Digital Fr3nz!3d

Its our Graduation yesterday and its another great moment for students. Its another stage of their lives and another posts to make on their Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blogs. I am trying to open the pictures on my cellphone to embed it here but I can't. The USB cable seems to malfunction and its not recognize my system. Maybe I will just embed it later on my next post. Well regarding Blogging as a Job, this might be applicable to someone or might not to others. I have known several people who is earning a lot for just merely blogging the whole day. They are earning a lot from it. As I have mentioned on my previous post about Earning from Blogging, one of the method that they are earning is through Ads, specifically the Google Adsense. They are actually earning enough with this just method. Some are earning at about $4K or more every month with this.

Well, I said that this might not work for you it is simply because it comprises more tasks to do. One thing aside from regular blog posting that you should do is your blog (not only your Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blogs but several blogs, others are maintaining more than ten blogs at a time) should be promoted in a way that it can generate a lot of traffic. Traffic is the key of earning a lot from this scheme and how can you do this? It is through another method that is more than bloggers should do. It is called as search engine optimization or SEO. That will be my next topic after this post. I will discuss terminologies and basic strategies that you can use to apply this kind of 'tasks' to your blogs on my next post so stay tune guys!

One way of promoting your blogs and increasing the chance of your Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blogs to be visible on search engines is through blog commenting. It is through blog commenting that you both gain back links to your blogs at the same time you learn something from other blogs. However, this is the reason why some are using this mechanisms to spam the web. Now, some blogs instantly approve comments but other blogs are turning their comment moderation on. This mean that before your comments get out of their blogs, it will be read thoroughly and its the discretion of the bloggers if they will approve or not your statements or remarks. This is because they don't like their sites to be spammed by these people. Even search engines indicates on their guidelines that site owners should not allow spammers get insider their system. That's when captcha and comment moderation came to being.

Now I will list here some practical guidelines to increase the chance of approval on your comments.

1. Read the posts first and try to write comments really relevant to the article that you've read. If you can't find time to do that try to read the first or last paragraph of the post and base your comment there.
2. Avoid the comments "great post", "nice post" and the like. It triggers them that your a spam.
3. Write at least two to three sentences of comments. This looks like you are really sincere with your comments.

Remember this before you start your commenting spree, try to be sincere with all of your remarks. If not, even closest to that. I know some of the Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 participants already mastered this commenting craft and so can you share your ideas here?

Listen Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 members, participants and enthusiasts, today I will discuss about things that will change your life forever. I will discuss today the different methods how to earn from simply blogging. One reason why blogging became popular around cyberspace is because of its lucrative characteristics. That's right a lot of people, gramatically gifted or not were lured to create their blogs merely for the purpose of earning from it. Now, what are the different avenues or methods these bloggers are earning from their blogs. The following are the common methods bloggers are earning from their craft:

1. Blog reviews or posting. This is the first thing I've started making money online from merely blogging. The problem with this is Google really hates this type of method for the reason that according to them it hurts the "natural ecology" of the world wide web. That's why when SEs found out that you are doing such, they are penalizing your site. Later, I will discuss in detail how search engines are penalizing blogs or websites.
   
2. Ads. This is another method that is really attractive when in terms of payment and earning. Some have hundreds of blogs maintained and earning a thousands or more dollars a month. Some common advertising means are through Google Adsense, which is highly utilized by bloggers all over the world, Adbrite, Projectwonderful, Nuffnang and others. However, this earning method requires traffic to be generated to realize the result. So it means that you need to promote your blogs more than what you are doing normally. Actually a friend of mine who participated the Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 event, stop from joining because he started to earn bigger than what he can get from the event which is a practical decision.

These are just two methods and will try to continue more of it on my next post.

Now you have done it already: you have customized your blogger blog sites, you've joined several online communities, you observed proper ethics and attitudes in blogging and you have already chosen a specific topic to discuss on your Blogger blogs. What now? What's the next step after this? Well, I think you are ready for the next level and that is how you will make your sites and articles be visible on a lot of readers. Nah, I will not discuss about how to spend wisely in television or radio advertisements just to get a traffic and exposure that you want. Think about this, if you are a reader and you want something to know about anything, what's the first thing you will do? Of course, you will open your browser, go to Google, Yahoo or Live then type a keyword relevant to what you like then search. Right? That's what other readers are doing. They are using search engines to find things that they want. It is the trend right now, if you want a maximum exposure and visibility for your blogs online, you should make sure that you can be found on major search engines whenever a reader search for a topic that you are discussing.

In this way, your "master piece" can be discovered easily by your readers that will eventually become an avid Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 reader. Now, how it will be done? Here's some basic and practical things that you can do for starter:

1. First try to create quality contents for your posts on your blogs. For example, tips or advices which one topic that people love to read should be written clearly but concise. Make sure it will really helps. In this way other people who first discovered your article will recommend the link of your blog to any places they've been like forums or their own blogs. Thus creating a very nice referral from other sites at the same time building enough links for your site. Remember the higher the number of site linking to your site the popular your blog will be.
   
2. Make a catchy title. In this way readers will be lured to read the whole content of your posts specially if the title tickles their mind or intrigued them. :)
3. Use multimedia in your articles. Add graphics or images in your posts or even audio/videos. This makes the site more interesting and increases the users experience which will make them return for more.

These are just practical steps that you can start applying to your blogs. If you are a serious Capiznon blogger of 2009, you should consider these tips.

Do you know why is it important to make your blog to loads fast? It is because it enhances the user experience. Blog that immediately shows the content of the site makes your visitors to stay on the blog and not losing their patient waiting for something to come up in the blog. In this post, I will discuss several practical things a blogger should do with their blogs to make it much faster to load. This tweaks and tips that I will include on this are applicable to any blogging platform on the web today such as Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, Calliope and others.

1. Use smaller size graphics. I am not referring to the dimension of the image but the file size of the image to use on every posts. Larger pictures loads slower compared to smaller size images. That is why it is recommended to use image types that uses the higher file compression but not losing its picture quality. JPEG files possesses such quality, that is why I am using it instead of other types but if I need graphics that does not lose its transparency and image quality, I use PNG instead. Wise choice of images will increase the load rate of the blog of almost 70% from unoptimized images.
2. Avoid Javascript rich widgets/gadgets. Some widgets (wordpress.com) or gadgets (blogger.com) that uses Javascripts makes the load of the pages of the site slower compared to non-javascript widgets. If it is not necessary try to avoid it.
3. Don't populate your blogs with too much 3rd-party ads. 3rd-party advertisers are good way of earning online, however if your pages contains too much advertisers, it will slow down the site. It is because the site needs to fetch information from other websites before loading the actual page. Aside from that some readers are annoyed with too much ads on the site making them to leave immediately when they see this swarming ads.

These minor tweaks on your blogs can really make a difference on how long your visitors will stay and it will also increase the frequency the guests of going back that will eventually become a regular readers of your site.

What? Am I asking you to get a match then put your Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blogs into fire? Nah, what I am trying to say is you try to publicize your blog posts all through out the net via burning its RSS feed to Feedburner. RSS or Really Simple Syndication refers to a standardized format of web feeds (info) from frequently updated works such as this blogs. When publicized, optimized and make it available to subscribers online, it adds to the exposure of your blog, from cellphone who can retrieve and read your blog feeds to their news reader programs on their PC. In this, you have given your readers a convenient way to read.

Now, how will you do this with your Blogger or Wordpress blogs? It is simple, just sign-up for an account in Feedburner (thru feedburner.google.com) then submit your feeds. What is the URL or the address of your feeds? Here's an example: this Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blog's URL or address is http://digitalfrenzied.blogspot.com. Its feed URL can be found at the bottom of the page right after the Subscribe to with an anchor / link text of Posts (Atom). Atom refers to one format of feeds which is the common format of Blogger blogs. Other blogging platforms uses RSS (Rich Site Summary), RSS 2.0 (Really Simple Syndication 2.0) and RDF (RDF Site Summary). This web feed formats are all in standardized XML file format. For Wordpress blogs, the feed address is usually in this format: http://yourblog.wordpress.com/feed/. Once your feeds are submitted to Feedburner, you can then monitor how many people subscribe or reads your feeds. At the same time, you can setup it to allow users to receive recently posted article through their emails which is proven to provide great traffics for the site.

What are you waiting for? Burn those feeds so that your words will be scattered all through out the different corners of the world, from PCs to cellphones. By the way the official logo of RSS 2.0 feeds is the icon that shown on this post (without the Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 text of course.)

I'm really busy with my projects but I still want to find time to share some ideas to the blogging community in the province of Capiz. I just want to spread the good words of blogging and internet opportunities to every single Capiznon speaking native of Capiz. That's why I am planning to prepare several blogging video tutorials during my free time containing some of the tips I have gathered from the cyberspace and how to apply it with their current blogs on Blogger.com. An example of this video is as shown below:

Here's the Dailymotion version of the said video:


or you could try to view it on Youtube version instead:


As you can see from the tutorial, it doesn't have any voice nor text remarks on it yet since I've just made it a while ago and upload it to Dailymotion/Youtube so that I could provide sample of my video tutorial plans. Aside from that, I am still looking for a video editing tool so that I could embed text instruction and / or voice over to the video. If you have any suggestion about the tutorials here or you want to share something the Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 community, just drop your comments and I will try to consider them.

One of the hardest part in making your own blog is what topic you will discuss on your blog. Some are making fictional stories, current event stories, travel, and others. When starting blogging, some of the questions raised are:

a. Will I focus on a specific topic to discuss or go with a random theme? The problem with a specific topic is that you will put a limit to what you can write in your blog but makes it easy for you to prepare the article. On the other hand, random post gives you a lot of option but will leave your readers confused on what the blog really is all about.

b. Language to use within the blog. I want to write my entries in my own dialect so that it will be easy for me to express my self since I am not really have a 100% fluency in English language but the problem with using my local language or dialect is it will limit the number of possible readers that I will have. If you wish to reach out for other people aside from your country or group, write it in English. it will reach out more people.

As part of the Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 ring, I have already made up my mind. I will write about my province - Capiz, blogging and helping other bloggers through practical tips. That will be the overall purpose of this blog. How about you, what will you do with your blogs?

On my previous post, I mentioned about customizing the design of your blog to enhance its appearance and suit to your taste. Today, I will discuss about how to improve more your blogger blog's appearance by making use of the Google Gadgets. What are Blogger gadgets? See on the right sidebar of this Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blog. You can find some objects that are not usually found on the default design of your blog accounts such as the Google Maps, Subscribe to RSS and Blogger logo. These are "Gadgets" that I added today to enhance the functionality and appearance of this site. Now, how would you add this elements to your site too? Read the instruction below:

First, go to your Dashboard then click Layout. You will see like the following on this part of the dashboard:


Here's what you can see on the window, a list of different Gadgets categorized in several classifications according to use. What are the gadgets that I used on this Hectic Capiznon Bloggers 2009 blog?

a. Subscription Links. This allows your readers to subscribe with your RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds both Posts and Comments. For your information, RSS Feed is web publishing standard format for frequently updated works such as blog entries, news and others. With this, readers around the world can have an easy way of reading your recently added posts. Thus generating a number of return visitors. Common RSS feed formats distributed online today are RSS 2.0 and ATOM. I will discuss abou feeds later.

b. Roxas City, Capiz in Google Maps. Do you know how I did this? Well, I just go to maps.google.com and search for the place then get the LINK of the map which can be easily seen on the right pane of the map. Then I add a new gadget on the blog, specifically HTML/Javascript gadget then paste the map code. That's it!

You could try other gadgets, you just need some imagination to do it and your creativity counts! Have fun with enhancing your site and happy blogging.