Blogineering

In the previous post, we have discussed some tips about designing blogs. In this post, we are going to suggest the pages, widgets, and sharing buttons that you should place in your home page. We are not saying you include them all, but you might want to experiment to see their effect to your traffic.

• Post List Tab/Page. As early as one month, create a Post List tab or page. This will enable you to organize your posts list later.  If your blog has grown much, you may want to create a page for each ‘big’ category. An example of this is Math and Multimedia, our main blog . Oor posts are divided into four: Mathematics, Multimedia, GeoGebra, and All4Free(for freebies).
• Calendar Widget. Many blog platforms include a calendar of posts. This will make navigation easier and would likely generate more traffic. In most calendar widgets, the colored dates indicate that a post was made.

• Top Posts/Popular Posts. If people visit a blog with a lot of posts, aside from searching in the search box, they would probably take a peek at the most popular posts. Read the rest of this entry →

Aside from the content of your blog, the two other things that you should consider are its appearance and ‘structure.’ These things represent you — these are the what readers see first. If you own a restaurant, for example, to attract customers you would probably make the front of your building as clean as possible; you probably would put some streamers with a catchy tag line; or you would probably display large tarpaulins or posters of our best menus.

This is similar to blogs. To attract readers, in your posts, you would probably want to add a very intriguing photos, or think of titles that are puzzling, thought provoking, or controversial. You do not want your blog to be cluttered and disorganized. You would want  the appearance of your blog simple, easy to read, and elegant. The list below are some of the most practical tips on how to improve the design and appearance of your blog.  Read the rest of this entry →

If you have written a significant number of posts (20 or 30 maybe), the things that you should do next is to start promoting your blog. Here are the few things that you should do in your first three months of blogging.

1.) Submit your blog to search engines to get indexed. This is one of the really important things that you should do after a month or two of blogging. Although, according to blog experts, this has a very small impact for new blogs, but there is no harm in trying.  You should submit your blog to the three giant search engines: Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

2.) Strengthen your links. One fast way to get indexed in a search engine is to get back links from other reputable blogs or websites. You won’t have a lot of back links in your first three months, but you can improve your internal links. Try to link as many as you can within your blog. Having three related posts link in each article is a good practice. Read the rest of this entry →

Now that you have kick-started your blog, it is important, especially during your first three months of blogging, to really remain committed to it. Posting at least one good article per day is one way. It doesn’t have to be super long article (if such is the case, you can break it and make it a two-part post – just as what I am doing in this blog post). The idea is to have that impression that your blog is up-to-date, and that you really care about your blog.

But of course, you have to make sure that the articles you will write and post are of good quality and are original content. Regardless of the tips you will find here at Blogineering, if you will write poorly, then readers won’t surely revisit your blog again.

Before we move on to the tips that you should consider during the first three months of your blogging, why “first three months?” We think that blogging is, in a way, a habit that you develop if you put your mind into it, and if you do it regularly. It’s just like exercising. During the first few weeks, it will feel great and you feel definitely committed to doing it. However, there will come a time that you will skip a day, or two, or three, or a week. And the drive won’t be there anymore. But you will realize that once you developed that habit of making sure that you will do it at least once a day, you will definitely be driven to hit the gym at least for an hour each day. By the end of three months, blogging, or exercising, will be a part of your daily routine. It is like developing a commitment. Read the rest of this entry →

If you have followed our past tutorials so far, you would have enough basic knowledge to keep your blog rolling. This particular guide helps you to finalize setting up some of the minor details in your blog.

Here are some final tweaks to do before you embark on your blogging journey:

The General Settings page (Figure 1) enables you to change the name of your blog, your tagline (a catchy sentence or phrase that describes your blog), your email address, and other information.

Set up your Widgets. In this post, we discussed how to work with widgets.  Of course no one is limiting you how many widgets to place in your blog, but you must prioritize the important ones, including Calendar, Recent Posts, Links, Email Subscription box, and Top Posts/Top Rated. Note, however,  that the more widgets you have, the longer your blog to load. Read the rest of this entry →