Well, it’s obvious, ain’t it? Just pick a subject and say everything you have on the matter, be it a complain or praise. However, it’s not always this simple, especially not when you have to keep up with your online visitors, who don’t really mind weather they would read YOUR blog, or someone else’s, as long as they get access to the information they want. So, how to write a blog entry that would guarantee you will not lose your reader after a few lines and moreover this reader will come back?

Basically, it’s not what you say, it’s HOW you say it. How many times you ended up reading something you have no particular interest in, yet the story was so fascinating and thrilling that you just had to finish reading? I bet at least once it happened to all of us. This happens only when the storyteller not only knows what he is talking about, but also knows how to present his story in the utmost effective way. Your information is a diamond in a rough - know how to polish it til it sparkles and present it like a real jewel.

If you were a good student in your literature class, probably you were taught how to build a written topic. The best way to arise interest in the subject from point zero is to start off by asking a question. By asking a question you automatically force the reader to think of an answer, and if he does not have the answer, what will he do? Exactly, he will read what you have to say about it! On this occasion I’d add that you should avoid banal questions on casual subjects, because if the issue has been milled over hundreds of times before you, no one will have interest in your blog entry. Another good idea for starting a post could be a famous quote (sort of prologue)

So, let’s say you have a killer title and intro, and grabbed the reader by the neck, what’s next? Next, you have to make him keep reading… until the end. This is tricky because from now on it fully depends on your writing skills and writing style. Some people have a talent here, others have to follow simple rules to ensure the blog post is going to be perfect, and believe me, everything is “learnable”, writing skills included.
Read More from "9 rules for writing a *good* blog entry"

I bet Jim Westergren, the famous SEO guru, does not even know that toptut.com secretly competes with him. Of course I don’t, the last thing I need now is overseas enemies, but when this blog was just launched, I made a post about Jim’s SEO services, phrasing his ability to kick any blog to a high rank in SE. After reading his blog and keeping track with what he recommends and suggests (sometimes I just pulled it from the context), in about half a year I am coming close to his ranking, according to Blog Juice calculator…

Sure there is still a long way to go, but looks looks mission impossible is developing a shape and honestly I believe that in 2 more months from now (if I won’t be too lazy to promote) I might even reach the 5,2 rating as well, only hoping (as evil as it sounds, sorry Jim) that Westergren’s blog juice won’t climb higher by then…

If we want to know how many incoming links point to the site, we check the PageRank, and if we want to roughly estimate the site’s traffic, we go and look at Alexa chart. Most advertisers, especially those who sponsor blog reviews, judge sites by Alexa Ranking, assuming that seeking a certain Alexa rank would guarantee their product’s exposure to a certain traffic level. WRONG!

You can go to PayPerPost.com, and find blogs with, let’s say, maximum Alexa rank of 150,000 (which is relatively not bad), who’d willingly blog about your product. You can find many blogs who would (inexpensively) blog about your site with even a lower (better) rank, and you’ll believe you got an excellent deal here. One thing you did not take into though, is that Alexa rank is assigned to the domain name, not single page or directory inside the domain (unlike Google RageRank, that works on a park-per-page basis).

Let me give you an example. Say I offer a very cheap sponsored review on loreleiweb.com/blog - a blog that has no PR, yet a good Alexa rank of 133,194. You can count upon impressive traffic, and buy a review there; 5$ for instance would be a nice deal, right? However, in this very case, I can assure you that no one would even get to see your review and links, as it’s “just” a blog installed for the purpose for testing WP themes, and the Alexa traffic it displays, in fact belongs to the main site - loreleiweb.com and the bound to it forum, which gather together over 4k-5k visitors a day. Yes, the domain has traffic, but not the blog which misleadingly show the traffic details based on Alexa Rank.

This is a factor you should definitely consider when buying sponsored reviews from bloggers, as you never know what other sites they are running on the same domain (in folders, directories or sub domains). I figured this out when I decided to purchase a few reviews for this blog myself, and thought that PR is not as important as exposure, so I thought I’d rather pay for traffic. Traffic details I cannot get, and I can only but rely on Alexa chart. However, after everything I said above, I concluded that paying for a PR6 blog review is more “secure”. If the site has so many incoming links, sure thing someone, sometimes, drops by, right?

After I have published last month my rather controversial post - ‘Get many quality PR5 backlinks for FREE‘, I got quite a few emails and comments criticizing the way I take the D-List and advocate blatant spamming for the sake of a link.

Let me get this straight - I do not support spam, and as I said in my previous post already, I am against leaving silly comments on other’s blogs just as much as I am against to have my own [do-follow] blog spammed. If you want to get some more info as to how the “free links” strategy works, please go here. Once again, leave a comment only in blogs and posts where you feel you have something to say, as an addition to content, or reaction.

So, here it is, a list of 20 PR4 blogs that provides quality, ‘follow’ links in their comment section:

1. Reality Wired
2. Achille
3. Jon Lee’s blog
4. Catch a Falling star
5. Sweet Agring
6. The Fit Shack
7. 5 x Mom
8. Smart Wealthy Rich
9. Home Based Business
10. 3 Day Mom
11. Advertising for success
12. Are we there yet?
13. Article writer blog
14. Biz Mark Tech
15. Blog about money online
16. Boston Brat
17. Clapping Trees
18. Buy Me blog
19. Candid Quips
20. Charmed and Danderious

20 Links for now, next bunch of links will follow in about 1-2 weeks from now, so be sure to subscribe and not to miss the event.

* Super Spammy Tip: I’d suggest, if you are really sneaky, to look at the older posts that interest you where you might be able to comment, because… Older posts are more likely to be well indexed and have their own PR!

Also, the bloggers from the list above are going to get a ‘ping’ and will most likely come to check who is the kind spirit that linked to them, so if you want this kind spirit to change your anchor text, please drop me a line.

This is going to be a long article and it will come in 2 parts, but I hope this won’t be a boring read. If you don’t feel like going into great details, perhaps just reading the highlighted lines in bold will help you already.

So, first let’s see, what makes a blog to be a success? 1. High PageRank (nor necessarily, but good to have). 2. Tons of readers (either RSS subscribers or “just” returning visitors. 3. Genuine backlinks (which means people link to you themselves, because you provide a useful content).

Now let’s see, what from the mentioned above points is in your control? I am sure you would agree that while you can only hope for a good PR and readers / traffic, content is something that is fully in your hands. So…

Rule nr. 1: Don’t promote an empty site. Never start the advertising campaign before you know for sure your website gives readers a good reason to come back. Start promoting only when you can sincerely give this question a YES! Answer. It could be graphical or written content, but as long as you do offer more than a visitor can possibly digest in one visit – it’s good. Therefore, when you know for sure that anyone who stumbles across your site would want to come back later at least so that he can keep browsing around – you can start gathering back links and spam around.

Promoting before time has a big negative effect, because all those who get to see your link (even in links exchange request in the forum), will look at an empty, dead site and will never come back, never recommend this site to a friend and rest assured – will never link to it from their own will.

Rule nr. 2 Provide the highest quality you can. You can’t always beat competitors with a lower price, you can’t always be more creative then the rest of the brainy geeks on the net and sure thing you can’t blog about something everyday that no one else does. Well, you can, but how big will your reading crowd be? All you can do is, do the same as everybody else, but just do it better. This sound pretty general, so let me give you a few examples. If you concentrate of writing, write what you are passionate about and make sure you are familiar with the topic good enough, so you won’t mislead the readers with any inaccurate, wrong or irrelevant info.

Write an article and leave it on your hard drive for a day or two, then come back to it with a fresh mind and ask yourself, is this a good writing? Is it rich in words, descriptive, informative and interesting? How slim is the chance that you may lose your reader somewhere in the middle? Be honest with yourself, if it was not your article, would you read it through? Don’t cheat with an answer, because eventually you will only kid yourself and end up disappointed and frustrated, why no one reads nor leaves feedback. Believe me, if it’s good, eventually you will get to rest of your lavres. If you offer graphics, are they unique or can an average surfer grab them (or maybe even better material), practically on any other site? If you offer tools, are they unique, or is it yet another PR checker, with which you will never beat the competition anyway. If you display wallpapers, are these yet again shots of Jessica Simpson’s bust, or are these truly sensational photos that no one had seen before?

Rule nr 3. Ask yourself, who will read your blog? It’s essential however, this might not be a very easy question to answer. Can you tell what sort of audience will be interested in your blog the most? Men, or women? Teens and kids, or older generation? Local people or worldwide? Webmasters, housekeepers, businessmen, students, geeks, losers, or is it going to be a totally general website that will cover all audiences? I believe if you blog about cleaning viruses or provide some PC-related help you can end up gathering all of the above people’s categories in your website (except maybe geeks who will be offended by a mere thought of you, simple mortal, trying to give them an advice.) When you will have a rough idea about who are going to be your main visitors, you can slightly adjust and improve. For instance, desserts blog will most likely be visited by 27+ women, so knowing you are dealing mainly with the weak sex, gives you the opportunity to expand the horizons of your blog and keep your traffic entertained, instead of losing visitors due to irrelevant content.

Let’s say toptut.com is targeted to designers, Photoshopers and webmasters who want to make money online (but I’d go as far as to assume that they do not know HOW, as they follow articles that help them to reach their goal). Bearing this assumption in mind allows me to add some additional reviews on miscellaneous affiliate programs (personal experience is the best review) as well as PSD / photo downloads (any photoshoper will gladly grab them). So I stray from my main topic – tutorials, but keep the visitors happy. At least I hope I do. Do I? This also helps when it comes to affiliate sales - it’s far easier to target to audience when you know what they are interested in, instead of jut offering everything and hoping they are going to like it.

These are the 3 rules for now, I am going to write part 2 in a week or two from now so stay tuned for more…

Bloggers know how hard it is to gain FeedBurner readers and since the number of readers displayed on your blog is dynamic (updated daily) and once the count goes down it can stimulate other readers to leave (the logic is: everyone leaves, why should I stay? So many people can’t be wrong!).

But, there are reasons for people to unsubscribe, and you - the tricky blogger, should avoid them. So, what can it be?

1. Your Blog is Boring. Even if this is the real reason you probably would not admit, but consider it to be the Nr. 1 reason for losing readers.
2. “Read More” results in Reading Less. There is no good reason to add the “Read more >>” tag in the middle of your post and cut the story into 2 halves unless it’s a huge article or sponsored post where you don’t wish to put entires fully on display. Mostly, bloggers do it to gain more hits but from what I know, many readers just read until the ‘more’ line and leave. You can lose a reader or win an extra hit, it’s 50/50, - would you gamble or just go for the safest bet and avoid the “more” tag?
3. Marshland of Info. Unless you have a groundbreaking opinion to share, don’t cover all the CNN’s news and SEO’s innovations. Have mercy on your readers, don’t tell them about iPhones, they heard already! Don’t tell them that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, they know already! In other words, don’t introduce your readers to outdated or “overdiscussed” theme.
4. Readers die in solidarity with the blog. The easiest way to lose readers is not to update your blog. Unlike posting boring posts, this won’t even require any action on your part. If you update daily, your readers will know they should come and check daily for updates, however if you leave it for weeks it’s hard to expect readers will be stubborn enough to come back over and over again just to see some old titles gathering dust. Just feed your visitors with some info so your Feed will benefit. You can have a life and like many bloggers make scheluded posts (this one, by the way, is scheluded to July 6th and will be posted when I am far away from my computer). Having a life is no excuse for forsaking your blog!
5. Flood the Readers with Sponsored Posts. Most readers would understand your desire to make money off the site or to cover the cost, however, remember to keep a good proportion. All these diet pill reviews and payday loans make the blog look cheap. Don’t review every product unless it’s really hard-to-pass-by money and remember to tell your readers the review was sponsored, in order not to lose their trust in your opinion. I’d say a ratio of 5:1 (regular : sponsored) is the very maximum if you want to build a good community of readers and followers.

Do you make these mistakes? Well, don’t.

It’s not an official war, but a small competition had started. Me and Eli (a super talented Photoshop artist, the creator of the blue star badge I used for “toptut weekends” posts) have made a bet that by July 30th, Eli will beat my Google ranking for some of the keywords we both use. My rank is currently 3rd result on front page out of over 78 millions results, and the question is - will I, the almighty I, get beaten by a man?

I won’t mention the keywords as I don’t want “followers” to help me or push my rank down, but in one month from now the results will be ready and I am excitingly looking forward to the… victory.  Oh and, Eli, good luck mate!

Feed stats counter, is basically like a website counter, only it doesn’t show aggregate data of all the visitors of all times, only the live subscribers who bookmarked the website or visited it through feed today, which means - your daily returning and subscribing visitors. It’s a really good way to show off your website’s success to other. Let’s say you visit a blog, it looks like a good and interesting content, then you take a look at the feed counter - 15 subscribers. Eh? Guess it’s not too popular. It can do a lot of damage when you come to sell links or promote your website, people would misjudge your website’s popularity by the feed burner. So, let’s see how can we improve the situation…

1. Forum’s last posts. Most vBulletin based forums has the ability of displaying your last blog’s post though a feed. Here comes the trick, paste your Feed Burner’s URL in that field of your profile in all the forums you participate at. Did it in 10 forums? Good, now you have 10 “subscribers” more. Cheap trick, but works perfect.
2. Offer ads free version. If your blog is showered with annoying ads such as interstitials and inline ads, you can offer to read your blog through the feed, without ads at all. You won’t lose much money from it unless your blog has 10,000 visitors a day out of which 7,000 will subscribe. Don’t worry, not many will subscribe anyway. In this case, however, you have to offer a full feed.
3. Put the RSS button above. As obvious as it sounds, put the RSS feed button in the upper part of your blog, and make sure the button is visible on all resolutions, and your design does not “swallow” it in any browser. This is important, remember - virtual visitors are a lazy nation, they want to have everything under their nose, so the bigger and more visible is your button, the better are your chances to get a subscription. Don’t forget, link the feed button to your feed burner’s url, and not “just” your regular feed generated by the blog. Ever since I replaced the tiny orange button at the lower part of my sidebar with the juicy, glossy big button you see this blog has at the beginning of the sidebar - the amount of my subscriptions raised from 55+ to 65+. Worth it, ain’t it?
   Read More from "How to increase RSS feed burn subscriptions?"