Archive for the 'Blogging' Category

Apr
16

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.

Warning: This is an exceptional blogging tips post and it is for loyal readers of blogging tips blog only!

Over the last couple of days, I find that blogging tips or blogging about blogging is not supposed to have so many things to blog about, after Darren the Problogger has had so much blogging tips covered and for blogosphere buzz, you have people over at The Blog Herald and Wordpress Latest Buzz within your Wordpress admin panel covering them.

Stop Reading More Blogging Tips Blog

There is absolutely no need for a blog like mine, which I need to rehash all those blogging tips in my own words. Worse still, I have come to my senses that there is actually no need to follow more blogging tips blog if you have covered most of Problogger’s blogging tips for beginners covered. The rest are completely rehashed items. If you read more and you are new into this, you will only ended up either confused or start to blog about blogging.

Continue reading Learn the Blogging About Blogging Crisis

Apr
14

Without a blog, a business, whether online or offline based, is as good as heading towards a dead end, especially for small and medium sized businesses due to the high competition.

The online penetration of companies, small, medium and even for some large ones is considered low. Most business owners don’t even have the idea of how blogging can create an online presence which can literally boost their sales and improve their business as a whole.

Business Blogging Benefits

Corporate blogging or business blogging are terms describing the action of setting up and managing a blog to serve the aim and purpose of a business. Business blogging consultant, Michael Martine of Remarkablogger, was quoted the following statement in his How to Start a Business Blog guide:

The benefits of a website (for business) are undeniable. As a platform for websites, blogs magnify those benefits tremendously, delivering on them better than a non-blog website can.

As a business owner, you cannot underestimate the potential of this new media or ignore it. You will lose out very fast to your competitors if they have the edge over you in tapping blogging as a medium for their business expansion.

Continue reading 10 Benefits for Businesses to Start Blogging

Dec
26

F1 Race Fast Pace Blogging
Photo by Spiralz

Many niches have their own blog posting frequency. Some has been set by their powerhouses like the tech niche by Techcrunch and Engadget to be fast-paced. Whenever you wanted to start a blog, the natural posting frequency of a niche is one thing that you want to do your homework at.

High pace blogging is what we are going to discuss about today. High pace niche such as the tech niche and the make money online niche are very saturated and yet, many don’t encounter a success because of the fast pace.

Reasons Why Fast Pace Blogging is Fatal

There are a whole lot of reasons with most of them causes viral effect, leading your high pace blog to a death of blog.

  • You will be very busy
  • You will be pressurized
  • You can’t afford to slow down
  • You will give up really fast
  • You have lots of competition, with some blogs having more resources than you
  • You must be a good multi-tasker

An all in one reason will be it is hard, will give you pressure and in the end, you will be giving up with all efforts thrown into the sea. Many jumped into these niches or make their blog expand on a high pace without having proper research and understanding of what will they face as consequences.

In the end, giving up is the last thing you want in blogging because everyone is moving forward, FAST!

Tips to Survive in High Pace Blogging

The tips I am going to provide are vital, if you can’t do at least 1% of them, don’t dive into a fast moving niche. You will be bombarded with work and your body might be pushed over the limits!

Let me get the ball rolling and after that, I hope you can share your thoughts with me.

No entry - Stop
Photo by exfordy

Don’t go in

After reading this article, if you realized that you are not having or don’t have the chance of having or practicing the tips, you should consider some other niches out there or slow your blog down.

It is not rational that you encounter a boom in your blog, everything seems to be great and in the end, it is you yourself that is causing the blog problems.

Be an expert

No one will blog on PHP programming with original contents any faster than a PHP programmer. If a niche is moving very fast, the last thing you want to happen to you is having a dead brain on that niche.

You must know the ins and outs of the topic you are blogging about. The small bits can be brought up on your blog and the great thing about being an expert is that people will come to you for assistant, which indirectly gives you a content to blog about.

Team of writers

Many out there wanted to guest blog for other blogs or get paid for writing like me! When you pay for something or accept people to write for your blog, all you need to do is to review the work done, provide advices and pay the money (if applicable) which is much more easier than writing for your blog yourself.

Huge blogs with high blog posting frequency hires people or have a line of writers to write for them. Darren gets Skellie to write on Problogger and Techcrunch has several writers to cover the wide tech niche for them.

Get into a sub-niche

Getting into a wide niche with a lot of things to cover can be very tiring and worse for some first-time bloggers, they must do everything on their own. Sub-niches don’t just give you more targeted readers and less competition, it also let you cover less things over a period.

The number of happenings on the Internet is significantly higher than the number of happenings on social media and the number of happenings are even lesser of when your blog is about StumbleUpon.

Subscribe to fellow niche blogs RSS feed

You don’t get original information from you yourself all the time unless you are a blogger cum journalist. Continuing the buzz from other blogs and rewriting an event by adding in your opinion can cut down a lot of work.

To get such news sent to you from all the related sites out there, subscribe to the RSS feeds. I would say the more the better. You will be waking up every morning, "breakfast" will be served and all you got to do is to choose a few interesting buzz, write it in your own words, add in your opinions and you will get the ball rolling!

Networking with friends
Photo by Hamed Saber

Networking with blogs, bloggers and readers

This is very crucial in getting the latest and unpublished news for your blog. When you have developed a fantastic relationship with fellow bloggers and your readers via interaction, you will find them contributing you with tips for various reasons - a linkback, your opinion and even cash!

They might also provide their own opinions and all these will make your writing tasks much more easier since you are provided with the idea.

Know your limits

It is important to know your limits. Remember, when you started out blogging, you set the tone of your blog and the blogging frequency is set after two or three weeks. Know your capacity on posting. You, full of energy, might be posting a few times a day at the start but after a few months, you might be bored of blogging and you will decide to slow down. The cost here is that you will be messing around with your blog posting frequency and risk losing your readers!

Know your capabilities and provide estimates for unpredicted events before deciding which blog posting frequency suits you the best. Keep the frequency up all the time, make your reader know what to expect every time they return and your blog will improve in terms of stats.

Efficient writing and use of language

Bloggers can have average, below-par and great language, mainly English. It is no doubt that all people can blog with a language. However, your flow of thoughts on what to type when working on an article will greatly depends on your language command and vocabulary scope.

Girl reading
Photo by BohPhoto

You will not stop to think for the best adjective to describe an object or spare a lot of your time cleaning up long and crooked sentences. Keeping the time on writing a new article short is very important in fast pace blogging and thus, read a lot to get a better command of a language.

Set yourself free

Give yourself some time to rest over the period of blogging. Get yourself a guest blogger as written above. If you are not allowed a break, blogging will become very tiring and boring, especially if your blog is in a fast-moving state.

Giving yourself a free period will let you see things that can improve your blog. Small things such as suitable new plugins and minor blog tweaks can often be identified when you have a blogging idle time.

Rotation of work

If you have a few writer on board, you can always rotate the work done by these members. For a certain period, they might be writing but for another, they might be reviewing the posts written by others. This will free up the creative mind that will spark new ideas which doing the repeated tasks won’t.

If you are alone, don’t type all day long even if you are writing on a fast blog. Do something else once every three hours. Don’t forget that you need promotion for your blog, maintenance and readers interaction in order to make your blog a truly good blog.

Motivate yourself

It is always good to get some motivation to keep you going. Monetize your blog so that money can help motivating you. Interact with readers who commented to know how much people care about your contents. Also, try getting yourself ranked with other blogs like what I did for this blogging tips blog to get listed on Top Blogs About Blogging.

Motivation will not be the same in different niches but a good motivation is the element that can keep your blog up.

Thoughts on Fast Pace Blogging

Cat Fighting
Photo by paparutzi

A high pace niche is cruel, especially when it is saturated and no one will care about your blog even if it fails to get any readers because it is like a fight, a bloody one.

If you don’t have the pre-requisites, don’t jump into the fray and get yourself killed.

What will be your thoughts on fast pace blogging? Imagine yourself typing 3-5 articles for your blog daily. Can you maintain the consistency? What will be the problems that you will face and what steps that you will take to turn around such blockages?

Subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed to get more updates on blogging tips!

Dec
19

City with lights
Photo by OiMax

There are many blogs about blogging or teaches you the art of blogging and it is definitely a saturated niche. They feed you with different kind of tutorials everyday unless you are only sticking to only one blogging guide blog.

I have seen bloggers that have been following blogging guides or tips blindly. Sometimes the blogging guides and tips provided are of great quality but when applied by another blogger, it turns his/her blog into a mess.

Examples of blogging tips and guides applied wrongly

  • Podcasts with sub-standard quality

    This is the one example I cannot stand. A different way of presenting your contents, such as in the form of audio is great but what if your pronunciation of the language is not good? What if the audio produced with low quality softwares are noisy and unclear?

  • Catchy title with lousy contents

    I have said in Don’t Murder Your Articles With Catchy Titles that catchy title only works with good and relevant contents. Despite this, I still got trapped by some attractive titles but I ended up with a sigh. Readers felt cheated when they visit what is really behind the rock and this is certainly not good for you!

  • Comment without a strategy

    Comment marketing or commenting on other blogs are recommended in nearly all blogging guides to get traffic, especially after the success achieved by Caroline Middlebrook. The guides ask you to comment but did they really give you a strategy like Creating a Stunning and Memorable First Time Visit, 10 Tips on Participation in Conversations and 6 Arts of Commenting on Articles? This has resulted too many spam comments done by bloggers being spotted all over the blogosphere.

Steps to apply guides and tips correctly

Collaborate. When you have read up something over at a blog, try to do a Google search or a search on another blogging guide blog that you read for similar contents. If the guide provided is being used and recommended by most bloggers, it can give you a guarantee on the guide.

Evaluate. Is this the tool or the step you need to improve what you want to improve? Is it suitable for your blog or your niche? Link the method to your blog. The suitability and compatibility need to be considered before the method can be implemented.

If not, this method can be a waste of time. Moreover, the time that you will need to unclutter your blog will be a long one if you have find the method or add-ons to be inappropriate for your blog.

Old man thinking
Photo by tinou bao

Innovate. Before you start to implement the method to your blog, try to think hard on how the method can perform much more better on your blog. You will need a little creativity and observation to get this step done perfectly. Only a tweak or two will help you optimizing the method to give the best result for your blog.

Performance tracking. Always track how your new method is performing. If it is a new way to get more traffic to your blog, go to your traffic counter and analyze whether the method has worked for you. For example, if you have tried out comment marketing to get traffic, the percentage of referral traffic should have been rising.

Got an idea
Photo by ryanrocketship

Leverage. Once you have been satisfied with the results, it is time for you to bring it to another level or to use it to make greater things happen for you. You can further optimize the method for better results, teach it on your blog or to sell it in the form of e-book, making yourself quick bucks.

My conclusion on following blogging guides

Despite I am blogging on blogging with this blogging tips and guides blog, I do read many other blogging blogs out there to learn new things, get traffic and to network. When I discover a new thing, I use the steps above to improve my blog quality instead of decreasing it.

What I am highlighting here is that there is no one-for-all guide in everything. Even a free theme that you like needs customization if you want to use it on your blog. Innovation is a must and blind usage of methods on your blog might kill it faster than ever.

Your opinion and feedback

What do you think about the guide that I have pointed out above? Have you seen an example of either you or others blindly implemented a blogging guide? Share with me. Also, what is your best innovation out of a blogging guide?

Subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed for more tips on blogging.

Dec
03

Santa Claus
Photo by daveynin

Year 2008 is on the way and it is coming real fast. Have you planned anything ahead for the coming new year or you expect things to be alike with this year? I started planning last few days on what will be my goals for Wayne Liew Dot Com and to do stuffs for me to reach it.

What would you like to see more on Wayne Liew Dot Com?

Have you started to plan out yours? If you have not, you can join me now in drafting out resolutions for our blogs and hopefully by the end of the next year, we will be satisfied with the results. Why am I doing this so early is because within this one month, you will have a lot of things popped up in your mind of what will you do to improve your blog and where your blog will head for next year.

Starting out late will only heap pressure on you or even worse, you will have no goals for your blog and it will be running like a headless chicken.

How did your blog fare in 2007?

I use Google Analytics as my site counter because it will keep all my visitors data until I delete the tracking code from my site. Statcounter is a good counter but it only gives you only 500 visitor logs for the free package.

Take a peek at your site counter, look at the traffic trends and also, look at your stats on number of blog subscribers. Compare them to the contents you have published, check the number referrals from other sites so that you can optimize your marketing plan on those sites.

Look back at your comment stats and section. Get yourself to know what kind of articles will get you the best responses from your readers. The participation level is extremely important for a blog because this shows you that “Do your readers really read what you write?”

What situation will you be in 2008?

What are the significant changes that you are expecting in 2008 which will affect your routine? Will it cut short your time devoted to blogging? Will your offline life gets closer to the blogging topic you are currently on? Will the money you are earning be enough to support your blog?

Disappointed on ice
Photo by Aka1936

All of the above questions are important because you can have a wonderful plan and set impressive goals for your blog but in the end some other things will stop you from following your plan. Sometimes things come after they show you the signs. Before you get promoted, you will get praises from your boss. When paid post writing and link trading is booming, you knew Google will do something. :twisted:

Try to project or use your guided imagination to predict what might be happening to you and resources that you might have next year. It might be a huge lump sum of money from some funds you invested earlier and probably you can quit blogging instantly!

Plan and Write

Start to plan for your blog now. Stick to the characteristics of a SMART goal - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. You can talk to your friends about it, discuss it with fellow bloggers or you can be a lone ranger by doing all the research and think that what you think is always correct. The goals can be how many daily unique visits you want, how many money you want to make or even how many readers via feed you want to achieve.

Write Sticky Pad
Photo by net_efekt

When you got yourself a set of goals, write it down on a piece of paper and draft out your action plan subsequently. You will have several things to do in order to achieve something and it is definitely not good if you are not implementing the methods consistently. Thus, write it down and paste it somewhere around your workstation so that you can jot down any extra methods or goals that you want to achieve. It will also reminds and motivate you to continue blogging.

Everything that have been written down must not be rub off until the end of 2008 when you are planning a new set of resolution. Don’t cheat yourself and the best way is to post it up on your blog and tell everyone about it so that you are disciplined enough to stick with it.

Feedback From You

Have you draft out your blogging resolution for 2008 even before I write this? Will you join me in posting it up during 1st of January 2008? What kind of goals will you set for yourself? OK, whatever it is, start writing it now if you are serious about blogging.

Subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed if you want to get more simple blogging tips from this blog.

Dec
01

We aim for things like making big money, getting our names known and building up an authority for ourselves where people will follow what you do or ask them to do when we started blogging. We set a goal for ourselves (did you set one?) and we draft out our action plans along with long-term blogging strategies that will lead us to our dreams. Now, look at your blog and ask yourself this question: How Many Years Will Your Blog Be Alive?

A blog that is alive will certainly be free from Characteristics of A Dying Blog. Why having your blog alive is important in order to get rewarded for blogging?

Fruitful blogging don’t start right from day one unless you are a superstar or you stroked a super highway to blogging success which most of us don’t.

Let me show you some successful blogs and how long they have been around.

5xmom - Since 2004
LiewCF - Since 2004

Not impressing enough? Let’s look at some bigger boys out there.

Problogger Blog Start Date

Problogger - Since 2004
John Chow - Since 2005

Now, can you see why I say the longer your blog, the greater your blog will become? Dig out the first few posts of their blog. Do they have so many comments back then like they used to have now?

Writing With Computer
Photo by Chaparral [Kendra]

The reasons why the longer you blog, the better your blog will become.

  • Your writing skills improved after so many writings.
  • You had more pages indexed on search engines.
  • You get new readers over the period which some of them will become loyal readers.
  • Your blog has accumulated incoming links over the period.
  • There are more and more Internet users everyday.

If you are blogging on a saturated niche, it is an advantage if your blog is staying up longer than others. Your fellow competitors might give up because they don’t have the persistence as you or after a period of blogging, they have other pursuance in life that made blogging not suitable for them. When they give up, their readers will be off searching for another source to read and of course, you will be picking up some of them.

What can make me blog for such a long time?

Niche or Blog Topics
Some of you might be reading e-books or guides out there that claims what I will be saying is rubbish. They ask you to choose topics that can make you money to blog about. Well, these people don’t really know blogging. When the results of your blog doesn’t go your way, you will be frustrated and if you are blogging about things you don’t like, you will have the feeling that you are obliged to write something, it makes nothing different from a day job! You will be more willing to learn new things and perform research for your blog if you are passionate about the topic.

Motivation
Keep yourself motivated by rewarding yourself for success you came across from blogging. Participate in blog contests where you can have some fun and sometimes win something. Monetize your blog and make the little money your motivation. Look at those big boys out there, look at their monthly income report or daily visitor stats and compare it to yours to keep yourself awake of what you have to do.

Writing With Computer
Photo by Oli R

Goal Setting
Goals must be set for both long-term and short-term when you are planning a blog. Set a goal that is SMART - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely, such as your blog stats and participation of your readers. It is extremely important as these goals will be pushing you. Don’t quit if you haven’t achieve it; Enjoy and challenge a new goal if you have achieve the goals you have set. The continuous action will keep you up in blogging.

Attitude
In one of my guest blogging post, 5 Must Have Attitudes For Blogger Wannabes, I have highlighted the few attitudes that a blogger must have before jumping into the fray. It is not easy to be a successful blogger and the right attitude will bring you closer to it. If you are negative on all the attitude, the only way is to change it or else, don’t try blogging because you will not stay long.

Friends
If you have a blog, try befriending some bloggers, especially those in the same niche as yours or you can always become friends with me! :mrgreen: Having a group of friends which shares the same interest gives you the power of association which will keep you motivated and enjoy blogging. You will be talking about the niche and blogging issues when you chat through e-mails, instant messaging software or even in real life chats.

Friends Together
Photo by Gwennypics

Feedback from you

I have listed a few ways which you can do to keep your blog up longer and it is up to you to see the benefits of it is worthwhile or not.

How long has your blog been around and how long do you think you will keep blogging as your hobby? If you think that it will be up for a few more years, what will your blog become after the few more years have passed? What have been keeping you out from quitting this wonderful hobby?

Subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed if you want more blogging tips which are easy to understand.

Nov
22

Tall Looking At Short

I know many bloggers will prefer a higher traffic, higher number of backlinks and a higher number of RSS subscribers. Blogs teaching you on how to make your blog getting these elements in place will get a lot of traffic because of people wanting to know the methods that can make their traffic, backlinks and RSS subscribers go higher.

I received an interesting e-mail from Gregan, which is my reader who have the following message for me.

E-mail

I noticed blogs nowadays are always aiming for the increase of their blog traffic, linkbacks and RSS subscribers. Why can’t they ditch it aside and start blogging on a much smaller blog?

The straightforward answer for this will be when most people put their opinions on a blog, they expect their contents to be read and not being left out in the cold. An equation that has been highlighted for some will be Traffic=Money.

I will offer you with something different today if you find yourself struggling to raise all the important elements (traffic and linkbacks) for your blog. I will give you the benefits of having a small blog.

  • Little Pressure
    You will have lesser need to produce articles with a consistent level of quality and when your blog traffic gone down by a bit. Blog marketing might not even exist in your blogging routine. When you have a small blog and you want it to be maintained this way, you will not need to sweat yourself in investigating what types or strategies suit you and sometimes what are the causes of a dip in traffic.
  • Personal Link With Readers
    When your reader base is small, you will have more time to answer e-mails from your readers, take an extra approach in helping and understanding their needs regarding your niche. The personal link or touch with your readers will allow you to network indirectly and at the same time make yourself a small community which you are in authority.
  • Readers Engagement
    When your readers know that your blog is small and you will have time for them, they tend to engage with you on what you are highlighting in your articles. Debates and suggestions will always be voiced through your comment section or e-mails. They will be more daring to make everything straight to the point because they will see you as a friend that is approachable rather than a superstar who have tonnes of followers.
  • Enjoyable

    Relaxing

    I can tell you that a small blog is easier to manage and of course, lesser work will be needed to maintain them. You don’t need to make yourself a tight schedule to follow, you don’t need to force yourself to read blogging guides such as those on Wayne Liew Dot Com because you are not aiming to go big. A small reader base which might come to your blog through search engines or comments you made on similar blogs will make you happy enough.

  • Easier Persuasion
    With a small reader base, you will know your readers well, know what they want and know what will be their response to certain things. These make your job easier when you want to persuade them to do something for you. It might be a simple tip for your efforts, a donation, a sign up as your referrals or even a badge being placed in their respective blogs.
  • No Search Engine Worries

    Various Search Engines

    Do you have to wake up everyday thinking of what will happen to your Google Page Rank or what will be the latest news on search engines keywords? No! This is because you know that your readers will be here because of you and you are not aiming for those search engines traffic because you are satisfied with a small reader base. You don’t necessarily have to indulge yourself in webmasters’ technical knowledge to maintain a small blog.

  • Simplified Money Making Methods
    If you aim to have a small blog, there will be only three ways of monetizing your blog – affiliate marketing, selling your own products and paid posts writing. You will not need to have considerations before placing an ad panel because more of the advertising platform out there want one thing, TRAFFIC, which you don’t have.

    Lots of Money

    Some paid post platforms like PayU2Blog can give you $5 opportunities without looking at your Google Page Rank and traffic. Some cheap opportunities in PeePeePee will not take all these elements into account as well so yo can earn with paid posts.

    As I said about authority and persuasion within your small community, you can actually try selling products or sell by not selling to your readers. They trust you because you have been their friends. I am not saying that you can cheat them but it is much more easier to sell them something if they see you as a nice friend.

Is A Small Blog Really That Good?
I would say that it depends. You can’t deny that traffic and backlinks are the most important measurement of a blog. This is why people are crazy over it. Money=Traffic, this is also the reason why people are going nuts about getting traffic.

A small blog, with the advantages above will certainly divide you into another world of blogging. You will not see blogging as a business but rather, as a platform for you to share things and connect with people sharing the same interests as yours.

Will you still aim for a blog with tonnes of readers or you are satisfied of your traffic after reading my post? What other advantages of a small blog that you can think of? Tell me your views and those difficult path that you have taken to increase your blog traffic.

Subscribe to Wayne Liew Dot Com RSS Feed to get more updates on similar blogging tips.

Nov
01

Snow On Branches

As a blogger that enjoys blogging, I am always on the lookout for opportunities to expand my blog network. Successful examples of bloggers that own a huge blog empire will be Darren Rowse and Aunty Lilian. I also have a small blog empire but it is nothing compared to them. I am going to share with you things to consider before deciding whether to launch another blog or not.

Time

Old Clock

This is an important thing to consider. Do you find your current blogging schedule too tight and you have too much offline issues to manage? Even with one blog, do you find it hard to improve it? If you are lack of time and facing pressure in even managing one blog, you should discard your plans of expanding your blog empire.

Niche
I notice new blogs tend to sway from their original niche easily. Wayne Liew Dot Com is one good example since it didn’t started out as a blogging guide blog. To avoid this, you must consider the niche of your new blog seriously and draw a boundary for yourself which you shall not cross it. I guess most of you have seen it, some blogging blogs tend to move a little bit into technology news.

Contents
A new blog is all about first impression. A new blog will be determined its quality with the first few posts. If you are new to a niche or topic, I would recommend you to write up as many as 30 quality posts which will be posted subsequently in your new blog. Posting earlier will provide you with more time in editing and keep yourself away from a blogger’s block.

If you failed to do this, I guess you will need more time to understand your topic. Remember, irregular posting frequency and low quality articles can kill a blog, especially new blogs.

Hosting package

Host Serving CPU

Some hosting packages allows a low bandwidth and some limit the number of addon domains. Also, web hosts have different rates among them. Be sure that you submit a ticket to your web host, stating your intentions and hopefully, they can explain before guiding you on how to proceed. Be a smart consumer and compare your options before making any payments.

Preparation Work
Are you ready to spend the time to find for a suitable theme, installing the relevant plugins, registering your blog to directories and submitting it to search engines? A blog startup always consumes a lot of time, especially in marketing your blog. You must also be careful of that the work done on preparing the new blog for your readers will not impair the quality of your old blog.

Blogging Guides

Stack Of Books

I am sure if you are going to start a new blog, you will want everything to be perfect. When you started your old blog, you might have not learnt what is search engine optimization and other proper approach to blogging. Now, when you are going to start a new blog, I will advise you to recap your blogging knowledge, write it down and implement it accordingly such as optimizing the keywords in title for better search engine keyword position when you are building your new blog.

Target
Every blog that you’ve started must be set with a goal so that you will know how well your blog had performed and how well it should be performing. Decisions after a period of time on whether to continue with the blog or to discard the blog might depend on the targets and goals you have set.

Conclusion
A word of advice from me for those who are eager to expand their blogging network is that you must conduct a thorough research on the niche you are about to enter. On the productivity and capacity side, you can try joining a group blog or guest blog on others’ blog to see if you can cope with the workload and pressure or not.

I have finished my list of 7. Do you have more to add on? What are your views on having multiple blogs? Will you set up a blog empire of your own?

Oct
29

Yesterday, I looked back at the road I have walked through since I joined the booming blogosphere. I learnt a lot of things, how stuffs work and troubleshooting along the way but I surely have encountered some bad and painful experiences along the way. Let me share with you what I have gone through and make sure yourself don’t go through that path again.

Link Exchange

Link Exchange

This technique has been claimed as the best way for a new blog to gain links, page rank and somehow traffic. Abusing this method is what I did when I started blogging. At that time, the excessiveness of doing link exchanges has brought me to a PR5, which is an astounding rank but then the traffic is way lower than Wayne Liew Dot Com.

At that time, I was nothing but a link exchange seeker. Every blogs and sites that come to me, including illegal download sites, poker sites and cigarette sites (luckily no porn sites :mrgreen: ) will successfully set up a link exchange deal with me. The lesson that I’ve applied on Wayne Liew Dot Com is that try using permalinking or linking in your posts rather than using link exchange. Don’t forget that Google doesn’t like link exchange arrangements.

Spamming
Due to the Link Exchange stated above, I go all out in spamming. I spammed big blogs like John Chow naively, asking for a link exchange and each and every blog that I surf through will be left with a least a comment from me asking for a link exchange.

Yee Piao Spamming

This is why I know the trick of getting out from Akismet’s blacklist when I really want to get serious about blog contents and quality links. The most stupid thing that I have done is to spam the e-mail inbox of my high school school-mates with affiliate links, not thinking about how they will afford to buy those products

Got Booed And Called A Whore For Article
I first wrote an article, something to do with social relationship if I am not wrong and I stupidly posted up in one of the most visited discussion place in a forum. BLOG WHORING is the name being crowned on my action immediately.

Bad Sign

I nearly gave up on article writing at that time but I kept on blogging. I continue to write articles which I think suits other people but at the same time I enjoyed writing it. Getting critiques and feedback is good. If I don’t get those at that time, I may be thinking that my writings are the best in the world.

Clicked Own Ads
I guess most of you know this boy got banned by Google Adsense and this don’t need further explanation. I have learnt my lesson and I now urge all bloggers don’t click on your own ads. The price to pay might be huge for some of you.

Royal Flush Of Ads
When I started out blogging, my blog has been acting as my journal. When I realize that I can earn some money through blogging, I started placing ads here and there. I signed up to any known ad networks, from Pay-Per-Click ones to affiliate ads.

In the end of course, I didn’t earn anything. I guess this is what most of the blogging newbies do when they know they can make money through blogging. Sometimes, it is not that they want to blog for money, it is the excitement of having ads on their blogs that made their blog had an overdose of ads.

What do you guys learnt from the above? Don’t say that I am pitiful, I am not! :twisted: You might have laughed along the post, admit it! What stupid things have you gone through in blogging? Mind to share with me or your readers today? I am sure that after you published a post like this, you will be much appreciative of where your blog is now.

Oct
24

Many blogging experts out there always tell people that “Don’t blog about blogging, don’t blog about money making and don’t blog about technology stuffs”. Why? This is because these niches are all saturated, meaning there are already too much blogs that are blogging about these topics.

I can see this and I think you can see it as well. Despite all the advice on not to tap a saturated topic, there are a significant amount of such blogs in the blogosphere. Why is it that the niche is already competitive and yet people are still jumping into the red blood ocean? I will share with you the reasons on why people tap saturated niche in this post.

Reader’s Interest
Even if there are a lot of blogs on this issue, people are always reading these stuffs. This can be easily observed. Look at all those MAKE MONEY ONLINE ads, they get clicks. Try posting a comment by the name of Make Money Online at some big blogs out there and see how much traffic you will get.

Everyone Loves Money

Even if you are not on top of the crop, you will still be getting traffic easily, search engine wise or marketing wise. I don’t see there will be a slowdown on the birth of blogs covering the saturated niche as long as these fields are the ones that people are interested in, especially money.

Continue reading 5 Reasons To Tap Saturated Niche