tools & techniques for effective blogging
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My presentation at Institute of Journalism on Effective Blogging Tools and TechniquesTRANSCRIPT
Tools and Techniques for Effective Blogging
Hammad Siddiquihttp://hammadsiddiquiblog.com
http://twitter.com/hammads
• Importance of Blogging
• How to blog
• How to market Blog
• How to customize your blog
• Why Blog?• Challenges before you start.• How to find your niche.• Which platform to chose from (blogger vs
wordpress)• Watch trends.• How to write quality content?• Challenges as a blogger.• Reaching out to readership.• Key success factors.
Online is the Media for Today and Tomorrow.
• People are watching more television, reading more news, playing more video games, spending more time updating their social networking profiles and using more video on demand services than they were six months ago, according to a new survey published today, but their actual spending has plunged as increasingly consumers expect free access.
• Spending on 'traditional' media such as newspapers and magazines has dropped almost 20% in the last six months, while spending on digital media has almost halved.
• Online, social networking and blogging remains the most popular pastime with half of all respondents doing it compared with 47% six months ago. The big jump in usage most recently has been among 45 to 54 year olds, increasing from 37% to 45%.
Source: KPMG Report
Why Blog?
Improves creativity
Writing skills
Opportunity to express views
Opportunity to interact with large
community
Recognition
Challenges Before U Start!
What are the trends?
How to get quick and
crisp information?
Choosing a platform
Finding your niche
Finding Your Niche
Personal Blogging
Corporate Blogging
Informational Blogging
Controversial Blogging
How to get quick and crisp information
•READ READ READ–Newspapers–Blogs–Books–USE Google Alerts
Choosing a platform
Blogger Wordpress TypePad
Tumblr Online newspapers
Which Platform?
•Blogger vs Wordpress
•Serious blogging – host at your domain
Design Counts
http://jongordon.com/blog
http://hammadsiddiquiblog.com
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
http://t.co/IuoG4RYh
http://www.humorcarbons.com/
http://wisdomfrombooks.com/
http://farihamunirshahtimes.blogspot.com/
1. Title - Too big and not SEO Friendly (Keep it short and focus on key words such as Women Chamber, Multan etc - Its tricky stuff but check youtube videos on this topic)
2. Background design - Too clumsy (remove all those colorful stuff)
3. Font - too small (you need to build 1.5 line spacing)
4. Picture quality - Poor, you need relatively higher quality pics. AND Must be captioned - You have used captions in some previous posts
5. Missing Tags, keywords, labels (in blogger these are called Labels) - Labels help in improving search on google.
http://fahdhusain.blogspot.com
http://naumanadil.blogspot.com
Another thing that counts
Trends
• http://www.blogpulse.com/
• http://www.ysearchblog.com/
• http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends
• http://blogherald.com
Content is the King!
Read, liked and goes viral
Simple yet correct
language 400 words
Personal touch
Professional approach
References and hyperlinks
Pictures and videos
Quick and crisp information?
Print media (news and Op/Eds)
Articles
TV
Social Media / other blogs
Interviews
Exhibitions/conferences/seminars
Google alerts
Challenges for Bloggers
Keep writing Scheduling Respecting reader’s comments Maintaining the interest from readership
Reaching out to readership– Facebook (join groups, increase friend’s
circle) 800 million– Twitter (use #tags) 100 million active users–Google+ over 100 million– Linkedin Groups 140 million users• Most traffic comes from facebook – Tag with keywords– Backlinks– Tweet (and retweet)– Request
Be Creative
Making Money Through Blogging
AdSence Amazon Affiliates
Corporate Blogging
Ghost Blogging Backlinks
Success Factors YOU and Your Commitment
Content: • Short, specific, thought provoking, informational
Appearance: • font, color scheme, spellings, grammar, title, pictures
Professionalism:• Facts, references, tags, google alerts, Social media
postings, research
Basic SEO
- Keywords - Title- SEO tools- Bold Fonts- Youtube Videos- Slideshare - Effective Backlinking- Commenting on other blogs
• Google Analytics• Feedjit• XML sitemap