Step 4, Submit your blog to Google

After completing your blog and postings you have to submit your blog to the major Search Engines This is because there are millions of sites out there on the World wide weband the search bots/spiders will not come to your site/blog unless you inform them that a site has been constructed and needs viewers.

There are millions of sites on the web and viewers nowadays have to rely on the Search Engines to inform them of the best site for the subject they are looking for. Unless you submit your site to the search engines they will never come to know of your site/blog.

After submission the search engines send their spiders to crawl over and index your site and putit in their cache. These 'spiders' are automated programs which periodically visit your site to see if you have made any changes to it. One advantage of Hosting your site on the Blogger platform is that Google's spiders periodically visit your site.

First, Submit your blog to Google search engine:
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

Second Submit your blog to Google's blog search:
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping

Then you must submit your blog to Google's webmasters tools; which is very important it will make it easier for Google's Spiders to crawl your blog, I'll show you how to do this in the following steps.

1- Go to Google Sitemaps and then login with your Google account information, after logging in you will be directed to this page:

P.S: Click on the photo to enlarge it.

2- Write your blog's URL and then click on add site.
3- Click on Verify your site, without verifying your website the whole process will be worthless.
4- Choose your verification method, Since Blogger.com doesn't allow bloggers to add files then you have one option to choose, which is "Add a meta tag".
5- Copy the meta tag and then go to your Blogger.com Dashbord.
6- Click on Settings, then click on the template tab and then click on edit html.
7- Copy your Verification code and then paste under the section, the following picture will show you where exactly to paste your verification code.
Then click save template, Congratulations now you have submitted your blog to Google!
One more thing to do, Google webmaster tools allows you as a webmaster to add your website's sitemap to make it easier for Google's to crawl your website... But in case you're using blogger as your blogging service you can use your Feed's adress as a replacement!

Click on Sitemaps in Google webmaster tools in the left hand side menu, then click on add sitemap.
Select add general we sitemap, and then write your blog's feed address.

Your blog's feed address should be: Http://yourblog.blogspot.com/rss.xml
Replace "yourblog" with your blog address! now you are done!

Step 3, How to choose your blogging service

As you know, I am currently using Blogger made by Google to write all of my articles, however, I found out through forums, that other people had started to talk about other blogging software, like Wordpress. Well, is it really any good? I’ll try and outline the main pros and cons of having Wordpress compared to Blogger.

1- Both Blogger and Wordpress are free, but with the Full version of wordpress you will have to pay for web hosting and domain name registeration.

2- Blogger doesn't have a category feature, One of the main features of Wordpress is categories... to all the people reading this post, I know you might get into hard time trying to search for an old post in this blog.. Sorry I'm using blogger.

3- It is very easy to use Blogger using the WYSIWYG editor, with previews available before you have to publish the article/template. Wordpress, although easy to write articles, does require amateur knowledge of HTML/CSS, which is one of the reasons which I was more inclined to using Blogger. For all you pro’s though who can handle the messy stuff Wordpress is the way, but being realistic, most of the population doesnt have a clue about CSS, and WordPress has no preview.

4- Wordpress is a popularity driven blogging platform. The home page displays top blogs and blogs of the minute and also displays top tags. In this sense, it is perfect for people who are looking to get readership by writing really good stuff. Unlike blogger it also shows the faster growing blogs. So it definitely ranks above blogger when it comes to getting more readership. Its friends surfer and blogroll features provide for a very effective community building tool.

5- Blogger has few themes, with room for adsense to fit in your blog... while on the other hand Wordpress has more than 400 themes.. most of them look really good.

6- Blogger has recently introduced the concept of custom widget. This is a very important step towards getting people interested in implementing their own ideas and having an active community involved in working for developing blogger as a whole.

7- Blogger FTP connection is too poor, compared to wordpress.

8- The most important factor, Blogger gets indexed by Google faster than wordpress!!! Which is really an important factor to consider.

To summarize I would suggest that for a user new to the idea of blogging, Blogger still seems to be a much better option. Its more interactive and offers very little unnecessary detailing on the dashboard. It probably attracts more user who are first time bloggers.

For a user who has come experience of blogging, Wordpress is a much better tool. It gives the user a power to understand his readership details. Usage stat graphs and per post stats are a wonderful innovation and once a user is used to it, its difficult to live without a dashboard as detailed as Wordpress.

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Step 2, How to name your blog?

Choosing a blog name is a decision one shouldn’t enter into lightly. In fact, you can consider your blog’s name to be its first impression. The last thing you want is to create a bad first impression, right? Your blog’s name should easily come to your readers’ minds. Remember, not everyone relies on bookmarks. What follows are some tips for creating a memorable first impression and choosing a blog name.

1. Make it Easy to Type

Your blog’s name should be easy to type without too many letters. The title should be easy to spell, with all words spelled correctly. A purposely misspelled word or one with too many odd letters might be too confusing, especially if a reader has to type the URL over and over until he gets it right.

2. Make it Reflective of the Topic

It should go without saying that the blog name should say something about the topic. “Joe’s Blog” tells me nothing about the blog, except that it belongs to Joe. “Joe’s Tulip Blog” tells me Joe is blogging about tulips. If I was a gardener, especially one who is fond of tulips, I’ll want to remember this blog.

3. Make it Easy to Remember

The blog’s name should be easy to remember. A reader might forget a title if it’s long winded, intentionally misspelled or has nothing to do with the subject matter. If the blog name is short and to the point, he has a better chance of keeping it in mind.

4. Make it Catchy

Do make your blog’s name catchy. A title should be fun and engaging. It should draw the readers in, not send them running away. Visit Technorati and search for different types of blogs. Check out the names of those that are most popular. What makes them so special? What makes the titles so appealing people want to read them?

5. Make it Search Engine Friendly

You don’t have to necessarily stock your blog name with keywords(though sometimes it helps), but you should make it search engine friendly. Someone looking for bulb planting tips might turn up “Joe’s Tulip Blog” in a search. Turning up “Joe’s Blog About Colored things That Go in the Ground” is more of a long shot.

6. Make a List

Make a list of names you feel would best reflect your blog. As you look at each potential name, ask yourself the following questions:

• Does this name reflect my blog’s purpose?
• If I saw this blog name in a search, would I be inclined to click?
• Will other bloggers and blog readers see the title and perhaps consider this blog a good resource?
• Will the name work for years to come?

If the answer to all of these is “yes”, you have yourself a winner.

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Step 1, How to choose a topic for your blog

In the previous posts I brought up two important topics, First I mentioned "why do most blogs/bloggers fail" and then I wrote a post on "How to become a Successful blogger".

As you should have noticed by now, this blog is dedicated to people who want to be bloggers not for professional bloggers or even Medium-level bloggers, So please don't leave a comment complaining about the simplicity of my posts!

Now you should have known How to become a Successful blogger, In order to become Successful blogger you need to have a blog! First step is to pick up a subject, topic or a niche for your Blog.

Picking a profitable blog niche that is of personal interest can be a difficult process, not to mention that you’ll have to single out a niche amongst an almost infinite number of unique topics. Not all blog niches are inherently profitable because the topic you choose, often determines the future size and profitability of your blog to some extent.

It is important to pick a niche that you have genuinely interest in because the natural passion you have for the topic sustains the content creation process and will actually make the whole chore of blogging enjoyable.

So this is how I recommend you chose your topic. Make a list of 20 things you know about and like talking about. Get that list and go to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, place each word and see how much traffic it has and how many advertisers are competing for that specific keyword, also see how many combinations are for that key word, the more combinations with advertisers the stronger that niche would be.

Narrow your list to 5 specific topics, now go to Google and search each topic, visit each of the sites that come up on the first 5 pages focus on which are blogs, these will actually be your competition, see how deep each blog is and from the whois find out age of blog, if your competition has less than 3 years and post less than once a day, this is a niche you can be successful if you do things right, like link building and marketing , you should compete well.

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Successful blogging Approach, How to become a Successful blogger?

In the last month I’ve seen a few blogs stumble. Some have disappeared altogether, others are are still kicking about but are updated infrequently, which ultimately is just the same as if they had ceased to exist.

What did they do wrong? Why did they fail?

There are some common reasons people often bring up:

• Burnout.
• Lack of motivation or time.
• Personal issues.
• Boring writing/topics.
• Nothing left to write about.
• Poor visual design.

These are all valid reasons but something that is often overlooked is the attitude people bring to blogging. The wrong attitude can doom you to failure even if you have the above points covered.

How should you approach blogging?

1. You must be willing to learn.
   The fine details of blogging are far more complex than most people realise. The writing is easy. Learning how to turn your hard work into something successful is the hard part. Very few people stumble into success. You need to learn, adapt, and assimilate what sometimes might seem like an overwhelming amount of information, but that is what it takes to succeed in this game. I’m not afraid to admit that I’m still learning. You can never stop learning. If you do you’ll quickly find yourself left behind. Do you think the big guns are complacent? No, they are constantly looking for new angles they can exploit to solidify or increase their position. Which means you will probably have to work that much harder.
2. You have to put the effort into your content.
   Everyone’s heard the saying “Content is King”, and it’s true. Without quality content what reason do people have to visit your blog, let alone return day to day? You can get away with being a lazy blogger, you might even be able to make a good living from it, but if you want peoples respect you need to earn it. There’s only one way to do that: quality content.
3. Promoting your blog is just as important as its content.
   If content is King, then traffic is Queen. So you’ve written a bunch of great articles, which are well written, link worthy, and are sure to connect with readers. So where are they? There is no magical force that will make people rush to your blog when you’ve got something good to read. You have to get them there yourself. If you aren’t willing to get your hands dirty promoting your blog, it will never live up to the potential it may have.
4. Check your ego at the door.
   At least in the beginning. Pay your dues, learn the ropes, and keep in mind there are people who have been doing this longer than you have. If you show a little respect, they may tip their hat your way from time to time.
5. People don’t owe you anything.
   They don’t have to read your blog. They don’t have to leave comments. They don’t have to link to you. These are rewards for hard work, and not something one is simply entitled to.
6. If you’re not in it for the long haul, your done.
   People are impatient. I’m impatient. We all want to see results immediately, but unless you have enough money to buy success or you’ve got a lucky charm handy you have to take a more long term approach. You can’t plant a seed and come back the next day expecting to see a tree. You have to water constantly, prune on occasion, and if you are vigilant, some time in the future you will have yourself a strong healthy tree. The same goes for your blog.
7. Don’t blog just to make money.
   Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Blogging only for money is the quickest path to failure. Let me be clear I’m not against making money from a blog. If you put in the work you have every right to reap the rewards. The cold hard reality is, you won’t make very much from your blog in the short term. If money is your only motivation you won’t last long enough to see very much of it.
8. Network. Network. Network.
   I spend more time replying to messages, reading other blogs, and commenting, than I do actually blogging. Without that legwork you will find it hard to gain any traction within the blogging community. Until you start seeing some organic traffic from search engines chances are your audience is going to be limited to fellow bloggers. The more of them you interact with, the more traffic you will get to your blog.
9. Be prepared for criticism.
   You have to realise not everyone is going to agree with you. Criticism will eventually come your way and when it does you will need to be able to deal with it. Having a thick-skin helps, but being willing and able to engage in a civil discussion with someone with a polar opinion is far more productive.
10. Don’t expect it to be easy.
    Blogging is hard work. Harder than I ever imagined it would be. But you know what, I’m still here plugging away every day. You have to make sacrifices, you have to push yourself to the edge of burnout, and still keep going. The harder you work now, the more rewarding it will be when success does come your way.
11. Put aside your self-doubt and insecurities.
    I doubt myself all the time. My computer is riddled with an embarrassing number of articles that I’ve chosen not to publish because at the time I thought they weren’t good enough. It’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting every single post to represent the best you have to offer. The problem with this attitude is, you aren’t necessarily the best judge of your own work. Some of my most popular articles are the ones I’ve only grudgingly let into the wild. I’ve learnt my lesson there: Don’t second guess yourself. Write what you have to say and let your readers decide its value. Don’t presume to think you know what will connect with them.

It sometimes amazes me how many misconceptions there are about blogging. Some of these misconceptions have been perpetuated by the media, others are being spread by bloggers themselves who either ignore or reinforce them for their own benefit.

So many bloggers are fixated on the carrot dangling in front of them. With blinkered vision, they keep chasing it around, yet they could be far more productive and successful if only they realised it was attached to a string.

This article isn’t about persuading you to stop blogging. It’s about realising the harsh realities involved in the practice and how you can address your own attitudes and habits to get the most out of your blog. Knowing what needs to be done, and how you need to change, is the first step to avoiding failure.

Why do blogs fail?

This is an article I've found, in this article you will learn why do most blogs fail....

Not long back, the idea of blogging caught everyone's fancy. Akin to wildfire-like spread of various types of social media sites - Digg, Orkut, MySpace, YouTube, et al - blogging also became popular in no time. People I know, who are otherwise gainfully occupied elsewhere and have seldom scribbled anything meaningful for a long time, suddenly felt a dire need of expressing themselves through blogs.

That is where lies the attractiveness of blogs. Connecting with others whom probably you may not know. Several tools and applications like MyBlogLog, FeedBurner, FeedBlitz, etc. have made the blogs even more endearing. And terms such as rss, permalink, trackback have become familiar in no time.

What however turned out to be the most effective spade to shove the concept of blogging is the ease of starting one. The other plus is that in most cases it's free to debut and carry on blogging. With Blogger, Wordpress and a host of others, starting a blog is child's play. Blogger's slogan, 'Push-Button Publishing' says it all lucidly.

If you keep in touch with Google Groups' Blogger Help Group, you'd know how the blogging fraternity is rapidly expanding allover. That surely is an indication of people's growing urge to 'publish' their thoughts and actions on the Internet, and in the process be heard and commented upon by others.

However, it's not long when the initial euphoria of blogging slowly starts ebbing, and then starts the pain of maintaining blog. In most cases, this aspect alone is what separates the wheat from the chaff. Since the bottomline of a successful blog is what else but solid contents, many promising startups that lack this virtue end up like an art unfinished.

Why do most blogs perish just after birth? 2 reasons come to mind. One is that for most startup bloogers, blogging is just an infatuation toward being 'seen' on Internet. Doesn't matter a new blog is only a speck of dust in thin air. Since infatuation and seriousness are poles apart from one another, a newbie's blog, if not pursued with vigor, hurtles toward oblivion in no time.

The second reason is more to do with perceived necessity than ability or wherewithal to support new efforts. I'm inclined to include website owners in this category who are already waist-deep in this.

The ease of starting a blog and availability of touchup tools to make it ornamental are juicy enough for many webmasters to start as many blogs as thought necessary. Only later does it dawn that carrying along those many blogs is a big drag on resources.

This brings me to the point I often like to put my bets on. It's that no website or blog can hope to succeed without contents. We've heard so many times that search engines put premium on quality contents and interlinking among them. If this is true for non-blog websites, there's no reason why it shouldn't be for blogs as well.

But, say we put aside search engines' requirements for a moment. What about flesh-n-blood visitors? Would they like a blog if it smells of staleness? When that happens, it signals the end of yet another valiant attempt at blogging. You get the point, don't you?

Click here for the article's Source

Blogging for money, starting from Zero.

In this blog, I'll try to give my readers all what I've learned as a result of countless hours of internet researching on how to make money off blogging.

I'm going to start from Zero, Next post will not be this short....

Stay tuned for the next post!