Copacopi

Most of the modern time bloggers recognize the value of the social networks to promote their blog post, sharing the related information on the multiple sites and creating additional web links to your blog, which plays positive role for your site ranking.

Among the two leading applications in the social networking are Twitter and Facebook. Free web service Natter will save you time by linking your two accounts in these communities. As you register to the Natter account, all your tweets will be monitored by the Natter service and instantly posted to Facebook. The same way, your every comment posted on Facebook, will be automatically reposted to Twitter in real time. So you can follow your Facebook right from your favorite Twitter client.

Main Features:

Post tweets to your Facebook profile.
Post Facebook comments back to Twitter.
Only post tweets containing a hashtag (e.g. #fb) to Facebook.
Finds and displays links in your tweets as a Facebook post.
Translates twitter names to their real world counterparts.

Website: http://natter.r10.railsrumble.com/

If you are serious professional blogger, using WordPress as a blogging platform, you may want to look on the free feature offered by StressLimit. Planning ahead will bring your blogging to the next level of professionalism and improve your rating among the readers. Eventually, that will help to improve your blog visibility in search engines, bring more visitors, and improve your profitability.

Why Use an Editorial Calendar?

An editorial calendar is the foundation of strategic blogging; it lets you do the planning that it takes to get the most audience reach from your blog content.

An editorial calendar lets you plan ahead;
An editorial calendar adds structure to your creativity;
You can take a great concept further by serializing content;
You can be proactive and capitalize on search trends.

Main Features

See all of your posts and when they’ll be posted.
Drag and drop to change your post dates.
Quickedit post titles, contents, and times.
Publish posts or manage drafts.
Easily see the status of your posts.
Manage posts from multiple authors.

Developers’ Website: http://stresslimitdesign.com/editorial-calendar-plugin

Why do you blog? Do you blog for money? Do you blog for fun? Actually, the purpose of your blogging will largely define the strategy you apply. I blog for both: fun and money, but fun goes first. Therefore, each of my 20 blogs I started because I liked the topic, because I wanted to learn more about, and because I was more or less confident that the same topic will be interesting for my readers.

But, overtime, your interests change, you feel that there is nothing more you can say on the topic, and you just do not want to discuss the topic any more. Here it comes blogger’s block. If I feel like that, I usually put the blog on the passive preservation mode, remove it from the active blogs list and focus on other topics. Overtime, my perception might change, I might find a new perspectives or the new line of discoveries on the topic, thus become interesting in the blog again. These blogs are returned to the active list. Other blogs will remain on the passive lists forever, supported by by-monthly posts just to keep them alive. In any way, if I do not feel like writing on the particular blog or topic, I just skip it and go to the next. Well, it is my way of coping with blogger’s block.

BloggingBookshelf is offering more than 100 professional advices on how to battle the Blogger Blog in their free eBook. You can download the brochure from the following link:

http://www.ziddu.com/download/14357071/bloggers-block-ebook-from-blogging-bookshelfv3.1.pdf.html

In this post, I would like to present an ebook - 101 tips for improving your blog by Ben Barden from http://www.toptenblogtips.com/. As the title claims, the ebook contains 101 essential tips for all bloggers, no matter how technical you are, or which platform you use.

The ebook is divided into 10 sections, each containing 10 tips:

Advertising and Promotion
Blogging Personalities
Comments
Content
Design
Guest Posts
Networking
Overcoming blogger's block
Planning
Post frequency

Tip #101 is provided at the end of the ebook.

You can download the ebook here:

http://www.ziddu.com/download/11644427/Ben_Barden_-_101_tips_for_improving_your_blog.pdf.html

It's a free download, so you can share it with no restriction.

While monitoring your trends and stats is one of the most important thing you can do to improve your blog, that might become kind of obsession. Not only it takes your valuable time, if you do that too often, at some point it may become one of the conditions of your personal well-being. Your trends go up – you are happy, down – you are upset and depressed. Is that really productive? Are you happier now, when you have one more condition for your mood changes?

I would like to present blogger Vikas Gupta opinion on the topic.

Things Take Time (TTT) and it is one the hardest things to understand while blogging for obvious reasons. Almost all of us at some point of time have watched our blog statistics to get a minute-by-minute idea of how many visits our blog is garnering as analyzed by the various statistics plugins and Google Analytics or StatCounter. It is certainly an enjoyable exercise and one which is hard to resist given the immediate gratification it brings. Here are my views on why worrying inordinately about your blog statistics, hits and blog traffic is not a very good thing to do.

Don’t waste your precious time

Time is money. Many bloggers spend a lot of time watching those stats (often real-time) and getting a lot of satisfaction or tension. More often than not it is tension because everyone wants as many hits as possible and one is rarely satisfied which is normal human behavior. Statistical analyses of your blog(s) once in a while are necessary and desirable but spending a lot of time with it not advisable.

It also gives you tension

You are not getting what you want unlike your rival whose traffic and PR is just shooting upwards! You will only accentuate that painful feeling (aka tension) if you do not control your obsession with your blog’s traffic. Remember, Things Take Time (TTT). Ask any established and successful blogger and they suggest you to concentrate on content and quality more than traffic analyses. Traffic will follow sooner or later. Why torture yourself by thinking about it incessantly?!

You will compromise on quality

Blogging is not just about numbers and hits. If you worry about traffic and blog stats all the time you may end up writing for search engines than human beings. Blog for human beings not for bots. Build your credibility first traffic later. As a matter of fact, traffic is a concomitant of good content and will chase you and your blog though it may take some time.

Slow and steady wins the race

Many successful bloggers today are not fly-by-night online entrepreneurs. They worked hard with their blogs and exhibited a high degree of perseverance. “Between saying and doing many a pair of shoes is worn out,” is a popular Italian proverb. So work more on your blog and less on your stats.

Worrying in moderation is fine

Moderation in all things! As they say you can eat whatever you like as long as it is in moderation. The same sentiments apply here. Do not ignore your blog stats and do not let it get the better of you. Wise bloggers know how to maintain the balance. Be wise and not otherwise!

One of the readers of the blog asked my advice on how to choose the right niche to work in. While it looks like and easy question to answer, in reality it is not. I have personally started several blogs, which I got eventually bored with, thus placing them in the passive mode. I have other blog, quite interesting and attractive, but appeared to be unmarketable and unprofitable (at least, for me). I have found a nice post by Daniel Scocco at DailyBlogTips, where he reviews the possible reasons of the blogging failure, based on the improperly chosen blogging niche. Presenting the post for your attention.

A lot of people want to make money blogging, and a most of these people will fail miserably. There are 1000 reasons why this happens (and happens so often), but I find that one of the most common reasons a blog fails is because of the subject it is about.

No, not because you picked a subject that is way over saturated. And no, not because you picked a subject that is hard to monetize. What I am talking about here is when you pick a subject that you, the writer, have no business writing about in the first place.

You see, the number of people with blogs about a subject they either have no real interest in, no real passion for, no real experience with, no real knowledge about, or any combination of the four, is, quite frankly, pretty freaking insane. And hilarious.

Seriously, do you have any idea how many blogs there are about “making money online” that are written by people who have never made a cent online? Or how many blogs there are about “blogging” that are written by people who don’t actually have anything close to a successful blog? It’s kinda like a fat guy writing about weight loss. They lack significant knowledge about it, and they certainly lack first hand experience with it, but they see other people blogging about it successfully and making decent money, so they decide to try it too.

I mean, if it works for these people, it will surely work for you, right?

The obvious problem (well, obvious to me at least) is that you don’t actually have any knowledge about or experience with the subject. And, no matter how talented of a writer you may think you are, this tends to come through to your readers. You’d be surprised at just how easy it is to tell when you are reading something written by someone who is truly knowledgeable about a subject, and when you are reading something written by someone who is mostly just rewriting stuff they’ve learned from someone who actually IS knowledgeable about the subject.

It’s a big difference, and it’s usually quite noticeable. The result? Your blog will probably fail. People seeking information want to get that information from someone who is truly qualified to give it. You aren’t, and they will most likely notice.

It’s also entirely possible to be knowledgeable about a subject, but still not really be interested in it or passionate about it. This will again come through to your readers, but the even bigger problem here is that one of the keys to having a successful blog is time. It is extremely rare (you might as well read that as “impossible”) to see a blog become a success overnight. As I’m sure has been mentioned on Daily Blog Tips before, it takes time. In some cases, lots of time. And, if what you are blogging about isn’t something you are truly passionate about and interested in, guess what? This will be the slowest passing time you’ve ever experienced in your life.

In most cases, you will completely lose interest long before that time is ever reached. The result? Your blog will probably fail. You can’t fake passion, at least not long term. You may be able to fool your visitors for a while, but you won’t be able to fool yourself.

In the end, it’s pretty simple. Blog about a subject that you are at least somewhat knowledgeable about, and a large amount passionate about. If you don’t, you are putting your blog in a position to fail from day 1.

So the question now is, how do you find this magical blog subject that fits the above description? Well, there’s a few ways, but here’s my personal favorite tip:

Go to your family and close friends and present them with this question: If they had a problem of some kind, something that they needed help with, something they couldn’t figure out, something they didn’t understand, something they had questions about… what would make them say “Hey, I need to call [insert your name here]!”

The responses they give should give you a really good idea of the kind of stuff you should be blogging about. And once you have that, you’re set. Only 999 other possible reasons for why your blog will fail. Look on the bright side though. At least you’re starting off in a position to succeed. Many people don’t even have that.

If you are an active blogger, you know that you operate in highly competitive environment. In order to attract, surprise, and keep your readers through your content, interface, and useful features. One of them is ability to add a quick drawing or sketch, related to a topic of discussion. Visualization might save you a lot of explanation and give your readers better and faster understanding of all details. Yes, you can prepare and add your images offline, but that will take a lot of time and efforts. If the illustration is simple, or if you have strong artistic abilities, cool Web2 application Sketchcast will be your valuable assistant.

Here is a brief tutorial of how to use this free service in three simple steps

STEP 1:
Register for a new account at Sketchcast.

STEP 2:
Filling out all the required info, you can start to draw (optionally, with your voice speaking).

STEP 3:
After drawing you can embed the sketch player in your blog.

Simple, isn’t it?

Any sketch can then be embedded on your blog/ homepage for people to play-back, and you can also point people to your sketchcast channel on the developers website (or let them subscribe to your sketchcast RSS feed).

In one of the previous publications, we presented a way to disable right click on the page of your Blogger blog to decrease the copyright violations from your readers “borrowing” your content for their own purposes. To go further in your content safeguarding efforts, you can make the next step, disabling text selection on your page entirely.

This hack was created by Dynamicdrive as well in the form of Javascript, and is also applicable to those bloggers who don’t like their content copied by others. If this concern is on top of your priorities list, then Copy the following code and Paste it to your blog template:

<script type="text/javascript">

/***********************************************
* Disable Text Selection script- © Dynamic Drive DHTML code library (www.dynamicdrive.com)
* This notice MUST stay intact for legal use
* Visit Dynamic Drive at http://www.dynamicdrive.com/ for full source code
***********************************************/

function disableSelection(target){
if (typeof target.onselectstart!="undefined") //IE route
target.onselectstart=function(){return false}
else if (typeof target.style.MozUserSelect!="undefined") //Firefox route
target.style.MozUserSelect="none"
else //All other route (ie: Opera)
target.onmousedown=function(){return false} How to disable
target.style.cursor = "default"
}

//Sample usages
//disableSelection(document.body) //Disable text selection on entire body
//disableSelection(document.getElementById("mydiv")) //Disable text selection on element with id="mydiv"

</script>

I started this blog in January, when I found out that I know nothing about Blog creation and Blog promotion techniques. More I read, more information remain in my head. It does not mean that I always use what I learn. Even after publishing a series of 11 articles with tonds of advises of how bring more traffic to the blog without investing a dime, I still do not used most of my own suggestions. Why? Probably, because everything should develop organically without forced implementation. May be I am wrong - everybody has each own way. But, little-by-little, it changes. I hope, for the better.

Anyway, I want to introduce one of the most important ways to improve your blog, which works for me: read what other people say, read and think, read and measure for yourself - does it work for me, read and try. Do not be afraid to experiment, do not hesitate to cancel the change, if it does not work. Find your path in the Blogging World - it might be different from all other pathes. Have fun, whatever you do - money is not everything.

And now I want to add 99 Ways to Improve Your Blog proposed by Steven Snell. Again, not everything will work for you, but if you find at least one advice that will help you to improve your blog - it was worth reading the entire article.

This post will hopefully give you plenty of ideas for making some improvements to your blog. We all have room for improvement but sometimes it’s just a matter of knowing different ways of doing things. This is a rather extensive list, but I’m sure there are items that have been missed, so please leave your feedback.

Content

1. Write Better Content

Quality of content is the most important criteria for blogging success. Great content makes marketing your blog easier, and you’ll be abel to improve the community around your blog as others recognize the value of the information that you provide. Writing better content is not always easy, but we can all place more importance and dedicate more time to content development.

2. Set Aside Time for Brainstorming

Writing skills aren’t the only requirement for creating great content. First you have to have original and interesting ideas. Without good ideas for posts your quality of content will suffer, even with the best of writing skills. Set aside time each week or month to brainstorm and come up with as many post ideas as possible. Several months ago I wrote a guide on brainstorming techniques for bloggers.

3. Hire Other Writers

If you’re unable to produce enough quality content for your blog, paying others to do it for you is always an option. There are plenty of bloggers who are willing to write for pay. If your blog can produce more money than you spend it may be a situation to consider.

4. Publish Guest Posts

Many bloggers that want more comment but can’t afford to pay writers will publish guest posts from other bloggers. Guest posting is great for everyone as it gives the blog owner some free content, gives the writer some exposure and a link, and it gives readers more content and a different perspective.

5. Publish More Frequently

Would your blog benefit if you were to publish more posts? Not every blogger needs to post more frequently, but some could definitely benefit from it. More posts means more content for readers, more pages for search engines, and hopefully more traffic for you.

6. Publish Less Frequently

On the other hand, do you publish too frequently? Some bloggers could benefit by reducing quantity and increasing quality. There are plenty of authority bloggers that choose to post less frequently and always provide top-notch content. Maki of Dosh Dosh is probably the best example.

7. Start a Weekly Series

You may be able to improve reader anticipation by posting on a particular topic on the same day every week. This can help to create more interest in your upcoming posts, plus it can effectively brand your blog.

8. Link Out More Often

Do you make an effort to link out to other blogs in your posts? Try to find opportunities to link to valuable and relevant resources whenever possible. Others will notice and appreciate it, and many are likely to return the favor. Plus you will be helping readers by putting more information at their disposal.

9. Use More Internal Links in Your Posts

External links aren’t the only links that are important in your posts. Always take a moment before publishing a post to look for opportunities to link to old posts. Internal links can help with search engine rankings, they can drive click-through traffic, and they can also help if scrapers are stealing your feed.

10. Get Rid of Some of Your Other Projects and Focus

Are you trying to do too much at once? Many bloggers are running multiple blogs simultaneously, and too often the result is that all of the blogs suffer from neglect. If you are stretched too thin, give up some of your projects that aren’t as important to you.

11. Include a Podcast

Offering a podcast is one way to add some diversity to your blog and to attract a new audience. Podcasting is not difficult with modern blogging platforms and FeedBurner. For more information, read How to Create Your Own Podcast .

12. Publish Video Posts

Many bloggers have discovered the impact of video blogging. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger regularly publishes video posts, and they seem to always draw a good amount of attention. With the easily-accessible technology that is available, video blogging is an option for just about anyone.

13. Run a Poll or Survey

Polls and surveys can be a fun way to improve interaction from readers, and you can even learn a lot about your readers during the process. WordPress users can easily add a poll to their blog with the WP-Polls plugin. PollDaddy is another free, popular option.

14. Listen to Suggestions from Readers on Content

If you want to provide readers with content that they will appreciate, listen to their suggestions and feedback to see what types of content they like, and what they don’t like. Polls and surveys can be useful for this purpose as well.

15. Update Posts that are Out of Date

It is almost unavoidable that some of your posts will eventually become out of date. This is an understandable part of blogging, but what you should avoid is the confusion and misrepresentation that sometimes comes with these situations. Imagine someone does a Google search for a particular topic and they arrive at one of your old blog posts. To them this is new information and they may assume that it is your current information, not realizing that it is out of date. It can be helpful to include a brief statement at the beginning or end of the post that the situation has changed and the content may not be current anymore.

16. Link to Related Posts

Your readers who are interested in a particular post may also want to read your other posts that are related to the topic. WordPress users have several different plugins to choose from, including the popular Related Entries.

17. Move AdSense Out of the Way

Nothing is more annoying and distracting to readers than advertisements right in the body of the content. If you are going to use AdSense to monetize your blog, at least put it in a location that won’t distract readers (assuming you care about the readers’ experience on your blog and not just the AdSense income).

18. Publish Interviews with Top Bloggers in Your Niche

Interviews can be a great source of information for readers and they can also give you some valuable networking opportunities. Most bloggers are open to interviews, they just aren’t asked very often.

19. Answer Reader Questions in Posts

Some bloggers are very effective at helping their readers by dedicating posts to answering questions from readers. This can help you to come up with content ideas, improve your blog’s value to readers, and get readers actively participating.

20. Proofread Your Posts

We all make mistakes, but by proofreading your posts you can help to present a professional image to your readers. Be sure to spell check your posts before publishing and try to find and fix any grammatical errors.

21. Use the Timestamp Feature When You Will Be Away

Publishing content while you are on vacation or away from the computer doesn’t need to be difficult. Most of the leading blogging platforms offer the option to timestamp the post for a future date and time. When that time comes the post will be published just as if you had done so manually.

22. Use a Blog Editor

Many bloggers use word processors to write their posts because sometimes the standard system from a blogging platform isn’t ideal. However, word processors can cause problems because they insert a lot of unnecessary code that will hurt the performance of your blog. Blog Editors offer the best of both worlds. My editor of choice is Blog Desk .

Functionality

23. Install the Top Commentators Plugin

One way to reward readers that participate and encourage others to get involved is to install the Top Commentators Plugin (for WP). This will put a list in your sidebar with the names and links to those who have participated the most.

24. Change Up Your Sidebar

When was the last time you made some modifications to your sidebar? Chances are your regular readers have kind of gotten used to what’s there and they probably tune it out. From time-to-time it can be beneficial to change things up a bit and add some new features or content to the sidebar.

25. Separate Trackbacks from Comments

Most blogs display trackbacks and pingbacks along with comments from readers. This can help to show that others find your content valuable, and a lot of trackbacks and pingbacks can be impressive to readers. On the other hand, they can also get in the way and interfere with conversations throughout the comments. With WordPress there is a relatively simple way to separate them. Michael from Pro Blog Design has a nice tutorial for doing this.

26. Improve Your About Page

Some of your readers will go to your About page to find out more about you. When was the last time you updated your About page? Take a look at it and see how effectively it is communicating to readers.

27. Add a Sitemap

Users can benefit from having a sitemap available, but often XML sitemaps are the only ones that are considered by bloggers. WordPress users can use the Sitemap Generator Plugin from Dagon Design to create a page that links to all other blog posts and pages.

28. Get Rid of Unproductive Widgets

How many widgets and buttons do you have on your blog? How many of them actually produce any type of results, and how many of them are ignored by readers? If you have unnecessary widgets that aren’t doing any good, get rid of them and free up some space while you improve your page load speed.

29. Add a Forum

Some blogs have added to the community aspect of the blog by adding forums. If you have a tightly-focused community that will be interested in communicating with other readers, consider adding a forum. vBulletin is one of the most popular ways to quickly put a forum on your site.

30. Get a Domain Name

If your blog is hosted on Blogspot or anywhere other than a domain that you own, purchase one today. Having your own domain is essential for building and branding a successful blog. I purchase domain names at GoDaddy.com .

31. Get Better Hosting

How does your hosting plan stack up? Many blogs could benefit from a better hosting company. When your blog goes down you’ll realize that paying a little bit more for quality hosting is a good decision. This is especially important if you plan to market your blog with social media.

32. Install Threaded Comments Plugin

One of the best ways to improve the level of communication with readers is to install a threaded comments plugin. WordPress users have a few options, including the most popular, Brian’s Threaded Comments. If you are not familiar with threaded comments, they allow you (and other readers for that matter) to reply directly to a specific comment. Your reply will then be displayed right below the original comment instead of all the way down at the end of the comments. It makes it easier and more effective for you to answer questions and respond to comments. You can see it in action here at PureBlogging.

33. Add Subscribe to Comments Option

In my opinion there is no reason not to allow readers the option of subscribing to comments. Once they leave a response to one of your posts that should have the ability to get any additional comments emailed to them. This is another way to boost the effectiveness of your communication with readers. WordPress users can install the Subscribe to Comments Plugin .

34. Backup Regularly

If blog security isn’t a priority for you, it will quickly become one when you have a problem. There are a number of different ways to backup a blog. My personal choice is to use WordPress’s export feature which creates an XML file that you can save. Then if you ever need it, all you have to do is import it into WordPress and the problem is solved.

35. Delete Spam Comments

Spam comments can be distracting to readers that are really trying to get involved in the conversation, and they can give your blog a negative image. You can either choose to moderate comments before they appear or just go back and delete spam comments as they come in. Of course, plugins like Akismet make this much more manageable.

36. Have a Comment Policy

If comment spam is a problem on your blog, you may want to post an official comment policy that clearly states what is encouraged, what is permitted, and what will not be tolerated. Most likely this statement won’t completely stop spam, but it can help those that aren’t sure what is appropriate and what is not.

37. Give a Disclosure if You Do Paid Reviews

Many blogs write paid reviews as a way to generate some income. This is fine with most readers, but it is helpful for them to know where you stand on paid reviews. Some bloggers effectively use a disclosure to let readers know that they do publish paid reviews, but they can assure readers that there opinions will not be biased because someone is paying them.

38. Remove NoFollow Tags on Comment Links

One way that you can reward those who comment on your blog is by removing the nofollow tags from links in the comments. By doing this you can give your commentors a real, legitimate link in exchange for their participation.

39. Use NoFollow Tags on Comment Links

On the other hand, removing nofollow tags isn’t a good move for everyone. A number of bloggers, including myself on my primary blog, have gone back to nofollow tags. If you are getting a lot of useless comments that seem to be submitted only for a link, you may want to consider going back to nofollow.

40. Delete Unused Plugins

Many bloggers keep a ton of plugins in their folder even though many of them are not being used. Plugins can sometimes cause problems with your blog, so it is best to get rid of any that you are not using.

41. Stay Up to Date with New Versions of Your Blogging Platform

Most blogging platforms, like WordPress, will release new and updated versions. For security and functionality purposes it is good to stay current. Many of the releases of WordPress address security issues from older versions, so if you are not upgrading you could be facing increased risk.

42. Restrict Access by IP Address

You can thwart would-be hackers by only allowing access to your admin folder for specific IP addresses. If you are the only blogger and you always use the same computer this can be pretty easy. Otherwise, you simply need to include the IP address of any user and any computer that needs access. Daniel wrote a nice post at Daily Blog Tips that gives instructions .

43. Reduce Database Calls

Page load speed can be a major issue for some blogs. Have you ever looked through the code of your blog to see how many times it is accessing your database? In most cases there are some simple changes that you can make to reduce unnecessary calls to the database. For example, your blog may display the title of the blog in the header. This is probably checking your database to see what the title is. You can get rid of this by removing that code and replacing it with the actual title of your blog. The same thing is true with a lot of footer links. Whenever you can get the same result without accessing the database you will be speeding up your pages.

44. Add a Contact Form

Some of your visitors will want to get in touch with you, and it may not be appropriate for them to leave a comment that is publicly visible. Give them an easy way to reach you by having a page specifically for this purpose.

45. Create a Custom 404 Error Page

When a visitor reaches a dead link on your blog or mistypes a URL what do they find? Hopefully an error page that actually gives them some information and helps them to find what they may be looking for. Most WordPress themes already have a generic 404 file, all you have to do is add some personalized content and links to help visitors find the pages that they are most likely to be looking for.

46. Fight Scrapers with a Footer Link

Fighting scrapers can turn into a part-time job. One of the best ways to ease the pain is to include a link back to your blog at the footer of your feed. This way you may be notified with a pingback, plus you will be showing readers that the content belongs to you. WordPress users can install the RSS Footer Plugin .

47. Delete Unused Themes

Much like plugins, most bloggers have several unused themes sitting in their content folder. If you are not using a theme and you have no plans to do so, why not delete it?

48. Reduce the Number of Plugins that You Use

I know I have repeatedly recommended plugins for different purposes, but the truth of the matter is that not all of these plugins are right for everyone, and no blogger should be using every plugin that has some sort of beneficial purpose. Excessive use of plugins can slow down your pages and make your blog more vulnerable. Plus, each time you upgrade to a new version you will have the chore of de-activating and re-activating all of the plugins. Only use plugins that provide something that really helps your blog and try to keep that number as small as possible.

49. Clean Up Your CSS File

Over time a CSS file can easily become a mess. Most likely there is a good bit of code in the file that isn’t even being used if you have made some customizations or changes to the site. I wrote a post 23 Resources for Clean and Compressed CSS that should help you with the process.

50. Fix Broken Links

Dead links can be a real frustration for visitors and they can prevent your content from being seen. Broken links are sometimes unavoidable, but you can always fix them and solve the problem. Dead-Links.com is a great free tool that will crawl through your pages and look for dead links.

51. Use a Google Custom Search Instead of the Default Blog Search

Most blogs have a search function, and that is certainly helpful for readers. However, the default searches from blogging platforms are not the best. Some bloggers use a Google Custom Search to more effectively address the issue.

Design and Appearance

52. Change Themes

When was the last time you changed your blog theme? If you use WordPress there are thousands of free themes that are available to use. Give your blog a fresh new look by finding a new and improved theme.

53. Buy a Premium Theme

If you are interested in upgrading your theme and you’re willing to spend $50 - $100 to do so, a premium theme may be a good choice. With premium themes you get a well-designed and highly functional theme, plus the support of the designer.

54. Pay for a Custom Design

Stepping up a notch from a premium theme, you could pay a designer to develop a customized theme just for your blog (or you could design one yourself). If you are serious about making money from your blog, this may be your best move.

55. Get a Logo Designed

Another way to enhance the look of your blog without going through a re-design or buying a new theme is to simply add or improve the logo. You can run a competition at a forum to have designers compete for your money, or if you are willing to pay more for a better product you could hire a professional logo designer.

56. Use Images in Posts

One easy way to improve the visual impact of your posts is to include images. You can use the advanced search at Flickr to find photos under the creative commons license, or you can pay a few dollars for an image at places like iStock Photo and Stock Xpert .

57. Change Your Color Scheme

Another way to give your blog a fresh look is to change up the color scheme. This can be a pretty simple process that only involves some changes to your CSS file. If you need some help finding the right color scheme, visit COLOURlovers or Color Schemer .

Marketing

58. Integrate Tools/Widgets for Social Media

Social Media Marketing is one of the best ways to get free exposure for your blog. You can encourage readers to vote for you and make it easy for them by adding some elements to your posts, such as buttons or widgets for specific social media sites.

59. Use Niche Social Media Sites

Most bloggers that attempt to gain traffic from social media focus on the major sites. like Digg. Getting to the front page of Digg is no easy task, and it really won’t produce traffic that is very targeted. Niche social media sites will send lower volumes of traffic, but popularity will be more attainable and the quality of traffic will be better. You can find social media sites in your niche at this categorized list of sites .

60. Build Profiles on Major Social Media Sites

For targeting the major social media sites, building a strong profile is one of the best ways to improve your results. To build a profile you should be actively using the site on a daily basis and always keep your eyes open for great content that you can submit.

61. Give Something Back to Your Readers

All blogs provide readers with content. What else can your do for them? By giving something back to your readers you can do a better job of building the community around your blog and developing a relationship and trust with your readers. There are a number of possibilities for giving back to your readers, and some that are mentioned at other places in this post. You could run a contest, give away some free advertising, give away an e-book, basically anything that will add value to your readers above and beyond the blog posts.

62. Feature Your Best Content Somewhere on the Blog

Some of your visitors will not be familiar with your blog and they may not have seen your best work. Somewhere on the blog you should have a list of links to your best or most popular posts. New visitors will hopefully take a look and see the quality.

63. Write for Other Blogs

One of the best ways to gain exposure and to build some name recognition is to write for other blogs. You can either do so as a guest blogger or as a paid writer. Usually if you are providing a free guest post you will get a brief bio statement and a link back to your blog. When you are doing paid writing you typically won’t get the bio or the link, but the exposure will still help.

64. Run a Contest

You can create some excitement from subscribers and generate some buzz by running a contest. Of course, people like to win things, so contests are a fun way to satisfy your readers. You can either put up some of your own money for prizes, or you can get others to sponsor the contest, which has been done very effectively be a number of bloggers.

65. Participate in Group Writing Projects

Group writing projects are a good way to get involved with other bloggers, get a link to your blog, and get exposure to a new audience. Check out Group Writing Projects to find some new opportunities.

66. Do Some Statistical Analysis

Do you know what types of posts draw the most traffic and the best response from your readers? Do you know where your traffic is coming from and what terms people are using to find you in the search engines? Use a tool like Google Analytics to do some basic stat checking on your blog and implement what you learn.

67. Submit Your Blog to Directories

Directories can be helpful for allowing new readers to find your blog, and they can also be good for search engine rankings. There are literally thousands of directories, blog directories, and RSS directories that you could submit to. Unfortunately, you’d have to spend days of your valuable time to get it done. You can submit it yourself to the top directories, or pay someone else to do it for you.

68. Set Up FeedBurner’s FeedFlare

I’m going to assume that you are already using FeedBurner since it is basically a necessity. FeedFlare is a simple way to add some nice elements to your feed that will allow subscribers to interact and share your content. There are a number of options to choose from, including links that will submit and vote for your posts at all the popular social media sites. To set up your FeedFlare, login and click on “Optimize” and then “FeedFlare.”

69. Release Your Own Blog Theme

Do you have an attractive blog theme that people really like? Have you considered releasing it for others to use freely? This has been done by a number of blogs, and sometimes it is done right after upgrading to a new theme. That way you can give something away without allowing everyone else to look just like you.

70. Use Entrecard

Entrecard is a unique way to make your sidebar more productive. With Entrecard you can network with other bloggers and with your readers, and drive traffic to your blog.

71. Submit Your Posts to Blog Carnivals

One of the easiest ways to start building links to your blog is by using blog carnivals. You can submit one of your posts to a carnival on a specific topic and if the host decides to include your post you will get a backlink. There are carnivals on just about every topic you can think of.

72. Host a Blog Carnival

Another method for driving traffic to your blog is to host a blog carnival. In this situation other bloggers will be submitting their posts to your carnival, and sometimes those who are included will also promote the carnival once it is published. If you’re looking for an easy way to get some other bloggers to visit your blog, consider hosting a carnival.

73. Submit Your Blog to Web Design and CSS Galleries

If your blog features a unique and attractive design (not a free theme), consider submitting it to web design and CSS galleries. There are more galleries than you can keep track (there’s a good list at Virtual Hosting). These galleries can give you a great deal of exposure and send some traffic and links your way.

74. Encourage Bookmarks

Bookmarks are a great way to increase your repeat traffic. If someone has bookmarked one of your posts they obviously have some intention of coming back to it later. Make it easy for your readers to bookmark by using the del.icio.us tagometer badge or something similar.

SEO

75. Give the Blog an SEO Check-Up

Most bloggers initially set up there blog to be search engine-friendly, however, over a period of time your blog may develop the need for an SEO checkup to keep the blog optimized. There are a number of free tools that can help you to check the SEO health of your blog. For a list of some of the best tools, see Giving Your Blog an SEO Check-Up .

76. Improve the Structure of the Blog for SEO Purposes

Blogs can be very search engine-friendly, or they can be SEO nightmares. What have you done to prevent duplicate content, to create optimized page titles, to use better URLs, etc? By improving the structure of your blog you may be able to drastically increase your search engine traffic. WordPress users see WordPress SEO from Joost de Valk.

77. Use Custom URL Structure

Some blogs create URLs that are no help for search engines. WordPress users have the option to set up custom URLs that will be more search engine-friendly rather than using the number of the post.

78. Use Custom Slugs

WordPress users also have the option within each post to create a custom slug. How often do you use this feature? Try keeping your URLs shorter and full of keywords with this simple feature.

79. Give Each Post a Meta Description

The meta description may not have a big influence on search engine rankings, but it can significantly influence the click-through rate to your pages from the SERPs. The meta description is shown by most search engines to tell searchers what your page is about. Use the description to draw attention and increase the chances of a click.

80. Use Robots.txt to Block Duplicate Content

One of the most effective ways to control and prevent duplicate content is by using the robots.txt file. With robots.txt you can instruct search engines to ignore certain pages and types of pages (for example your archive or category pages) which means your posts are less likely to suffer from the penalties of duplicate content. WordPress users should see the article on Shoemoney about robots.txt .

81. Submit a Google Sitemap

The easiest way to get you pages indexed in Google is to submit an XML sitemap that lists all of your pages and posts. The Google Sitemaps Generator for WordPress is a great tool.

82. Don’t Add Posts to Multiple Categories

An easy way to prevent duplicate content is to limit your posts to one category. By adding it in multiple categories you will be adding it to more archive pages, which increases the chances of a duplicate content penalty.

Networking

83. Build a Network with Other Bloggers

Other than creating great content, networking is the best thing you can do with your time. Every successful blogger has a strong network of other bloggers. Everything is easier when you have a good network and you’ll make a lot of friends along the way.

84. Thanks Others for Links

When other bloggers link to you, take a moment to leave a comment and thank them for the link. They’ll appreciate the fact that you stopped by and they’ll be more likely to link to you again in the future. Everyone likes to be thanked.

85. Comment on Other Blogs

One of the basics of blog networking is commenting on other blogs in your niche. It’s a great way to start getting to know some other bloggers, plus you can help others, demonstrate your knowledge, and drive some traffic to your blog. Try to make some time each day for commenting.

86. Join Groups at MyBlogLog, BUMPzee, and Blog Catalog

Blog community sites are a great place to start networking. You can join groups and communities and get to know some other users.

Making Money

87. Find More Relevant Advertisers

Advertisements will be more effective for the blogger, the readers, and the advertisers if they are highly relevant to the content of the blog. Don’t just throw any advertisement on your blog. Make sure it is useful to readers and the ads will actually be helpful instead of annoying.

88. Use Affiliate Marketing for Appropriate Products

When monetizing your blog, don’t forget affiliate programs. By marketing products and services that are targeted to your audience you can make a nice amount of money. Plus, affiliate programs can help to fill voids when you haven’t sold all of your direct ad spots.

89. Provide an Advertising Page with Details

If you are selling advertising space, set up a page dedicated to providing information and details to potential advertisers. This will hopefully help to generate interest and it will also reduce the amount of questions you get. Don’t forget to let people know why they should advertise on your blog instead of the millions of other blogs out there.

90. Offer Premium Content

Some bloggers make money by selling access to premium content. That premium content could be articles, online tools, a member’s only forum, premium blog themes, etc. To make money this way you have to be able to offer something that others will be willing to pay for.

91. Use an Ad Management System

You can save yourself some time and increase your productivity with an ad server like OpenX or the OIO Publisher plugin for WordPress. These resources will make life easier for you and for your advertisers.

Subscribers:

92. Add an Email Subscription Option

If you are not offering an email subscription option in addition to RSS, you are losing subscribers. Some people just prefer to use email. FeedBurner makes it easy to offer email subscriptions.

93. Offer a Free Giveaway to Subscribers

Some bloggers successfully use a free giveaway to generate more subscribers. Chris Garrett uses a free e-book to draw in new subscribers, and plenty of other bloggers have used this method as well.

94. Make Your Subscription Links More Noticeable

In order to increase subscribers, make it as easy as possible for visitors to subscribe. This includes placing your subscription links and icons in highly-visible locations where they can’t be missed.

95. Publish a Full Feed

Subscribers prefer to receive a full RSS feed rather than a partial feed. Personally, I don’t see any reason to use a partial feed. More people will unsubscribe and it really won’t have a drastic effect on click-throughs.

96. Follow Up with Unconfirmed Email Subscribers

Regardless of how good your blog is, some people will sign up for the email subscription and then never click on the confirmation link from FeedBurner. When you login to FeedBurner you can see who has not yet confirmed. You can export all of your email subscribers (confirmed and unconfirmed) into an Excel file, then sort the file to get all of the unconfirmed subscribers together, cut and paste the address into an email, and send a brief message to remind them to subscribe.

97. Use Subscriber-Only Posts

With WordPress you can create a post that will go out to your subscribers but will not be displayed on your blog itself. I first read of this trick from Courtney Tuttle at this post. If you have a message that you want to go to just your subscribers, this might be a good thing to try.

98. Don’t Display the Subscriber Count Until it is High

In my opinion it is a mistake to show your subscriber count if it is low. It only shows visitors that you have not established an audience yet. A low subscriber count is normal for new blogs, but it’s not something that you want to proclaim to the world. The hard part is knowing when it should be displayed. I think between 100 - 200 is safe, but that’s a matter of opinion.

99. Subscribe to Your Own Feed

No, I’m not saying this to boost your feed count, but rather to see exactly how your feed is appearing to your subscribers. You wouldn’t publish a website without testing it, so why not see what you feed is doing? Personally, I subscribe to my feed in an RSS reader and at an email address. That way I can keep an eye on the appearance of the feed and detect and correct any issues.

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