How to Add an Analog Clock Widget in Blogger
Most Engaging Facebook Groups For Blogging Help & Support
Stepping into blogging can be extremely overwhelming. There is so much to learn, so much to achieve.
When there are tons of success stories around, there is are certainly more failures that you can read about. Blogging is not a get rich fast scheme and is more like a marathon, as we always read about.In such a scenario, a helping hand could be extremely beneficial and can save months and months of time that others wasted trying what works and what not.
It took me 6 months to decide if I had to move on to a custom blog domain or not. I certainly wasted those months, as after switching to a custom domain, my blog's traffic dropped a lot.
I wish there were as many people back then, willing to help the beginners and to openly take about their failures. It's great and I love how entire blogging community has grown up.
These lists of Facebook groups are certainly gems when it comes to finding easy solutions to your blogging queries.
With the help of entire BloggingeHow family, we started a AskHassam's Facebook group too. :) These groups are in no particular order. All of these groups have been able to provide massive value to the members and they are must to join for any beginner that starts blogging.
1. AskHassam Facebook Groups
At AskHassam group, Alhumdulilah, we have been able to create such a loving environment where every family member looks forward to post a helping answer to any beginner who posts a question. I've become addicted to the group and it's hard to stay away for a minute! <3
I look forward to have you as a part of the family.
- [message]
- ##check## Hero of The Day Reward
- We make sure that any brother/sister who are helping beginners and investing their time, should be recognized! Looking forward to this, we announce "Hero Of The Day" Reward. There are 3 other recognition that are given away every single day for the participation and enthusiasm displayed every single day! <3
I'm sure once you join the group, you'd regret why you didn't joined it before :)
2. Tech Blogging Group
The group has over 15k members and is a productive place to hangout.
3. Hellboundbloggers (HBB)
HBB group is one the most engaging groups you'll find. Brother Pradeep Kumar is really done a fine job in maintaining the group well. Very few groups on Facebook offer actual engagement rather they all turn into blog post sharing platforms.Love HBB.
4. Pakistan SEO and Bloggers
Pakistan SEO & Bloggers has a pretty friendly environment and I love how the members love replying to the questions. The activeness of the group is what makes it on this list. My priority is to add here the groups that are active in terms of conversations/answers rather than just a blog post syndication platform.
5. Creative Biz Owners with Little Farm Media
This group is focused towards creative business owners, bloggers and entrepreneurs. With thousands of members, you are bound to find a great deal of knowledge and support in there.
6. The Creative�s Corner
If you�re a creative blogger, you can't stay away joining this group to meet and engage with other creative minds.Members are encouraged to share helpful resources, and on Fridays they host a group to share creative ideas amongst each other <3
7. Blogging Boost
The group is an incredible place for new bloggers. Being very active it's a wonder land for anyone seeking to pass his time productively, where other members share plenty of tips about the tricks and tools necessary for running a blog. It�s also an awesome place to ask questions and get feedback.
8. Pakistani SEO & Bloggers
A group created by brother Aamir Iqbal, has over 46k members and is a place to share your thoughts about blogging and search engine optimization (SEO).
Who Else?
This post is just the beginning. There are tons of groups out there, but we'll find out and update this post with the ones that offer decent members engagement. Do suggest me any other name. Leave out in the comments below :)
Also checkout: How To Make Money Online Using Tsu Social Platform � Is It Worth It?!
How to Track Adsense Invalid Clicks using StatCounter in Blogger
Content Marketing Platforms� 5 Free Tools To Boost Your Blog's Reach
You're done with writing your blog post and it's time to marketing that awesome piece of content and let people know how it can be so helpful for them. Doesn't matter if Google picks up your blog posts and reward it with high place in SERP (search engine results page), we still have many content marketing strategies and platforms, that you can implement and get a decent traffic to your blog posts, and blog in general.
- [message]
- ##check## Little Story Of BloggingeHow
- When BloggingeHow got hit by negative SEO where 45k low quality Russian backlinks were pointed towards this little blog, the blog's organic reach via search engines got depleted. Over 70% of my traffic went into drain. I believe everything happens for a reason, and this led me find more content marketing strategies and tools which would help me regain the glory. This post is what I found out. Hope it helps you out too.
It's not that you've to use all of these tools and platforms to market your blog. Every platform mentioned or may it be a tool, would work differently depending upon your niche. I would recommend you to study more about them in detail and what they can do for your blog.
Without any further due, lets lay down these highly popular content marketing tools and platforms.
Content Marketing Platform #1 Quora
Quora is an emerging content marketing platform where you could answer questions within your niche and link back to your blog posts to boost the traffic.
What I love about Quora is that it has a culture of providing quality and has far less spam than Yahoo! Answers where we had every next person spamming around. People give in detailed answers to questions and no body minds if you link back to your blog posts or resources online that provide and add value to the answer as a whole.
My advice in this regard would be to learn how you can promote your blog links in a decent manner. Try to make them look natural.
You can go back to your blog archievs and pick up with popular blog post that you wrote. Now search that topic on Quora and answer a question related to that.
Write about 1-200 words explaining the topic, or even more if you feel like less won't do the justice to the question, and then link back to that post.
This would bring in considerable traffic to your blog, depending upon how popular that topic was. It's all about giving back to the community. If you're honestly helping people out, they won't mind checking back your blog post that has a lot more than that.
Currently, I'm in love with Quora! <3
Content Marketing Platform #2 Reddit
Reddit was meant to be the face of the Internet. It's a similar approach as Quora where users up vote a post. There are many categories that you can join depending upon your blog's niche and start participating.Along with helping people by answering, you can share your blog posts as a part of the answer, thus driving readership that could have never found your blog other wise.
Love Reddit too <3 You can read out How to Bring Reddit Traffic To Your Blog? (Advance) and 10 'WOW' Facts About Reddit - #5 Teaches A lot
Though Reddit moderators have a bit more conservative approach to links in the post. I would say it conservative because of the fact that you've to make the platform a win win for both the world.
If you are to promote bloggers, you have to accept their blog post links (if done decently for sure). With my experience with Reddit, I have seen many of my post being deleted even though they were high quality.
Still, it depends on the category that you're part of. Do give it a try! If you're able to get your post on the first page of the category with high upvotes let alone on the home page of Reddit (which only happens rarely), you can still drive in some serious traffic towards your blog.
Content Marketing Platform #3 Voat.co
Voat.co is like a clone of Reddit which was introduced in 2014 as an alternative to Reddit after Reddit faced pretty tough time lately. The layouts are pretty similar to Reddit, and more important, the sub Voats (are just like sub reddits) are all the same as on Reddit.People started migrating to Voat after Reddit banned a very popular community 'Fat People Hate'
Content Marketing Platform #4 Facebook Groups
Generally when we think of a blog's social media profile on Facebook, we call out our bet on Facebook page. Lately I started BloggingeHow's Facebook group (AskHassam Facebook Group) and realized how powerful a Facebook group can be if you're able to moderate a heathly and productive discussion.
If your blog's followers are able to see value in the discussion, the community will go far beyond you even planed.
A huge issue of Facebook groups is SPAM! There are rarely any groups of Facebook where you won't see spam. It needs a thorough moderation and keen eye to pick up spam links and posts. You have to make sure that the environment is clean and focuses on the discussion that you look forward to built. Don't allow any random person to post or promote his/her product.
That is not what the group is for. Implement the rules firmly.
You can write your blog's description intelligently, linking back to your blog and your squeeze page, increasing your optins.
With BloggingeHow's Facebook group, Alhumdulilah, we as a family have been able to create a very loving environment where every person feels a pleasure to reply to the beginners.
What's awesome about Facebook group is that it lets your utilize the power of Facebook it's self. Every body is on Facebook! Find them, show them how your group can be the dream place for them, that they were missing.
People are in search of the group you're willing to create. You can begin by inviting your all Facebook friends. Facebook allows you to have 5000 friends. That's in your control. You can add people that share similar interest with you and then invite them to your group.
I'm sure if you're providing enough value, they would love to be part of it.
Content Marketing Platform #5 YouTube
We all know YouTube is surpassed Yahoo as the second most search search engine after Google. You can and have to use YouTube to promote your blog. You can re purpose your blog posts in the form on videos and put them on YouTube with great video titles.
Notice how these massively popular websites like BuzzFeed creates their videos on YouTube. They take up statistics from all around the web and collect them into extremely addictive YouTube videos of about 2-3 minutes.
The same content is then published on their website in the form of blog posts. They are on the top of this strategy of utilizing YouTube to market their blog.
Advice
Among these list, I personally use Quora and YouTube to re purpose the content. You can create a schedule for your self. Answer at least 5 questions a day on Quora and create a 2-3 minute video on YouTube to highlight the points made into your certain blog post. Choose enticing video titles and there you go.
Hope this post was helpful. Happy blogging. :)
- [message]
- ##check## Also checkout
- These 7 Effective Tricks to Grow YouTube Audience Fast will be quite helpful to you.
Happy New Year - jQuery Popup For Sites!
Time fly too fast! Two years back we released a combination of 2 different popups to wish your website visitors happy winter holidays and happy new year, we are releasing today a dynamic popup for new year so that you may not remain dependant on a fixed background theme and instead change the date and time by editing the text.
This Popup plugin contains 4 Unique Features!
- Falling snowflakes,
- It has a digital countdown timer,
- It has 3 different animations,
- Supports HTML5 sessionStorage functionality to set cookie in order to control the popup display. You can choose to show the popup once or several times.
It is perfectly compatible with all major browsers. A perfect way to greet your website visitors. You can add it easily to your blogspot or wordpress blogs or on HTML webpage you may have. It is extremely easy to customize. View the demos below and then proceed to the installation guide.
Note: I have willingly set the counter to 2017 so that the demo may live longer :)
How to install this popup?
All steps are exactly similar to the ones we already shared on our christmas popups tutorial except for the styling which I will discuss here. Kindly therefore follow all steps shared in the Winter Holidays tutorial linked below. Follow all steps there and skip step#5.
Add the following CSS code instead of the code shared in step#5 of previous tutorial:
/* --------------------------------------------------
New Year Popup by MBT
-------------------------------------------------- */
#mbt-counter {
padding: 10px;
font-family: oswald,verdana;
background-color: transparent !important;
position: relative;
top: 28%;
font-size: 25px;
left: 28%;
text-shadow: 1px 2px 4px rgb(51, 51, 51);
color: rgb(255, 254, 198) !important;
border: 2px solid orange;}
.reveal-modal h2 {
position: relative;
top: 25%;
font-family: oswald,arial;
font-size: 1.7em;
text-shadow: 2px 4px 10px #000;
color: orange;
text-align: center;}
.reveal-modal-bg {
position: fixed;
height: 100%;
width: 100%;
background: rgba(0,0,0,.8);
z-index: 100;
display: none;
top: 0;
left: 0;
}
.reveal-modal {
visibility: hidden;
left: 50%;
top:170px;
margin-left: -300px;
width: 550px;
height: 305px;
background: rgba(51, 51, 51, 0) url(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvKvQEnBlDv89K-aDBni3xoINDzbeEW6vqi1JmFm9OZsiBgU1RsNAxYJxv5d4DuVLTAI9HKLCi1XEae4w9lty-I7jYUPbS5e6BdbekuRchPGVQQka764TSjNVqzuNQ9WWcgPT1T9pAMlo/s1600/happy-new-year-png.png) no-repeat -17px 0px;
position: absolute;
z-index: 101;
padding: 30px 40px 34px;
-moz-border-radius: 8px;
-webkit-border-radius: 8px;
border-radius: 8px;
color: #FFF;
}
.reveal-modal.small { width: 200px; margin-left: -140px;}
.reveal-modal.medium { width: 400px; margin-left: -240px;}
.reveal-modal.large { width: 600px; margin-left: -340px;}
.reveal-modal.xlarge { width: 800px; margin-left: -440px;}
.reveal-modal .close-reveal-modal {
font-size: 32px;
line-height: 0.5;
position: absolute;
right: 25px;
font-weight: bold;
cursor: pointer;
bottom: 25px;
color: orange;
}
.reveal-modal .close-reveal-modal:hover {
color:#2d2d2f;
}
That's all!
Hide Winter Snow Fall
If you don't want to show the falling snow then kindly remove this code:
$(document).snowfall({deviceorientation : true, round : true, minSize: 1, maxSize:8, flakeCount : 250});
This code is given in step#4 of previous tutorial.
The HTML
For step#6 use the following HTML code
<div id="myModal" class="reveal-modal" >
<h2>Count Down Begins...</h2>
<script type='text/javascript' src="http://tools.mybloggertricks.com/mbt-counter.js"></script>
<a class="close-reveal-modal">×</a>
</div>
Need Help?
Kindly let me know if you needed any help. I whole heartedly expect that you will like this pleasant gift for new year. Happy new year 2016 buddies but before I go here goes my new year resolution:
"Spending more time with my newly born baby "Ifza" and ofcourse blogosphere."
Love you all buddies! What are your new year resolution? =)
How to Install Statcounter in Blogger to Track User Activity
How To Report AdSense Invalid Ad Click Activity To Google?
AdSense team would note that your account is suddenly getting a lot of ad clicks, and they would consider it as an invalid click activity thus banning you from AdSense platform.
Who would tell them that it was not you who clicked the ads with such a high frequency. We have a solution for that. Don't worry! Google is smart. They know that there are people trolling on Internet who do that.
- [message]
- ##check## Also Checkout
How To Know If Your Blog Is Getting Invalid Clicks?
We can't tell if the clicks are not shockingly a lot more than what you normally get. You can download Google AdSense mobile app and keep track of the number of clicks you get on average per day. They have sweet graphs that can help you check that very easily.
Once you know, that on certain day, you got like 50 more clicks than what you normally get, you have to check out if you got a traffic spike on that day too which might have triggered those extra amount of clicks.
If the traffic on your blog was not extra ordinarily high on that day, that goes to show that someone is trolling you out to make AdSense team ban your account.
AdSense team gives definition of invalid clicks:
- [message]
- ##check## AdSense Team Gives Definition Of Invalid Clicks
- Invalid click activity consists of any clicks or impressions that may artificially inflate an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings, and for which we decide not to charge the advertiser. This includes, but is not limited to, clicks or impressions generated by a publisher clicking on his own ads, a publisher encouraging clicks on his ads, automated clicking tools or traffic sources, robots, or other deceptive software.
Report AdSense Invalid Clicks
Now that you're sure trolls are playing with you, you can go ahead an fill out Invalid click activity form that Google have provided, with your name and other details. Tell them what exactly is happening, how many clicks you normally get and what happened that particular day.
Hope this would be helpful. You can checkout Get Google AdSense Approval: 8 PROVEN Steps - Guaranteed!
HTTPS: Blogger Images Given Relative Paths
Note: Click the Button below to see full list of topics under discussion.
Topics List
How are Images Stored in Relative URLS?
All images that you upload in a blogger blog are stored inside Picasa web album. Previously even if you had enabled HTTPS, your visitors would continue seeing the following http error in their address bar. It was caused mainly due to image links stored in http:// instead of https://
Connection is Not Secure
The connection to this website is not fully secure because it contains unencrypted elements (such as images) or the encryption is not strong enough.
But now this issue has been fixed thanks to relative paths which automatically replaces your Image HTTP URLS with HTTPS URLS.
In Relative URLS case you don't need to change the URLs from http to https because the image src will pick the current Domain URL structure of your site no matter how many times you change it.
BEFORE:
Before switching to https, blogger images are stored in absolute paths which looks like the one below:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uH6EWDyC8uc/URKlnspDBRI/AAAAAAAAJGw/z_6DsQvaH9g/image%25255B7%25255D.png?imgmax=800
AFTER:
After switching your .blogspot.com domain to HTTPS, the images will get a relative path or naked paths without the hyper text protocol as shown below:
//3.bp.blogspot.com/-uH6EWDyC8uc/URKlnspDBRI/AAAAAAAAJGw/z_6DsQvaH9g/image%25255B7%25255D.png?imgmax=800
Thanks to this relative URLS your connection will remain secure and your visitors wont see "connection Is Not Secure" Instead they will now see a "Secure connection" alert box in the address bar as shown below:
Secure Connection
Firefox has blocked parts of this page that are not secure
Areas which are blocked are your widget scripts which are using the HTTP connection. You will need to manually replace it with HTTPS or upload your scripts at a secure https hosting.
Your views?
Just two months ago we raised this SEO blunder that was causing serious trouble but I am really glad now that blogger has fixed this mixed content issue and has handled it effectively at server side. This was exactly was we recommended in our post. Do read that post to get a clear idea of what we mean. Although I will still request that blogger team may now also fix the http to https redirection problem which is not yet sorted out. Only then switching to HTTPS could effect a blog's search ranking positively.
How do you think this latest development will help publishers better fix the mixed content errors? What else would you request from blogger to fix? Do share your views in the comment box below.
Finally for bloggers with over 1K-10K posts, relative paths are surely no less than a heaven! =)
How To Make Money Online Using Tsu Social Platform � Is It Worth It?!
Tsu is on fire, with over 8 million users in just 6 months, which is faster growth than both Facebook and Twitter! The platforms you earn for the content you share! <3
What a privilege this is to share a social platform that is on fire and will explode in 2016! Tsu that is pronounced �Sue� is free to use social that is much like Facebook or Google+ which was launched on October 14th, 2014. Tsu now stands at over 8 Million users with over 13 Million page views generated each month!What's cool about it is that it can help you make money with the content you share on the platform! More important, now the time you'd spend on tsu won't be wasted, in fact, you will be making money out of what you share! Yay!
Finally we see a platform that implemented YouTube's monetization strategy where it rewards the content creators with the income they deserve.
Why I Hate Facebook In This Regard?
Facebook actually sucks at this! They would do their best to crush your efforts down in attempt so that you would 'Boost' your posts to reach more audience.I hate Facebook for that!
We worked hard all these years to gain Facebook followers and readers, and then we saw Facebook crushing down our organic reach to lure us into buying Facebook ads! That sucks big time!
Facebook stole our TIME!
Take a look at this awesome interview of Tsu's Founder with Fox News
Tsu is an online social networking service founded in October 2013 and was created by Evacuation Complete, a Texas corporation.
How Will You Earn? Family Tree Explained
Lets assume you're person 'A'. You invite your friend who's name is 'B'. He invites his friend named 'C' and C then invites another friend of him/her 'D'.
Now these 4 people are linked. Lets say 'D' shares a blog post on Tsu platform. For his/her content, she gets paid.
How cool is that? I'm too excited and I'm sure you're too!
Tsu grew to 1.6million users in just 6 months, which is faster than both, Facebook and Twitter! Currently Tsu stands at about 2 Million users as of Jan 2015. I'm sure it would be close to 3 million by the end of this year!
We all know why Facebook isn't too happy about that! Brands and Companies that have mentioned Tsu on Facebook have seen their page posts getting deleted with a note that post wasn't safe for the users! Wait what?!
How Tsu Is Different Than Other Popular Social Platforms?
1. Ownership Of Content
Tsu believes in content ownership, which only exists when users own the rights to their content and the income earned through it. They believe, users should be compensated for their likeness, image and content. It�s simple and it�s just the right thing to do!
2. Access - Tsu shares social revenues with everyone, for any type of content, size of network or level of influence. We can use Tsu just like we do Facebook, Twitter everyday!
3. Empowerment - Tsu's business model is global, scalable, and designed to empower the user. For the first time every user can be a content creator earning royalties they deserve.
Well, after doing a lot of research on forums and learning from users who have been using the platform since early 2014, I've some interesting statistics here.
People believe that, to earn something decent out of you being social at Tsu, we have to share tons of content that people would actually share and that would go viral.
The more valuable content you'd share, the more people would get engaged it with and the more you'll. That's just how it goes with Facebook.
People who are active on Tsu are earning well! Take a look at the discussion on another blog that I took this screen shot from.
It took Lissette to reach her first 100$ in 6 months, though the next 100 came in half that time, while the next in another half. Now she got 100$ in a month! That's a fast growth I must say!
Tsu believes in content ownership, which only exists when users own the rights to their content and the income earned through it. They believe, users should be compensated for their likeness, image and content. It�s simple and it�s just the right thing to do!
2. Access - Tsu shares social revenues with everyone, for any type of content, size of network or level of influence. We can use Tsu just like we do Facebook, Twitter everyday!
3. Empowerment - Tsu's business model is global, scalable, and designed to empower the user. For the first time every user can be a content creator earning royalties they deserve.
How Much Will You Earn? Is Tsu Worth Your Time?
Well, after doing a lot of research on forums and learning from users who have been using the platform since early 2014, I've some interesting statistics here.
People believe that, to earn something decent out of you being social at Tsu, we have to share tons of content that people would actually share and that would go viral.
The more valuable content you'd share, the more people would get engaged it with and the more you'll. That's just how it goes with Facebook.
Some Restrictions From Tsu
Tsu ensures that people don't spam on the platform to earn. For this reason, we can only follow 1000 people, while you can get as many followers as you can. Also, we can share only 24 posts a day which would ensure that we would only share what's actually valuable and not just forward every stupid thing. That's a smart move I would say.People who are active on Tsu are earning well! Take a look at the discussion on another blog that I took this screen shot from.
It took Lissette to reach her first 100$ in 6 months, though the next 100 came in half that time, while the next in another half. Now she got 100$ in a month! That's a fast growth I must say!
Imagine doing the same stuff you do all day long on Facebook and still be able to earn from it.! While reading stories of other people who have been using Tsu for sometime, and who tried to market their small blogs and business, they believe that it highly depends upon what sort of content you share.
Some photographers are able to sell their art on Tsu far more succesfully than on Facebook, as they believe that Tsu offers them the actual reach they earned over the time, which increased their 'actual' follwership.
While other believe that people are more concerned about engaing with other's content for the sake of 'making money' out of it. That is what is creating a lot of spam and people are seeing comments like 'I like this', or 'big like' etc. They aren't really engagign with the content in real meaning.
Again, I'm giving it a try and so you should to, there is nothing wrong with sharing your blog posts and content on another platform as you normally do with Facebook or Twitter. You can signup and try Tsu and start building your network here using this link.
Best of luck exploring this fast growing new platform! 2016 will tell if it has the structure to be the next big thing and a potential to take over Facebook.
Blogger VS WordPress � Which Blogging Platform To Choose In 2016?
If you're looking to start your blog and it's confusing to decide between Blogger or WordPress, this is the only guide you need to go through. :)
I started using Blogger (Blogspot) back in 2011 which I first launched BloggingeHow. Since then, I'm in absolute harmony with this amazing blogging platform I must say. Later, I tried self hosted wordpress too.
This post goes in the roots of both the platforms and what they have to offer for your future blog. Or if you're willing to switch on to any one of these from your current blog.
Why Blogger/Blogspot?
Blogger is a cloud based blogging service. Meaning by that you don't have to install anything with Blogger to get started. You just go to Blogger.com and signup for your new blog. You set the title of the blog and give it a URL. That's how easy it is to start a blog with Blogger.com.There are many pros and cons of both the platforms. When I started Blogging, the only main reason I went with it was due to lack of money to invest. I was relying on my 1$ monthly pocket money!
Advice #1 Ask Your Pocket
So that's my next point, if you're short of money to start with, I would recommend you to go with Blogger platform.The only investment you have to do is to buy a domain name for your blog. When you signup with Blogger, it creates a free domain name URL (yourblogname.blogspot.com) and then you can later buy a domain name and set that custom domain name via Blogger settings.
If you're not sure of where to buy a domain name, you can checkout this guide that goes through detailed steps to get a custom domain name for your blog.
In this times, we can get domain names for as low as 0.99$! I wrote about that too.
- [message]
- ##check## Don't Make The Mistake I Made
- I made a huge mistake of not starting with a custom domain right from the beginning of my blogging journey. I wasted about 6 months with blogspot.com domain. I wrote a detailed post about that! Don't make that mistake.
Advice #2 No Need To Worry About Being Hacked
As Blogger is powered by Google, we have strong believe that it's fairly hard to get hacked.
As with WordPress blogs, we need to update it to the latest versions as they get released with new bug fixes and patches. We often read about how hackers exploit WordPress vulnerabilities to hack blogs. That never happened with Blogger blogs.
Advice #3 It's too Simple
Yeah! Blogger platform is too simple to understand compared to WordPress. Not that WordPress is difficult or anything, but I must say it can be overwhelming for the newbies. When I first installed WordPress on my Bluehost hosting, I was literally drowned by so much that I could do with WordPress. That shows it's power!
I'll talk about that in WordPress section.
On the other hand, you'll get everything about Blogger in maximum 30 minutes.
Why WordPress?
WordPress is known to be the king of Blogging platforms and indeed I must say it is. It's not about which platform is better, I believe these both ones have their own pros and cons and at the end of the day, what really matters is which one suites you the best. Which aspects of both can you let go and which matter you more than others.
- [message]
- ##check## In My Case:
- For example, for me, initial investment was a big deciding factor. I knew WordPress was pretty powerful back in 2011 too, but I didn't had the money to pay for hosting plan. So it was an easy decision for me.
#1 WordPress Edge: Lack Of Ability To Totally Change My Blog Post URLs.
Even though we can change the some part of the URLs but not entirely.
For example, when you publish a blog post in Blogger platform, our post title is set as our post URL too. Lets say your blog post title is "10 Best Blogging Platforms".
- [message]
- ##check## Now Blogger would make that post URL to be like
- "http://www.yourblog.com/2015/12/10-best-blogging-platforms.html"
Notice how it enters publishing date of the post in URL too which we yet don't have the ability to change. We can only change the later part of the URL.
With WordPress, we have total control of how our URLs would look like and we can set it's structure very easily.
Google prefers short to the point URLs and it helps in search engine optimization a lot. I believe this is where Blogger lacks a lot.
#2 WordPress Edge: Easy Author Management
Blogger sucks at this. Imagine you wish to enroll multiple guest bloggers on your blog like how popular blogs do e.g Mashable, CNN, BBC etc.
All these huge publishers rely on hundreds of authors that write for the company consistently. WordPress offers a signup form where new authors can make their accounts and manage their blog posts with ease.
You as an admin can give those authors different roles. You can make them editor of the articles or an absolute admin.
With Blogger, we have to send an invite to individual authors and once they accept the invitation via the email they get, then their account is made into Blogger.
Still we can add a middle man between those authors and Blog admin. We can create a system where authors or guest bloggers would write and submit their blog posts for passing quality test via Editor of the blog and once those get approved, then only the article can be published.
We can't do any of such in Blogger.
I miss this feature of WordPress aaaa lot!
#3 WordPress Edge: Massive Plugin Support
With WordPress, you don;t have to be tech savy. To do certain things on the blog, you just have to install plugins with simple click installations.Lets say you wish to add social media share button on your blog. With WordPress, you have to install the javascript your self in Blogger template Editor and only then those social share button would work on the blog.
Where as with WordPress, you just choose the best look social share plugins for WordPress and they would automatically work on the blog. That's how simply it is with WordPress.
You can checkout: 26 Most Expensive WordPress Plugins You Can't Afford
- [message]
- ##check## Point To Note
- What we need to understand is that WordPress is not just a blogging platform, it's far more than that. It's a Content Management System (CMS) that you can use to create blogs, simple static websites, or eCommerce websites and what not. Popular websites that don't have anything to do with Blogging also use WordPress as the back end software.
Where as with Blogger, it's soley a Blogging platform.
The Judgment Day � How Should You Make The Decision
I know it can be tough call to choose between the two platforms. Both are awesome and people are making living using both the platforms. It's been 4 years that BloggigneHow is powered by Blogger platform and I'm loving every bit of it.
Take in consideration the following points which will help you out make the decision.
Question #1 Can You Afford WordPress Hosting
That's the most important question that you have to ask your self. Running a self hosted WordPress blog costs about 50-60$ per year. If you can afford it, there is nothing else you need to think of. Just close your eyes and get started with WordPress. You'll appreciate your decision later on.
WordPress is worth it if you can afford it! <3
Question #2 How Serious Are You About Blogging?
Are you willing to blog for the sake of hobby and to express your self to the world? Or you wish to create a brand that would not only make you popular, but would make you a living?
If you're doing it as a hobby, I would say, simply go with Blogger as you can install custom templates with Blogger and get started. It's free and easy to use! You don't need all those powerful features of WordPress. Blogger does all the basic stuff and even more if you're willing to dive into code.
You can also check out: 35 Most Sold Premium Responsive Blogger Templates at Themeforest
Question #3 How Do You Aim To Expand Your Blog?
Will your blog be a multi author blog in the future? If yes, go with Wordpress, as Blogger would disappoint you in this regard. If you're willing to be a standalone writer on the blog and you wish to make your blog an expression of your self, then Blogger is a great choice.
Question #4 Are You Afraid Of Tweaking Template Code
Note that Blogger can do so many advance customization when it comes to template desgin BUT only if you know how to play with the template code. Notice how BloggingeHow's template is so professional looking. People believe it to be hosted on WordPress blog.
But that shows the power of Blogger. We can create as great look Blogger blogs as Wordpress. But with that, you have to have that mentality to eidt your blog tmeplate. With WordPress, you would not have to do that.
Most of the things can be managed via Plugins. If you can handle code, Simply go with WordPress.
- [message]
- ##check## Summary
- I believe it's all about your personal scenario. I hope the above questions would help you decide between the two platforms.
Open Live Writer � Keyboard Shortcuts
Note: Click the Button below to see full list of topics under discussion.
OLW Topic List
Following is a categorized list of the most common keyboard shortcuts used in Open Live Writer:
BLOG & POSTING Shortcuts
| Shortcut | Function |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + N | Creates a new post |
| Ctrl + G | Creates a new page |
| Ctrl + O | Open recently posted |
| Ctrl + S | Save a post |
| Ctrl + Shift + P | Publish a post |
| Ctrl + Shift + D | Post draft to blog |
| Ctrl + K | Insert hyperlink |
| Ctrl + J | Add picture from computer |
| Ctrl + Shift + C | Set categories or Labels |
| Ctrl + Shift + J | Add picture from the web |
| Shift + F11 | Switch to source view |
| Ctrl + F11 | Update blog theme |
| F11 | Switch to edit view |
| F12 | Switch to preview view |
| F2 | See post properties like keywords and post date |
TEXT Formatting Shortcuts
| Shortcut | Function |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + B | Bold |
| Ctrl + I | Italicize |
| Ctrl + H | Strikethrough |
| Ctrl + U | Underline |
| Ctrl + = | Subscript |
| Ctrl + Shift + = | Superscript |
| Ctrl + Shift + L | Bullets |
| Ctrl + Space | Clear formatting |
| Ctrl + E | Center text |
| Ctrl + L | Align text left |
| Ctrl + R | Align text Right |
| Ctrl + Shift + N | New paragraph |
| Ctrl + Left Alt + 1 | Heading 1 |
| Ctrl + Left Alt + 2 | Heading 2 |
| Ctrl + Left Alt + 3 | Heading 3 |
| Ctrl + Left Alt + 4 | Heading 4 |
| Ctrl + Left Alt + 5 | Heading 5 |
| Ctrl + Left Alt + 6 | Heading 6 |
| Ctrl + Left Shift | Set text direction from left to right |
| Ctrl + Right Shift | Set text direction from right to left |
PHOTO Editing Shortcuts
| Shortcut | Function |
|---|---|
| PrntScr + Ctrl + V | Takes screenshot from your desktop screen and then press Ctrl + V to paste it in OLW |
GENERAL Shortcuts
| Shortcut | Function |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + X | Cut |
| Ctrl + C | Copy |
| Ctrl + V | Paste |
| Ctrl + Left Alt + V | Ctrl+Left Alt+V |
| Ctrl + A | Select all |
| Ctrl + F | Find |
| Ctrl + Z | Undo |
| Ctrl + Y | Redo |
| Ctrl + P | |
| Ctrl + F1 | Show or hide ribbon |
| F1 | Get Help for OLW |
Need Help?
This is so far the complete list of keyboard shortcuts which are supported by Open Live Writer's latest build. I will keep updating the list to add more useful shortcuts. I hope this makes your posting hobby even more worthwhile. Let me know if you needed any help. Peace and blessings buddies! =)
Skimlinks Vs Viglinks - Make Money With Dynamic Affiliate Links
Managing affiliate links is tiresome. Specially when platforms change affiliate links. These 2 platforms are here to help. How cool they are? Lets find out.
I recently published Get Google AdSense Approval: 8 PROVEN Steps - Guaranteed! and then right after that, I posted Google AdSense Alternatives: HIGH Paying & Easy To Signup! v2016. Among those Google AdSense alternatives, I shared Skimlinks and Viglinks.
What Do These Both Platforms Do?
At this point, you might be confused or really looking to find out fast as to how these two platforms can be AdSense alternatives.Well, our goal is to make money with our blog, and one of the best way to do it is by selling other people's products. It's easy, specially comparing it with the process of product creation and then it's marketing is a whole another story.
In affiliate marketing, we promote products that we believe are relevant to what our readers are looking for and the products we have tested and trust most importantly.
- [message]
- ##check## Also Checkout How to AutoPilot Your Blog to Enjoy Your Vacations To The Fullest
The Problem...
The problem is, that we might be using various types of affiliated platforms where we would find the products of our choice and the flavor of our readership. Imagine we're 1000 articles into our blogging journey, and all of them have our affiliate links.
What if a merchant plans to change the affiliate link? It's a disaster! We can't go back to all of those 1000 posts on our blog and update the links. That would crack our back literally!
Also, it's extremely hard to manage your income from all of the different affiliate platforms you're signed up with.
Imagine, those platforms might have 100$ benchmark before they release their payments. And you're upto 80$ mark with all of the platforms with each product you promote? You won't get a penny until you make above 100$ with each!
That's enough to overcome our patience as Blogger! That's cruel...
How Would These 2 Platforms Solve The Problem?
Well, Skimlinks and Viglinks are a huge deal in this regard! These tools help us manage all of our affiliate links, all across your blog.
You just signup with them, get a javascript code installed in your template, and that's all! You don't have to do a single thing extra!
With Skimlinks, we get access of over 20,000 affiliate programs and products and like wise a huge lot with Viglinks too (over 30,000 I believe).
Now you'd would think, then what? Well, what we do is that we add certain keywords in their dashboard or we could choose the products we wish to promote. We simply hit save and what they would do is that all of our links related to that product on our blog, would automatically be converted to an affiliate link, from you could earn.
Your actual link that you placed won't change, and the users would still see that original link, though when they would click it, you'd get referral reward.
For Example- The Magic
- [message]
- ##check## Just to make the idea clear, consider this:
- Lets say, I write a sentence about how we can get Bluehost webhosting at super low rate. Notice how I inserted this Bluehost link in this sentence. It's a link to their homepage and is not my affiliate link.
Though if I would use Skimlink or Viglink now, and choose Bluehost as a product from these platforms, they would automatically change this Bluehost link dynamically at the back end with my affiliate link. Meaning by, that when someone would now click this link, I would get paid the affiliate commission out of it.
Now, if in future, Bluehost wishes to change the structure of their affiliate link, I don't have to do anything! It would all be managed by their tool!
That is MAGIC I must say! <3
Advantages Of Using Skimlinks Or Viglinks
So, now that you're getting the idea, lets find more about these awesome platforms and what else they have to offer.
#1 Super Easy Management
We just have to insert normal hyper links in our blog posts as we generally do to link to another resource, and the link would be converted to an affiliate link at the back end.#2 Hassle Free and Big Time Saver
We don't have to worry about links getting updated or broken from the merchants. They'll be for ever green and working! :> I'm excited about this. In fact, I've already signed up with Skimlinks and waiting to get started.#3 Your Affiliate ID/Links Would Stay Secure
Many affiliate markers worry about hackers getting to know their affiliate IDs via the links. This way there is a possible chance of cyber attack. With affiliate links generated dynamically at the back end, no one can get to know the affiliate IDs.#4 All Earnings Under One Hood
This is HUGE! No matter how many different affiliate programs you choose among over 20,000 platforms, all of your earnings would be accumulated under single account! Once that reaches about 20$, you can cashout!
This is really encouraging I believe.
I'm sure by now you'd be thinking how can I get started with this :D
Skimlinks Vs Viglinks - Which To Go For?
Well, this can be a difficult decision though I'll try my best to gather facts and opinions about both of these companies so that it would be easier for you to get started with one. Just to mention, after all of my research up till now, I decided to go with Skimlinks and I'll InshaAllah share my experience with it after few months.Introduction
Viglinks is incubated by Google and has over 30,000 affiliate programs. While Skimlinks is backed by British Government and other prominent European investors and has over 20,000 affiliate programs to choose from.- [vtab]
- #1 Getting Approval & Setup
- As far as what I read, getting approved by Viglinks doesn't takes time and is an instant process, while it takes about 1-2 days with Skimlinks. (1-2 business days is not much though I believe)
- #2 Analytics
- Viglinks is known to be superior in it's analytics and it can even provide in depth information on what products are being sold via what links on your blog. Skimlinks is shy on that. Analytics is generally the plus of Viglinks.
- #3 Minimum Payout
- With Viglinks, there is no minimum payout balance bar, so you can cashout even with 1$ in account. While, with Skimlinks, we have to have 20$ of sale in account.
- #4 Getting Approval & Setup
- As far as what I read, getting approved by Viglinks doesn't takes time and is an instant process, while it takes about 1-2 days with Skimlinks. (1-2 business days is not much though I believe)
- #5 Design and User Experience
- Skimlinks wins on this one as of many people online. Many believe that Skimlinks has a much easy to use layout which makes things pretty easy to handle.
- #6 Customer Service
- This is a tie I believe. I have read equal number of people saying positive and negative for both. I believe it depends upon personal experience generally.
- #7 Getting Approval & Setup
- As far as what I read, getting approved by Viglinks doesn't takes time and is an instant process, while it takes about 1-2 days with Skimlinks. (1-2 business days is not much though I believe)
- #8 Terms of Service and Policies
- Viglinks certainly doesn't have the most clear policies. With over 30,000 affiliate programs, it's not clear which platforms are active and would add up to your earnings. The reason being that some might be available in your country and some not. While Skimlinks merchants are 100% working and any link that is converted on your blog is actually going to add up to your earning.
- #9 Getting Approval & Setup
- As far as what I read, getting approved by Viglinks doesn't takes time and is an instant process, while it takes about 1-2 days with Skimlinks. (1-2 business days is not much though I believe)
Hope these points would help you decide between the two companies. I'll defintely give a try to both and will post a detailed review on each InshaAllah!
You can Signup with both the platforms using the link below.
- [message]
- ##check## Also Make Sure You Check Out:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)