Blogger Tips & Props

I'm going to take a break from posting an FSD History Flashback today. Tomorrow's will be one of the most controversial and memorable in sports history, so stay tuned for that. There's some good moments coming up for the next week, too. Thanks to all those who have viewed that series, and for that it will continue. But for today....

After having several discussions with bloggers(mainly from Sporting News I admit), I wanted to post some tips on how you can make your experience using Blogger(or your blog for that matter) a better one. I'm also going to give a couple of shoutouts to sites you should read. Here's some tips I've picked up on my own as well as from some other bloggers across the internet.

1. If you don't mind making a little extra money, then signup for some advertisers. Of course, the most popular one is Google AdSense. Unlike before, Google does allow you to use other advertisers on your site. Just pay attention to the rules and policies because they can suspend your account especially when it comes to clicking on ads and such. Here's some other sites you can signup to put on your site:

AdBrites: They offer contextual and text ads.
Kontera: Once you get signed up, you link back to them and they put text links in your posts automatically. I use this service on here and two other sites. My friend Sabre Blade informed me of this service.
Adify: This is one that my buddy MoonDog recommended to me before. I'm not sure if he still uses this, but it's another option for you.
Chitika: This is another one Sabre recommended to me. He said they're very good about paying people in a timely fashion, too. I'm going to look into this one here soon.
Shopping Ads: This another service which will list items that you specify from eBay.
Well, those are some of the ad sites you can check out besides Google if you choose. All are free to use, too. If you blog for fun, then you won't need to waste your time with this. I blog for fun myself, but I don't mind making some extra money while enjoying it. Be sure to help others out with ads and such as often as possible especially for those who are just starting out.

2. Submit your blog to as many blog directories and search engines as you can. FreeLinks is a good place to start that. Great Directories gives you a list of free services to submit your site to that you don't have to signup for. This will save you valuable time if you only want to submit it to sites that don't require registration. I highly recommend that if you do nothing else before getting your blog going, that you submit your blog to the three major search engines: Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. It will take time for them to show up, and you have to have enough content in them to be listed. But whatever you do, do NOT submit your blog more than once to any service too often! This will likely cause your blog to be rejected because when the services crawl your site, they could consider it spam. So be patient, and do not submit it more than once. Also, signup for FeedBurner so that you can have those subscribe to your blog. They offer alot of features to enhance your site as well. Here's some other services I recommend:

Technorati
Blogged
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Squidoo

3. Link sites that match your content or that you recommend others to read. They'll likely link you back, so that it helps both of you out. On that same note, it's wise to also "follow" those blogs, too. I would recommend putting links on a Blog Roll instead of a Link List. This way, people can view the recently updated material first. Those sites without a feed could be put on a seperate Link List if you want. But again, this is just a recommendation.

4. Be active in trying to comment on another site when you can. It's been shown that people are more likely to comment back on your blog when you start to do the same for others. Speaking of commenting, it's great to be able to moderate your own comments. You can have people that are not on Blogger leave their name and a link to their site. You can also have anonymous commenting, too. I've found out that you can't take off the Name/Site option without doing the same for anonymous. So if you remove one, you're removing both. Something to keep in mind. It's also wise to moderate commenting if you have excessive spammers or abusive comments, so that you can reject them if need be.

5. Signup for at least one site analyzer. I currently use the one on Stat Counter so that I can see where the traffic is coming from. I've also found out from this method some cool sites that linked me that I wasn't aware of. It's a very useful tool, and you can also put it on your site invisibly, too.

6. In this day in age, we all get those who abuse or spam our sites with comments. There used to be no way to block off a person or persons from doing this to your site. Well, Toolator can block IP addresses. You can even set up which page the blocked person will be re-directed to as well. The only catch is that you only have a limit of people to block, and you would have to signup for another account if you have more than one site. That's the basic service, and you can pay to upgrade for better features if you choose. PeerGuardian is another you can use, but you have to download it before being able to use it.

7. One idea I think that helps is having multiple writers for your site. It's important to try and update your site as often as possible especially when starting out. You want to keep visitors coming back, but some have very busy schdedules which may prevent them from doing this often. I have one writer each on my BWE & WBE sites that will occasionally post. I also post every so often at Mo's Marketplace, and he does the same for me on WBE. You can have your contributing writers put their own ads up on your site as well. So it's good to invite some people to your site to either help cross-promote their own blogs and/or help fill the gaps when you're not available to post as often.

8. Promote your site as often as possible with e-mails, posting in forums, instant or private messaging, and in other blogs that you may have. It's alot of work to get your site setup the way you want at first, so make it easier on yourself to let everyone you know about it ahead of time.

9. One thing I've noticed since I've changed this template is an increase in traffic. If you want, and are familar enough with codes, then you may want to have a different template than what Blogger typically offers. You can go to Word Press for some templates to choose from. I found some free ones at Final Sense which is where I got this template. You can Google other searches to find other templates to use. Some are free, and some are not so be aware of that. But before you change your template, save the old one to a file just in case something was to go wrong.

10. Take full advantage of the gadgets that Blogger now offers. It's wise to put in gadgets that match your site's content. They offer thousands of useful gadgets that can help your site standout.

11. Probably the most important thing. If you don't know about something, ask someone. Contact Google for help or someone you know that has good knowledge of how Blogger works and about the features, too. I've had to do that many times, so don't be afraid to ask your friends or someone you know for help. If you're unsure about HTML/JavaScript and other coding, or other concerns in general, then ask for help. Speaking of which, I want to thank guys like Sabre Blade, MoonDog, Lester's Legends, and Mo for helping me out along the way. I'm much more familar with all this now, and I also learned much on my own, too. But there's some stuff I still don't know either. It's better to get advice when you can from people that know. But that's just me.

Okay, those are some things you can do to help yourself out. Now here's a couple of new blogs that I recommend you checking out:

College Football & the BCS: This is my brother's new site that he just signed up for a couple of days ago. He's a Sooners fan like me, and provides excellent weekly takes and predictions on games. He'll likely post weekly, but it's worth your time to check it out. Tell him that his big bro sent you! LOL!

Broken Facemask: This is one of my best friends from Sporting News. He's a former collegiate football player with an absolute clear love for the game. He's just starting out as well and will update his site quite often. If you're a diehard college football fan, this is the best person I know to bring it to you. He's not just a Southern Cal fan, he's a big fan of the game.

If those blogs don't satisfy you, then I have another full Blog Roll of others you can enjoy to the right of this page! Give them a look, and they'll appreciate you stopping by!

I'll be back tomorrow on here with a FSD History Flashback for October 5 as well as a recap of the top fantasy college football performers!

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