Are you part of the blogging revolution?

There is a revolution going on right now in the blogging world.  Can you feel it?  Change is coming and there is a new crop of bloggers that are quickly taking over.  These new school bloggers all share some common traits.  They are passionate and most importantly they give more than they take.  Bloggers helping other bloggers is a beautiful thing.

Talkin About a Revolution

I am sick and tired of seeing the selfish bloggers succeed and just watch hordes of people follow along like lemmings.  Take for example John Chow.  Hey John, I do not give a f*ck about what you are eating for lunch or the next convention you are going to.  Stop already with the Shoemoney promotion crap.  Every day I scratch my head and really try to figure out why this guy is famous.  Sorry for going off on a tangent, but that has been building up inside me for a while now.

I am not really sure where I am going with the post.  I guess the point I am trying to make is that we as bloggers should support and help each other get to the top.  I like to think that I spread the blogging luv around but I will commit to making a more concerted effort to helping my fellow bloggers that are working hard.

I welcome you all to join me, if you are spreading the luv, thanks and please continue.  If you are looking for ways that you can help your fellow blogger brethren, here are some quick ideas.

• Retweet.  Try and double your retweeting efforts
• Make your blog “Do Follow” – share your link juice
• Install Comment Luv – Let your blog readers know what your commentators are blogging about
• Install Keyword Luv – help your blog readers build links towards their keywords
• Vote.  Whether it is Blog Engage, Digg, Stumble Upon or any other social media site, it only takes a second to click the vote button.
• Write a blog post and link to some other cool bloggers
• Use your blogroll to highlight other bloggers that share the luv.

There are 7 quick ways that you can join the blogging revolution and be a cool blogger instead of a dick.

Help me build out this list in the comments… What other ways can you think of.

Driving Traffic to your blog by using your Google Analytics

I wanted to write a follow up to the post I wrote yesterday about driving traffic to your blog from Google. I am not an seo expert by any stretch but I did want to dive in a little further about how I actually found out what questions people typed into Google that actually lead them to my blog. Some of you may already know this but I also realize that a lot of rookie bloggers stop by here for blogging tips for beginners. So this post is for you.

• First step – log into Google Analytics.  I am taking for granted that you already have an account set up and your code installed on your blog.  If you are looking for an easy way to add the code to your blog, check out this plugin.
• Step two – Once in your in your analytics account, scroll down to the bottom and look under the traffic source section and click on view report.

• Step three – Now scroll down to the bottom and look on the right hand side under keywords, click view full report.

• Step four- Scroll to the bottom and you will see at the bottom “filtered keyword” and then an open text field where you can type in a word to narrow your search.  Since most questions begin with how or what, type those words in and Viola…you will have the top list of questions that drive traffic to your blog from Google.

So, how did it work for you.  What are your top questions?

Blogging Questions that are driving traffic to my blog from Google

Almost every single blogger that takes blogging seriously has Google Analytics installed on their blog.  There are dozens of useful features built into Google Analytics and as I was digging through my data this weekend and taking a look at what keywords were driving traffic to my blog.  This was a fun little exercise and here are are the Top  questions that my visitors are asking and hopefully I am answering.

Q. How to write an about me page

A.  Check out these two posts:

How to write an about me page and Improve your blogs about me page by adding video

Q. How to get the word out about your blog:

A. The majority of my post are about blog promotion.  Here are a couple good posts to get you started:

10 easy ways to get the word out about your blog and How to promote your blog

Q. How to get sponsors in Ad.ly

A. I have no idea, sorry.  I have not made one sale from Ad.ly.  I am doing pretty well with Sponsored Tweets though.  Here are a couple Sponsored Tweets posts..

Sponsored Tweets versus Adly and Tips to make money with Sponsored Tweets

Q. How to get on the front page of Google

A. I am thankful for Kai Lo for writing this awesome guest post .  Here it is..

Getting to the first page of Google

What questions are people asking that are driving them to your blog?

Do you have any specific blogging realted questions…just ask away in the comment section.  If I can’t answer, I am sure one of my readers can

10 ways to know your blogging status is rising

Making a name for yourself and standing out from the blogging crowd takes a bit of talent, a bit of luck and a ton of hard work.  It has been said that over 90% of all blogs that are started are abandoned well before the year mark.  That is a shame because it takes at least one year of constant work to get a blog off the ground.  Luckily for me, I am on the heals of my one year anniversary and I am starting to feel that I am breaking through and I have enjoyed some modest success that keeps me going.  Let’s face it, as humans we all need some positive reinforcement to push us forward.  This is the major reason why bloggers fail, they do not get the positive reinforcement and just give up.  I have listed below some milestones that you should hopefully obtain within your first couple of years of serious blogging.

Is your blogging stock rising?

• People are approaching you to guest post on your blog – This is a sign that you are starting to viewed as an authority and will be able to help other bloggers by them posting on your site.
• Advertisers are contacting you directly – This usually happens when you start ranking on page 1 or 2 on Google for strong keywords.  A strong Alexa ranking, PR, and subscriber count doesn’t hurt either.
• Other bloggers are asking you to co-author or collaborate on projects - When other bloggers take notice and want to associate themselves with you, you are definitely on your way.
• Social Networks are growing – When your twitter, Facebook and other social networking account are growing exponentially this is another sign that your blog is doing well.
• Google starts to notice you.  For me it was like a light switch.  One day I was lucky to get a couple dozen organic visits, the next day I am getting hundreds.
• Other blog posts are being read – This is partly attributable to Google pulling up your content in search.  It is also a good sign that your visitors are sticking around and reading related posts.
• People want to send you free stuff- I have been contacted several times from people wanting to give me books or scripts or themes with the hope that I will write about them.
• Major sites start to take notice you,  For example, Technorati might include your post on the front page of your channel.  That example is fresh because one of my posts has been one page 1 on the blogging channel for five days.

• Your blog gets nominated for awards- It is nice when you get nominated and even better when other people vote for you.

• You will see it in your analytics.  If traffic, page views, time on site is growing and bounce rate is declining, this is a clear objective way to know your blogging popularity is taking off.

I am very happy and fortunate that I can actually write this post from experiences that have happened to me in the past couple of months.  I am hoping that you have achieved these milestones as well.  If not, the message is not to give up.  Keep on blogging!

What do you think are some signs that you are gaining some authority in the blogging world?

wordpress plugins for mobile phones and mobile devices

[stextbox id="alert"]Have you optimized your blog  for mobile devices yet?[/stextbox]

I am happy to say that I can now cross this off my to do list.  It took me about 6 months to get around to this but I have finally made my blog “mobile friendly.”  I have spent the last couple of hours researching the wordpress mobile plugins and wanted to summarize my thoughts here to save you some time if you have not installed a mobile plugin.  Let me start with the plugins that I did not choose and then I will get into what I selected and why.

WordPress Mobile Plugins I did not select:

• WordPress Mobile Edition Plugin – I had problems activating this one, so obviously this one is out.
• Wp-Wap 2.30 – I read some mixed reviews on this one and it does not seems to have any support or recent upgrades
• WordPress Mobile Plugin- This is a pretty popular one and there are many happy users out there.  I actually installed this one and took it for a spin.

WordPress Mobile Plugin I did select:

• Wapple Architect

This plugin just blew me away with the amount of features they have any what is coming next.

Here are some of the cool features:

• No redirection to a mobile version.  The same url will display on your mobile device as the web.  This is helpful from an SEO perspective.
• Easy commenting capabilities on your mobile device.
• If you are a css junkie you will be thrilled at the ability to customize the look and feel.

1. Have you installed a mobile plugin?  Which one?

If you have your mobile phone handy, check out my site and let me know what you think.