thing.

Then other 10% of the time, you can practice active ignorance. Because let’s face it… there ARE times when the comment is just so fucking lame or “out there” that it’s not worth your time to respond to it. Now, to show you how it’s done… here are some real world examples of comments and emails that I’ve gotten and my response to them:

Troll: hahahaha. Your an idiot.

FJ: Ha-ha… I’m glad you have a sense of humor. It’s just too bad it doesn’t make up for your lack of intelligence.

–

Troll: you’re pretty full of yourself. why should i take your advice? so what? …you have low bodyfat, other than that, you’re a manlet. you got a 6 pack but most women have larger shoulders and arms than you. if you were 25lbs heavier at that bf% i’d take your advice. just sayin…

FJ: lol it’s funny because you think I care about size. I don’t! If i wanted to be bigger, I would be. As for why you’d want to take my advice… that’s for YOU to decide. But it’s a little odd that you’d ONLY take my advice if I was bigger (i.e if I bumped my daily caloric intake by 1000…) Seriously? That’s what it takes for someone to build rep in your eyes? That’s fucking weak dude.

–

Troll: Fit Jerk, Your a fucking idiot, you have no idea what your talking about. If i ever find out who you are and where you live ill beat your ASS!! you have no clue what your talking about so with that said go fuck your mom!

FJ: Haha, was my simple, straight-forward logic too much for you to understand? Or is the word “metaphor” not included in your limited vocabulary? You sad, sad excuse for a human being. It’s ok, I get it, your brain circuits have fried and now you’re angry. If I had your pathetic level of intelligence I would be furious too.

You may shoot yourself now. I hear WalMart has a sale on shotguns this weekend.

–

(This comment was left after an interview I did on NotAProBlog.com)

Troll: Lame, pathetic, Rich Jerk wannabe. Expected more from you, Jordan, but now I know better. Time to move on to more relevant, useful blogs.

FJ: Here’s a little wake up call – You’re not important enough for people to live up to YOUR expectations of what someone ELSE’S blog should have on it or not. Truth hurts.
Jordan is a true giver, if you can’t find value on this site (and I’m not talking about my interview) then you have some serious issues.

Conclusion

I think those are enough to hammer my point home. I can go all day with examples… but what I want you to notice are 2 key things.

I’m having a fucking blast. I think it’s FUNNY that they actually put in the effort to write up some BS, fill in the CAPTCHA form and press “submit” just to try and piss me off. They try so hard… it makes me feel all soft, special and delicious on the inside. Kind of like a Twinkie.
NONE of them had the balls to respond back. Why? Because I put them in their place. This is what I was talking about. Don’t start fights… put them in their place and end them. If anyone of those clowns did respond back… that’s when Id practice my active ignorance. What I needed to say, I said. If they re-responded, they would’ve just looked like try-hard losers and I wouldn’t have to do jack shit. Game. Set. FJ!

So that’s how I deal with trolls. I’m not saying its the best way… I’m just saying it’s my way, and if you adopt this little method, you’ll not only have plenty of laughs for years to come, but you’ll be able to blog and hold your own without fearing what the “trolls” might say about your content.

A guest post by FitJerk. While he has a passion for writing and oozes the entrepreneurial spirit, FJ is a Fitness Expert first, and focuses on impeccably accurate advice that is delivered it in a straight forward, No-BS style. Check out his Fitness Blog and E-Training program! . Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

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Why the readers would want display advertising on my blog

May 11th, 2010

Let’s say that you’re now a couple posts into your blogging adventure. Ok, maybe more than a couple if you weren’t committed enough at the beginning. So you have your design pimped up, social-sharing tools installed and analytics in place.

You also have readers. They comment on your posts, retweet your messages and share bits of your wisdom on Facebook. Why? Because they care about the topic you cover. They agree with your point of view. Or they disagree, but still value your opinion.

Blog readers form a community

They’re also aware of each other – having conversations and sometimes arguments in the comments, reading other similar blogs, buying similar products. Have you noticed? They form a community!

Your blog creates a community of like-minded individuals – centred around topic, location or perhaps demographics. And like in each community you will have contributors, trolls, spectators, and… watch it… business people.

Yes – if your blog is attracting readers, some of them will have businesses related to your main topic – like WordPress design, SEO consultancy, or babysitting (if you’re a mommyblogger). Which in turn means, that some of them will want to reach other members of your community with their commercial message. Wait – they are probably already doing it, if only by using comments section.

Some of them will be persistent enough to email you directly, but most often they will presume, that no advertising means no advertising. They can’t reach other readers. Community loses information about a product or service that they could probably like. You lose revenue. Everybody loses.

Controlled-by-you-space

What happens if you provide anyone a controlled-by-you-space to reach other readers with their commercial message? You bind your community closer. Your advertisers will become your advocates, as you will help them with their business.

And some of them will buy ads just to support your work. Readers will appreciate a dedicated space, where the message is obviously commercial and relevant to their focus. You will get revenue, but also expand your relationship with the community.

The money might not be enough to ditch your day job. Maybe it will just cover your blogging expenses. But everyone will get more value.

Super-simple way of selling ads directly

A lot of publishers on our network are not large blogs. They won’t make a lot of money through Adsense, and big advertisers have no way of reaching them.

But by having a super-simple way of selling ads directly to their readers, the bloggers are able to make some money (sometimes a very significant some). Their readers can see relevant products, not only those reviewed by the author. And the readers’ businesses grow together with those blogs.

In that case – everyone wins – don’t you think?

A guest post by Marcin Grodzicki who works for a self service blog advertising network AdTaily. He contributes to Daily on AdTaily and some other blogs, as his own personal blog still needs a lot of pimping up You can reach him on Twitter. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

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How to analyze the popularity of a website

May 6th, 2010

A Guest Post by Anil Gupta from scopeformoney.

How will you react when someone asks you how good is this website?

You may reply in the ways like: it’s a very popular website, its just average website or nothing much in this website. These are just predictions and you may reply the way you like when giving your views about a website.

In today’s post, I’m going to share all major parameters before making decision about the popularity of a website.

Website Page Rank

First thing that came to know my mind is checking how much score Google has given to this website on the scale of 0 to 10 where 0 is the minimum score and 10 is the maximum score. Any website having score 5 or more (Page Rank of 5 or more), will be a contender for very famous website in its niche.

Alexa Ranking

Next thing that I came to my mind is checking that website Alexa Rankings. No doubt, you cannot predict much about the traffic of a website, by looking at its Alexa rankings. But still Alexa is one of most checked parameter when we are making decisions about the popularity of a website.

With rankings, Alexa website also provides you other important matrices about that website like page views, bounce rate, time on site, traffic percentage from major countries, List of keywords for which website is currently ranking high on search engines etc.

Keywords rankings

It is the most important and also difficult task where I check that website rankings for some of major keywords they are targeting through different sections on that website. So it will include creating a big list of keywords (highly searched) that website is targeting and using a rank check tool to find out that website current position for those keywords in all major search engines like Google, yahoo and Bing.

If that website is ranking well for most of those keywords and those keywords are well searched keywords, then you can expect that website must have been getting decent amount of traffic from search engines.

Presence on Social Networks

Then it comes about checking how active they are on Social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut etc. And are they submitting some stuff from their website on Social bookmarking websites like Digg, Delicious, Propeller, StumbleUpon etc.

Some Basis details

This step includes checking some other basic details about that website like:

Number of cached pages in search engines
Number and quality of links in search engines
Domain Age
Presence of Open directory projects like Dmoz, Yahoo Directory etc
When this domain will be expiring
Mixed Stuff

Here are some more points that come to my mind when I think of doing details analysis about the popularity of a website:

Are they using videos to promote their website products and services
Are they running some offline campaign to promote their website
Are they involved in buying some kind of advertisement on popular websites and blogs in their niche?
Date available from other tools on the internet like Compete, Google Trends, Quantcast etc

Which parameters do you use to judge whether a particular website is popular or not? Share with us in the comments section below.

Anil Gupta writes about making money, seo, affiliate marketing, social networks and blog tips on Scopeformoney.com website, Subscribe to his RSS Feed for more information. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

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The journey of a successful blog post (Infographic)

May 3rd, 2010

I wanted to show you a journey of a successful blog post in one infographic. One of my most popular blog posts ever is the 18 most downloaded WordPress plugins ever so this is the post that infographic tries to examine and show its way from being published, to being spread to thousands of bloggers within some 24 hours.

Click on image for the full view

Thanks to Daniel of Afterman.net for creating this infographic.

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10 tips to stay focused when blogging

April 27th, 2010

It is quite common for writers to become distracted. Your mind can begin to wander and before you know it, the clock has moved ahead several minutes or even an hour! Blogging requires concentration to ensure your content is interesting. Here are a few hints for helping you to keep your focus while blogging.

1. Blog From Home

It is tempting to take your laptop along with you and to blog at the local coffee shop or café, but it is best to do your blogging from home because it is there that you have total control over your distractions. Find a quiet spot in the house and make it your own.

2. Write Faster

If you write/type quickly, your mind does not have time to wander. Let the ideas flow and get them down quickly. Don’t concern yourself with spelling and grammar errors – just allow your mind to flow. When done, simply go over what you have done in order to make any necessary edits. Many professional writers use this technique and find it very helpful.

3. Listen to Music

Some people who find themselves becoming easily distracted while blogging turn on the radio or their stereo to listen to their favourite tunes while writing. Music tends to keep your mind on task, while sitting in dead silence often results in your mind wandering.

4. Stay Away From Email

Once you sit down to begin blogging, make a promise to yourself that you will not check your email every ten minutes. It is best to close all windows on your computer except for the ones needed for blogging so you will not be tempted to check or answer your email.

5. Definitely No Facebook or Twitter

Many of us routinely check Facebook and Twitter numerous times during the day to see what our friends are up to. You will end up spending a couple of hours writing a rather straight-forward blog posting that would otherwise take you fifteen or twenty minutes to write if you are checking everyone’s profile on FB instead of concentrating on your writing.

6. Mute Your Mobile Phone

Once you have decided to do your blogging, eliminate the possibility of being disturbed by a ringing phone by turning your mobile phone on mute. Whoever tries to reach you while you are writing can either leave a voice mail or call you later.

7. Disable Chat Programs

If you are an online chatter, close the programs down or show your status as ‘offline’ or ‘busy’. You cannot stay focused on blogging if your IM window is blinking every few minutes. Again, your friends will be there when you are finished.

8. Write Early in the Morning or Late at Night

It is often best to do your blogging early in the morning or late at night. This is when there is less traffic and fewer people out on the streets outside your window. Many bloggers prefer to get started bright and early in the stillness of the mornings.

9. De-Clutter Your Workspace

A messy desk is not conducive to productivity. Clean up your workspace by removing distracting items from your desk. Keep your work area neat and avoid keeping too many items on the desk in front of you, as the simplest item can become very distracting. Make it a habit to de-clutter every day before sitting down to blog.

10. Eat Well and Don’t Skip Meals

This should go without saying, but if your stomach is growling your mind will inevitably wander to the topic of food and about what you want to eat. Eat a well rounded and nutritious meal before blogging and be sure to keep some healthy snacks on hand when you need a lift.

By following these tips, you should be able to be quite productive when blogging and should find it easy to stay focused. The best bloggers out there know all too well the importance of staying on task and eliminating distractions. Happy blogging to you!

Tom Walker is a full time blogger and designer who works with an online store offering print supplies such as HP 300 ink. He regularly blogs about art and advertising design on their blog, the CreativeCloud. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

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How unsociable is your blog?

April 20th, 2010

Over the last few years I have reviewed thousands of blogs whilst looking to develop either my own profile or market client brands. My blogger community SeededBuzz has meant that I have reviewed over 3,000 blogs in a few short months. This means I feel more qualified than most to say that most bloggers are actually unsociable. Here are my observations, tips and advice on what makes a sociable blogger and why it is key to blogging success.

Read other blogs

Are you a blogger that only plays at home or are you interested in what other are writing and aren’t afraid to travel? When you read a great post do you comment?

I ask because if you do take an interest in other bloggers then you are going to make friends because the blogs you reach out and say hello to are going to respond and take an interest in you and your blog in return. They may even include valuable links to your blog that pass traffic and Google juice. Good places to find blogs to follow include: Alltop, Google and Post Rank.

Mention and link to other blogs when you write

When you do read a blog post that inspires you, link to it. There’s a good chance the author monitors their traffic sources and backlinks and will know about the link and pay you a visit. You should also do the same. Google Analytics will tell you which sites have provided you with visitors and Yahoo Site Explorer or Open Site Explorer will give you a list of sites that link to you, and an opportunity to open up a conversation and make a new blogger friend.

Basecamps and Outposts?

If you’re sociable you’re likely to consider your blog as your basecamp but have social outposts like Facebook and Twitter where you’re also happy to have a conversation. A multi-social approach will extend your reach and if you do make friends at any of your social outposts you can introduce them to your blog and turn them into loyal readers and contributors.

Guest Post

There are just so many upsides to guest posting. If you accept posts you get fresh blog posts for free. This is great for ensuring you’re able to keep your content interesting and frequent – something your readers will thank your for. If you offer posts you get to introduce your work to a wider audience and get your blog another important backlink. You can find bloggers that accept guest posts or offer your services at My Blog Guest and SeededBuzz.

If you don’t send them you don’t get them?

I have stolen this saying from my father-in-law. He sends letters and emails all the time and he gets them all the time. My wife on the other hand sends very few and moans because she only gets bills and junk mail. If you want to engage with other bloggers you need to communicate with your audience in what ever way they want to be communicated with. Email, mention, link, comment or smoke signal. If it works for them it works for you.

It sounds like a lot of effort

Making and keeping friends is a lot of effort but every blog that has a significant following does all of the above and more. If you want your blog to be read by a wider audience or even make money from blogging you need to engage with others. That’s why it’s called social media. Give it a go and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

A guest post by Matt Roberts, who is the founder of SeededBuzz, a blogger community that help blogger meet other bloggers and promote themselves. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

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6 reasons why you should avoid automated blogging tools

April 12th, 2010

I recently saw a listing at Flippa.com where the sales page talks of creating content for your blog without you having to do anything. The blog on sale was creating content based on an automated tool.

The sales pitch for the blog was as below:

“With this service you can create targeted blog posts, without writing. You can start hundreds of blogs on every possible topic and you don’t even have to know a single thing about it. You can generate the craziest amount of traffic to these blogs, while you sleep!”

Sounds great except that it does not do any good to your readers or to your blog. These blogs have built in auto blogging software that creates blog posts based on RSS feeds from other blogs. You don’t need to create any content for these blog as it pulls in the auto feed each time a new blog is posted.

Why you should avoid automated blogging

Below are six reasons why you should avoid automated blogging:

No unique content

If you a want to be successful at blogging, you need to create unique content. Every successful blog has unique content.

If your blog isn’t unique, you wont have a personal voice, you wont gain any trust from eventual readers, which means you probably will have to rely on Adsense with those 9 visitors you might be able to get.

Useless Content

Useful content is something that every successful ‘how-to’ blog is delivering. Successful blogs solves people’s problems.

When these automated tools import posts, they will most likely import posts from all over the blogsophere across all niches. So your blog will have posts from across all blog niches. Example: One post from a health blog and another from a gambling site.

Building Trust

When you have “no unique content ‘ and ‘useless content’ you will not be able to create a community or a readership following. There will not be any trust for your blog.

The Google slap

Google hates spammy Google views most of these automated blogs as spammy, they provide no value to the user and have tons of duplicate content. Duplicate content is content that appears on more than one website on the web. Domains that are classified as duplicate content domains will never be seen as an authority by Google.

You will not increase your page rank and if you have a page rank it will eventually drop.

Blog shut down

Your host can eventually shut down your blog. If you republish a blogger’s content, that blogger could contact your host and get your blog shut down in a matter of minutes.

Short term success

You may have heard or seen an automated blog claiming to make good money via ads or Adsense, but its only temporary, these blogs have a short life span and can make only a few dollars before they are shut down or banned.

Have you used any automated blogging tools?

What you as a real and a clean blogger can do is to create worthwhile, useful and unique content. You can make readers come back, because of your extraordinary content. I would rather create something that is long-term and not happens overnight, than something short-term that happens overnight.

Have you used any automated blogging tools? Or just though about using it?

A guest post by ZK who runs a web marketing blog. He generally does not guest post but if given an opportunity makes the best of it. You can also follow him on Twitter. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

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6 things to do before publishing your first blog post

April 8th, 2010

Picture this scenario: you’ve just decided you’re going to start a blog. You may have even purchased your domain and installed WordPress. You write an article talking about your aims for the site or something you think your future audience is going to want to read.

Then you hit the publish button, and wait for the traffic to flood in. After all, that’s what you should be doing, right?

If you want to follow the same process as millions of other people before you then yes, you can do that. Alternatively, you could learn from my mistakes and implement as many of my following six recommendations as you can, and launch your new blog in style.

There are millions of people who have followed the above process, but you’ll find the majority are no longer active. For the 100+ million blogs that are said to be active online, you can bet your life savings that there are a lot more that have been started and then left to rot in the dark corners of the internet.

1. Make Sure You’re Writing About the Right Thing

By “the right thing” I simply mean a topic you’re passionate about. You’ll hear most successful bloggers telling you to write about what you love and the advice isn’t anything new, but it’s still not always followed.

To find out if you’ve chosen the right niche for your blog, I like to ask myself (or encourage others to ask themselves) two questions:

Could you generate enough ideas to write 100 articles on the subject?
Would you accept the possibility that after 12 months of blogging, you could have made no money and have no audience?

The last is a little extreme as anyone who writes consistently for a year is going to have some form of success, but that was my situation. In my first year of blogging I didn’t receive one comment, had 6 feed subscribers, and wrote purely for search engines.

I had little clue as to what I was doing, but I loved my topic, and now that blog is a thriving success. I also managed to build one of the biggest personal development blogs in the world in just 12 months and I think a huge part of that success was writing about what I love.

If you answered yes to both questions, then you’re off to a good start.

2. Agree Now You’ll Remain Consistent

Now we have one important topic out of the way, I’m going to introduce you to another: blogging consistency. There are very few core, fundamental keys to blogging, but consistency is definitely one of them. Look at any blog on the Technorati Top 100 and you’ll find they’ve been around for at least 2 years.

Copyblogger? Problogger? Zen Habits? Steve Pavlina? These are all sites that have posted content consistently for years and there’s no doubt that’s one of the reasons they are where they are today.

Sign an agreement with yourself right now that you’ll remain consistent with your blogging for at least X months. I recommend 6 or 12, before throwing in the towel. The reason most blogs “fail” is simply because the author stops updating them.

I know, because I’ve let a number of blogs die through lack of consistency. Yet, the ones I kept working on always, eventually, became successful. You can’t consistently post bad content that nobody wants to read and hope to be a success, but you can aim to provide genuine value to people on a regular basis.

Unless your passion dies, do not stop within the timeframe of your agreement. It took me 7 months to build PluginID up to 500 subscribers, and just another 5 before it had 4,000. The hardest part of blogging is the initial hurdle; so decide now that you’re going to keep at it.

3. Have a Nice Design in Place

I say nice design because I accept that most new bloggers simply don’t have the time or the funds to have a unique, professional design in place. The most successful bloggers aren’t the ones with the best design. Your content does the talking, but at least stand out from the crowd a little.

Many of the free themes you find online have been used by thousands of other websites and they’re just going to make it look like you don’t care about your website. Try to steer clear of ‘popular theme’ lists as these generally have the most users.

I’m not saying free designs are bad, but I am saying that if you use one, at least tweak it so that you aren’t like the 1,000 other blogs who use the theme. If you can spare $20-$30, then I recommend checking out ThemeForest.net or ElegantThemes.com and trying out some of their themes.

Even though some of them are used on a lot of sites, there really are some amazing designs to be found that make up for their slight lack of individuality. A design won’t make or break you, but don’t let it hold you back.

4. Make Subscribing Obvious

Once you’ve set-up Feedburner so you can track the number of subscribers to your feed, make it easy for people to access your content. Many bloggers, myself included, fall into the trap of thinking that they’ll improve the site once it becomes successful and they start seeing a return.

I realised the mistake in this logic when my site was suddenly hit by a wave of 1,000+ targeted visitors and my design was cluttered, and subscribing was hard. I vowed never to be in the position again where I’m losing quality leads because of a 10-minute job.

Have clear links to your RSS feed and email subscription box (Feedburner can give you the code for this) from the start so that you can build your audience as quickly as possible. If you’re in the mindset where you’re waiting for success rather than working proactively then that success will take longer to come.

5. Set-Up Your Permalinks

Your permalinks are simply the URL’s of your articles. For example, on my blog by default, the post links looked something like http://www.viperchill.com/?p=38. This doesn’t tell search engines what your page is about, and it doesn’t give users a clue either.

Instead, if you go to Settings >> Permalinks, you can make those URL’s far more attractive. I simply use /%postname%/ as I feel it’s the best for SEO and allows me to keep the links short, but go with what you feel is best for you.

Now, when I write an article, I can have a structure like http://www.viperchill.com/write-an-ebook/. The reason I recommend you doing this now is so that if your site picks up any links to the old post style and you change, then it’s going to be a pain to redirect them over in a search engine friendly way.

6. Prepare Other Content

I have a friend who built up his blog very quickly, but had to slowly let it die because of his commitments at university. What’s worse is that he constantly announces that new articles are coming, but has to backtrack because of studying and exams.

Make it easier on yourself, and better for your readers, by preparing a number of articles before launch. You don’t have to use them all if you have the time to write fresh ones, but if you want to keep to a consistent schedule, then they’ll save you when life’s typical interruptions come into play.

I don’t leave any full articles in my WordPress Dashboard, but I do have a number of drafts that I could clean up in 20 minutes and push to go live. Start your blog with a bang by having some great content ready in the works.

These are some of my best tips for when you’re starting a new blog. If you have your own suggestions based on experience, I would love to hear them in the comments!

This was an article by Glen who writes about viral marketing. He helps people build remarkable websites that others naturally want to talk about. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.

Image by Untitled Blue.

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London bloggers calling: Join the London Blog Club – video review

April 6th, 2010

Another month, another London Blog Club meetup. Last month I mentioned London bloggers club, a new meetup I was part of. Our second ever meetup was held last month and 32 bloggers from London showed up. As usual we had a chat on blogging and shared different advice.

There was a presentation from Jorgen Sundberg on personal branding and how you can use Linkedin to promote your own blog. We even had a sponsor in Chris Tradgett of Buy.at who gave away a ticket to Social Media Forum in London plus took care of the bar tab!

Next London Blog Club meetup is this Wednesday, April 7th at Pitcher & Piano in Holborn, London. See details and RSVP at London Blog Club page.

Here is a great video clip created by Filip Matous from last month’s blog club. It shows what you can expect if you join us this time:

Excellent meetup. Friendly atmosphere. Great crowd.

Some comments from the last month’s London Blog Club:

Shash: “Great bunch and lots of useful info. Will def be attending again ”

Keith Errington: “Really enjoyed my evening – excellent presentation (I learned a number of things – which is good going for an old hand like me!) and met some really interesting and friendly people. Good discussions and intelligent conversation. When’s the next one?”

Philippe: “The meeting provided some great insight into using professional social networking sites (such as Linked In) to generate interest in blogs. Drinks were provided by buyat.com”

Jinnat Hasan: “Excellent meetup. Friendly atmosphere. Great crowd. Tamara & I want to thank everyone to share their knowledge & suggestions with us. We spent a nice and productive time. All credit goes to Newlands, Marko and Filip. Can’t wait for the next meetup!”

Laura Thomson: “Great people with useful contributions…a very worthwhile spend of a wed evening!”

Jorgen Sundberg: “It was a really good night with lots of discussions about blogging. I reckon we get someone to talk about Twitter and/or Facebook next time? Thx to Murray, Filippe and Marko for putting on the show. And thx to Chris for booze ”

Join us for London Blog Club April

London Blog Club April edition takes place April 7th. See details and RSVP at London Blog Club Meetup page. I hope to see you there.

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Thesis Theme 1.7 features will improve your blogging options

April 1st, 2010

New version of Thesis Theme has just been released – Thesis 1.7. I’ve installed it on one of my blogs to take a look at the new features and test it all out.

One of the first things to note is that there are now two new options in the Thesis Theme menu line: Page Options and Manage Options.

Looking into all the different options, there has been a lot of SEO stuff added: Robots Meta Tags with noindex, nofollow and noarchive are now customizable down to the smallest detail.

Another small detail is that you can now select to display or not to display a message in case that your comments are closed.

It is now also very easy to add different Javascript libraries. It is just one-click. I am not sure how this feature works so there is a need for a tutorial on which library to choose and why.

One of the nicest changes in Thesis Theme 1.7 for me is the Comment Options. You can now easily choose if you want to display comments only, trackbacks only or both. You can also easily rearrange their positions so comments can be shown first and trackbacks last. Very easy and very nice!

That is not all, you can also choose to show avatars, comment numbers, comment author name, date, comment reply link. All these options can be rearranged so you can make a very unique looking comments section.

Thesis guys are also promising that a lot of pages and codes have been rewritten for this new version, which means that all blogs running 1.7 should run and load faster compared to the older versions.

All in all, Thesis 1.7 seems like a nice update and as usual upgrades are free for all the users. Enjoy and go create a better blog!

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My name is Marko Saric and I help bloggers succeed. Subscribe to the RSS feed to join thousands of bloggers and get all my blogging tips for FREE!

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