Let’s not Wasting time for introduction, Below is my 25 Methods in strengthening your blog to keep it up in the blogosphere. There is 5 Aspects with 5 points on each:

Presentation Theme / Design

Color:

• Make sure you use the right color combination for your audience. If you target audience are teens, never use the Business theme. You need to find some theme that your audience will like. Use a general theme will do. You only need to add some image that will represent or entertain your targeted audience.

Image:

• Always optimize images that you want to put into your blog. Big size Image file will kill your reader so the won’t come back anymore (long loading annoy 90% of Web Surfer!). Try to use Photoshop or Firework to decrease the file size. If you can’t afford it, use this free online image optimization tool.

Theme Design:

• The best choice is the 3 column theme. You can have more space for your future advertisement spaces or your own idea/side note for your blog. The best readable length per line of your content is about 450 to 500 pixel width. I suggest you to use JohnTP’s technoblue or buy a premium Super Adsense Theme with Gobala Krishnan.

Text Color and Size:

• Size of a text is not measurable since many people comes with different interest. But, Text Color is something fixed if you desire for an absolute readability on your blog. Black Color Text on a White background color is the right choice.

Widget:

• Do not stuffed your Sidebar with a lot of widgets. Your reader will think that you are nuts or a total beginner in blogging. I used to be like that. Since I realize this point, I begin to decrease the useless-and-just-for-fun-but-heavy-loading widget and images in my sidebar. Beside increasing your reader loading time, It will break your blog’s design or losing your esthetics side of your blog.

Navigation/Accessibility

Theme Consistency:

• I seldom Switching my theme from one to another because I’m really afraid of confusing my reader. For a non techie user, an “Image link” that suddenly become a “text link” will make them think that it have a different function or destination. Beside that, you’ll probably annoy the “visualist” type of reader who hate something “looks” inconsistent.

Searching Box:

• Never omit this from your blog. You must get one (from the own theme) or get the third party search engine like Technorati or Google. But never put both together… your user will only use one of them, there is no point at all and wasting your space which you can add something more useful.

Linking Phrase:

• Avoid using “Click here!”, “This link is useful”, or the same kind of phrase in linking to your own articles or to your friend’s blog. By using the right phrase, you’ll score higher on the search engine and your friend will thank you because you link to them with the phrase that contextual related to their post! “Here is the 25 methods to strengthen your Blog” is the example of the right linking phrase to this post!

Title Tags & Alternative (Alt) Attributes:

• Always fill this up whenever you want to insert links or images. This will help you SEO your post. Use a totally related description. Don’t put “Opera Song” Alt/Title Tags into the “Rap Song” link! That’s absolutely nuts! ;p

Show your Top Posts:

• Try to get plugins that can show your top post of all the time. With this, you give another big exposure to your old post that happen to be famous before! Try to read my 30 wordpress plugins in my last post

Content / Blog’s Post

Line Height:

• Reader who read online text though their laptop or Monitor is skimmer. They Skim on your blog post quickly to find ideas they like. When the can skim properly on your blog post, they’ll likely won’t read through your post and jump to the other blog. By adjusting your line height, you help those skimmer. The will skim enjoyably if your line height is not too tight or too lose. 1.5 ems is a nice line height.

Talk to your Reader:

• Want to talk to your reader instead of writing to a machine? Use a lot of “you”, “your” or “we” that include your reader perspective. A lot but not stuffing your post will those words. Make an nature blending on your post without overkill your reader with those words.

Don’t hype:

• Hyping will let your reader feel that you are a cheater or spammer. “This is Super-Dupper-Amazing-OMG-Halleluya Product! I Extremely Endorse it to you because it bla-bla-bla-boomm!” No body will listen to you. You readers so much clever then you to detect any Bull-S**t words.

Whitespace:

• Leave some white space on your post. You reader need to take a “visual-breath” too. If you write a long paragraph that consist of more than 6 long sentences. Try to break it into 2 or 3 new paragraph to increase skimming rate for your reader and help them relax while reading your content. Long reading paragraph will make your reader “visually” tired and the won’t read anymore.

Be Yourself:

• Objective to your heart and write for your reader. Always show the “virgin” you to your reader. Don’t try to imitate everyone else’s style. Only by being yourself, you can truly express out your feeling and wrote like what your heart is going.
• Try to visit copyblogger.com for more tips on copywriting and content producing tips

<huff, huff… ! Tired of reading? Rest a while here… Slow down and relax….

… … …

done? Let’s continue! >

Content Optimization

Headline:

• Headline is the most important part of your post. You post rely on its quality. If you write a bad headline, you reader won’t read it although the content is a real gold for them. Want to find a good headline? I usually go to ezinearticles.com to collect some data. Go to the related category and find the related articles that get a lot of page view ( >200) in 3 days.

Internal Linking:

• Describe your link title and alt tags properly when pointing to your other post. Make sure it have a tight relationship between each post when linking. If not, don’t link!

Target a Keyword:

• Research keyword before posting. You can use Homebizfactory.com research tool for this task. I use it a lot! Beside returning Overture results, it also returning you a Google result “in quoted”. After getting a good keyword for your post, use it frequently on your post. Bolding the keyword also help you much in SEO.

H1 your Headline:

• Many blogger think that h1 tag is too big, so the avoid using it and try to use the smaller one like h2 or h3 tag. In fact, h1 is the most important tag in your post. Since the orbit of CSS and CSS2 you can customize almost everything on your page. Including h1 tag. You can reduce it size freely!

Careful of Keyword Stuffing:

• Use your keyword everywhere, often, at the beginning middle and end. But never stuffed/overkill your keyword in your post. Try to go to seobook.com to find insightful SEO skills.

Relationship building

Say hello to your old friend:

• On a regular basis, say hello to your buddies by commenting on their post. Of course not a simple “hello, how are you? things are fine here! Take care! Bye!” only! But to comment on what they are writing at to please them.

Find more friends:

• Check your Mybloglog, Blogcatalog or any community building site regularly. If you have join one, why should you wait? Go and join them, You’ll find more friend there!

Respond Comments ASAP:

• Never let your reader wait for your respond for more than 24 hours. They’ll never come back to comment again!

Reward your Reader:

• 1. With Viral link Exchange
• 2. with Show Top commentators Plugin
• 3. with U comment I Follow Plugin
• 4. With Speedlinking to your reader’s blog.

Guest Blogging:

• Guest blogging not only strengthen your relationship with your loyal reader, You also give them opportunity to promote their own blog.

Hooo….. Long read… Time to rest your eyes! I hope this tips useful for you. See you on the next post!

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