Blogging to Fame!

A Different Aspect.

I have been blogging for a few months now. I would like to address a few things here, for you to understand.

Blogging is a fast tool, but it requires patience. Personal blogging could be done in most casual way but if you are doing it for something called fame or say fortune, things are different. Taking it differently means technology wont alone is going to take you long. Technology helps to spread your word but it wont get you fame or those things.

In the time of Information overload things can get from bad to worse. Lot has to be said on this, which I will be addressing in my coming posts and articles. So if you are blogging in your niche just by providing information, you are basically getting out of idea. Information is always there. So if you are blogging for something we always wanted, you should always make that your information is consumed.

In simpler words, if you are optimizing your website or your blog get it done in way that your information is read by readers and get them eager to read more of what you have to say and do the most important for you. Spread your word. Increase the consumption of your information.
This is what precisely we can say about Blogging To Fame.

So what are the tools for doing that?
Yes there are tools, better we call them principles.
I would be discussing more on this. Feel free to tell and comment your views on this.

Happy Blogging,
Divya Uttam

Yes, I know a very interesting and a tricky one. Are you expecting a simple answer for this one... like '“once an hour', '“once a day'”, '“once a week' ”, 'once a month' or just '“once'.

Lord Matt, coming up as a good critic said One of the most important blogging "tricks" is Blogging frequency. People generally but Search engines surely expect to see updates most times they visit.Increased frequency always encourage repeat visitors as well repeat search engine crawlers. Jonathan Schwartz posts on his blog at Sun once a week more or less, whereas Darren Rowse at Problogger serves up several posts on a daily basis. Both are well read, well respected and successful.(Adopted information)

I blog twice a week, but I am working on increasing my frequency. There are two reasons for it:-

• To provide more information to you.
• To increase my search engine visibility and ranking.

Different people have different objectives and expectations from blogging. If you have a already existing blog which is indexed by search engines you can follow these points:-

• Keep your promises- post as often as you have promised your readers you would. Stick to your commitment and they would stick to you. If you plan to change your frequency then you should inform them about it, and try sticking to the new one, because its all about communication.
  

• Post when you have something relevant/important/interesting to share- This may take breaking the rules set above. No, not exactly but better than that. Suppose you come across some latest and useful information that you feel your readers should know about. Post it instantly. Don't wait for the next 'posting day'. Well, this may increase your posting frequency, isn't that for better?

• Never compromise on the quality- Don't post just for the sake of it. It is because of quality that your readers would love you. It is quality through which 'blogging to fame' can be achieved. It will get you noticed and people will develop relationships with you. That is what you want, I suppose. Blogging twice a mdefinitelyfinately fine, till you maintain your excellence.
  

Apart from the above mentioned points you also need to know the kind of information your industry requires. There are a few areas where an in-depth analysis or research or highly effective information is required and it is not possible to post much, other topics may need a constant flow of information where the latest trends and techniques are of value. It is upto you to decide which feild you are catering to and decide how often should you post. Ask your readers for their opinion on it - talk to them. Ask for their feedback.

So readers how about giving some feedback to me...
How often should you post when you are still not indexed?
Stay with me to know more...

Divya Uttam
Happy Blogging

This is one question most of my friends ask me and have fun around it.
Nobody would ever deny about it. Simple I love to blog and I am having and few new one coming.

I have seen many blogs around this theme and you can learn about them by just searching “Blogging to Fame” in different search engines to learn more on this.
While doing this, I suddenly came across something that was written about my blog. All my enthusiasm about my Blogging to Fame turned out to be really vague. And yes this THINGS DO HAPPEN IN EVERYBODY'S Internet career and you should always know how to come out of it. For if you are serious about your things, your blog and if you are doing it for some fame and creating good name, turn all negativities into stepping stones for your success as well as source for some free lessons.

Here are few things I do blogging for Name Fame or money or …

Well nothing of all above but I am blogging to learn the depths of all Blogging Platforms. I am admitting it frankly. Mean while I am sharing my experiences and would definitely share some truths for how to actually Blog not just for Fame but as for all the Money and all the Name you ever want just using Blog.

Along the way I learned how useful it is to be polite and cool headed, and how much it is important to listen to other's opinion. Mr. Lord Matt that is the name he has given to himself as a blogger, visited my blog one day. His blog is based on reviewing other blogs. Well, thank goodness, he did, because it is for him that I realized how much I was in love with these ...................... dots. Yes, please don't laugh. There is more to come.You can visit what he wrote about me here.

So now you will probably wonder that how I learned about being polite and cool headed while blogging and how is it going to help you. It is not only while blogging that you should be generous but also in real life Humanity is what the world needs. When you will read the post you will realize that it was written in a bit harsh manner. I thought at the first read that may be using that many dots was an offence in that part of the world. I at the first instance wanted to shout on him, and read the post again. It was correct where I was wanting to create a flow in my writing, extra usage of those dots were actually abusing it. I know, it would have been pretty annoying to read while swimming across them.

While blogging keep in mind to check your grammar and spellings. Not that I did not know about it before but this incident made it apparent. I could have been rude to Mr. Matt but I realized how important his guidance has been. I thanked him sincerely for his review which I think made his heart melt for me. He realized that he could have been a bit softer on me. Check this out. You can see the change. That is why I mentioned it is very necessary to be polite and cool headed.

As far as the question goes About blogging to fame... I created a bit of fame for myself even by commiting this mistake...lol

To your success
Divya Uttam.
Happy Blogging

In the post I have written on 8th September, 2006 I have talked about an issue of Business Week.

In an article modeled after a blog, and going off in about as many directions, Stephen Baker and Heather Green make a convincing case for blogging. So convincing, that I don't need to repeat here. Instead I'll give you the "Readers' Digest" version. Blogs are the new word of mouth; marketing, messaging and customer relations, all happening at once.

Quoted from the book directly-
"Day 1, Noon I've spent three hours surfing and already feel blogged down. May be I should write a piece about who's not blogging. As far as I can tell, if you're inhaling oxygen, you're on the web with a blog and you're telling the world about it."

It also says-
" At least 200 American soldiers on active duty in Iraq are blogging."

The line in red as become my favorite line about blogging from now on.
So, Are you blogging, yet?

To your success,
Blogging to fame,
Divya Uttam.

Engage your readers.

You try each and every trick round the corner to bring people to your blog and, in this respect, the promotion and marketing of your blog plays an important role. However, to maintain their readership you need to develop interest and create a bond between you and them. Imagine there are 100 new readers to your blog every month but you have no repeat visitors, what would be your readership... so it is very necessary to make your blog interesting and interactive.

There are many ways in which you can do this with your writing and some of the best are outlined below - combined, they can give you a real edge in developing your readership and hence your customer base.

• Content: Content is the king online. The most basic element is good content. It has to be relevant to your blog topic and should be interesting. Believe in quality and not how much you write. Post once in a week but be sure you are providing quality content. You can ask questions, ask readers to comment on your post, allow readers to ask you about their problems... the main basic is to make your blog interesting and interactive.
Try this: Once in a while post a story or your personal experience which makes the content more catchy.

• Passion: Be passionate about what you write. Yes, you have to do this one. How do you imagine your readers be enthusiastic about reading your blog till you are not passionate about the subject you are blogging about? It should be full of life and should insist your readers mind to give a thought on what you are delivering.

• Ideas: Be original. Don’t simply regenerate other people’s ideas, bring some of your own into the mix. What effect will it have on you if you read here what you have read elsewhere, a no. of times. It degrades quality and may even cost you long term readership... so be a natural.

• Actions: You need to practice what you say. If you don't follow it, do you expect others will follow what you preach. So as the slogan of Nike says "Just do it".

• Delivery: Be humorous, be witty, be innovative. Argue with reason, confront your readers. How you write about the subjects that you cover will influence your readership, so pick one which will appeal to your intended audience.

• Look and Feel: Don't overdo the design of the blog. Make it simple but never make the quality of your blog suffer. Every reader is an individual and has his own tastes, likings and dislikings. They tend to respond differently. Ensure that the design of your blog supports the content and displays it to best effect.

• Focus: It is very essential to be in focus of what you write in your blog. Don't beat around the bush(neither your's nor your neighbours). Focus on a particular area, industry or issue of your niche. This will help you reaching out to your target audience. It will help you in planning your blog successfuly.

• Information: A surfer is a searcher of information. If your visitor is reading your blog then surely he is need of information. It is your duty to provide him with useful and accurate information. Adding your own analysis to this by presenting differing opinions and then expressing your own opinion would be ideal. You can also ask for readers' opinion about the subject, and if you are successful in gathering sufficient amount of them your next post can be based on your public opinion analysis.

• Communication: Well it is worth mentioning again and again that blogs are a communication tool. You should have a rapport with your readers, the more you communicate effeciantly the more repeat visitors you will get. Be straight-forward and talk to them as if you are talking to your friend through a written medium. Create a two-way discussion by the way you present your posts and by asking for feedback.

• Relate: Try and keep your topics practical based on real happenings your readers can relate to. Try not to be very hypothetical. The best type of writing will talk about subject areas that your readers are familiar with, so always try to give examples that your readers will be able to identify and understand easily. It is not about how well you write, it is how well you communicate your feelings, opinions or information to them.

Have fun when you are blogging because its not about doing a job its doing it passionately. If you can combine a number of these elements in your posts then the chances of being able to engage your readers and getting them to return on a regular basis will be greatly increased.

My Next Post- A blunder I made while blogging.

Happy Blogging
Divya Uttam

Blogging,Business Blogging, Blog, Business blogs, Optimize Blogging

If you would have already read about Search Engine Optimization which you can find in this blog itself, it would not be hard to optimize your blog.

Title Tags- The title tag is inserted in the HEAD area of the web page.
Normally people tend to use only two common titles that are-‘Welcome to our blog’ and ‘Company Name’. But both of them are wrong titles as they do not contain any information of what is your site all about and search engines got to know it before they rank your site higher.
Things that should be remembered before writing the Title tag-
• A correct title should contain only your keyword.
• More than two keywords should be combined if possible.
• Always replace “and” with “|”
• Try to use the minimum no. of words in the Title.

This is very important for both your website as well as your blog. You can check out this by typing "Blogging to fame" into google. It will appear on either first or second position. This is because of the Title tags that I have used in my blog, which is also my keyword.

Header Tags- The most important header tags are H1 and H2. The main header tag is H1 which is used only once a page. It should appear on the top left corner of the page and should include the main keyword at least once and maximum twice (keeping in mind that the sentence formed is meaningful and as short as possible so that you do not confuse your human visitors and search engines regard you as a spam).
The second header tag is H2. This must lead any of paragraphs and should contain the main idea of that paragraph. At least 50% should have your keyword in them. This should form longer sentence including various words as compared to H1.

The name of my blog is Blogging to Fame which also happens to be my keyword as i mention above. Using your keyword in the header tag boosts your page rank and optimizes your blog all the more.

ALT Tag- Use ALT Tag for all your images. It explains the search engine spiders what the image is all about. The secret is that it can also increase your keyword density in turn increasing your page rank. With the keywords the words like “graphics”, “image”, “picture”, “design”, “photo” and “logo” should be used so that search engine do not consider it as spam. As well the viewers who have not enabled their graphics should know about what your graphic was. The length of the tag should not exceed 7-8 words, keep that in mind.
For example-
- “ Travel to Australia logo” is perfect
- “ Travel to Australia” is not OK since it doesn’t contain one keyword
- “ Travel to Australia and Travel to Sydney and sight-seeing in Australia pictures” is not OK since it is too long.

You can check the above image for the alt tags.


Bolding, Italicizing, Underlining, Strengthening-
The place where our keywords need more importance they should be bolded, italicized, underlined or strengthened. But there is a point that should be ALWAYS kept in mind, do not use each of these effects more than one time in the text otherwise your site can be considered a spam. So, apparently you have four places to do so. If you cannot find that many places where your keywords should be emphasized two effects can be used together, such as bold or strong with italic and underlined with any of the rest three.

These are very important factors of search engine optimization for websites as well as blogs. Just keep in mind that though you can bring visitors to you blog by using online optimization, you should engage them to keep them reading your blog and subscribing to it... which I will take up the next time.

Till then Happy Blogging to fame
Divya Uttam

Blogging,Business Blogging, Blog, Business blogs, Optimize Blogging

Labels: Blog Optimization, Blog Traffic, Blogging Tip/Tricks

Yes, its time for you to start blogging now, but how should you proceed with it? After deciding the answers to the 9 most important questions about blogging how will you actually start it. So, I am here to guide you how to do it...
Make your intentions clear about what you will be doing through your blog and not just to yourself but to your readers. Tell them through your initial posts what are going to provide them. Like I am going to guide you through your Blogging and you can leave your comments and ask me if you have some specific problems, creat a relationship with your readers through first posts itself. You can also tell them how often you will be posting in your blog.

Spend time planning your initial posts because that is the foundation of your relationship with your readers and that is also the most important time for building trust. Don’t worry though, the more you write, the easier it will become, and you will find that you soon settle into a rhythm and develop your own approach to the Blog.

Some elements that you should remember and which will help you in this are:
a) Plan out your initial posts
you have to be very careful in your first posts. Start with the topics you are most comfortable with. This will help you to tune into blogging mode. Bring your notepad and jot down the details of what you want to cover in first few days and weeks. Try coming up with something innovative if possible, but only continue with it when you have totally settled down with blogging. This will provide you with a framework to work with and will allow you to concentrate on your writing.

b) Decide how often will you post
This is also very important point. It is important to set a schedule of how often you will post or can post. There is no particular guidelines of how often you should post, the sooner the better. But dont overdo yourself. You can post whenever you have something important to say. But if you have promised your readers something than fulfil it. The minimum should be once a week and maximum would be twice a day. Why this is very important is because it will define the time how often your visitors would revisit your blog. Maintain the quality of the posts, because your readers are going to judge you on it. Dont post just for the sake of it.

c) Be a stylist- write in your original style
Be Original. Be yourself. Your readers visit your blog because you are you and not some professional representative of corporate website. Even if you are one, be personal while blogging. Copying somebody wont help. This will differentiate you from others and will give uniqueness to your posts. While you can develop your own style and tone as you go along, try to settle on one you are comfortable with early on.

d) Take up a few foudation posts...Plan a Series
Your initial or foundation posts should tell the readers what you will be taking on the whole. In the first 3-4 posts you can outline what you would be covering in upcoming ones and expand the points in them. Plan series will help you to continue well. Writing a series of posts on a subject which is important to your overall subject area is a good method of getting you going and establishing a relevant area of focus in your blog, which will be very attractive to Search Engines.

e) Be well informed about the latest happenings of your niche.
If you are going to be a primary source of information for your readers in your industry or niche then you will need to keep up to date with developments in it and be prepared to give your opinion on them. In any case, this will not only help you to add relevant content to your site but will also add value to your readers and build their trust and confidence in you and what you have to say.

f) Avoid trying to directly sell or directly market
WARNING- Dont Sell Directly Or Market Directly. It is very tempting to use your Blog to sell directly. Dont Do It. A blog is a communication tool and not a selling tool. Your readers will come to your Blog because they are interested in what you are writing about and want to find out more about the subject – this will allow you start to engage with them. You can recommend things or products important for your readers. Remember you build customers from your readers by gaining their trust through your blogs.

g) Make sure you have key elements in place
There are some key structural elements in your blog that you want to make sure you have such as a profile to help your readers easily identify whose blog they are reading and a way to contact you, and a prominent positioning of your RSS feed to allow them to subscribe.

Follow these points and you can build an excellent foundation for your blogs. Blogging is not difficult and everybody can do it, but there is certainly a way to BLOGGING TO FAME.

For your success,
Divya Uttam
Happy blogging.

This is the latest Issue of Business Week Magazine... Catch Up or Catch you Later. Now you can catch up with the article by clicking here.

Well said and well conveyed... Had to tell you about this one. The popularity of blogs has been catching up after all its the latest trend today apart from being a business. In recent studies by the American Life Project and The Guardian (UK), researchers asked whether or not the popularity of blogs today was growing in the two countries; and if so, why? The results on the popularity of blogs today were not exactly what most members of the blogosphere might expect.

Researchers working on the American Life Project found that the popularity of blogs today in terms of readerships in the United States was absolutely exploding; however, they also found that the amount of blogs available was increasing slowly in comparison. In the last six months of 2004, for instance, blog readers grew from a mere 17% of the population to a robust 37%--a significant increase. However, blog writers only increased from 5% and 7%; and largely maintained their homogeneous composition, which is predominantly male, young, and wealthy. The ALP attributed this explosion in readerships to the Presidential race, where both candidates employed blogging in some form to attract campaign donors.

The Guardian, which performed their study more recently, also found similar results in the United Kingdom on the popularity of blogs today. While they also found that readerships had increased dramatically, they did not find the same issue of slow blog growth; however, they did find out that a fairly astonishing 30% of frequent Internet users had never even heard of a blog.

So in which direction is the popularity of blogs today moving?--To greater profusion or to obscurity?

Given that blogs are the best intermediary between websites and forums, it is hard to imagine that they will decrease in the popularity of blogs today; conversely, however, it isn't hard to imagine that they will improve significantly in continuation with how they have changed since their inception in the mid-1990s.

In the short term, it is fairly safe to imagine that larger blogs will experiment with video technology while older blogs stick with easy, faster-loading models. It is also fairly safe to image that blog indexing methods will continue to improve and may even break away from the traditional algorithm method.

To your success
Divya Uttam
Happy Blogging

In the previous post I was talking about asking yourself a few questions before starting Blogging. Here I will explain to you what I meant and how you should proceed with it.

a) With what objective you are starting business blogging?

You should have a clear perspective of what you want your blog to do. Is it just a communication tool where you want to develop relationship with your prospects or customers, or do you want to sell silently to your readers by recommending products, lets take it as a selling aid to your business, or lets combine both and call it a marketing set-up. Be visionary and focus on your aim. Do not try to do everything at one time. The more focused your blogging is the more successful it is likely to be.

b) Who is your target audience for your Business Blog?

Your blogging cannot please everybody in the market, so you have to be very careful about choosing your target audience. It is not possible to connect to everyone- so it is very important to decide to whom you should write to. Focus on your audience, write what they are looking for and in a style that would warm them. Blogging is primarily a communication tool so it is essential take up a style that they can connect to. If you have lots of different audiences that you wish to appeal to then you might like to consider setting up separate blogs to cater for each area.

c) What results are you looking to achieve through blogging?

You must have set some goals to achieve from your blogging.Plan according to your goals but how are you going to measure them? You are going to spend time and effort is going to be involved and you need to show results at the end of it - therefore, from the start, you should know what results you are looking for. So you should be clear on your working style and your direction of working. You also should know how to measure the results and test them from time to time to know what improvements you need to make.

d) How will it integrate with your other marketing activities?

Blogging could easily enhance your marketing strategies. However it cannot be all you have to do. Combine it with your other customer service activities and business development programs to achieve success. Though it cannot cure all your problem areas but Blogging is still an excellent and the easiest marketing tool available and it is for free after all.

e) What Blogging software to choose?

There are many blogging platforms available, each with their own key benefits – depending upon the requirement of your business and how much customization you need. Among the most basic need is whether you want to blog on the service provider server, you want to FTP your blog to your server, or you can have whole blogging software installed on your own server. The best option would be is to choose one which will grow and develop with you as well as fitting with your current business and technical requirements. Free hosted software such as Blogger are good in their own as it allow you to FTP the blogs on your own server, but still less customizable, so for more control options look at Wordpress (full version) or Typepad as good starter points.

f) What name should you choose for your Business Blog?

Your blog name should clearly reflect you business niche. It should help in making direct contact with your prospects in terms of branding, image building. Use your keywords and your company name(to make it popular and familiar with your readers) in naming your blog . The name of your blog is very important as in most softwares the name of your blog is used by default as "Title tag", which is very important in search engine optimization.

g) Where are you hosting it?

You can either host it on your server or blog on the free versions like blogger and still be effective. But having your blog hosted on your server which is integrated with your own main website has its own benefits like for Search Engine Optimization purposes. Or still you can have both type of Blogs and design your web network using proper linking strategies.

h) What domain name or subdirectory name to use?

Have something descriptive as this will also help in on site optimization. If you are using a separate domain, then choose a domain name which either reflects the branding you wish to achieve or contains your main keyword (or preferably both!). If you are having subdirectory then describe it using anchor text for your main keyword will be serving such as “Blogging Tutorials” for example.


i) How should your Blog look and feel?

If you are having your blog as part of your website, then integrate the look and feel of your website.. There’s no need for your readers to know that they are on a blog - remember it’s the benefits that blogs offer that is important, not the technology. If it is on a separate domain, then design your Business Blog with the image you want to portray on your readers. Use the default template only after customization for your branding purposes and for differentiation.

With all of these elements in place then you are starting off on the right track and should have the foundations in place to create a successful Business Blog. Now you will have better information that will save you a lot of time and will help you to start blogging much more effectively and achieve what you wish to achieve.

Divya Uttam
Happy Blogging

Till now I have been talking a lot about blogs and blogging, giving tips about optimising your page. I hope those droplings were so confusing. Well I just wanted to introduce myself.
There are two types of blogging-Personal blogging and Business Blogging.

1. Personal Blogging- Personal blogging is each and everything about anything a person wishes to write which can involve his feelings and daily happenings in his life just like a personal diary or a scrapbook which can be fun to read and write. Topics can change with each post according to mood and inclination. There are now tools which are freely available to allow anyone to set up a personal blog quickly and simply. The most well know is Blogger, owner by Google, though there are others which are as good if not as well known.
   
   
2. Business Blogging- Business blogging is a very power marketing tool focused on your industry and its needs and the solutions you can provide. Business blogging also provides a powerful platform to communicate with your customers and enter into dailogue with them and helps to create relationships and networks online. For this type of blogging it is not advisible to use the above mentioned tools simply because they provide you with lesser control over a tool which will eventually become your key business.

Talking about personal blogging or business blogging there is certainly not much requirement of technical knowledge. While blogging takes a personal turn it is certainly upto the your choice of what you wish to publish and there is not much to talk about. You can put in photographs, animated pictures, audios and videos, it is all upto you.

As this is 'blogging to fame' we will be particularly talking about business blogging (not that you cant be famous with your personal blogs).Business blogging does need a few things to be kept in mind before starting.There are a number of elements that you need to consider in order to ensure that you give it every opportunity to be a success.So before starting your blog ask yourself a few questions-

a) With what objective you are starting business blogging?
b) Who is your target audience for your Business Blog?
c) What results are you looking to achieve through blogging?
d) How will it integrate with your other marketing activities?
e) What Blogging software to choose?
f) What name should you choose for your Business Blog?
g) Where are you hosting it?
h) What domain name or subdirectory name to use?
i) How should your Blog look and feel?

These Factors will make your blogging more efficient and focused. A strong foundation work will be achieved for a successful business blog.By doing so, you will find that it will save you a lot of time and inconvenience in the future and will make the blog that much more effective in what you are looking to achieve.

I'll be taking up these points in detail in the next post and enhance it further.
Till then
Happy Blogging
Divya Uttam

Tags:


Blogging,Business Blogging, Blog, Business blogs