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How you can post to your Blogger Blog via email?

Let’s face it: posting via email to your Blogger blog might not be the most convenient way of updating your blog. However, you can think about different situations, when this feature would be useful. For example you cannot access your Blogger account for some reason, or your favorite third party posting application has crashed, or you are on the go, and your phone does not have the data package or necessary feature to make mobile posts. Anyway, be aware that there is a simple method of doing it by sending email message.

The task can be divided in two parts:

Registering you email account for posting on you blog.

By default this email posting feature is turned off on all new blogs but if you want to enable this you need to follow the instructions given below.

· Login to blogger.com and choose the blog (if you have multiple blogs in your account) for which you want to enable email posting.

· Click on small envelope icon beside blog's title. See image given below:

· On a pop-up set a secret word of your choice. See image given below:

· Now Click on the Save Button, After setting up a secret word would make an email address like this:

YourUserName.YourSecretWord.blogger.com

Keep the email address secret as this would be a public email address and anyone from anywhere is able to send an email automatically publishing it to your blog. Keep it in safe place on your records or just remember it.

Be sure to specify whether or not you prefer your email posts to publish automatically. If this option is not checked, then your posts will be saved on your account but will not appear on your blog until you log in to Blogger.com and publish them yourself.

Alternatively, in Settings | Email you can create a Mail-to-Blogger address which you will use to send posts via email to your blog:

2. Publishing to your blog via email message.

Create a new email from any email address.
Add your secret email address of your blog in recipient's address box.
Put in meaningful Subject because that would be the title of the post.
Write the text in the email body and that would be the text of the post. You can also attach images in your posts by attaching the images in email as attachments.
Sometimes email programs append text to the bottom of each sent message; to make sure this garbage doesn't get posted to your blog, put #end at the end of your post.

Notes:

There are two formats that emails generally use: plain text and HTML. Many email clients will have an option to switch between the two modes. Here's what happens when you use either of these formats in Mail-to-Blogger:

Plain Text: Everything is published on your blog exactly as you type it. That is, entering <strong> in your post will not make text bold. The <> brackets will be escaped and your published blog will actually display <strong> as text.

HTML: All HTML is interpreted as HTML. If you use your email client's formatting functions to make text bold, you may not see the <strong> tag, but it will be included in your post and the text will appear bold on your blog. If you want to enter code manually, you may need to use an "edit source code" mode or something similar in your email client.

Sources and Additional Information:

http://www.geekblogger.org/2010/02/make-post-via-email-in-blogger.html

http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42466

http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41452

http://www.joedolson.com/blogger/

Discover what your readers are interested in with Skribit

Winning blog content is “the must” in order to attract visitors to your blog and create favorable conditions for its monetization. However, getting ideas for your blog articles is not easy. Sometimes, you have a temporary mental block, restricting your ability to deliver interesting and fresh content, your readers are expecting from you. Let your visitors assist you in making your topics choices and decision making. Free service from Skribit will provide technical abilities and user interface for collecting opinions in convenience of your own blog.

You just add a small widget that sticks to your blog sidebar with title “What Topic Do You Want Covered?” And your blog or website visitors can easily type in the topics they want you to blog about and present on your pages.

List of suggested topics is already displayed in the blog sidebar. Here is how Skribit look on a sidebar of a blog - from Problogger Blog (click to enlarge):

Blogging Ideas with Skribit Widget

Paul Stamatiou created the service as a tool to help cure blogger’s block (writer’s block for bloggers) a little over a year ago, and already it boasts more than 4,000 blogs using it and gets about 4 million hits per month. “For me it is a backup plan when I really can’t think of something to write. If I notice something that has received a lot of votes in a very short amount of time, I’ll take that as a note that my readers really want to read about it and I’ll change my plans and blog about it,” Paul said. “Then there are the times that, for a few weeks, I won’t have any clue about what to write, so I’ll just rely on it.”

Besides getting newer topics to blog on, you can also get sense of what your blog visitors expect from you and your blog.

Sign in to the site and start using it in a matter of minutes: Skribit Homepage.

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents

I am happy to present a blogging tutorial prepared by "Reporters without Borders" in March 2008, giving basic information on how to establish your blog and how to bypass the censorship restrictions in certain countries.

Blog eBook Guide

Publish at Scribd or explore others: eBooks marketing online

This publication is dedicated to all bloggers who operate in the countries, where Freedom of Speech is not considered as a common practice. Being born and raised in the former Soviet Union, I know exactly what that means.
Wish everyone Good Luck! Be smart and strong in your struggle. Truth is sharp weapon, and your governments are afraid that you word will be spread around!

Blogger Help Video Tutorials on YouTube

If you are a Blogger user, as I am, you probably once a while visit Blogger’s Help Center to find some new tips and answers to your technical questions. Blogger specialists decided to go “with the flow” and help those users who prefer visual presentation to the written description. Google Blogger has setup a YouTube channel specifically to show users step by step how to use Blogger features. The channel lacks a big variety of the offered video tutorials. At the moment, there are just 9 clips available. Blogger experts claim that more videos will be added in the coming months so hopefully the inventory of tutorials will increase rapidly.

For your convenience, I am bringing to your attention several of the proposed clips:

Creating Blog on Blogger Platform

___________________________________________________________________

Creating Mobile Blog on Blogger Platform
___________________________________________________________________

Adding new Google Gadget to Blogger Blog
___________________________________________________________________

Creating Podcast on Blogger Blog Platform

How to Add Element under Header in Blogger Blog

Usually, when you are new to the World of Blogging, you start from scratch. You use on of the default templates offered by Blogger on their site. Little-by-little, you realize that there are so many blogs in blogospere that look like yours, and you want to distinguish you blog from others. You can choose one of the free or paid templates available online to change the blog interface. Later on, you can experiment even more, tweaking the GUI to your particular needs. The following simple tweak will show you how to add an extra element under your blog Header in 9 steps. The credit goes to BlogSpotTutorial:

1. Login to Blogger with your ID.
2. Click Layout.
3. Click tab Edit HTML.
4. Click sentence Download Full Template, it is very important for you to backup this!
5. Copy the code below, then paste it before code ]]></b:skin>

#under_header{ margin:10px 0; padding:1%; width:98%; }
6. Find out code which look exactly like this :
<div id=’header-wrapper’> <b:section class=’header’ id=’header’ maxwidget="1" showaddelement="no"> <b:widget id=’Header1’ locked=’true’ title=’test (Header)’ type=’Header’/> </b:section> </div>

7. Copy the code below, and paste it exactly after that code :
<div id="under_header"> <b:section class=’header’ id=’underheader’ preferred=’yes’/> </div>

8. Click SAVE TEMPLATE buttons, and wait until your template saved.
9. Now you already have an element which placed exactly below your header. Feel free to add any elements do you wanted to. Want some Google Advertise, or maybe some photos, it’s all up to you!

Automated Open-Source Life-stream Blogging Software

You have a rich Web 2 life and complicated online presence. Would not it be great if all your Internet activities (you choose) are reflected on your blog automatically? Uploaded a photo to Flickr? Bookmarked a new site? In a few minutes, it will show up on your blog!

There have been a lot of "life-stream" services popping up lately that aim to collect all of your Web 2.0 newly created posts, uploaded materials, or certain performed actions, and assemble all this in one place that is central to your online life. It sounds as a great idea, but the downside is that most of the offered solutions are closed source and externally hosted applications, so you are essentially directing all your data into yet another system that you have no control over.

Sweetcron

Sweetcron application, created by Tokyo-based web developer Yongfook, represents a completely open-source solution, self-hosted take on the life stream idea. Like most of the similar services, it is essentially a blog that also pulls your real-time participation data from sites like Twitter, Flickr, Digg, and Youtube. Unlike most of other competitive service models, however, you can download the software, skin it, and modify it to suit your needs. You will definitely need a server to run it on, of course; therefore this solution is not for everyone.

Developers website: http://sweetcron.com/

Direct Downloading links: http://code.google.com/p/sweetcron/downloads/list

Additional Information, Detailed Features and Installation Procedures:

http://www.mytestbox.com/new-web-software-releases/sweetcron-friendfeed-automated-lifestream-blog-software/
http://lifestreamblog.com/interview-with-yongfook-on-sweetcron-automated-lifestream-blog-software/
http://socialwebtools.info/2008/08/29/sweetcron-best-automated-lifestreaming-blogging-software/

Improve Headlines Effectiveness Using Free Optimizer Tool

You have interesting genuine content, but if your title is not attractive enough, bypassing readers might not stop to read it. You have to capture, you have to catch, and you have to surprise. There is free online assistant that might help you to generate titles, attractive enough both for readers and search engines.

Headlines Collage

What is it?
Headline Analyzer evaluates the headline which you have written on your site or decided to write and tells you how efficient it is. You can use the tool and write many headlines and choose the best one. The tool will give you a result in percentage. What the system says is that normally gifted freelance writers have the ability to create headlines of 50%-70%.

How Does It Work?
They have done pretty good research and finally put up a system. The system will check for the emotional, emphatic, and eye-catchy words and then give you a result based on it. You can check on how it works here.

How to Improve?
This is easy to answer. All you have to do is, try typing different headlines and see which one gives the best score and use it. While you may not get above 80% at your first try, you can get above 50% with little hard.

Few Defects
Most of the things you use in life have its own advantages and disadvantages. Like that, this tool has few defects too. Try typing the following things and see the result:

I Love Google - 0%
Probably - 400%

Though the second one is not a headline, it is not something which can constitute a headline. Likewise, I Love Google can be a headline and in fact and eye-catchy headline but it gives 0%.

Headlines Collage

Evaluation

I decided to evaluate the tool by working on the headline to the post you are reading now.

The first title I tried was a simple and informational one: "Using Headlines Optimizer Service". The service did not like the title much and gave pretty low score of 25%. Adding the magic word Free without changing anything else "Using Free Headlines Optimizer Service" improved the rating, raising it to 40%, which is considered solid average score. Changing a word Service to word Tool as "Using Free Headlines Optimizer Tool" significantly improved the score, brining it to professional level of 60%. The result is pretty good already, but it definitely can be improved. The question is of how much time you can allow yourself working on every post title.

Making the post concept stronger with title "Improve Headlines Effectiveness Using Free Optimizer Tool" brings the score 71.43%. At this moment I will stop and let you play with this free simple and useful service.

Headlines Collage

Where to Start
Before trying the optimizer, you need to understand basics on how to make the post title attractive. Here, you can review the model developed by RealEstateTomato. There are titles offered as good and bad examples. I will use each title to check the score, so we can verify that author’s improvement advices aligned with automatic tool recommendations.

1. Emotion - Make your audience feel something they can relate to. Emotion can be brought out in several ways:

- Extreme words: best, most, never, crucial, perfect
- Emotional words: scary, sad, mean, fun
- Playful words: secret, hidden, unknown, forgotten, exciting…
- Curiosities: celebrities, well known people, news items, buzz words…
- Use something attention grabbing.
Bad Title: Interest Rates Are Unpredictable (25%).
Good Title: The 4 Crucial Reasons You Don’t Want To Wait On Interest Rates (50%).

2. Call To Action - What am I going to take away from this article? Don’t hide it in the body.

- Improve on something.
- Teach something.
- Overcome something.
- Uncover something.
- Just offer something.
Bad Title: The Real Estate Loan Broken Down (16.67%).
Good Title: 5 Simple Solutions to Getting Organized For a Real Estate Loan (27.27%).

3. Description - Lay it all out there.

- Tell the whole story in a sentence.
- Avoid confusion with description.
- Avoid assumptions; your audience shouldn’t have to guess what your writing about.
Bad Title: The Real Estate Transaction Is Not That Difficult (25%).
Good Title: Exactly Why The Real Estate Transaction Process Is Easier Than Getting A Tattoo (38.46%).

4. Keywords - Make sure you are being found for terms that match your focus.

- Work your focus into your titles
- The Title is the most weighted element in your articles search engine success
- Search engines aren’t going to give you credit for keywords, unless you include them.
Bad Title: Friends Don’t Let Friends Pay 6% (0%).
Good Title: Friends Don’t Let Friends Pay 6% In Real Estate Commissions (10%).

Make your headlines look like headlines that are important, but not obnoxious. Avoid using all CAPS and avoid writing in lower case. That can be considered as lack of respect to your readers.

As you see, a Good Title score is always higher than a Bad Title, even though the “good and bad” consideration differs every time.

Webpage: http://www.aminstitute.com/headline/index.htm
More recommendations on the Blog Title generation:
http://blogging4good.blogspot.com/2008/09/need-killing-blog-title-template.html

Headlines Collage

Dynamic Tree DTree for Blogger Blog

In course of my experiments to bring normally dynamic content in the Blogger blog to the appearance and functionality of the static Websites, I was trying to implement the Blogger hack, allowing displaying the blog Table of Content in the Windows Explorer similar interface. While there are multiple scripts available online for this modification, I had to try several of them before I actually found one, which worked right away with relative simplicity. It is my pleasure to offer it to you. All credit for this excellent script is to the author of The Blogger Guide. I will repost the article without modification in respect to the script developer.

A tree control (i.e. the GUI element found in the left pane of Windows Explorer) provides a useful way of organizing a set of hierarchical items. This article will present a method to incorporate such a tree control in to Blogger blogs.

Before we proceed, let’s take a look at how our final tree will look like.

Content Tree on Blogger Blog

Now let’s see how to include a tree like the above in your blog.

Step 1

First step is to include two resources, a JavaScript file and a CSS file, in to the Blogger template. Copy the following two lines of code and insert them in to the head section of your template.

Content Tree on Blogger Blog

Save your template and exit Edit HTML mode.

Step 2

Next step is to write the code necessary to create the tree. I will first present a sample code and then explain it.

<div class="dtree">

<p><a href="javascript: d.openAll();">open all</a> | <a href="javascript: d.closeAll();">close all</a></p>

<script type="text/javascript">

</script>
</div>

The first line defines a generic div element and applies the class dtree in to that. This CSS class is defined in the dtree.css file which we included in Step 1 above. Next line inserts two buttons (in fact, links) to Expand and Collapse all the nodes in the tree. Thirdly, you find a Javascript enclosed within a <script> element. The first line in the script, d = new dTree(’d’), creates a new tree object to which we can insert nodes. The following lines which start with d.add(...) are the statements that insert all the nodes in to the tree. Then the last line of the script, document.write(d), renders the created tree on to the browser.

The add() function of the dTree takes in several parameters. The first 3 parameters are required (i.e. you must provide values for them) and the other parameters are optional. The above example uses the following 4 parameters.

Node ID - A unique numerical ID number. Assign a sequentially increasing number to each new node.
Parent Node ID - If you want to create a child node, then the ID of the parent node should be given here. This will be ’-1’ for the root node. (See the first d.add(...) line in the example)
Node Name - A textual description for the node
Node URL - If you want the node to link to some resource (e.g. an HTML page or some online image), provide the URL of the that resource as the 4th parameter.

For a full description of the add() function see here. You don’t have to provide consecutive (or adjacent) IDs for all the child nodes at a given level. For example, node 15 of the above snippet is attached as a child of node 1 called ’3 Columns’. You can have the nodes anywhere as long as you maintain the uniqueness of the node IDs and provide the correct parent node IDs.

Step 3

Once you finish adding the nodes, copy the entire code starting from the <div class="dtree"> to the corresponding </div>. Then insert the entire code using an ’Add HTML/Javascript Element’ widget of the ’Add Page Element’ option. Place the widget where you want the tree to appear. Save the template and view your blog. You will have the tree sitting nicely in your blog! One limitation is the fact that node names do not wrap at the edges. So you have to give names that fit withing the width of the containing sidebar (or whatever location). Let me know what you think of it and also if you come across any problems when installing it.

Acknowledgment: I have used the free tree control offered by Geir Landrц at Destroydrop. The original files have been slightly modified to make them available online, to be used inside Blogger.

Note: You are free to use the resources used in Step 1. But if you do use, please link to this article from your blog.

If you want to see the practical implementation of this script, you can visit my new blog Data Recovery Techniques.

Update 03-18-2012: The script code to be implemented in the template has found to be corrupted in this post. It was corrected as needed. For more than three years, I am using this DTree approach in most of my Blogger blogs. It is easy to implement, easy to update, and works seamlessly for years.

Removing Newer and Older Post Links in Blogger Blog

If you are using Blogger as blogging platform, you might be used to some of the built-in features, that you consider hard coded, but can be changed with slight template code modification. One of the hacks, presented in this publication, addresses a seemingly minor issue on the page - two links “Older Posts” and “Newer Posts” on the bottom of the page.

For those, who prefer their blog to be maximally close to the static webpages, these links not just unnecessary, but are plainly irritating. There is a way to remove them once and forever. And that is quite easy to do, even for not very experienced users. Note, that this hack will also remove “home” link from the bottom of the blog page.

Open Layout Tab in your blog profile page, choose Edit HTML, and search your code in your blog template for the following text:
#blog-pager-newer-link {
float: left;
}
#blog-pager-older-link {
float: right;
}
#blog-pager {
text-align: center;
}

Now replace that code with the following code:

#blog-pager-newer-link {
display: none;
}
#blog-pager-older-link {
display: none;
}
#blog-pager {
display: none;
}

Save the template and you are done. I hope that was indeed an easy and straightforward one.

Additional Reading:

http://bloggeruniversity.blogspot.com/
http://tipsforwebsite.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-remove-post-and-post-link-on.html

Smart Blogger Assistant for Simple Blog Publishing

Developer Description:
Smart Blogger allows centralized management of your all diaries and blogs regardless of its Internet location. The software has a single universal interface for reading and sending messages to all blogs; it makes text formatting possible. With this application, you can monitor your friends' diaries checking their blogs for new postings. You can also look through commentaries to your postings as well as other peoples, place comments in blogs, and leave answers to threads.

The software supports three web-blogs:
- LiveJournal
- Blogger
- WordPress

Disadvantages:
This post has been made in Smart Blogger. I already see several disadvantages of using this free software for blogs publishing:

1. No possibility of the text alignment options.
2. Very basic text formatting: color and bold/itallic/under only.
3. No spell checking option.
4. No advanced features as horizontal lines or tables generation.
5. Small publishing field, not very convenient for big posts.

Advantages:
1. Nice and pleasant interface.
2. Easy to use.
3. Portable software exists, so you do not need to install the software on your PC

Developers WebSite: http://www.smartpctools.com/smart_blogger/index1.html

Assessment: The software is good for the light operations, small notes in your Journal, but is lacking functionality for serious blogging.

Software carries rating 3 of 5 in the RateItAll List of 29 free software titles:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24825-blog-publishing-freeware.aspx

If you have personal experience using this software, you are welcome to leave your feedback in the rating widget below:

Blog Publishing Freeware on RateItAll

How to include social bookmarking submission after every post?

Every blog owner will benefit from sustaining the readers on the blog content. To reach this goal, it should be offered an easy and convenient way to subscribe to the blog through RSS reader and to allow submitting it to the Social Bookmarking sites. Social Bookmarking is indeed a great way to increase the blog exposure, bringing multiple benefits to the owner. Not just the reader preserves the post for further review and follow-up, but also the bookmark itself starts its own independent way of online existence. It will be indexed by Search Engine spider and will allow one more point of access to the blog content. It is just multiplying your blog exposure legally, with no additional efforts, and with no need to post duplicate your content on multiple sites.

Bloggerplugins offer a nice way to include small buttons after every post, allowing direct submission to the most popular social bookmarking sites with one click, without leaving the blog post.

To enable this option on your blog you should go through several simple steps of blog template code update:

1. Enter Blogger template in Layout section.
2. Choose Edit HTML.
3. Before doing any code modification, backup the entire template to the safe, easy identifiable location on your Hard Drive. If anything goes wrong, you can easily come back to your original template without loosing your blog structure.
4. Expand the widget template.
5. In the template:
a. Locate

<head>

b. Replace with

<head><script src=’http://files.bloggerplugins.org/simpletricks.js’></script>

c. Locate string

<p class=’post-footer-line post-footer-line-3’>

d. Place the following code below that line:



<style type=’text/css’>

.bookmark img { border: 0;

padding:0px; }

.bookmark a:hover {

position: relative;

top: 1px;

left: 1px; }

</style>

<span class=’bookmark’>

<table align=’left’ border=’0’ cellpadding=’0’ width=’100%’>

<tr>

<td style=’vertical-align:middle’ valign=’middle’ width=’30%’>

<div expr:id=’"sbtxt"+data:post.id’>Bookmark this post<a style="text-decoration:none;" href="http://www.bloggerplugis.org">:</a></div><script type=’text/javascript’>showsbtext("sbtxt" + "<data:post.id/>",0)</script>

</td>

<td>

<a rel="nofollow" expr:href=’"http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title’ expr:onmouseout=’"javascript:showsbtext(’"sbtxt" + data:post.id + "’",0);"’ expr:onmouseover=’"javascript:showsbtext(’"sbtxt" + data:post.id + "’",19);"’ target=’_blank’><img alt=’StumpleUpon’ src=’http://files.bloggerplugins.org/icon_sb_stumb.gif’/></a> <a rel="nofollow" expr:href=’"http://ma.gnolia.com/bookmarklet/add?url=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title’ expr:onmouseout=’"javascript:showsbtext(’"sbtxt" + data:post.id + "’",0);"’ expr:onmouseover=’"javascript:showsbtext(’"sbtxt" + data:post.id + "’",6);"’ target=’_blank’><img alt=’Ma.gnolia’ border=’0’ src=’http://files.bloggerplugins.org/icon_sb_mag.gif’/></a>

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6. Save the modified template.
7. If the operation was successful, you should see the line of social bookmarking icons after each post.

How to Create a Killing Blog Post Title?

There are some many ways to improve your blog in terms of readability, search ability, attractiveness, organization, and so on, that the newbie blogger feels completely overwhelmed with amount of the available information and massive recommendations, sometimes controversial. Little-by-little, you start developing your own style, adopting some recommendations completely, rejecting others, and modifying the remaining group to accommodate your strategic goals, aesthetic and ethical views, and personal common sense. For me, it is probably time to seek improvement of my blog titles.

Hendry Lee is offering 10 templates on how to create killer titles for your blog posts that nobody could resist but got interested in the post content. Definitely, that does not present the complete solution. You cannot fit all your posts in one of the offered schematic forms. However, these templates give you overview of the killer titles generation approach. In many cases, you can use them “as is”, but be sure not overdoing that, following the internal voice of your personal common sense.

How to ____

This is at the top of the list for a reason. It is simple yet very effective. It can be used almost for any technical (and not only) post.

Example: How to Win Friends and Influence People.
This is the title of Dale Carnegie’s book. It includes double benefits within a single title, which works extremely well.

____ Proven Strategies to ____

Fill the first blank with a number. This title works because it is specific. It also promises something in the content the readers can find and use. The effectiveness of the title, of course, depends on the benefit you include in the second blank space.

Example: 7 Proven Strategies to Save on Tax.

Here’s a Way to _____ That Has Never Failed Yet!

This one is taken from an email subject line that generated a staggering 60% open rate. It works for sales copy and it can be used for blog post title too.

Example: Here’s a Way to Lose Weight That Has Never Failed Yet!

Do You Make These Mistakes in ____?

Maxwell Sackheim wrote this headline. It became a legendary 40-year control ad. Many copywriters believe this is because of the headline.

What’s account for its stunning success? It is the word these.

Combining these and mistakes intrigue the audience to continue reading and find out what these mistakes are. Including the answers in the copy or content is important as well.

Example: Do You Make These Mistakes in Designing a Web Site?

(Attention: ____,) Don’t ____ Until You Read This

In the first blank, you insert your target audience. Insert something desirable in the second blank space. The impact is much like the fourth title template above but with a qualifier. You may create a second variation by omitting the Attention: ____,” part.

Example: Attention: Newbie Blogger, Don’t Quit Your Job Until You Read This.

Who Else Wants to ____ (in ____)?

Social proof is a powerful and effective psychological trigger to influence your audience to make a decision (like in buying a product). This same headline and title template has been overused in certain niche because it works. The second blank adds specificity into the title, usually a phrase that shows the readers how they could benefit by reading on.

Example: Who Else Wants to Drive 10,000 Unique Visitors to Their Blog in Two Hours?

Need a ____?

A simple formula that identifies an unfulfilled desire the readers want to achieve. You can also rephrase the question to make it a problem instead of desire. Using this title template allows the readers to resonate with it immediately, even if they scroll down the page quickly.

Example: Need a Marketing Makeover?

Stress Free ____

Insert a challenging problem the reader wants to remedy immediately. Something easy that fixes a problem without a lot of struggle is always appealing. You can also rephrase the title to include a desire instead of problem.

Example: Stress Free Ways to Improve Your Productivity

Make ____ Work for You

This template promises to solve or fulfill something. In the previous template above, you emphasize on the benefit of the solution (stress free) but this one focuses on getting the problem solved (finally).

Example: Make Real Estate Investing Work for You.

The Secret to ____ (is Simply ____)

Everyone wants to know a secret. It immediately puts him/her in the loop. Make sure you have something important and exclusive in the blog post though. Another twist is to immediately tell there is no secret at all to stress the simplicity of the solution, sort of a hidden benefit.

Example: The Secret of Selling Your Product on eBay

There is one more point: it is good to include one or two important keywords from those you target, but do not duplicate the same name in labels and keywords as you use in your title, as it might be considered rude by the Search Engines.

As you see, I have chosen for the title just one of the offered templates. However, you can do your home exercise and easily apply each of the offered templates to our topic of discussion. And remember, that title is just starter. If your blog post content does not match the striking title, or it is just boring, you lost it, as you could not keep your visitor at your virtual home for more than couple of seconds.

Blogger vs WordPress: Review for the Newbie Blogger

I am still a newbie blogger. When I started, somehow I naturally get to the Blogger. However, moving forward, I am trying to define is the Blogger platform right for my purposes. There is a choice, and all the alternative solutions should be investigated. Usually, you can find anything on the Internet, but it appears to be challenging to locate a comparison tables, highlighting vital features of different blogging platforms. The best comparison I found on the Online Journalism Review page. The table updated for the last time on May 18, 2006. For the blogging platforms development, almost two years are ages. So, what is new there? In the PC World top blogging platforms review (January 22, 2007), the only two free platforms presented are Blogger and Wordpress with slight Blogger priority. Based on that post, and in order to limit the spec of this review, I will focus on these platforms comparison.
There are indeed serious differences between platforms that might influence on your informative decision on using one or another. Bear in mind that I am referring to the developer hosted wordpress.com, not the self hosted wordpress.org. So, let’s review several factors on the platforms differences:

Blog Import: In Blogger - limited availability to import and export only in the same blogging platform; in WoordPress - you can import from several other platformd, including from Blogger.
Image Storage: In Blogger - 300 MB; in WordPress - 3 GB.
Static Pages: In Blogger - not available; in WordPress - static pages can be listed in separate menus.
Post by Email: In Blogger - accepted; in WordPress - not.
Categories: In Blogger - not available; in WordPress - arranged with no problem.
File Uploading: In Blogger - not available; in WordPress - files can be uploaded.
Indexing Time: Here Blogger produces far better results, as due to the tight connections with Google, it can appear in the Search Engines very fast.
Blog Monetization: WordPress has serious restrictions on the publishing ads, so if you plan to use AdSense, your preferences will probably lean more to the Blogger.

If you are shooting for the blog monetization, there is no doubt that it is much easier to get started with Google Adsense if you have a Blogger account. In fact you can now apply for Adsense from within a Blogger account. Not entirely surprising considering the fact that both are owned by the same company.

With Wordpress, it can get tricky. The default installation is not enough. You’ll need a couple of plugins and even a better theme to really maximize the Adsense potential. However, this seems to be getting easier and there’s even “Adsense revenue sharing” plugins around that allow you to share ad revenue with other contributors and writers for your blog.

Based on all information available, I would definitely recommend Blogger for all the beginners, while WordPress might be considered preferable for more experienced bloggers.

Additional Reading:
http://onestoryeveryday.com/blogger-vs-wordpress-10-features-for-beginners.html
http://pulsed.blogspot.com/2007/07/blogger-wordpress-chart.html
http://michaelsync.net/2007/04/01/wordpresscom-vs-bloggercom
http://www.searchforblogging.com/index.php/2008/03/11/blogging-wars-wordpress-vs-blogger/

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