Widgets : There are a number of widgets, or add-on programs, that you can incorporate into your blog. Check your blog software's site for more info about what features you'd like add to your blog. At a minimum you'll want to give visitors a couple of ways in which they can receive blog updates through various updaters, or feeder services, as mentioned earlier.

Comments : Set your comments to moderated, which means that you have to approve any comments to your blog before the post goes live. You'll save yourself a great many headaches and time by choosing to moderate the comments. This will protect your blog from spam posts.

Blog content : Content, content, content! That's the secret to writing a good blog. To create content, you must find a subject or subjects that you are passionate about. If you want to develop a readership for your blog then the topics you write about have to be ones which people will find interesting.

Content should be fresh and written in simple & concise way. Keep your posts and blog entries clear and easy to understand. There’s a time and place for long posts, but if you want to generate comments, keep your posts as short as possible.

You can post content rich articles of interest to your target market, comment on a current event, answer questions from your visitors. Keep your eyes and ears open for information relevant to your audience. Relevance is important for getting targeted search engine traffic to visit your blog

Also, before you start writing about a topic, make sure you understand it and that what you’re writing is fact. The quickest way to lose readership, or never gain one at all, is to write blogs that are false or misleading.

Posting frequency : Blogs are just like gardens -- they need watering regularly and require some care and attention. For maximum effectiveness, you need to post several times a week to your blog. You should respond to reader's comments - blogs provide a great forum for ongoing discussions. If your blog content is updated frequently, search engines will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals.

Blog Traffic : Now the great question is from where the audience of your blog will come. The whole topic is explained comprehensively with resources under heading "Blog Promotion".

Now you have created your own blog, it is wise to know what writing skills and tips makes your blog popular one.

Blog Writing Tips:

Blogs demand a readership. And for that you have to write about something worth reading. Here are some tips to follow if you want human beings to read your blogs

Writing for a blog is a process which can be improved by following a few basic principles. It does not matter if the intended audience is a technically savvy group of IT experts, or a reader just looking to be entertained by your take on life, they will appreciate your writing more if it has been crafted and considered.

Write like you talk: The easiest style of writing to read, reads like a conversation. Use common expressions from speech. Write in in plain language with simple terms. Use good Headings which are descriptive of content. This is good for search engines and also helps people to know what the blog entry is about.

Post often : Update frequently ! Stick to a publishing schedule that is humanly possible for you. Updating your blog once a month, really isn’t going to encourage people to check back every day. Depending on what you like to blog about try to be at least regular in the amount of postings you have. My recommendation is to aim for at least one good post.

Stick to the topic : Define a topic and stick to it. Unless you have an uncanny knack for wit, humor or cynicism, the majority of your readers will be interested in the content that relates to a specific defined theme or loosely defined area of interest. This will ensure that you create a loyal following of interested readers.

Make your opinion known : People like blogs, they like blogs because they are written by people and not corporations. People want to know what is your's and other people's opinion. Tell them exactly what you think using the least amount of words possible. The worst sin you can commit is to bore your readers. Most people respond better to an honest airing of views.

Write Less : Keep text brief and meaningful, readers tend to scan text. Give the maximum amount of information with the least amount of words. Time is finite and people are infinitely busy. A long post is easier to forget and harder to get into. A short post is the opposite. Keep it short and simple. Most people are scanners. Get to the point quickly. Delete unnecessary words, limit your use of adverbs and adjectives.

Make your blog valuable and worthwhile : Don’t waste people’s time. Stop writing when you’re getting bored. If you don’t have anything to say, no problem. You can share other people's articles.

Keep your points clear and simple : Keep your posts and blog entries clear and easy to understand. Most newspapers in the United States write at a middle school reading level. What this means is avoid using large words or any words that will send readers looking for a dictionary. You should too so that you don’t run the risk of alienating potential readers.

Make Headlines clear & snappy : Write headlines that grab attention. Contain your whole argument in your headline. Check out National newspapers to see how they do it.

Be consistent with your style : People like to know what to expect, once you have settled on a style for your audience stick to it. Put the most important message first. Use the shorter word where ever possible, e.g. "now" not "currently".

Stay current & informative : It is important that the information presented is current and accurate. If you are attempting to create the impression that you are knowledgeable about a specific industry or sector, be sure that you stay current on news. No one wants to read stuff that has been around for a long time, or that hundreds of other Bloggers have chronicled.

Write with the reader in mind : Consider who your readers are, and how they’d best benefit from your advice or guidelines. Your reader will read your post looking for what’s in it for them. Keep your audience in mind when writing your tips. Talking over the head of your audience will not result in an increased readership.

Check your syntax, punctuation and spelling : It doesn't matter how unique and intuitive you blog topic is. If it’s full of misspellings and grammatical errors people won’t read it and they will never visit it again. Make sure and take the time to proofread your writing. Respect your readers by polishing up your stuff.

Link often : Support your post with links to other web pages that are contextual to your post. This builds credibility and positions you as an expert in your field. People don’t have time to know what others are doing, you should tell them. Linking to other blogs and websites also helps you build a network of associates who will in turn link to your blog.

Use keywords often : Think about what keywords people would use to search for your post and include them in the body text and headers. make sure the keyword placement is natural and does not seem out of place. This will help you stay on purpose, and the search engines will love your blog. And the more often your keywords show up, the better your search engine results. Your rankings will go up.

Only use the tips that are best : If you set out about writing 10 great tips, you might only have 8 that are truly useful. Do yourself and your readers a favor and change it to 8 great rules. Cut the fat when proof-reading your list.

Edit your post : Good writing is in the editing. Before you hit the submit button, spend time in revising and editing to get the end result you want. If you are not happy with a piece then it is best to give yourself time to re-work it before publishing.

Make your posts easy to scan : Every few paragraphs insert a sub heading. Make sentences and headlines short and to the point.

Be funny : Infuse your posts with your natural wit for a better response from your target audience. And if not everyone appreciates your particular brand of humor, read the last sentence in the point above.

Adhere to a schedule : Try to stick to a regular publishing schedule. Realizing that blogging requires time and effort, don't create unrealistic expectations and be unable to deliver. An occasional lapse or holiday is generally understood but readers returning to find stale, out-dated content are going to find another blog with similar content. New blogs and RSS feeds are popping up on a daily basis. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and a community you don't want to lose them due to lack of communication.

Quantity matters : In order to attract the attention of search engines, you will need to develop content and substance. A headline or simple sentence is not going to generate the interest of readers or help with search engine ranking. Be sure to archive old blog posts to develop a large portal of similarly-themed content.

Always credit your sources : if you've researched a post or quoted from another blog etc. be sure to credit your source. If possible even provide a hyper link. Linking to other places online is good. Those sites that you link to may return the favor by linking to your article/post (bringing you readers).

Keep your blog updated : It's much more interesting to visit a blog that always has something new to look at. Your content doesn't have to be just writing. Add pictures and links for more interactivity. If your blog content is updated frequently, search engines will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals.

Allow and respond to comments on your blog : Make commenter feel welcome, provide a safe environment for your commenter in your blog and respond as often as possible. It shows that you do read comments and gives your readers a bit of a personal interaction with you. You'll seem more real to them and they may keep coming back because of it.

Give your blog a theme : Themes attract readers because it gives them some idea as to whether you're writing about something they're interested in.

Use images/photos : you don't need them on every post but interesting images can help to hook your reader in. Be sure that the image does actually relate to the post.

Add more Media : pod casting, videoblogging, and photography. Adding sound, photos, and video to your blog makes it more attractive and gives you more ways to communicate your message to the audience.

RSS : RSS will increase your blog's reach. It is important that you include your blog's content in an RSS feed to increase readership and distribution.

Make your best postings easily accessible. Don't let them get buried in archives.

Try to offer something original. There are so many blogs that it is important to offer something different.

Admit mistakes and make amends.

So, write well. Read and reread, check your facts, spelling, grammar and your state of mind before you hit publish. Once you hit that publish button, your post is going to live on the Internet forever. Does it represent you in the best way possible?

Most weblog audiences are small, but with time and regular updates audiences grow. Bloggers may never have more than a few hundred readers, but the people who return to regularly are generally interested in what you have to say.

Make Money from your Blog :

Well, basically, setting up a blog means that you are creating a little space of your own on the Internet where you can make posts about anything that interests you.

Now you have created a blog and your blog is dedicated to a niche industry. Have you ever thought that the blog could make money for you? We would look here, ways and means, to make money blogging. Lets first have a look at what are the prerequisites for a blog needed to make money:

1. Blog needs to be dedicated to single theme. Let's say for instance your favourite passion is your love for dogs. You could blog about anything pertaining to dogs..
2. Updated regularly. Search engines like this.
3. Good blog host or application (blogger, Xanga, typepad or WordPress)
4. High quality articles or news items supported with images and links.

Blogging is a lifestyle friendly way of making extra money, as you can do this from the comfort of your own home. Lets now take a look at the ways using which you could make money blog from your blog:

When you're just starting out as a blog entrepreneur, the simplest most hassle-free ways to make money from your blog are via Google AdSense (or Yahoo's text ads), and via Affiliate Marketing.

Google Adsense : So, how would you make money out of having a blog even if you don't have a product to sell? One word : Adsense. Google Adsense delivers text and image ads to the authorized websites/blogs depending on the content of the website. Small code is required to be pasted at proper locations on a webpage and Google automatically recognizes the page.
Google shares the revenue it gets from the advertisers whenever a visitor clicks on these ads. Some tips before you apply for the Adsense program:

1. You have to have an existing blog.
2. Blog that you want to apply adsense to, you have to have at least 5 or more posts on your blog.
3. Your blog or site must have a clean, easy to use interface. No under construction pages or broken links, or too many animated gifs, or pop ups.
4. You don't have to have a professionally designed website or blog. The simpler your site is the better for the search engines to spider, and the better it will be for your visitors to navigate.

So to recap : Select a topic that you would like to blog about, set up a blog, make a couple of posts a day on your blog, wait about 5 days, then apply for the Google Adsense program.

Blogads : You can use Blogads as an effective tool to have a better control over the advertisers in your blogs. You can analyze and compare your profits with any one of your online agencies. Blogads can be simply specified as an advertising service used for the web logs or blogs. From the total money generated by Blogads, it retains 20% of it and the remaining money is paid to you through PayPal or checks.

Alternative to Blogads are:
• Crispads - Another useful network focused on the blogs. You can put your advertisements in their blogs using Crispads. You can move through their RSS/ATOM feeds that help in generating revenues.
• Tagword – It is similar to Blogads. It makes you select the ads and their price.

Note : Don't display contextual (text like ads) ads of some other company along with Google Adsense ads. They don't allow this. Please read Adsense Program Policies very care fully first. Best combination is contextual (text like ads) ads of Google Adsense and banner ads from different affiliate networks.

Affiliate Programs : Another very popular ways to make money with your blog or website is by promoting affiliate Programs. Affiliate links are provided by companies/affiliate networks that will pay you a certain percentage of each sale/lead made through your unique link. There are thousands of affiliate programs available for almost every niche you can think of. Read about Affiliate Programs !

Just go to any popular affiliate network website and sign up for their affiliate or partner program. Most of them are free to sign-up and very easy to implement. It is where you advertise someone else's website details, or product details on your blog. Each time someone clicks on the advertisement, and then ends up buying the product (or maybe just signs up to be a member), you will get paid the agreed commission.. Most popular affiliate network are Commission Junction, Clixgalore, Linkshare. List of Affiliate Network !

How you earn money from affiliate programs ? You would place either a small text ad, a banner ad, or a video ad (the ads are generally provided by the Advertiser so you don't need to worry about making your own - all you have to do is copy and paste some code into your blog - easy as pie). Each time someone clicks on the ad and perform required action - lead/sale, blogger gets commission.

Sell products : A blog is a great place to discuss advice and opinions on various subjects. It can also be a great place to promote your product and tell them how it can benefit them. Whether it’s your blog or someone else’s, look at it as an opportunity to fulfill peoples’ needs, not that you are just selling your product.

Amazon.com : Amazon.com has an affiliate program which allows individuals to promote any one of their millions of products for them. Because they have so many products to offer, it should be easy for you to find ones which compliment your blog niche. However, unlike AdSense, you don’t get paid on a pay-per-click basis. In order to receive a commission, the visitor to your blog must actually purchase the advertised product.

Sell Advertising Space : The most common way people make money with blogs is selling advertising. If you build a large blog with high traffic, you can sell advertising space for people to put their ads on your blog.

Maintain More Than One Blog : There is no limit to how many blogs you can have. Because most blog services are free, and because most affiliate programs are also free to join, you should strongly consider maintaining multiple blogs in multiple niches. This will allow you to promote more products and programs, and in turn make you more money.

When it comes to making money from your blog you can do so easily with these tried and true tricks of the trade. Whether you utilize Adsense, affiliate marketing, blog ads, a business blog, or a combination of all of the above, you will certainly benefit and make money. Don’t delay and start implementing these types of money making strategies in your blog today. Not only will you make money, but your blog will become more popular as well

Now that you know how to start your own blog, you have no excuse not to make money online! Happy blogging!

Blog Promotion :

You've got your blog set up and you've started posting useful information that your niche market would benefit from and enjoy. Days go by, you keep publishing, but no one comments or visiting your blog. Now what ? So in order to drive traffic towards your blog, you must do some blog promotion. Firstly you should keep patience as blog promotion take some time to build a readership. I am explaining here some of the prominent ways of blog promotion to drive visitor towards your blog/website. These tips should give you a good start to building your blog traffic.

Keep posting good information consistently : Nothing creates long-term traffic more than value. Learn enough to become the expert in your field. Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you. Be timeless... write posts that will be readable in a year. All the marketing in the world won’t help you if you have a lame-duck blog. So keep your blog updated with new content at regular interval.

Read & Comment on Related Blogs : Read and comment on other blogs that are in your target niche. Write legitimate, intelligent & useful comments with a link to your blog. It is probably the most effective strategy
early on in the process your blog promotion.

Optimize your blog for keywords : While some Bloggers don’t think much of SEO I think it is well worth knowing some basic SEO principles and keeping them in the back of your mind as you blog. In order to get a good search engine ranking, your blog must be focused on your target keywords. Use your primary keywords in the title of your post. Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post. Use your keywords in the anchor text of links in the body of your posts. SEO will help your blog to rise in SERP ranking, hence more visitors to your blog from various search engine. Don’t become obsessed by SEO, but don’t ignore it either.

Submit your blog to traditional search engines : Like website submission, you must submit your blog to various search engines, like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. This is a way to tell search engine about the existence of your blog and getting it indexed.

Submit your blog to blog directories : Submission of link to various online directories increases the number of inbound links to your blog, which is nowadays most important offsite factor of web/blog promotion. Placing your site link on the other website will increase traffic to you directly and indirectly The direct boost is given because surfers who see your links may click through and visit your site. The indirect traffic boost given by link popularity is that your site will get a higher search engine ranking in search engines which measure link popularity as an index of a website’s value.

Submit articles to e-zines : One of the best methods for promoting your blog is to write articles and submit them to article directories. Write articles to post around the web in article directories. Include a link to your blog in the author info box. This is very effective way of creating back links. Good articles are always in demand. People will download your articles with back link and put it on their website. This is win-win situation for both parties. Webmaster gets quality content for his website and increases your website's back link count.

Participate in forums : Forums with tons of pages, huge lists of members, and a responsive community are an easy way to not only connect with other individuals, but an opportunity to tastefully demonstrate your expertise and a link back to your blog. Participate in other web forums - Blogging is not the only vibrant online activity at the moment. I visit a number of other discussion forums and e-zines that explore similar ideas/hobbies/interests to me and my blogs. I’ve found an increasing amount of traffic to my blog is coming as a result of my contributions to these forums as many of them allow you to add your link as a signature to your posts. Don’t spam these forums - but be a genuine contributer that adds useful comments and you’ll find people are drawn to your other projects.

Put a link to your blog on every page of your website : If you have a website then you must put a link of your blog at prominent place. This will expose your blog to your website visitors.

Back link your Newsletter to your blog : If you publish a newsletter, make sure you have a link to your blog in every issue.

Promote your RSS Feed : Make sure you have an RSS feed URL that people can subscribe to. Most blog platforms come with a RSS feeds built in but there are ways of increasing your subscriber list. The most obvious of these is to put it in the sight of your readers by putting your RSS button in a more prominent position. There are a variety of different buttons available that you can make available to readers to help them to subscribe to your blog via their news aggregators with one click that might also be worth investigating. Also, if your topic is not one which many readers seem to use RSS in, you might need to do some education on the topic of RSS feeds. Write a post on how to follow your blog via RSS and you might find more do.

Drive traffic from Social Networks : Social networks get a lot of traffic due to their nature. Most social networks are free and take seconds to register and submit your first entry. You will be surprised when you see the amount of other websites that use feeds from various social networks. Make profile with a link of your blog and invite other members of the social networks. Some of them will find their way to your blog through the link. Submit your story to Digg and reddit and, regardless of whether it makes the front page or not, you get 50-100 free hits. The easiest way to generate quick exposure.

Put out Press Releases : Write a press release about something newsworthy and tie it in with your blog topic.

Join a blog carnival: Where every blogger who joins one blogs about a topic, then each blog gets promoted.

Use Trackback : Use Trackback links when you quote or refer to other blog posts. Now, what is TrackBack? Essentially what this does is send a message from one server to another server letting it know you have posted a reference to their post. The beauty is that a link to your blog is now included on their site.

Technorati - Your Best Friend : Technorati is one of the best traffic providers for Bloggers. It makes your blog much easier to find when people search by technorati tags. Technorati is also a large blog ranking engine. Based on the number of links to your blog from various websites, your blog is given a rank. The higher your rank the easier your blog is to find when people search for things. A higher rank gives your blog greater credibility in technorati. If you don’t already have a technorati account, get one.

Ping The Blog Services : There are a number of services designed specifically for tracking and connecting blogs. By sending a small ping to each service you let them know you've updated your blog so they can come check you out. Use Ping-o-matic to ping blog directories. Do this every time you publish.

Submit to Google sitemaps : Really part of “get your house in order”, but when you do, Google will be able to find you so much easier; translation — more Google juice, more traffic, higher rankings faster.

Join virtual groups : Through Yahoo Groups, Usenet, and more; then bring the conversation off the group with emails and instant messages. Be friendly, be helpful, and it will pay dividends.

Leverage the power of your email Signature : One of the quickest and effective ways to start driving traffic to your website at no extra cost is to add your ad or blog address to your email signature. This way, every time you send an email, you'll be advertising your website.

Answer your emails : If some visitor contact you through your blog, be sure to answer him. This will earn good points for your blog and some of them may become regular visitor of your blog. These are the small but important tips to follow.

Capture Subscribers By Email : It may seem strange for a blogger to send out updates by email, but email is still the #1 choice of most people who want to receive news and information. Using a free service like Bloglet to manage your subscriptions is easy and it allows your subscribers to manage all their
subscriptions from one interface.

Participate in Yahoo Answers : Yahoo answers is free service to all. This is quiet effective and sure way to drive some quality traffic to your blog. Participate in Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers where you can demonstrate your expertise, get associated with relevant keywords and put your blog link out there.

Create a Squidoo Page Lens : Squidoo Lenses are a good way to generate traffic. By using a lense, you can generate your own custom “community” of webpages. On a given related topic to your blog; participate in the Squidoo community; Squidoo has a ton of traffic, and you could funnel traffic and tastefully include links to other relevant sites and perhaps your own blog.

Don’t forget Offline Advertising : Most people still spend most of their time offline. . Put your url in your print advertising, TV advertising, on your stationary and in your brochures, on your vehicles, in your shop window, on T-shirts and other apparel and any other place where it will be seen.

Try Pay Per Click Advertising : Search engine optimization, reciprocal linking, content creation, and publishing all take time to deliver traffic to your site. If the main sections of your site are ready for public viewing and you want to see how well you can do, then buy some traffic. The most popular and probably most effective pay per click advertising program is Google’s Adwords. It only takes a few minutes to set up an Adwords account and you will get traffic immediately. But remember, your site has to be good enough to convert this traffic into orders if you want to recover the cost of the advertising.

Include a link to your blog as a standard part of all outgoing correspondence such as autoresponder sequences, sales letters, reports, white papers, etc.

Blog promotion takes time to build readership and sometimes even it is frustrating for beginners, keep hang on to it coz if you quit promotion even for some time, all your previous hard work will go waste. So, roll up your sleeves and start working.

Congratulate yourself for being persistent, bright and hardworking. Most get frustrated and quit before this point, which is why most websites/blog never become anything. After all, the secret to having a successful site is working hard in both promoting and creating it. You just might have what it takes.