Promoting Blog Posts | #4 Steps to Keyword Research

Saturday, October 27, 2012

How to write great content for your blog tips and tricks design tutorials

Post has been updated - http://xomisse.com/blog-tips-steps-to-keyword-research-for-seo

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Promoting Blog Posts | #4 Steps to Keyword Research "

Promoting Blog Posts | #3 All About Search Engines, SEO & Keywords

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Post has been updated - http://xomisse.com/blog-tips-all-about-search-engines-seo-keywords/

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Promoting Blog Posts | #3 All About Search Engines, SEO & Keywords "

Promoting Blog Posts | #2 Social Media & Sharing

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Post has been updated - http://xomisse.com/promoting-your-blog-with-social-media/

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Promoting Blog Posts | #2 Social Media & Sharing "

Promoting Blog Posts | #1 Writing

Monday, October 22, 2012

This is the first part of a series about creating great content for your blog and how to properly share this to increase traffic to your blog. When writing a post, they're are a few steps that should be taken. Once the topic is chosen, you should research it as much as you can. Once you know all the areas you want to talk about, it is important to categorise these to make it easier to follow and put them under a heading. It is also important to have good Search Engine Optimisation, remember that it's easy to please Google but it's just as easy to overdo it. For 500 words, you should use keyword about 5 times. Set up Google Analytics to see what posts are popular and what grabs readers attentions, also have a look at Google Adwords, see whats being searched and what keywords you should be including. The series contains tips thats I've learned from college and from doing my own research, so hopefully you find it useful.

Article should be unique. Try an original twist on an old topic.
Write in your own voice, in a format thats easiest for you.
Be consistent, write frequently. Find a schedule that suits you and your topic.
Visual appealing "Pull" Photos, Screenshots & any other relevant images. Don't copy!
Write good quality content, less words with more depth.
Keep SEO in mind, read some SEO tips here.
Article should be well formatted, clutter free and easy to read.
Stick to the topic and keep post relatively short.
Select a keyword rich, interesting but relevant title.
Set up Google Analytics & Google Adwords.
Keep it interactive. Ask questions. Ask for their opinions or tips.
Update old, dead posts and link to them.
Remember its Quality over Quantity!

Coming up Next

Part #2 of this series is on Social Media & Sharing your posts for more traffic, available Tuesday.

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Promoting Blog Posts | #1 Writing "

Quickly Alter Your Blog Design

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Huge post from me today, hopefully it makes sense. If not, I will split it up into smaller posts and explain things a little more but for now this is kind of an overview. If you have any questions leave them below. You can do so much in HTML & CSS that its hard to include everything but here is the main things you can do to alter your blog design.

Please download a backup of your template before editing anything!

Main Post Area

Post Title, Sidebar Title & Date Header

Altering your Blog Titles can really change the look of your blog. Changing small little things such as borders, colours and sizing will create a new theme and style. Open Template > Edit Html and depending on what you want to alter, find one of the following

Blog Post/Page Title = h3.post-title
SideBar Title = h2 (*)
Date Header = h2.date-header (*)
Blog Post Title/ Link Colour = a:link
Hover Link Colour = a:hover
Visited Link Colour = a:visited
Comment Heading = .comments h4
Comment Link = .post-comment-link

(*) Notice that these are both h2, meaning changes to one will slightly alter the other. To separate them you have to alter the name in HTML so they are no longer connected.

Whats in Blue is the code, Alter whats in Red. The OR's mean you have to pick one option.

Change Background
background-color: #Hex Color ;
background: url("Direct URL for Image");

Change Font
font-size: Number px OR Number em) ;
font-family: font name ;
text-transform: lowercase OR uppercase OR capitalize ;

Align Title
text-align: left OR center OR right ;

Decoration
text-decoration: underline OR overline OR line-through OR blink ;

Borders
border: Width Size px solid OR dashed OR dotted OR double OR groove OR ridge OR inset OR outset #Hex Color ;

Or if you only want a border on one side you can use the following
border-left:
border-right:
border-top:
border-bottom:

If you want your border to have circular edges, then use the following

border-radius: Size px;

Custom Headings & BlockQuotes

Similarly to above, you can alter your headings. I use h4 & h5 to create the blue & orange heading you see to break up this post into categories. You can also customise your .post blockquote using the CSS coding above.

Example of an altered Heading

Example of an altered Block Quote

Spaces

Have a look at padding and margins to create space between different elements and make your blog look less cluttered.

Entire Blog

Add Navigation, Buttons, Links

One thing that can really improve your blog is a good navigation. Here are some tutorials to help

Sidebar Area

Clean up this area, make sure it's easy to read and is clutter free. Use Titles to categorise areas and link to important areas. Change the background or titles like shown above. Take note of the size of your sidebar and make sure images fit nicely. Have a little bit about yourself, with an image. Learn how to enlarge Bloggers Profile image here & experiment with rounded corners for images.

To change the design find either .main-inner .column-right-outer or .main-inner .column-left-outer and again edit using the above coding.

Increase SEO, Increase Traffic

I wrote this post about some easy steps to better SEO. This will bring more traffic to your blog and keep Google happy.

For more Tutorials visit my Archive Page

Don't forget, I'm always happy to help with any HTML questions. I do get a lot so please be patient, I do try and get back to you right away but sometimes it takes me a little bit. I also take blog design orders if anyone wants a blog re-design, I take care of everything I've mentioned in this post and loads more so you can get details about that here.

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Quickly Alter Your Blog Design "