Wayne Liew Dot Com

Wayne Liew Dot Com is all about simple blogging tips, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to get yourself free blogging tips updates.

Beware, blog readers! If you are a Mr. Nice Guy blogger, please ignore this post as I will be teaching another evil blogging tips preceding from Creating A Stunning and Memorable First Time Visit that will help improve your blog a little bit more.

It is a must to feature your best work on either your blog header or blog sidebar in order to impress readers with the best work of yours since you started your blog. I have come across this little trick when I was replying to my best blogging tips, 10 Reasons You Are Not Getting Comments.

As you can see in the post, which is featured on the sidebar, got itself 74 comments. The 74 is a whopping figure as compared to the comments received by other blogging tips of mine. The basic idea of this evil trick is to put up a list of blog posts bearing the "BEST" label so that readers got attracted to the posts.

Continue reading Spread Traffic Within Blog: Fake Popular Posts List

Blog sidebars reconstruction tips were provided two weeks ago so that your blog sidebars can help to bring out the elements of your blog which you would like to show from now on but at the same time, keeping the risks of spoiling your blog design and causing frustrations to your readers low.

In this article, I will be giving out more tips on how you can maximize the utilization of your blog sidebars without having blog readers letting them out in the cold again.

Don’t Neglect Blog Sidebars

A blog needs to have at least one sidebar and even traditional static sites will normally have one. It is an undoubted fact that sidebar enhances navigation and provides more space to fulfils visitors’ information and visualization needs.

One of the reasons why blog visitors no longer pay much attention to blog sidebars is that most blog sidebars are not properly managed and as time passes by, the neglected sidebar will slowly flows into the blind spot of blog readers.

Continue reading Blog Sidebar Further Enhancement Tips [Part 2]

Blog sidebar is one element of blog design that bloggers cannot ignore. However, blogger often face the few problems below with the sidebars on their blogs:

• Underutilized sidebars
• Flashy sidebars
• Never-ending sidebars
• Slow loading sidebars
• Sidebars in readers’ blind spot

Blog Sidebar Reconstruction Two Part Series

Ruchir touched on the downside of long articles with 7 Things I Hate About Blogging and it made me split this piece of blogging content into a two part article.

The first will be covering on step-by-step guide for a blog sidebar reconstruction and the next part (up next week) will be covering on blog improvement tips which you can use to enhance your sidebar and its usability on your blog.

If you have, seems to have or have doubts whether your sidebars have the few problems listed above, continue reading as this article and the upcoming one will present you with a packed guide and tips on how you can improve your blog by just tweaking the sidebars.

Continue reading Blog Sidebar Basic Reconstruction Tips [Part 1]

Wayne Liew Dot Com was not meant to be a blogging tips blog. What I really want to do with this blog right from the start is to fill it up with daily rants, pull it through the first 3 months and start earning money with it via paid posts.

I slowly changed my style, in fact the whole direction of the blog is changed. I became interested in blogging and got fascinated by just replying e-mails to assimilate some simple blogging tips.

Photo by: tanakawho

A blogging style change can be of a minor change or a major one which I classify as below:

• Major blogging style change. This change can be a total change of niche. Wayne Liew Dot Com can be an example for this as I switched the blog from a personal blog to a blogging tips blog that you see now.
• Minor blogging style change. This can be a change of your writing style. You might be writing on a commanding tone before this and changing to a more interacting tone is thought by you as the better choice.

Today, I will be providing blogging tips on how you can properly complete the whole transition. Follow my tips below and you will manage to get a successful change of style for your blog without being disappointed. If you think I am disappointed with my decision to change the blog into a blogging tips blog in October 2007, are you of sound mind?

Continue reading Action Plan For A Successful Blogging Style Change

Blog clean up must be done once in a while. Some parts of your blog tend to be used over and over again, without realizing that some unsung heros behind it are actually gathering dusts because the last time you visit them is probably the day you set your blog up.

Photo by pedrosimoes7

Today I would like to share with you a few places of your blog that you might need to pay a visit to pump in fresh air to these places. These places won’t annoy your readers at large but you might lose some of your readers who entered your blog via other points rather than your main entrance.

Another reason for a clean up is to boost server loads. Every time your page loads, it might be slowed down by some "behind the scenes" elements which I will show you in this list as well.

10 Important Clean Up Sections For A Blog

Plugins

When we stop using a plugin or a plugin seems to be bugging our blog, we tend to deactivate it. Considering the fact that we might need to use the plugin in the future, we did not delete it from our FTP folders. The longer you blog, you tend to experiment and discontinue the service of certain plugins, adding more and more deactivated plugins to the list.

Since the introduction of Wordpress version 2.3, Plugins section in our admin panel will tend to have a reminder column under a plugin if we did not update the plugin to its latest version. Deactivated plugins tend to have such reminders as well if they are not updated, making the list long and messy.

Continue reading Vital Sections for a Blog Clean Up

Photo by the plunkmaster

Blog footer are said to be the least accessible place for average Joe blog surfers. Webmasters or fellow bloggers might be reading the footer to check out your stats (research on your traffic) and theme resource link (they want your theme).

Conclusion from the statements above shown that whatever the frequency and types of readers reaching your blog footer, there are still people viewing it.

Readers often arrive at your blog footer after finishing what your blog home page has to offer. At this time, what they are looking for is how can they continue surfing or should they close down the window. This is why a blog footer is extremely important for containing blog readers or reaping benefits for you.

9 Item Options for A Blog Footer

Adverts

Ad panels can be placed at the footer. The blog footer is a good place for pay-per-click ads because when readers wanted to quit your blog, they can click on these ads. However, placing CPM ads in your blog footer is not recommended. CPM ads provider often pays better if the ads are placed above the fold since the ads will get more exposure.

Photo by sylvar

Affiliate or sales page links

When readers got attracted with your information offered and a message like "We got more offered at XXX so check it out now" pops up, readers will certainly check the link out. This improves the conversion rate of your sales (if you have your own products) or your affiliate marketing activities.

Reminders

Readers are often idle when they reach your footer. Thus, give them something to do! A simple reminder to bookmark your blog or subscribe to your RSS feed can be placed at the footer since readers is not distracted by contents or your sidebars and thus, more inclined to perform the actions reminded.

Back to top

Some blogs is long in terms of length and this means it will be a long way down, which also means a long way up if the readers want to. Having a back to top same page link will help the readers get back to the header fast. This should be done if for example, you have an opt-in box or an event which requires attention at the top. To do this, you must also make sure that your header is capable of getting into the subconscious mind of readers so that they will click on the link.

Search engine manipulation links

Due to the fact that most blog footers are least accessible by readers, some had made the place as a link farm by trading links or having link exchange deals to boost their Page Rank and search engine ranking positions. However, this is not recommended by me as Google and other search engines has been more powerful than you think it is. Irrelevant links from your site will only raise their curiosity rather than reaching your aim with that action of yours.

Outgoing links

Relevant outgoing links do not only act as a tool to get the attention of bloggers that you have linked to. Also, it can be a good resource list which readers might come back again just to refer to the list. This is because most readers don’t bookmark a long list of sites. Making these links opening in a new window will stop you from giving your readers away.

Internal links

Internal links improves the stickiness of your blog. Readers will stay on your blog longer as you offer them more information. They got more fascinated with your blog and this improves the chances of turning these first time readers into your loyal readers.

Navigation bar

Navigation bar are often seen on top of a blog. They consists of pages such as "Featured Posts" and money making page such as the "Advertise" page. All these pages have benefits for you when a reader of potential advertiser visits it. A navigation bar at the footer will serve as a reminder as well as an exit point for such readers.

Miscellaneous stuffs

Don’t feel like having anything of the above as your blog footer item? Well, there are plenty of other items that can be placed in your blog footer such as:

• Blog stats
• Various widgets
• Copyright policy and information
• Relevant videos
• About the author section

Such stuffs might commonly be placed in the sidebar but they got neglected since the contents is there attracting the attention of readers. Free up the sidebar for more useful stuffs and put these into your footer!

Conclusion on Maintaining a Blog Footer

There are more than 9 things as listed above for you to place into your blog footer. However, stuffing your blog footer with all of them is not a wise move.

First of all, you will need to know what is the main aim for your blog. If it is to make money, place PPC ad panels there. If it is content-orientated like this blogging tips blog, place links to your articles.

Blog footer is often neglected by bloggers and now, with the list of items that can be included has been provided, I hope you can revisit your blog footer so that it can be improved.

Feedback by Readers

Have you been paying attention to your blog footer? When you visit a blog, will the blog footer get your attention? What other items that exist in your blog footer but not covered by my list?

Subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed for more blog improvement tips.

I have seen magazine style themes and plugins like WP-Sticky Post becoming more and more popular among blogs. Such tweaks to your blog will help you to show off your best work instead of letting it flow down through the usual chronological order characteristic of a blog.

However, I do spot some bad spots with a featured post on your blog and I will give you some tips on the usage of a featured post.

5 Tips on Using a Featured Post

No featured article with welcome message

New blogs tend to have a welcome message as their featured post and this is totally wrong! A welcome post on the top of your blog will just tell people that your blog is new. A welcome post is normally the first post on a blog and if it is on the top, it will send out the message that the blog only has a welcome post, if not, only a few posts.

This will send away lazy readers whom you need first impression to capture them. If someone is new, it is more likely that he/she will take a glance at your blog rather than navigating around.

Recent posts list

It is important to have a list of recent post if you have a featured post on your blog. Also, such list must be placed as high as possible to show new readers that you have some other posts.

A recent post list will also show readers that you have updated your blog by having the new posts appearing on the list. With this in place, you will be kept away from the fear that you will be sending your readers away because they thought that you are not updating your blog.

Excerpts instead of full post

Posting a featured post in full will be too much to fit into the top fold of a blog’s home page. Do keep in mind that most readers won’t scroll unless they are persuaded to do so with your powerful post.

The best for you to do use excerpts for the featured posts rather than having a full post. This gives the opportunity for the top part of other posts to appear on the top part at first glance to offer more choices of reading for readers.

Attractive excerpts

Following the tips above, since your featured post will now have the "Read more" tags, your excerpts must be appealing enough so that your readers will click on the "Read more" link.

If your featured post is not attractive, the consequences that you will be getting is not just about the featured post. Readers might just leave your blog because the featured post (a post is featured because it is good) is not good enough for them.

Photo by homme de chevre

Blink the FEATURED

A featured post should not be mixed with other posts. They got featured because they are one of your best work. You must highlight it to your readers, especially new ones to build a firm first impression for your blog.

Surround the post with borders, add in a special avatar to get attention and also have a big font of the word "FEATURED" will be the ways to really feature something.

Featured Post Feedback

Photo by Bitterjug

I see showing off good posts in the form of popular posts in the sidebar as the better preference since it is much better to be managed. However, if you feature a post, the post will tend to be viral (might become a pillar article) once there is enough marketing for it and it is of sheer quality.

Did you use any methods to feature one or few of your best work in your blog? Will you use it in the future to show off your work? What do you think about other ways that blogs with featured post can do to improve the usage of a featured article?

Photo by TimWilson

Every blog has categorization function which helps you sort your blog post for readers who only wanted to read some type of your posts instead of everything you have written.

With Year 2008 coming up, one of the main thing that you should do will be cleaning up your blog posts categorization. This process can be as simple as doing nothing if you have always been systematic. However, if you are the kind who sometimes rush a post and have put the posts under the wrong section, the cleaning up is proved vital.

Reasons for Categories Cleaning

• Breaking up big categories
• Resorting of your articles
• Balancing the number of posts in categories

I am sure many out there do clean up their categories with reasons more than the above. Do you clean up your categories and why do you clean it? Share it with me.

I am writing this today because I will be busy cleaning up all my blogs these few days to welcome the new year. I will be sharing a few tips that I used when I am cleaning my categories.

5 Tips of Categories Cleaning

Keep the numbers low

I have seen blogs have 20 or even 30 categories! Categories are supposed to help readers to choose what they want to read easier but too much of it will also send out the message to your readers that your blog isn’t that focused on a particular topic.

Having a lot of categories will also mean the posts contained inside one category will be lesser and when people look at a small number, they might think the blog is new or even not well-maintained.

Photo by blmurch

Periodical review

Categories are supposed to be reviewed by yourself once in a while to make sure that it is tidy. I do it now, welcoming Year 2008 but supposedly, it can be done once every six months or at any time set by yourself.

However, rearranging it always might slow down the process of search engines spiders on crawling your articles. Find an optimum timeline and the most important thing is that you can perform this task when you are free. Getting the task into a tight timetable won’t get it done nicely.

Related blog as reference

I am sure that the topic you are blogging right now have some other people out there blogging about it. The best thing to do when you are thinking of what categories to be created for blogs in your topic will be by referencing other people’s work.

It will be much more easier and clearer to you on what to add, modify and deleted from your list of categories.

Permalink structure

Remember what I have said about permalinking? When you have set your blog permalink settings, the best is not to change the structure any more. Changing the structure might get your search engine readers tonnes of 404 errors.

When you start a blog, don’t ever include "categories" into the permalink structure. This will make things easier when you are cleaning up your categories section. My opinion on the best permalink structure will be what I am using on Wayne Liew Dot Com Blogging Tips Blog.

Relevance

This doesn’t happen anywhere but I do see some of the blogs out there actually have a category with all the posts inside irrelevant. Always open up a "General" category like the "Blogging" category I have in this blog so that when you post something that is not specific, the post can go into the General category instead of simply placing it under a irrelevant category.

Relevance does not only help your readers get what they want faster, it also helps search engine to index your page properly according to the relevance of your articles.

What is your say on blog post categorization?

Will you be carrying out a blog cleanup such as clearing up your categories? What other tips you have to offer to others? I am sure you have seen some blogs with good and bad categorization. Share with us what you think is the good and bad of their methods used.

Subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed to get more tips on blog improvement.

Photo by Delgoff [collateral damage]

Many people vow for a complete blog makeover or a total theme change to get more traffic because of the buzz generated if your new theme has the WOW factor. What if bloggers like me who don’t have enough resources to get a $799 unique blog design or don’t feel that it is worth it?

Is there a need always for us to do major change for our blog? The answer is no and you will find out why and how small tweaks can be done with the positive effects that it can bring to you through this article of mine .

What can be tweaked on your blog?

Use your imagination and you will find some elements that can be tweaked. I am always trying to find what can be tweaked on Wayne Liew Dot Com and here are a few of my ideas.

• Blog CSS scheme  - This can be easily done. If you have no knowledge in this, you can check out your style.css or Stylesheet under Presentation –> Theme Editing. The codes boxed in the screenshot below are CSS codes that modifies your blog colors. Refer to the CSS Color Chart to modify it according to your favorite.

  

  Other things that you can change through the stylesheet are text formatting and some tweaks on your theme. You can check out some CSS basics here before you carry out the modifications. Be very sure that you have saved a backup copy of your theme before the modifications!

• Ad types and placement - Tweaking ad type and and its placement can avoid visitors’ ad-blind. Loyal readers might be curious about what the new ads will lead them to. Sometimes, moving ad panels around the blog tend to get attention from visitors because the ads are not in places which they expected and they can’t "intentionally" skip it.

• Widgets - Some blogs have widgets on their sidebar, footer or even the header. Try adding in some fresh widgets which your visitors have never seen before. When adding widgets, be sure that they are useful and don’t clutter your sidebar with it.

• Content - How contents can be tweaked? Easy! How about reading your post to your readers instead of words? How about making a personal blog appearance with a video tutorial? Also, how about having a different writing style by invite other bloggers to guest blog for you? All of these will give the special post more attention because it was an unexpected item.

• Header Image - This is what I can’t do until my next theme is ready. Some blog themes have customizable headers but bloggers using it don’t optimize it. Change it occasionally. If you find it hard to produce your own banner, hop over to deviantART to find yourself tonnes of creative images. All you need to do is just crop it, add in your blog name and your blog banner for the week is done. Giving the feeling, "Am I at the wrong place?" will certainly keep the readers from coming back to get more surprises.

• Comment Section - Customizing your comment section is like renovating a meeting or discussion room. When you are in a new environment, do you tend to talk more because you feel more energized? This is the same case here. Tweak your comment place, especially the comment editor and the "Submit Comment" button to make it attractive for readers to comment.

  

• Icons and Buttons - I am sure you have RSS feed buttons on your site right? Well, why not change it today. You can get 51 RSS Button For Your Blog and 51 Email Button For Your Blog compiled by Kenneth. As I said earlier, changes will get you clicks. A change on your RSS feed button will mean more RSS feed subscribers!

I am sure with your creativity, you can find more stuffs on your blog to be tweaked. What more do you think you can tweak on your blog?

Blog Tweaking Is a Recurring and Repeating Routine

I know that with limited resources such as colors that match and relevant ads, it is hard to always tweak by adding fresh stuffs. To make things easier for you, follow the two simple steps below.

1. Choose your tweaking frequency - Weekly and fortnightly will be a good choice but daily will be too much to ask for. Choose yourself one and stick to it.
2. Repeat what you have used - Who says you cannot use the same banner twice? After a long period, say, two months of different ad banners, maybe it is the time for you to repeat the whole cycle one more time. It might be the same round of ads but with such a huge time gap in between, your readers might have forgotten it by then.

What You Have to Say About Blog Tweaking?

After reading my article above, what will be the first thing you feel like tweaking on your blog? Do you have something something to say about blog tweaking such as disagreeing with me by saying it will chase your readers away or you are always my supporter?

Subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed to get more blog improvement tips.

I have publicly shown my RSS feed count to all my readers. The numbers have been lingering around and on the day which the Josh Lim impostor gets some buzz on my site, the count amazingly shot up to over 60 and it is now standing at 63.

I promised to show the counter in mid-November but the numbers at that time was not steady. At the start of November, there is this Google Feed Fetcher glitch that cut off more than 40% of the numbers. On November also, I suffered a glitch myself, my academics suffered and the same goes to my blog post quality. All these delayed the showing of the Feedburner counter.

I am always looking for ways to improve my RSS Feed count and the following are a few things that I have done since I have started blogging 4 months ago.

1. I try to give my best in writing my articles.
2. I post everyday.
3. I place subscription links at prominent places.
4. I offer a full feed.
5. I use easy to scan sub-headers that increases readability.
6. My RSS Feed is free of ads.
7. Only two clicks needed to subscribe to my RSS Feed.
8. I don’t make you tired chasing me if you subscribed because of my planned posting frequency.
9. I network with readers who subscribed through e-mail. If you haven’t get a mail or comment from me, it will be in soon.
10. I have a goal. I aim to raise my feed count to above 500 and if I don’t reach it, I won’t quit. More on motivation to cont

You can get more tips on how to increase your RSS subscribers (guaranteed ways) at 35 Guaranteed Ways To Increase Your RSS Subscribers by Fred Peters.

What I Plan to Do to Increase the Numbers More?

• Guest blogging. Invite guest bloggers to blog on Wayne Liew Dot Com. Get your unique articles in through my Contact page if you want it to be featured here.
• Be active in forums. Joining forums which are related to your niche will get you quality traffic that will eventually subscribe to your feeds. Read why forums is better for blog marketing at 5 Reasons Why Forum Are Better Than Blog by Sean.
• E-book publishing. I might be publishing an e-book. Yes, you didn’t get it wrong. I might be offering a free blogging guide that will be given when you become one of my subscribers.
• Prize giveaway. I am planning to launch a contest which is unique and creative that will boost the number of my RSS subscribers. Subscribe now so that you won’t have that much fuss later.
• I need your help. I know I might not be someone with great authority but a post recommending Wayne Liew Dot Com to your readers and ask them to subscribe to my feeds will be appreciated by me! Thanks in advance.

There’s a reason why I am posting what I have done (all are easy ways) to get the 63 readers via feed and what will I be doing to get over 500 of them. I want to help those who are still trying to break the egg and also those who are finding their RSS count being static for now.

Of course, there are some “evil” ways that you can increase your RSS count as shown here and here. Don’t try it though, you will not be getting the satisfaction I am getting now because the 63 readers of mine are real people.

Have you subscribed to my RSS Feed?

Have you subscribed to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed or order the updates to be sent to you via e-mail? Join the 60 over people plus bots in getting the latest blogging tips from Wayne Liew. I guarantee the updates you get will be of high standard!