SEO Hosting Blog

I don’t know about you, but one of the things I do to become a better blogger and get inspiration is look for tips from other bloggers I trust and respect. Recently, I got in touch with 30 of my blogging friends and had each of them submit a unique blogging tip. The result is what I believe to be an excellent resource that bloggers of all stripes can really benefit from.

Check out these 30 tips from 30 bloggers, and add your best tip by leaving a comment!

1. Michael Abehsera, Eeden Labs:

Focus On Value Not Money. I think the biggest mistake amateur bloggers make is that they launch a blog in order to make money from the blog. Blogging’s main purpose is to show your creativity and new perspective on your industry or what you’re trying to promote. The goal should only be 2 things 1. building value to your readers by writing great content and 2. Seeing your blog as a new form of communication to help you communicate with your customers better. The More remarkable, creative, and Value you provide to your users the more traffic you will get which in turn could bring in new customers to your core business.

2. Ann Smarty, My Blog Guest:

The only way I use to promote any of my blogs is guest posting: both accepting guest contributions and writing as a guest author for others. A guest post published at an established blog and linking to my site gives me visibility and exposure to highly targeted audience: people who like my article are most likely to visit my site and get engaged (comment, subscribe, etc). Besides, this gives me a full control over the anchor text: as I can link from within my bio most often with the keyword text of my choice). Accepting guest posts allows me to keep my blog active and varied in terms of content, topics, styles, etc. Yes, I am picky when it comes to the quality of the guest post but I pay back by promoting the guest post as much as I can (and thus offer my guest author more exposure).

3. Gerald Weber, SEM Group:

Guest post, Guest post and then Guest post some more. This is the best way to expose yourself to a new audience (not in the naked sense but in the networking sense) and it also has the side benefits of helping you build keyword anchor text “one way” in bound links. However you shouldn’t guest post just for the sake of building links. The #1 reason you should guest post is to position yourself as an expert in your niche. If you are newer to the blogging/guest posting game a great way to find awesome guest blogging opportunities is  MyBlogGuest.com which is a community of guest bloggers. If you are still not convinced check out 7 Reasons Why Every Blogger Should Be Guest Posting.

4. AJ Wilcox, Orange Soda local internet marketing:

Be consistent. Decide how often you want to post. If it’s daily, weekly, or monthly, scheduling them predictably will help flourish your readership. If your readers know they can come back at a certain time (or even follow you over RSS, which is much better), they will start looking forward to your content.  When people look forward to it, they become loyal, and loyal readership is exactly what your blog needs more of.

5. Cindy Krum, Rank-Mobile:

Use bullets to make your post easier to understand when someone is in a hurry. Listing things in sequence in a paragraph makes the copy look bulky and hard to read. Bulleted lists make posts look more appealing because they are easier to skim and still understand what is going on. It also makes them look more like a “reference” which will garner more links.

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Whether you’re about to begin your first foray into the blogosphere or you’ve been blogging for years, there are numerous free online tools for helping you become a better blogger. Some of these tools help you avoid writer’s block and others help you become a well rounded blogger.

If you have any tools you’d recommend, leave a comment telling us about your favorites!

1. Linkbait Generator—A simple-to-use online tool that’s designed to make it super easy for you to create linkbait ideas for your blog. Here’s how it works: Just enter your subject into the box, click “submit” and watch what pops up. Just keep clicking the “generate” button and more and more post ideas will be delivered.

2. Plinky—As a writer, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut…a rut where you never grow as a writer and never refine your style. Every day, the website publishes a simple prompt that you have a chance to answer. The writing prompts will force you out of your comfort zone and put your creative muscles to the test. It’s a totally different style of writing, but it’s one that can help you be a better blogger.

3. Google Trends—Finding new ideas to blog about is essential to keeping your blog relevant and fresh. Google Trends shows you what the hottest search trends are right now, allowing you to see what people are most interested in. In addition to seeing which search terms are most popular right now, you can also enter keywords to see their historical search frequency. This can be useful for identifying key phrases that are hot at certain times of the year, so you can capitalize on it at the right time.

4. SpringNote—I’ve found that the best way to avoid writer’s block is to keep a running list of blog ideas. Ideas can come at you at any time. Spring note is a free online notebook that makes it easy for you to record your ideas, collaborate with your friends, and prepare documents. There’s also a SpringNote iPhone app so you can easily take down these ideas on the go.

5. Writing Room—This website is more than just a huge network of writers. It’s also an enormous resource containing how to articles, writing activities, and tools for getting your work rated and commented on. If you’re serious about becoming a better writer, sign up and take a look around.

6. Big Huge Thesaurus Blog Idea Generator—While not as precise as Linkbait Generator, the Big Huge Thesaurus idea generator has hundreds of blog post prompts and ideas. This tool isn’t so much about finding a headline idea to use as a starting point, but rather it’s about discovering a concept for your post. For example, one blog post idea is “An ‘Ah ha!’ moment.” This is something that could be applied in any niche.

7. Blogging Idea Generator—This is a really basic, but effective, homemade blogging tool. It’s just a spreadsheet that you enter search terms into, and it generates a word cloud you can use to formulate article ideas for your blog. Simple. Effective.

Are there any online writing tools you’d add to this list? Share your favorites by leaving a comment.

In the past, as a blogger, one of the things I found myself doing more than I needed was checking my email. About a year ago, I made a new friend on Twitter, Jared Goralnick, over at, TechnoTheory.com. Late one night I sent out a few rants on Twitter about how overwhelmed I was with checking email. He politely contacted me and told me that he could help me. As it turned he had published an amazing eBook titled, The Guide to Not Checking Email. The eBook greatly helped me. Immediatley after reading the first paragraph, I felt like this eBook was talking about me. Everything in the book depicted exactly what I was going through.

Before reading the book I read the above outline and thought to myself. “How in the world is this going to happen?” I mean seriously, how is it possible to spend 75% less time checking email? I don’t have enough time as it is to process the incoming mail I already have! So, right there, that was the attention grabber for me. And then it was backed up by telling me that I will learn how to manage large volumes of email without feeling overwhelmed, how to filter and prioritize emails of importance, and how to be accessible for urgent issues. So, I felt motivated to read the book. But, then I realized who I am, and the fact that I can NEVER sit down and read a book. But that part was taken care of too.

The great part about the eBook, is that he closed it out in 26 pages. I like that. I have the same attention span of a dog. I can’t sit down and read something if it takes longer than five minutes. I am simply too impatient. At any rate, in this book I learned the difference between multi-tasking and batching. Jarred explained that multi-tasking basically dilutes your ability to complete all your tasks because of being spread too thin. In other words, multi-tasking causes a great chance of not getting anything done. Which, if you’re as busy as me, that isn’t good. Batching is simply choosing a time of day to process things by their level of importance in a quick and timely manner.

During the first part of the book, Jarred included some statistics that I am sure you’ll fall right into. I know I sure did. And the reality of knowing this was amazing. Instantly, I wanted to change my habits because I could clearly see how making a few adjustments in my typical day to day ways of doing things could greatly improve my level of productivity. Another aspect of the book that I enjoyed was Jarred’s writing style and entertaining examples he used to deliver his points.

There’s a section where he explains that your email inbox shouldn’t be used as a task list. Ironically, prior to reading his eBook, that was exactly what I was doing with mine. At any rate, he explained his point with this quote: “Do you walk outside, open your physical mailbox, leaf through last year’s mail, find a message to look at, take it out of the envelope, read it, put it back in the envelope, and then return it to the mailbox?” The answer is obvious. No, you don’t. And then he adds, “Then why would you do that with your email inbox?”

All in all, if you’re looking to get control of your email, I strongly recommend reading Jarred’s eBook. I still find it amazing how 26 pages helped me go from pulling my hair out and upsetting all my customers to providing amazing and timely customer service while enjoying all of my day being productive and feeling great about myself. Jarred is a great writer, and has a great way of explaining things to people who are obviously challenged a little bit with being organized. His eBook hit a home run with me, and I am confident that it will do the same for you. If you have had issues in the past with being overwhelmed with incoming email, what are some things that you have done to changes things?

Okay, I admit that I’ve been on a bit of a guest blogging tangent my last few posts. Most recently, I offered some tips for attracting more guest posts on your blog. Once the guest posts start rolling in, you’ll need to have a system in place for accepting and posting them. If you aren’t organized, this can be time-consuming and overwhelming. The good news is it’s pretty easy to create a workable system for managing your guest bloggers.

Here are some tips to streamline the process.

• Immediately decline posts that don’t meet quality standards—Don’t waste your time struggling to make low quality posts fit your blog. Your time is more valuable than that. Just immediately respond to those who submit posts letting them know the reasons you’re rejecting their guest post. If they wish to correct the post and resubmit it later, you can allow it, but you don’t want to be spending your time having to go through every little detail of posts that are obviously not up to snuff.
• Let the blogger know when the post will be published—Once you’ve accepted a guest post, schedule it and tell the blogger when he (or she) can expect to see it go live. This way, the author knows when to check back so he can respond to comments, promote his post, etc.
• Consider creating contributor accounts for guest posters—If you use WordPress for blogging, you can allow guest bloggers to register for a basic author account. This allows the writer to put the post into WordPress, format it, and submit it to you for review. Then, if the post is good enough, all you have to do is schedule it to be published. This can save a lot of time as you don’t have to upload the posts and format them.
• Try publishing guest posts on a specific day each week—As a frequent guest blogger, one thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of blogs have specific days of the week they post guest content. For instance, I just submitted a guest post to an internet marketing blog, and the blog owner explained it would be published 2 Wednesdays from now, because he only puts out guest content on Wednesdays. This helps your readers know when to expect guest posts, and it just keeps your blog structured properly.

How do you manage incoming guest posts? Share your tips by leaving a comment.

By now, you may have read my post detailing the 7 reasons you should accept guest posts on your blog. And hopefully, you’ve read a little bit about why it’s important to turn away bad guest posts and only accept posts that meet your high standards. Now that you have this basic information down, you need to start attracting guest posts. These posts aren’t just going to come out of thin air. You have to be a little proactive if you want people to submit guest posts on your blog.

What can you do to get more guest posts?

• Create a “Write for Us” page—I guest post around the web on a regular basis. One thing I like is when blogs have a “Write for Us” page on their blog. This simple navigation link lets you know that a blog accepts guest posts, and it links to a page with guest blogging guidelines for readers. It’s an easy way to encourage readers to write for your blog.
• Put a brief intro on all guest posts—At the beginning of all guest posts, put a brief intro along the lines of: This is a guest post from Joe Smith. Want to write for us? Check out our guest blogging guidelines. By putting this at the top of the post, you ensure all readers see it and are made aware that they can submit a guest post.
• Sign up on My Blog Guest—Without a doubt, My Blog Guest is one of my favorite resources. This community allows blog owners and guest bloggers to connect. Just sign up for an account, and create a post letting members know you’re accepting guest posts on your blog. Chances are, you’ll get a good response.
• Give bloggers an incentive for posting—Bloggers are no different from anyone else. At the end of the day, they’re self-interested, and they want to know what they’ll get out of guest blogging on your website. Links back to their website? Exposure to thousands of readers? Featured on the home page? Clearly spell out the benefits to attract more guest bloggers.

Do you accept guest posts on your blog? What do you do to let bloggers know?