Ultimate Collection of SEO Tools To Optimize Blogs – All in One!

After sharing many SEO tips and tricks and also SEO template tweaks to let you improve SEO of your Blogger based blogs and increase your rankings and traffic, the time has now come to share my most preferred SEO Tools without which Search Engine Optimization for anyone is all boring. These are the ultimate tools for easily understanding your competitor’s strategies. There are definitely a lot of tools available online but every webmaster needs a single source that may provide him with everything he needs. The ultimate website containing all the webmaster needs, is Rapid Searchmetrics. SEO has never been this easy. From free to premium services, they simply make your job easy. I enjoy using them a lot as they have always helped me keep track of each and everything in my blog including CSS, JavaScript, HTML Structure, internal and external links, and much more.

Complete List of SEO Tools to Optimize a Blog

• Alexa Challenge
• Cloaking Detection
• Meta Tag Analyzer
• Multi PageRank
• PageRank Analysis
• SEO Challenge
• Social Bookmarks
• Spiderview
• Visual PageRank
• Website Speed Test
• Keyword Density
• Keyword Position
• Domain Age
• Domain Popularity
• Reverse IP
• Link Popularity, Backlinks
• Link Value
• Outbound Links
• Meta Tag Generator
• Sitemap Generator
• Text2Image
• Unix Time Convertor
• URL Rewrite
• Colibritool
• Linkody

Help Needed Regarding any Tool?

All these SEO tools are user friendly and very easy to use. But who doesn't have questions? :) You people may be having several questions regarding some particular SEO tools. I am more then pleased to help you with the use of a tool. For any SEO queries, kindly post your question in the comment box so that I could reply all of you individually.

For complete list of SEO Articles kindly visit this page,

• Complete Search Engine Optimization For Blogs and Websites

How did you find these SEO series?

I have always aimed to cover all topics series wise. This way the related tutorials are easily shared one after another and this helps in better understanding of our loyal readers. I think you can now easily Search Engine Optimize you blog but if you still have some questions in mind then don't hesitate to leave your precious comments. I would really like to know if I could live up to all of your expectations or not. I wish you all the best of luck with your Blogging Career and Goals in Life. Take care! :)

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Blogger 10:21  13 comments

PageRank is Not Important Says Google!

I like the way Matt Cutts, the head of Google's Webspam team gives detailed explanations and removes all the misconceptions between the SEOs. He has now given a detailed explanation on some of the misconceptions linked to Google's PageRank Algorithm. As more and more users turn into content every day, the quality drops down at huge degree because everyone these days discusses SEO tips even without any authority or influence! So it has become very important to adopt SEO tips only from the sites that give sources for their SEO claims. Recently over the years, Google is filtering such trusted websites based on their PageRank and giving more significance to them and thus sending them more traffic. The PageRank Algorithm has now opened a large series of Link building SEO companies and services. Almost everywhere today newbie bloggers are giving more importance to PageRank then to quality bright content.

PageRank and Alexa Rank Series

Part1: PageRank v.s Alexa Rank? Which One Is Important?

Part2: PageRank is Not Important Says Google!

Part3: Killer Tips to Improve Alexa Rank of your Blog!

Part4: 3 Reasons Why Your PageRank is not Increasing!

Is PageRank Important?

Yes it is unquestionably essential but not more than the quality content you put pen to paper. You can easily receive thousands of visitors per day with even PR0. I have many associates in my network that are full time bloggers and earning hell lot of money without absolutely having to worry about ranking algorithms such as their PR and Alexa. Because there authority tool is their post frequency. Because the more you write quality, the more you receive traffic. If you are destroying your precious hours in looking for exchanging links and not posting consistently, then you are close to ending your blogging career.

PageRank and Alexa are only and only important when you have both quality content and Traffic. Astonishingly both traffic and content are independent of solely rankings but depend a lot on what you publish.

Advertisers look for four things while buying an ad spot,

1. Readership (Subscribers)
2. Traffic
3. Alexa
4. Only 10% Advertisers look for PageRank. Also Google AdSense looks for just one thing and that is Traffic.

Unless you don’t have quality content, both your high PageRank and Alexa Rank is useless for you, Google and advertisers. With good rankings you are placed higher in search results but with quality content you get lifetime quality organic traffic. I have seen many blogs with even PageRank 6.0 in Buysellads directory yet not even earning a penny because they spent all their great skills on rankings alone and under-estimated the value of bright, quality posts, good content and social shares and as a result of which ended their careers with hopelessness and failed to survive online. My short personal blogging experience only says one thing that if there is anything that matters more, it is Traffic. I say only write quality content. Rankings will automatically follow up. Writing on fresh things that always attract people is what I actually call blogging. In the next post I will teach you the secrets to increase the Alexa Rank of your blog. Cheers.

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Blogger 07:58  4 comments

Blogger Help For General & Off-Topic Questions

This page is Dedicated to General Queries related to Blogger

Dear Readers,
Ask all queries and General or off-topic questions here. Off-topic questions on posts are really irritating and often result in comment deletion. So kindly try to ask whatever question you have related to Blogger, may it be SEO, template customization, widgets, plugins, copyright violation, adsense etc. in the comment form below. All questions will be answered in detail and as soon as time allows.

And yes kindly don’t flood me with too much questions :>> I am a student after all!

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Blogger 05:42  No comment

How to Backup your Blogger Blog?

Your Blogger blog is not actually owned by you. If you blog on the Blogger platform, you may not realize that Google owns your blog. It is true. All your blog posts, pages, comments, and images are stored at Google servers. You would be thinking "Yeah it's good now I don't have to worry. Google is a huge company and its not going anywhere" Well if yes, then your wrong. If Chinese hackers can the hack the most secure systems of the Pentagon, then Google servers are nothing. They have even been compromised once by the Turkish. Also only if you violated Google's TOS, your blog will be deleted. So it is a good habit to backup your Blog at least twice a week no matter what platform you use.

Backup your Blogger Blog 

Backing up a Blogger blog is extremely easy. There are two parts. One is backing up your content, and the other is backing up your template. So lets start,

Backup The Content 

This includes all your posts, pages and comments.

1. Go to Blogger > Settings > Other
2. At the very top of the page, you will find Blog Tools.
3. Click on Export blog.
4. Save the file. Now you have all your content i.e, posts, pages, comments etc in one file.

Backup The Template 

You would have a template that you have carefully made for your blog and won't want to lose it, then hurry up and back it up,

1. Go to Blogger > Template 
2. On the upper right corner of the page, click on the button that says "Backup/Restore" 
3. Click on Download full template and save the file. 

No one would like to lose his blog. It's a good habit to daily backup your blog if you daily update it. Otherwise you should do it twice or thrice a week. Also keep copies of your backups elsewhere besides your computer also. In the cloud like DropBox, SkyDrive, Google Drive or on USB drives or other external drives. It's Better safe than sorry. I will also write on how to backup a WordPress blog. Till then stay tuned. Cheers.

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Blogger 14:13  4 comments

Lost AdSense Account or Got it Banned? How To Get it Back?

The most generous service with which I have came along is AdSense Ad servicewhen it comes to Web Marketing. Every blogger or web owner can easily apply for AdSense Ad Network without any hard conditions. Simply create need good content and and user friendly, compatible blog design. But almost no newbie has properly used this service according to AdSense TOS and misused this amazing opportunity by simply violating AdSense TOS in earning lust. As a result of which, they end their blogging careers with Permanent Adsense Account Ban! Because they know that it is the best and highest paying Ad Service. But people often under-estimate Adsense's tracking algorithm. But just think about it. Adsense pays highest of all because it earn highest of all. Just in the year 2011, Google earned $2.34 Billion dollars from AdSense alone which is 28% of their total Annual revenue! With so much earning, why can't Google spend some million dollars to increase its artificial intelligence and make its Ad network even more secure and beneficial to its clients. Just after the start of Adsense, Google struggled to get some of the best computer experts of the world and spent millions of dollars in this search. Even then how can someone still think he can fool Adsense's tracking system and make money with fraud clicks?

Why AdSense Accounts Get Banned?

There are several answers behind this question. The major reason is that when a newbie blogger starts web marketing, he enjoys seeing the digits in his adsense account. He starts making fraud clicks for the digits to increase. He manages to get his earnings from $10 to even $99 if he thinks he is smart but in the end receivs this letter from Adsense:

"Hello,
After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account
poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due
to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense
account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will
both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.
Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the
effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the
advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that
this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and
cooperation.
If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we've taken, how
you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find
more information by visiting
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team"

It also happens without your knowing or you don't doing anything. Sometimes it is not your fault at all. Your competitors attack ads on your site with auto clicks using a software out of jealousy without you knowing. For example look what happened to this woman and also read the nice answer given in the thread by StevenG.

Personally speaking, i know that it really hurts when you receive such an email from Google. It can shatter all your Online Income dreams in a second, end your online business and leave you hopeless but I ask you that should you cry all day and night for being banned and start begging Google to accept you back? I say Of course not! There are tons of solutions for your problem because you are not alone. I have shared two different solutions. First one for newbie bloggers or young web owners and second for firmly established web owners.

Solution to Newbie Bloggers or Web owners:

Who is a new blogger or web owner?

1. Your Blog or website is just one year old or even younger.
2. Your Blog has a Google PR less than 2.
3. Your Alexa Rank is > 100,000 or less.
4. You receive 100-300 visitors daily.
5. Total number of your posts are less than 60-50.

If you fit into this category and you lost your adsense account, then why are you getting worried? You honestly haven't lost anything! You all know that without 1000-10,000 daily blog visitors, Adsense or any other Ad service is meaning less as you get almost nothing except some cents in a month :P It will take 5-6 months for you to make just $20-50 if you fit in the above category.
So what should be the best solution for you?

You still can make your dream come true and earn a happy living online by taking these steps:

1. Make a new Gmail Account with different Name and Info.
2. Setup a new blogger account with the new Gmail.
3. Import all your Blog Posts. Rewrite all the posts with serious editing. Do not republish those same posts with the same titles and paragraphs. Shuffle all the paragraphs. The best idea is to rewrite the posts in different words. It will only take a week if your posts are no more than 50.  Now delete your Old Blog.
4. If your Gmail is not very old and not crowded, then the best idea is to delete both of them and make a new fresh start. This will hurt you first, but believe me Don't worry this step is smart long term one, it will hurt you at first but you will be in a much better state later.
5. If you want to keep your blogger account and Gmail, then you better set up a upgraded WordPress blog.
6. Don't ever even think of linking to your old blog after you have set up the new one. This will again cause the termination of your new adsense account.

How am I so sure of these steps? 

My own closest friend lost his Adsense Account. He received 16k daily visitors by blogging and online earning articles. He then kept his blog but also set up a blog on WordPress and now he is receiving 2000-3000 visitors on the new blog with $2-4 per day, which is not a bad start up. Hope you give this solution a good thought with a cool mind.

Solution To Well Established Web Owners and Bloggers

Well established web owners and bloggers would never do fraud with Google Adsense. They actually know what this really means. The only reason why they lose their account is the thousands of clicks made on their Ads by their fellow bloggers. We all unfortunately still live in a world of anger, envy and the worst thing i.e, jealousy. But you still have a hope that you can do way better if you give preference to alternatives. Adsense is only the 20% revenue of a blogger. You earn more by direct ads, affiliate ads, offering services and more. Adsense is gone and its not precious. The hours of sweat and tears you shed in bringing your website to a bigger stage will go in vain if you restart. If you will make a fresh start now, you will surely perish in the online world as there are more giants ahead of you. Below I have made the list of 10 best alternatives to Adsense that you can try to expect a more satisfying flow of Income:

1. Chitika
2. AdBrite
3. Infolinks
4. Bidvertiser
5. Pocket Cents
6. Kontera
7. Clicksor
8. Exit Junction
9. Dynamic Oxygen
10. AdBull

My own personal recommendations would be AdBrite, Clicksor and Bidvertiser. But you can choose anyone you like.

So what have you Decided?

Which category do you fit in, established or newbie? I guess it's always better to take a step then not doing anything. What you think of the solutions shared above. If you also have any more solutions then you are most welcome to share it with us. There are always alternatives and solutions behind every problem, what matters the most is that how you face the problem and how much positive you act. Peace and blessings be upon you all and you may be successful.

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Blogger 12:32  No comment

PageRank v.s Alexa Rank? Which One Is Important?

Google has a effective way of ranking the pages present in its index. Google uses this algorithm to rank quality posts first and low quality posts last. But Alexa Ranking is a lot different. Alexa tells how much traffic a site receives and ranks them on this basis. It helps advertisers a lot and a site receives sponsors if it has a low Alexa Rank (Alexa Rank lower means better). A lot of people often mistake that PageRank is better than Alexa and start building links to their sites and forget about Alexa. You won't even believe that some of my fellow bloggers don't even know what Alexa Ranking is!!!! Now this will really affect a site's performance and minimize the earnings of the blogger which then even causes to leave the blog and all thus all their hard work goes in vain.

PageRank and Alexa Rank Series

Part1: PageRank v.s Alexa Rank? Which One Is Important?

Part2: PageRank is Not Important Says Google!

Part3: Killer Tips to Improve Alexa Rank of your Blog!

Part4: 3 Reasons Why Your PageRank is not Increasing!

Google Page Rank

Google PageRank is a page ranking algorithm by Google. PageRank is the backbone of Google and it's one of the major functionality that differentiates Google from other major giants like Yahoo! and Bing. It is a really effective Page Popularity algorithm that keeps track of all incoming and outgoing links to and from a page. Whenever Google Spiders (search robots) crawl your pages, they count the number of incoming and outgoing links. Based only and only on the quality and not quantity of links, the PR algorithm scales sites between values starting from 0 to 10.

SEO Importance of PageRank

Websites and blogs that are recommended to Google via backlinks rank higher in the PR scale and get the benefit of faster crawl and index rate. Sites with higher PR are crawled faster by spiders compared to those with lower PR. For instance a PR 6 page is crawled several times per minute as compared to a PR 4 one.

How it helps Google and Webmasters?

1. It helps Google do justice with authors and ranks pages in Google Search according to their rank.
2. Can help to penalize websites/blogs with duplicate content.
3. Differentiates Google from other major giants like Yahoo! and Bing.
4. Mostly Page Rank is considered a major factor when buying or selling a site.
5. Calculated by Google itself. 
6. Offers a toolbar named 'Google Toolbar' to check the Alexa ranking of a site
7. Helps hard working webmasters receive much traffic by ranking higher and getting indexed faster.

Negative Aspects

1. Updated quite late. To understand when it is updated, read: Google PageRank Update Schedule 2013   
2. People can buy quality backlinks and get good Page Rank.
3. They do not provide a toolbar for even their own Browser i.e, Google Chrome.

Alexa Ranking

Alexa is a web directory and  provides free traffic metrics, search analytics, demographics, and more. Alexa ranking depends upon how many visitors a blog/website gets daily. The lower the Alexa, the better. Because for instance MBT right now has an Alexa Rank of 482,368 which means that 482,367 websites/blogs receive more traffic than MBT. You should never rely on PageRank because its readership what counts first, then rankings come second.

A always aim to share something that is unique and working. If anyone compares ALEXA and PR, then your vote should always favor ALEXA as I do.

How is it helpful?

1. Updated quite sooner.
2. Algorithm and rank calculation is based on a dependable factor i.e Traffic.
3. Offers a toolbar named 'Alexa Toolbar' to check the Alexa ranking of a site.
4. Helps advertisers a lot on selecting the right site for advertising.

Negative Aspects

1. Anyone can use bots to increase Alexa Rank.
2. People become a victim of the false belief i.e. "High PR Means High Traffic and Revenue!"

Conclusion

Observing both the two factors, I guess Alexa Rank is almost a perfect way to describe the success of a blog. I recommend all of you to install the Alexa Toolbar. Actually both are very important to receive handsome sponsorship, attract tons of Advertisers and earn a handsome revenue from your blogs. But your priority should be Readership and Traffic. Then automatically good traffic will help to get a good Alexa Rank as the whole algorithm is based in traffic and with a huge list of subscribers, your PageRank will also boost. I will write the second part of this series tomorrow. Till then Take Care! :)

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Blogger 09:21  No comment

How to Add Google +1 Button to Blogger?

Exams are very very close. Running out of premium set of widgets and tutorials. But as you all know, Google Plus is becoming a very popular social network these days. Just after its release, Google has always emphasized a lot on using its social media more and more. Also now the google+ button has now become a must to add plugin for Bloggers allowing their readers to recommend their content on the web and more to Google! According to Google, this plugin has been released to improve Google's search algorithm and again weed out spam from its roots. It is aimed to make the Search results more relevant and useful. This is another great tool to increase the PR, relevancy and importance of your blog. As Google said, this plugin helps users recommend content to Google and also recommending something to Google means chances for your blog's PR to improve.

Add the Plugin to Blogger

1. Go To Blogger > Template > Edit HTML
2. Backup your template
3. Search for <head>
4. Paste the following code below just above <head> tag,

<script src='http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js' type='text/javascript'></script>

      5.  Now you simply need to add the plugin anywhere you want in your blog.

     6. Check Expand Widget Templates.
     7. Search for <data:post.body/> 
     8. If you wish to add the plugin below the post titles then add this code above  <data:post.body/> and if you wish to add the plugin at the end of your posts then add this code below <data:post.body/>.

<g:plusone expr:href='data:post.url' size='standard'></g:plusone>

• You can change size='standard' medium, small or tall. Choose the size that may blend your template. 

If you want to recommend your blog or your page, add this code,

<g:plusone href='YOUR BLOG OR PAGE URL HERE' size='standard'></g:plusone>

• You can change size='standard' medium, small or tall. Choose the size that may blend your template. 
• Replace YOUR BLOG OR PAGE URL HERE with the URL of your blog.

      9. Save your template to see it working. Have fun! :>

Use MBT HTML Editor to edit the codes and change the sizes.

Any Further Help?

If you are facing any problem in adding the plugin to your blog or facing any difficulty in customizing it, then don't hesitate to ask because you guys know I love it when you post queries. Peace and Blessings :)

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Blogger 08:31  No comment

Add Facebook Like and Send Button To Blogger Blogs

Yesterday while chatting with a friend of mine, I have discovered that even today, some blogs lack this social plugin. When I questioned him that why, he answered me that he didn't know how to add it. So I promised to write a tutorial for him. Recently Facebook has combined both its like and send buttons into a single plugin, making it more easy for webmasters to add both the buttons with a single three lines code. Further more, this code also has an easy option to easily remove the send button by a little editing. Now lets learn to add this beautiful plugin to blogger.

Add The Plugin To Blogger

It depends on where you would like to add the plugin. If you want to add it as a widget to the sidebar, footer etc then follow the tutorial below,

1. Go To Blogger > Layout > Add a Gadget
   
2. Select HTML/javascript
   
3. Now add the following code,
   

<div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like href="" send="true" layout="button_count" width="450" show_faces="false" font=""></fb:like>

• If you wish to hide the send button then set replace send="true" with send="false".

    6.  Hit save and you are done!

If you want to add the plugin below or above your posts, then follow the tutorial below,

1. Go To Blogger > Template > Edit HTML
   
2. Backup your template
   
3. Check  Expand Widget Templates  
   
4. Search for <data:post.body/>
   
5. If you wish to add the plugin below the post titles then add this code above <data:post.body/> and if you wish to add the plugin at the end of your posts then add this code below <data:post.body/>.

<div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"></script><fb:like href="" send="true" layout="button_count" width="450" show_faces="false" font=""></fb:like>

• If you wish to hide the send button then set replace send="true" with send="false".

    6.  Hit save and you are done!

Troubleshooting

If in case this plugin isn't working then add the following code right below the <body> tag,

<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>(function(d, s, id) {
  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
  js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1";
  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script> 

I have written this post in great hurry so if any mistakes are there, then please ignore. If you are facing any problem in the installation or need help customizing the plugin, then please do not hesitate to ask. :)

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Blogger 11:21  No comment

Underscores v.s dashes in URLs | Which is Better?

I really like the way Matt Cutts (head of Google Webspam team) discusses all the SEO Tips that apply to Google and removes each and every misconception and myth that is being wrongly propagated by both the online and offline SEO agencies. I am really proud to say it out loud that Google surely has a great customer service. You and I all write titles while writing any post. You should know that these titles are 88% responsible for driving the traffic towards your blog from the search engines.

Many bloggers don't actually realize that every character in the post title has its own significance and plays a good role in attracting a decent bunch of traffic if chosen wisely. Titles are surely known as the king in SEO terminology no doubt but only if it is highly optimized in terms of its keyword choice, word count limit and use of Special Characters that is our today's topic.

What is an Optimized Title?

A title can only be known as an optimized title only if it has the features stated below,

• Title should only contain 66 characters. For that use: MBT Character Count Tool
• Title should containing simple daily used words. You don't need to use complex Vocabulary and no need to consult a Thesaurus for writing titles. Average internet user always go for words that sound familiar in search results page. 
• Select choice of words from Google Keyword Tool. Ignore the word Tracker
• You can use the following symbols frequently:     -  :   !  ? 
• Use the following symbols rarely:  . &  %  # |
• Never use the long Dash or Underscore i.e.  _
• To write a perfect post title, read this tutorial: How To Write Search Engine Friendly Blog Post Titles?

What Does Google Say About This?

Matt Cutts, the Head of  Google Web spam team and webmaster help suggests that Underscores should always be avoided because the Underscores are normally used by programmers while they are writing algorithms and it often confuses the search robots. He suggested that dashes are much better to act as separators.

What do you think about this? Feel free to post a comment :)

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Blogger 09:40  No comment

Why People Actually Quit Blogging?

There is no need to say that Blogging has really become very popular and 'hot' way of earning money online. While many people keep making a fortune from their blogs just from their living room, a lot of others get discouraged, and really quit blogging. The major reason behind this is that some people actually don't know how to avoid the pitfalls that accompany the field of blogging. Blogging jusr doesn't mean creating content, posting links to Google and earning money in return. There's a lot more to blogging. Take a look at the following reasons why people quit blogging. I hope this will help you to better learn to avoid those obstacles.

No Proper SEO Optimization

A lot of bloggers don't know about how to properly SEO optimize their blogs for users as well as search engines. They fail to increase user experience, reduce load time and make the blog search engine friendly. This results in very little or almost null traffic from search engines. At this point their blog stalls. Hence, most get discouraged. Such people should learn about how to optimize their blog. For better ranking. Keep a close eye on the SEO tutorials published here at MBT as we publish everything that is needed to build a successful blog for yourself. Recommended articles:

• Publish Several Posts Per Day To Increase Traffic!
• Make Homepage Title Appear After Post Title in Blogger
• How To Write Search Engine Friendly Blog Post Titles?
• Optimize Blog Post Title for Better SEO and Increased Traffic

Underestimating the Power of Social Networks

Literally a lot of bloggers underestimate the real power of social media in building blog traffic. They don't know how much beneficial these can prove to be. You can simply can't build a blog by just posting links to Google. They simply just don't use the social channels at all or don't use them properly. Some don't share their content at all via Social Media, whereas others excessively promote their blogs almost to the effect of spamming. Both of these should learn to properly make use of social media for promotion, or all their progress might stall as they will have no fans, regular readers, subscribers etc. which will ultimately lead to quitting of blogging and leaving their blog.

Underestimating the Worth of Readership and Subscribers

Readership and subscribers are the most powerful thing a blog can ever have. If a blogger chooses to ignore his subscribers by not answering their queries, or answering their comments, they will ultimately leave his blog. Hence, the traffic and engagement between the readers and the admin will drop, and the blog will go back to as it was when it was started.

Earning Lust

This is a real trap that everyone even the pros should avoid. This trap can badly ruin any Blogging career. The Blogger gets dreams about making really large sums of money from his new blogs. Now will either steal the focus of the Blogger from his blog itself, or it will induce the blogger to use each and every trick that he can find on the internet to boost his revenue, and this will include stuff like black-hatting, spam back linking, keyword stuffing, hidden text etc. Now you might get away with it for some time and even earn some 500-1000$ but Google eventually will deliver the penalty, from which it is really very hard to recover. Some holes for webmasters made by the Google Panda aren't recovered till today! Hence, a lot of people will quit in such circumstances.

Lack of Original and Quality Content

This is a really becoming a major issue these days. The quality and originality of blogs is reducing and copyright violators are increasing rapidly. Out of 250 million blogs today on the internet, even less than 1 millions blogs have unique, quality content. The two most important ingredients in a blog are originality and then the quality. Lacking even one of these means that a visitor has little interest in the blog. This is main reason behind a lot of bloggers not getting traffic and readership and hence quitting.

Valuing PageRank over Alexa

We have emphasized a lot on how we give more value to Alexa that to PR. Because PageRank just indicates the trust of Google on a website. But Alexa is a more accurate indicator of readership and traffic. But a lot of people keep their focus on PR, and building backlinking and all that kind of stuff, but actually ignore the important part that is building readership, traffic and most importantly Alexa.

Ignoring Trending Topics

One of the basic rules in blogging is to talk about hot stuff. Always post about fresh and hot topics. It is one of the best ways to get traffic and engage your blog readers. Like for instance this post on Google PageRank Update Schedule 2013 got us on total 290 page views in just 4 days which really counts a lot. A lot of blogs simply fail in attracting good traffic from search engines because they don't discuss hot topics and latest news, and readers on that blog always find outdated content. We have talked to our readers about this as well. We got complains from a few readers about covering latest news on Google. This is the answer to them right here. Latest news are a must for any blog.

Act as a Journalist

This is point is from a competitors' stand-point. Try to act like a journalist and try to deliver the news as soon as you heard it. If you deliver the fresh news fast and before your competitors, you will get the maximum effect of your hard work. You will ten attract a decent bunch of traffic. But reality is that a lot of bloggers don't realize this thing which which most of the time makes their posts go just simply unnoticed.

No Goals

As a blogger, you should almost set up monthly goals for your blog that you have to achieve. For example, according to your niche, concentrate on one topic for at least a week, and write about it on all aspects. Or just set a goal to achieve this much subscribers, likes, posts etc. This will develop your blog little by little on all fronts relevant to your niche.

No Six-Month Targets

Another mistake a lot of bloggers make is that they don't have any six-month, or a long-term strategy in mind. If you have taken blogging as more that a hobby, than its important for you to decide where you're going, and where you actually want to go. Creating a strategy or some targets is important, otherwise a blog will surely fail, and this is one of the major reasons why many blogs shutdown.

These days I had been working on making the MBT layout as much compatible with IE and other browsers and also improve the Notification Bar and developing some premium widgets for you people :> So, about this post, are you making any of the above mistakes? And have we missed anything? Do not hesitate to give your suggestions via comments. Cheers :)

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Blogger 13:13  No comment

Publish Several Posts Per Day To Increase Traffic!

This post can turn out to be the biggest change of your blogging career if you apply it seriously for at least a month. What do webmasters dream of? Obviously Traffic because it is the only tool that brings along all other blessings like readership, revenue, Alexa, PageRank and success. Every single day, tutorials are written on How to boost Traffic but yet our this post is also very unique as we aim. In  my blogging experience, I have observed many blogs such as Rafay Hacking Articles receiving thousands of visitors within first few months of their blog release. Neither do they advertise nor invest money anywhere else. So how do they actually do it? I observed their each and every strategy and then just found one simple tip that is the reason behind their 11k+ daily traffic and 14k+ subscribers and that simple golden rule is “Write More to Earn More!”

Yes this is actually the simplest and yet the most key to one of the doors of a successful Blogging career. You should be publishing 5-6 posts a day if you are the only author and 10-13 if there are multiple authors. Because the more posts are published daily, the better the results. 

How Does Good Post Frequency Increase Blog Traffic?

Look around yourself for some huge blogs such as Tech Crunch and Mashable. They publish a lot of posts per day. One after each 3-5 hours. And this is the reason behind these giants occupying a great portion of the online traffic. But you can surely achieve that stage with better planning and time management. If you have a good friend circle then you can ask them to write posts on your blog. Got Money? Hire an Author to publish posts for you while you are away or just for better traffic. After all, the great number of quality articles is what you need to receive your desired traffic, readership and Alexa Rank!

Top 10 Reasons Why You Must Post Frequently!

This is how this simple yet most effective trick actually works:

1. Robots visit blogs depending on how often the blog is updated. The faster a blog is updated, the faster it is crawled and indexed by Search Engines. This increases the blog's crawl and index rate.
2. Since there is a huge competition even amongst search engines themselves, they always keep looking into more and more updated content and this boosts the blog's crawl and index rate.
3. By posting more, your blog starts becoming an encyclopedia for Google and the other search engines where they can find variety of topics.
4. The smaller your number of posts and posting frequency, the smaller you get in the eyes of search engine robots.
5. Robots will more likely start loving your blog when you will provide them with a lot of posts to crawl otherwise you will get penalized if you turn lazy.
6. When you will post more, your readers will remain active and would visit your blog almost on daily basis and read your feeds and posts. This will multiply your Page views, page impressions and ad clicks. This will result in a handsome revenue also from ads.
7. The only and only thing with which you can beat any competitor is by turning your blog into an Encyclopedia of your selected Topic(s). Remember the weakest point of a competitor  is always his laziness so make this your strength and burst him with tonnes of articles daily and grab all his readers and traffic. That is surely legal!
8. When you will update more, your readership would surely increase because readers would often like check back to see what you have to share again. And believe me, subscribers mean a lot!
9. Frequent updates just like increase subscribers, when shared on Twitter and Facebook will surely expand your followers list and likes.
10. Your Traffic will boost tremendously thus resulting in a lot of increase in ALEXA Rank.

How To Choose a Posting Plan For Your Blog?

If you have thought to take blogging seriously then you must keep your Blogging goals in mind and then decide which of the suggestions below best fits your needs,

1. For Rapid Boost In Traffic: A posting strategy of 3-5 times a day is considered the best for Power Bloggers. Publish 4-6 times per day to drive tremendous flow of Traffic.
2. For Steady Boost In Traffic: Publish at least Once a Day.
3. For Slower Boost In Traffic: Publish 3-4 times per week. This campaign suits those who blog as a hobby and with no goals in mind.

So which Plan Did You Choose?

Another Blogging Secret revealed in this post :>. Do let me know how you find this new yet very useful information. I would love to know which Post frequency Plan will you adopt to achieve what you always dreamt of. Cheers! :>

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Blogger 07:29  1 comment

Google PageRank Update 4th February 2013

The color of the Green Google Toolbar has once again changed. PageRank which is indeed a great link analysis algorithm has been refreshed and updated and websites and blogs are now being ranked again on the scale of 0-10 based on the quality of their backlinks. This latest Google PageRank update took place today i.e. 4th February 2013 as expected. Google rolls out a PR update on quarterly basis as mentioned before. The last update was on November 2012 and just after three months a new update has been now rolled out. This is the first PR update of 2013.

What is PageRank?

It dates way back to 1998 when Larry Page and Sergey brin first brought their paper formula's to public. From here Google took the idea of ranking pages. PageRank is the backbone of Google and it's one of the major functionality that differentiates Google from other major giants like Yahoo! and Bing. It is a really effective Page Popularity algorithm that keeps track of all incoming and outgoing links to and from a page. Whenever Google Spiders (search robots) crawl your pages, they count the number of incoming and outgoing links. Based only and only on the quality and not quantity of links, the PR algorithm scales sites between values starting from 0 to 10.

SEO Importance of PageRank

Websites and blogs that are recommended to Google via backlinks rank higher in the PR scale and get the benefit of faster crawl and index rate. Sites with higher PR are crawled faster by spiders compared to those with lower PR. For instance a PR 6 page is crawled several times per minute as compared to a PR 4 one.

Should you Rely too Much on PageRank?

I have always advised new bloggers and even my co-bloggers to rely only on their post frequency and quality of their topic selection of the posts. Its readership what counts first, then rankings come second. If you want your pages to hit high on Google's first page, then you must focus a lot on only trending topics. I advise you to always think and act as a journalist and never share out-dated news.

Always be unique in your own style and keep sharing content that may offer something new and different. There is no need of wasting time on writing posts on out-dated news that everyone knows.

We have always aimed to share something that is unique and working for us. As people are always in search of working secrets, we also have a priority list which I have made below:

1. Readership First          (Posting quality content)
2. Traffic Second             (Posting quality content frequently)
3. ALEXA Third             (Good Traffic & again Posting quality content frequently)
4. PageRank Fourth         (Write less but write best)

Revenue, trust and respect in the eyes of online community rely mostly on your readership. You all know that no one can judge how much traffic your website receives per day. But if we really have to compare ALEXA and PR, then my vote will always favour ALEXA.

In short I would say always do try your best to get a good PageRank only for the purpose of achieving good crawl and index rate. Also never ever become a victim of the false belief i.e. "High PR Means High Traffic and Revenue!"

Next update?

To know when the next Google PR Update(s) will take place. Be sure to check out our old schedule:

• Google PageRank Update Schedule 2013 

What's your PR Status?

This is quite a late post for this news as the one had been accidentally deleted. Anyways don't forget to tell us your PageRank status? Feel free to ask for any suggestions if they're needed. If your PR dropped then don't loose hope and keep working on your unique content and you will surely get it :>. If in case your PR increased then you should utilize it extra carefully and avoid all the bad practices.  I wish all of you the best. Wish you more power buddies. Peace and blessings always! :)

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Blogger 05:39  2 comments

How To Post HTML Code In Blogger Comments Form?

 

Sometimes while writing tutorials or asking questions, it becomes very necessary to post html and Javascript codes in your blog comment forms powered by Blogger for asking questions.You would have seen many authors posting HTML effectively in Blogger comments but when some of you try to do it, you get an error. This is actually because Blogger Comment form doesn't support direct posting of HTML and JavaScript in comments. In order to allow you to do so, we will have to encode the same HTML code into entities and then we will be able to post it effectively without any error. Even sometimes developing some unique widgets or templates, it becomes necessary to encode the HTML.

So for that purpose, after a lot of trial and error, I have developed a tool below which will help you to change HTML code to HTML entities, which will then allow you to post HTML easily and effectively inside your blogger template and comment form. You can also use it to convert your Adsense code into an embeddable form which will also allow you to insert it inside posts. It converts special characters in this way,

• '<' becomes '&lt;'
• '>' becomes '&gt;'
• '"' (double quote) becomes '&quot;'
• ''' (single quote) becomes '&#039;'
• '&' becomes '&amp;'

MBT HTML ENCODER: Start Converting Now!

© My Blogging Tricks

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Blogger 04:52  No comment

Disadvantages Of "Blogger Template Designer" Templates

A new feature that is getting very popular and is being commonly used by newbie bloggers getting very popular is Blogger Template Designer. But also a question asked even today by many bloggers using templates provided by Blogger is that: "Should you use the Blogger Template Designer provided by Blogger to design templates?" The most logical answer to this question of you guys is that what seems attractive from outside doesn't necessarily has to be attractive from the inside also. The beautifully designed templates that many bloggers have started using though seem good in look and feel and are really easy to edit using the "Template Designer" functionality in Blogger but there are some serious drawbacks and problems linking to them which you must know before using this. The beautifully designed templates that many bloggers have started using though seem good in look and feel and are really easy to edit using the "Template Designer" functionality in Blogger but there are some serious drawbacks and problems linking to them which you must know before using this.

Before having knowledge of CSS and HTML even I used official blogger templates and used the "Template Designer". The template surely seemed good in look and feel but when I started to implement HTML and CSS tricks on the template by Edit HTML option, I found horrible codes in my template that in no way related to normal HTML and CSS codes. This is how this blog looked at that time.

(click on image to enlarge)

It's is hideous as blogger templates are but has a much more better look than Official Blogger Templates. This is the outside now what about the inside. I have listed all below.

Excessive Use Of Dynamic Coding & Variables

As you all know that Blogger Templates are designed using CSS and HTML and programmed with XML and JavaScript. All unofficial and official templates use these basic languages to create a blogger template. These codes  are easy to edit, understand and can be played with. Every MBT tool and tutorial is based on this basic coding. The new Blogger templates are however using a bit more difficult and complex dynamic language which is reason behind why blogger provided this new feature to its users for easy editing options i.e. They can easily edit the font colors, sizes, link colors, background colors etc using the Template Designer Tool. Though it may sound good but the drawback of these auto options is very serious and your entire template CSS properties are declared variables.

• A variable links several parts of your style sheet or CSS together and if you change that variable value, the effect will then be applied to each and every CSS class linked. In short for Newbie bloggers and even for us, editing the template becomes really tough as you don't see any constant values rather weird symbols like the ones in my template:

.header-outer {
  background: $(header.background.color) $(header.background.gradient) repeat-x scroll top left;
  _background-image: none;

  color: $(header.text.color);

  -moz-border-radius: $(header.border.radius);
  -webkit-border-radius: $(header.border.radius);
  -goog-ms-border-radius: $(header.border.radius);
  border-radius: $(header.border.radius);
}

.Header img, .Header #header-inner {
  -moz-border-radius: $(header.border.radius);
  -webkit-border-radius: $(header.border.radius);
  -goog-ms-border-radius: $(header.border.radius);
  border-radius: $(header.border.radius);
}

.header-inner .Header .titlewrapper,
.header-inner .Header .descriptionwrapper {
  padding-left: $(header.padding);
  padding-right: $(header.padding);
}

.Header h1 {
  font: $(header.font);
  text-shadow: 1px 1px 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3);
}

.Header h1 a {
  color: $(header.text.color);
}

.Header .description {
  font-size: 130%;
}

The above class is the CSS code for styling the Header.  You can clearly see the variables are indicated by the dollar sign ($) Now suppose if you wish to edit the background image or color of your header, how can you change or set the values when everything is in variables and everything is almost the same!! I am not saying no one can edit that. Of course you can do it if you have some prior knowledge of web languages but this would be difficult to new bloggers and even us!

• Also the widget code is also programmed with a lot different tag i.e, the Macro:param tag. See this code of the sidebar of my blog,

<aside>
          <macro:include id='main-column-left-sections' name='sections'>
            <macro:param default='0' name='num' value='0'/>
            <macro:param default='sidebar-left' name='idPrefix'/>
            <macro:param default='sidebar' name='class'/>
            <macro:param default='true' name='includeBottom'/>
          </macro:include>
          </aside>

This way the sidebar can be easily edited directly using "Template designer" but really difficult to understand for us as the the widgets are programmed with <b:section> tags which was easy to understand and replace as compared to Macro:param tag.

• Further more, even the simple tags like <body> had been messed up into something like this,

<body expr:class='&quot;loading&quot; + data:blog.mobileClass'>

In all blogger tutorials we and all others always mention <body> tag and it had turn a headache for new bloggers to find the same <body> tag in the new template designs.

Conclusion:

These were the reasons which led me to switch towards a custom blogger template. This is why in a nut shell as a web designer myself, I can only advise you all to kindly stick to custom templates which are far better coded and optimized compared to official blogger templates. With custom templates coded by third-party designers, you have complete command over your layout coding and don't have to rely on the Template Designer Tool to do the designing for you. Moreover, you can apply all blogger tutorial tricks to your custom templates easily and can better implement them. I really felt it important to discuss this topic as most of you were facing problems in applying the tutorials and tricks. Hope this post makes things more clear to you. Good Luck!

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Blogger 10:32  No comment