Blogging tips

Guidelines You Must Follow Before Interviewing a Blogger

By / Blogging, Blogging Tips

Interviewing a blogger is often related to marketing your blog with the audience of that respective blogger whom you’re interviewing.

When you interview a blogger, you and your blog is put into the limelight as such interviews are likely to be shared by that respective blogger and readers.

He/she is likely to have good audience around him/her which would be interested in knowing what questions you asked and what the answers were.

Thus, sparking a first step towards marketing your blog, your blog will start receiving a good traffic and thereby reputation among the readers.

But it’s not easy to interview a top blogger.

How many of you have had tried interviewing a blogger?

How many of you’ve really succeeded in interviewing a blogger?

And here comes the final question – Did you fail in getting a nod from a blogger for interview?  I’m sure if you’re one of those who have failed, you would’ve abdicated the idea of interviewing a blogger by now and you would probably be thinking of some fresh ideas for your next blog posts or may be some other reason which I don’t really want to find out.

I don’t really know how much ravenous you’re in the beginning of this post, but what I do know is you’ve either tried to interview a blogger in the past and failed or you’re interested in getting a blogger for interview.

Whichever the case would be, you’ve arrived at the right place and you won’t be disappointed. ;)

Before beginning out with this in-depth article regarding interviewing a blogger, there are few things which I would like to share with you.

Interviewing A Blogger

Something about mini-index

I call it a mini-index as it really puts an idea about my blog posts in handful of bullet points or whatever you call it. This article is composed of following points-

Preparing Yourself for Interviewing a Blogger

  • Selecting a Blogger
  • Building Communication
  • Communication Medium
  • Writing Purpose of Interview (POI)
  • Getting “YES” from a blogger

1. Selecting a Blogger

The process of selecting a blogger is often considered as hectic because it involves pinning down skills, interest of your audience and comparison between various bloggers.

Although, it’s not a good idea to compare between two or more bloggers because each one of them have their own flavors. Once you’ve selected that special blogger to host on your blog, it’s time to proceed ahead in building communication.

2. Building Communication

I’m sure that some of you would be having a good relationship with a plenty of pro bloggers but if that’s not the case then you don’t worry.

Actually, the process of building communication and selecting a blogger often depends on whether you know the blogger already or you’re the one who wants to know him.

In the first which assumes that you know the blogger well, you would have improved communication before getting into him or her. Now, let’s assume, you’re just starting up and you don’t really know that specific blogger but you did choose him because he is very popular and could help you garner good amount of attention.

In this case, it’s pretty much sure that he/she is not going to accept your interview request unless he knows something about your existence.

So, to mark your existence, you got to follow their social profiles and blogs regularly.

Don’t rush into sending a friend request. ;)

Instead, subscribe to follow their public updates or simply follow their twitter account and start interacting with their updates. Often leave a beautiful comment on their blog posts but make sure you don’t spam and don’t post short comments such as the following ones.

  • Thank you. Excellent article. I enjoyed it a lot.
  • Super Article buddy
  • Thanks for the informative article
  • … And so on

3. Communication Medium

I don’t think I really need to stress on this point because I’ve already discussed few key element in building communication section.

Various social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Google Plus, LinkedIn etc. are great platforms to improve your communication with that respective blogger. Make sure that you use these communication mediums wisely.

Writing Purpose of Interview (POI)

Why do you intend to interview that respective blogger?

That’s the simple question which you need to answer well in good format to make it look like purpose of interview. At the moment, there is no hard and soft rule for purpose of interview.

A blogger is very eager to know your purpose behind interviewing him and be aware that it’s the only way to impress him/her with your intentions and skills.

4. Getting Yes from a Blogger

interview blogger

If you’ve followed steps that I’ve mentioned in this article appropriately then there is absolutely no chance of getting rejected from a blogger.

Although, I can’t really guarantee you on this, all I can say is there are more chances of getting yes from a blogger through this method instead of others.

Don’ts to follow during this process

  • Don’t ask too many questions. Ideally, 15 questions are enough to reveal most of the information of a blogger.
  • Don’t really ask them to disclose their financial details with respect to blogging.
  • Don’t ask general questions, instead go for some quality and useful questions.

Over To YOU!

Did I missed any points to follow before interviewing a blogger? Did you ever interview a blogger on your blog? Do share with us in comments

When Should You Care About Comments and When Shouldn’t You?

By / Blogging, Blogging Tips

Do comments matter a lot?

Should I answer all the comments?

Does this indicate my success?

Many ask these same questions and there is no specific answer. Many pro bloggers answer with yes and many others answer with no.

There is no specific answer for this question.

But here in this post I will show you when you should care about comments and when you shouldn’t.

So are you ready ? ;)

Let’s dive in!
get more comments

Here are the stages in a nutshell:

1-      New blogger (comments don’t matter a lot):

2-      You are building your community (comments matter a lot):

3-      You are an authority now (comments don’t matter):

Let’s explore each stage: before we go also read Why You Should Comment on Other Blogs?

1-New blogger (comments don’t matter a lot):

When you are still new, comments matters but it doesn’t matter a lot.You may have many posts with no comments.Maybe all your posts don’t have any comment.

That’s why it doesn’t matter a lot.

What you can do now is to try to get more comments and respond to the small no. of comments you get. You must encourage people to comment. Try to increase it

You can also read Tips from my friend Rahul about How To Get More Comment Here!.

2-You are building Community (comments matter a lot):

Now, you are trying to build community. You want to build relationships with more readers. So, you must respond to each comment.

Also you can guest blog to get more people in your community and you must respond to each comment on that blog also.

You are building a community.

Try to comment on each post, if it’s yours on your blog or it’s yours on other blogs or even not yours on other blogs but it feathers your blog.

By commenting on yours you will build relationships with new readers. When you comment on others posts you will build a relationship with the owner themselves and with new readers also.

3-You are an authority (comments don’t matter):

Now you have your community.

You receive many comments on each post.

You are considered an authority on your niche.

When you reach this level comments will not matter a lot, why?

Because:

1-You have big community: they can comment on each other.

2-You receive many comments: you can’t comment on all of them.

3-You are an authority: this will make people read your posts and they will not expect a comment from you but they will comment.

Last words:

This is not last words about this topic. This topic is very big, but I liked to show you when you should care about comments and when you shouldn’t.

However, comments are very important even if you are an authority. If you will not comment then no problem but what will happen if you commented on the new visitor’s comment?

You have added another one to your community with this simple comment, because you are an authority, so when you answer the question of one of your readers, he will be happy and will be your loyal reader forever.

Did you see how does comment matter even if you are an authority?

Over to you:

What do you think about this post? What is your stage? Can we add other stages? :)

Can Your Domain Name Decide the Destiny of Your Business?

By / Blogging, Hosting, SEO

As we all know, business strategies are changing all the time. Day by day it brings new face to the business. The companies are looking forwards to new technology every day. The new machines are coming to the market. The best machine of yesterday becomes an old machine of today.

With this technological advancement most of the organizations are looking for online marketing. By venturing in to online marketing what they expect is simple. That is they expect to reach the customer as much as they can. Their main focus is to get close in to customers and satisfy the customer needs. They are trying to deliver the items or the products to the door of the customer as soon as the customer orders them.

Need Of an Online Platform

For this those companies need an online platform to sell their products. As a platform to sell the products, they are making websites with all the necessary content. So the websites are becoming the latest platforms in product selling. Those websites are also known as e-commerce sites. All the necessary details about the products are available on the company’s website in order to give a clear picture to the customer about the item that they are going to purchase.

The role of the Domain name 

Let’s see how domain names come in to play for the business success. Domain name is like an address to your land where your house is located. Just think your house is filled up with your products. Now you want to sell those products. So what you want to do is advertise that you have these and these products to sell. But how the customers know where those products are located. At that time your address comes in to play. They look for your address and reach your place to buy the products they want. Domain name is also similar to this address. That’s why it is also known as web address.

The people who need your products will follow your address or your domain name to your website. Once they land on your website, they will read the product descriptions and decide whether they need your product or not. If they want they will purchase for the product.

How Domain name Decide the success or failure of your business?

Now you may think how this domain name is so important to determine the success or the failure of your business. Just imaging that you made your website on a sub-domain instead of making it on a Top Level Domain, what will happen? The customers will think this company is even unable to pay for a domain name, how can we trust this company? That’s what they thought. Even we also think the same, aren’t we?

To sell more products, you need more visitors and higher conversion rate. If you are focusing on online business, what is the source of visitors? Most probably majority will come from Search engines. You may say, I will get customers from social media such as Twitter, Facebook and etc. But the majority is still coming through search engines specially Google and Yahoo. That’s why your domain name should be search engine friendly and keyword optimized. According to most of the webmasters opinion, the Top Level Domains are more search engine friendlier than the sub domains.

The keyword optimized domain names are appearing at higher positions on Search Engine Result Page (SERP). Appearing on the first page on the Google is very important to get the maximum traffic from the search engines. Appearing on second and third pages on Google instead of appearing on first page of SERP will miss you around 60%-70% of potential visitors and sales.

If you don’t have a domain name which can be easily remembered, your customers will face difficulties while revisiting your site. I have seen some domains that consist of just letters, not words. They are very difficult to recall. So they will not get many revisits. So my idea is even it is bit long, add some words which can make sense on your customer.

Not only the domain name itself, but also the domain name registrar also affects your business. If the domain seller doesn’t consist of a 24/7 days customer support, how can you contact and correct your domain name issues? Simply if you don’t have a good domain registrar, the down time of your website may be higher than your competitor. Your customer will go away without knowing that this is a temporary error of your site. They will buy products which are belonging to your competitor. You will lose sales.

By looking at these few points you may understand the importance of your domain name for your online business. But I have seen most of the bloggers emphasize that domain name is the most important and sole factor to bring you more sales by increasing visitors to your website. I would like to say even though domain an important factor to decide the success of your business up to some extent, it is not the sole factor to determine the destiny of a online business. What is your idea? I would like to hear from you.

Sajith Dissanayake is a independent blogger blogging on Blog tips, SEO, Adsense and Traffic building tips. He recently made a very important post on How to select a perfect domain name for your business on his blog at Techblaster.NET

 

Why Bloggers Need To Be Heavy Smartphone Users

By / Blogging Tips, How To

Do you already own a smartphone? If you’re a blogger, chances are you do. After all, bloggers as a whole are technically adept people. But merely owning a smartphone isn’t enough for a blogger. We need to become heavy users, becoming attuned to all the little aspects of the smartphones. In other words, we need to become power users.

At this point you might be asking why we need to use our smartphones heavily. The answer is quite simple.

Our readers use smartphones

More and more people move from regular cell phones to smart phones every day. That means shifting behaviors in general. It also means changing behaviors for reading. People seem to enjoy reading on their smartphones. Web sites, particularly with mobile plug-ins, are laid out well. There are many RSS applications as well. Smartphones make reading easy.
 
If more and more people are reading your blog on your smartphone, shouldn’t you become familiar with their device of choice? That isn’t to say you should go rush out and buy the newest iPhone or Samsung cell phone just because your readers are using those devices. But it does mean you should be exploring all facets of the smartphone you do own.
 
Remember, blogging is about connecting with your audience. If your audience is reading on smartphones, you should become familiar with how they’re reading so you can create a deeper connection. Make sure you see what they see, how they see it. Here are a few tips for become more intimate with your smartphone.

Read your site often

If you do nothing else, you should be reading your own blog from your smartphone. Sure, you know all the content. You either wrote or edited it. But you probably did that right from your computer — you know, the one with the big screen and keyboard. Reading your site from your smartphone changes the experience, and gives you an idea of what your readers see when they visit you.

When you visit your blog on your smartphone you might start to realize some things. For instance, the first time I visited my site from my very first BlackBerry I realized that it looked like crap. It loaded slowly and was difficult to read. It was clear that we needed to install a mobile plugin. Now that I use Android phones and the iPhone, I make sure that my sites look good on both of those. That way my readers get the same experience.

You might be the person who creates the blog, but your blog is nothing without the audience. Make sure you see things how they see them.

Leave comments

While mobile plugins have made it more pleasant to view blogs on smartphones, they don’t necessarily make commenting easier. Since many of your readers will want to leave comments, you should make sure that it’s easy to do from a smartphone. The best way to accomplish this, unsurprisingly, is to leave comments yourself.

This doesn’t have to be anything time consuming. In fact, you can do it while waiting on line or on the train, since you’ll be doing it from your smartphone. But just make sure that you know how easy or difficult it is to comment on your blog from a smartphone. That will motivate you to make it easier for your readers.

While you can always ask for feedback, there is no substitute for first-hand testing. Since more and more people are reading on their smartphones, it is the blogger’s responsibility to ensure an easy mobile reading experience. It doesn’t even take that much effort. Just make sure that you’re reading and commenting on your blog with your smartphone. If it’s easy for you, it’s easy for your readers. They’ll thank you for it.

Get More Traffic by Giving Away Custom WordPress Themes

By / Blogging Tips, Free Traffic, WordPress

wordpress-shineMany bloggers are always looking for new and exciting ways to gain back links and get more people to their sites. One way that can build a massive influx of incoming links and traffic to your site is by building custom and premium wordpress themes that you can give away through your site.

Here are just a few of the benefits to creating and distributing your own wordpress themes.

Investing in Yourself and Your Blog

When it comes to creating your own custom wordpress themes, it’s a lot more complex than just writing a guest post of a guide book. WordPress themes take time, skill and lots of work to develop. With all of that said, you will probably need to hire a designer for your time. Instead of looking at this as a cost, look at it as an investment in yourself and your web site or blog.

Incoming Links with Every Blog Install

One of the killer reasons why creating your own wordpress themes is such a great idea is that every time someone downloads and installs your wordpress theme, you will get a link back to your web site from theirs. In the bottom footer section you would have something like “WordPress Theme created by SiteUrl“. Even just one install a day would bring you an extra 350+ quality incoming links per year!

Free Traffic from WordPress Theme Reviews

The blogging and wordpress community is a very loyal and sharing one. If you are creating quality blog themes for other to use, there is a good chance other blogs will be sharing your themes and writing reviews up on these free themes as well. This will help by sending more traffic to your site, but also bringing in more download and people using your themes, hence giving you more back links.

As you can see, there are plenty of benefits to creating and distributing your own wordpress themes to your readers. Not only are you getting back links and attention for your blog, you are also building a quality resource for your readers, which will keep them coming back for more.