What to do in the first week of starting your blog

Posted by Dan Keller on Feb 27, 2009 in Blogging | 4 comments

It has been a week, actually a week and a day since I started this new blog. I wanted to recap all that I have done after setting up the blog. This post can also be called, “The top 7 things to do after you install your blog.” Here they are :

Content- This is a blog right, content is king. You can have the best graphics and coolest theme on the planet, but if your content sticks or if you do not have any, what is the point. You should have at least 6 high quality posts ready to go and space them out one for each day.
Pick a theme- If you use the standard WP theme (you know, the big blue box) it will be hard for people to take your blog seriously. It is free and easy to upgrade your template, just type it into Google and pick your favorite.
Add a logo- You don’t have to have a killer logo, but anything will be better than the default. You can get a free logo or one for around $5 if you look in the right places. This is not a necessity, but it does help add to the credibility.
About Me page- You definitely want to get this up and running in the first week. People like to know about the person behind the blog. If you have a good “about me” page your changes of gaining subscribers will increase dramatically.
Seo Plugin- This is a must and is always the first plugin I install. This will help set your title and keywords for your blog and for your posts.
Forums- Get involved with Blogger and Webmaster forums. You can drop your link and ask for feedback. You will then be able to make adjustments early on.
Directories- I like submitting to directories after I have 5 posts. I view link building as a slow and steady race and I like to start early.

What did I miss?

Would you change the order?

Hit me with your c

How to write a killer “About Me” page for your blog

Posted by Dan Keller on Feb 25, 2009 in Blogging | 13 comments

One of my biggest pet peeves when reading other people’s blogs is when they have no “about me” page or if the “about me” page is poorly written. The absolute worst thing is when they keep the default page, they lose all credibility with me at that point. I am a week into this blog and have been bust adding daily content, today I took time out to construct my “about me” page (check it out, I am pretty interesting!) I recommend that you do this in the first couple of days after starting your blog and certainly before an influx of readers start coming in.

Here are some tips on writing a killer “about me” page:

Write one. (if you do this you will be ahead of most bloggers out there.)
Some important elements include: describing who you are, where you are from, what your blog is about, and what makes you an authority on the subject.
Include an email address
Include a photo
Make sure you have a link on your menu or sidebar

In my opinion, having a good “about me” page is one of the best ways to turn surfers into loyal readers and afterall that is what we are looking for, right?

Let me know if I am missing anything..

Tycoon Blogger joins the do follow movement

Posted by Dan Keller on Feb 24, 2009 in Tycoon Blogger News | 10 comments

I just added a new plugin to my blog today. It is the “no-follow free” plugin, what this does is allow people to add a comment with a link to their site in order to gain a backlink. By default wordpress has a nofollow attribute which tells Google not to use that link as a backlink. When this is turned off, it make your blog “do follow” and makes you popular with SEO experts and other blog owners that are looking to build quality links for their blogs. Some people complain that this adds spam to their blog, I do not see it that way, because you can simply unapprove the comment. Furthermore, people have smartened up and they know that if they want to get their comments approved then they have to write a good comment that adds to the discussion. I have used this successfully on my other blogs and have seen a nice surge in traffic. If you are keeping count, this is the second plugin that I installed. I wanted to make my blog do follow as early as possible so that I can spread the word in the SEO community and start improving my traffic now.

Remember how I told you guys that I own several web directories, including

SubmitMyBlog.com , well I also recently started a Do Follow Blog Directory . So if your blog is do follow or you make it do follow, make sure you add it to my directory. I am getting a lot of traffic there because people are searching hard for do follow blogs.

What is the best Forum for Bloggers?

Posted by Dan Keller on Feb 23, 2009 in Marketing and Promotion | 1 comment

Yesterday, I mentioned that I spent some time submitting to blog directories. Today, I spent some time promoting my blog on several blogger forums. I have found that joining and becoming active on webmaster and blogger forums is a great way to gain backlinks for your blog and also a great source of traffic. There are a lot of blogger forums out there but many are filled with spam and most do not make it past the 6 month mark. The best blogging forum that I have come across so far is

Bloggeries

Their are several benefits to becoming an active member of a blogger forum. You can learn new tips, meet new bloggers, promote your brand and probably the greatest benefit (to me, anyway) is to get quality backlinks. If you are going to invest your time in becoming active in a blog forum, then make sure they allow do follow signature links. This will make it worth the effort.

If you are looking for the forums that allow do follow signature links, you are in luck as I have written a

What to do in the first week of starting your blog

How to write a killer “About Me” page for your blog

Tycoon Blogger joins the do follow movement

What is the best Forum for Bloggers?

Top 10 Do Follow Forums post

Best Free Blog Directories

Categories

My other sites (and friends)