Building readership or the audience is the main concern of any blogger. It is really challenging to build considerable amount of good audience . And not to forget, there is no shortcut to build traffic instantaneously.

Many firms around the world , promise to generate the traffic for your website or blog. These methods are not going to work in long term and you will also have the risk of your blog being banned completely from the web sphere.

How To choose a blog title ?

Blog titles are really important in building regular visitors. If your blog name has following things in the blog name, It is unlikely to attract international, or the permanent visitors.

- Your name in blog domain name

- Country specific domains

- Domain name which is completely unrelated to blog title

So, think , spend sufficient amount of time in giving name to your blog.

How To Monetize your blog?

Monetize or in other words, publicizing your blog is the next step. We will explain each of these methods in detail

Search Engines: Search engines play major role in building traffic to your blog.  As an example, 90% of the visitors to this website land from search engines. Assuming that you have good content in your blog, you will get good traffic from search engines.

When we talk about search engines, obviously Google is the first thing which comes to our  mind. Submitting your blog to Google can be done by registering to Google Webmaster Tools

Before submitting your blog to Search engines, it is important to consider the following points , and make sure that they are in place

- A proper sitemap.

- Posts , content in the website have meta keyword descriptions.

- RSS feed.

- robots.txt file in the root directory, with appropriate permissions for the crawlers.

- Website is up and running, and none of the pages return 404 error.

Once the website is verified, Google starts indexing your contents. Submitting your blog to other search engines are all similar. Important search engines  : Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu and Yandex.

Blog Directories :  blog directories act similar to the search engines. Many people do search for the information in plenty of blog directories, and the probability of your blog is being read by other people in the blog network is high. Blog directories help you to build the network with other bloggers also good number of backlinks to your blog.

Many people do write comment on the blog posts, give feedback on the posts.  Some of the popular blog networks are

- Techorati

- Indiblogger

- Networked Blogs

Blog directories provide a platform to understand how good is your blog performing in the web world. Technorati rates the blogs based on relevancy of your blog posts with respect to the discussions that are happening in the blog sphere. This rating is called, Technorati Authority for the blog, higher is the technorati authority  number, better is the blog. You can as well monitor your Blog Rank , among the blogs that are present in Technorati.

Indiblogger does provide a similar feature, they call it as IndiRank.  IndiRank is number between 0 – 100 , they rate your blog based on the Alexa Rank of your blog, MoziRank , Number  of Juice Passing links and the post frequency.

Feedburner , Twitter and Facebook integration:  Once you have sitemap in place, you can register to your blog to feedburner. Most of the blog directories fetch your posts as feeds, so it is important to integrate your blog with feedburner. Register Here and follow the step by step instructions.

Feedburner provides multiple options to socialize your blog.

- Enabling tweets to be updated automatically once the feed is updated

- Enabling email subscriptions to your blog

- Send email updates to your subscribers

For Facebook integration, you can login to Networked Blogs  with your Facebook username and passwords. Provided you have a Facebook page for your blog, you can easily make networked blogs to update the post details as soon as you update the blog, on the wall of your Facebook page.

Other Important tips

If you have done all the steps specified above,  be patient and wait . Continually  monitor all the above tools to see if there are any issues , if there are fix them immediately. Focus on

- Writing quality contents to the readers

- Try not to copy from other blogs

- Write valuable comments on other blogs

- Choosing right layout for the blog is equally important

We provided these tips based on our online experience, We are still learning! We will provide much more details in the upcoming days .

In this post i have a brand new set of stylish icons you can use on your blog for readers to subscribe and follow you on social platforms.I really liked the look of this icon set and it includes an icon for Google + (Plus) you can use for people to check out and follow you on Google's new social network.In total i have four icons here for Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and your Rss Feed.However the complete set has 24 icons for other sites including YouTube, LinkedIn and Stumble Upon, the complete set can be found on Social Icon Studio.

Live Preview

Use The New Social Icons On Your Blog

Step 1. In Your Blogger dashboard click Design > Add a gadget > Choose Html/Javascript





Step 2. Copy and paste the following code into the html gadget then make the changes shown below.

<a href="http://facebook.com/geekyvalley" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV5yoeKru2XcyxqKa8tgeudMHjc2p5_tQrya7IrjAJF7K3ept3RUcd4ZQrS1sDogcSXy7UCrmgFLfDR3jEJmrdD5cW415aXhyphenhyphenUeXbgs2IGr7tL783l7lPyAZMGYBxGM-9tka_GJ0GMnCE/s1600/facebook-30x43.png" /></a><a href="http://twitter.com/GeekyValley" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwFyOF8aZjd9VSraWqYrYTyjvIPcQzWuq5tY9FWX-JM-iM8Uyy1A1Tj2-RFx5uQx41nPZVEotckRtL4IOdqHqcQ_yvlgnIyuhnHpIu9j-RlFeFtYroPskKJFZkhN-i-cZ9FfLOperHrtM/s1600/twitter-30x43.png" /></a><a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/117023786342362231815/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGC4CSOTmvfUFSPHx_iOfxg2Qaog0YPNGlUohXhttXnGwtq5VuwgIWRuSsUVHb73EIzjzwunKeR0woDnqY5y8EbmaFxC7USvJQcYeJVd83Y0nsfjDniNXfDV0IpFaYhAs529ExAPZfFiE/s1600/googleplus-30x43.png" /></a><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/GeekyValley" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmm-eLWIR_K5f6TTPHCVbcEurRfP9jF7KE8VaMKxlNAfHMLVSDNK08XGQhs6zcoBZE3ZkSVb1xfhhm-9PCRwbuMaWgAN8pT6YWAh_cuF3GfhKxebsy1ZRKETZv_7m5ktPh7HV1MaqyddE/s1600/rss-30x43.png" /></a>

Note - Change the links in yellow to your social and feed links.

Step 3. Save the gadget and your done.

Drop Your Comments And Questions Below.

Over the years on Spice Up Your Blog i have found Social Bookmarking gadgets to be amongst the most popular posts.Whats more the most popular Bookmarking gadgets have been from the "Sharing Is Sexy" series.Back in May 2011 we published a post with The Awesome Complete Animated Sexy Social Bookmarks V3 For Blogger, that post really did cover all options.Today i want to give you something similar but with some cool extras.The Shareaholic bookmarking widget still has the "Drop Down" and "Slide Up" features but also features tool tips and counters showing how many times your posts were shared.Take a look at the demo and screenshot below (for the demo scroll to the foot of the post on the test blog).

 

Add The jQuery Slide Bookmarking Gadget To Your Blog

Remember Always Back Up Your Template Before You Make Changes -

Step 1. In Your Blogger Dashboard Click Design > Edit Html > Tick The Expand Widget Templates Box

Step 2. Find the following piece of code in your blogs Html : (Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code 

]]></b:skin>

Step 3. Copy and Paste the following code Directly Above / Before ]]></b:skin>

div.shr-bookmarks{margin:20px 0 8px;clear:both !important;display:block !important}div.shr-bookmarks ul.shr-socials{width:100% !important;margin:0 !important;padding:0 !important;float:left !important}div.shr-bookmarks ul.shr-socials{background:transparent none !important;border:0 none !important;outline:0 none !important}div.shr-bookmarks ul.shr-socials li{display:inline !important;float:left !important;list-style-type:none !important;padding:0 !important;height:29px !important;width:60px !important;cursor:pointer !important;margin:3px 0 0 !important;background-color:transparent !important;border:0 none !important;outline:0 none !important;clear:none !important}div.shr-bookmarks ul.shr-socials li:before,div.shr-bookmarks ul.shr-socials li:after,div.shr-bookmarks ul.shr-socials li a:before,div.shr-bookmarks ul.shr-socials li a:after{content:'' !important;}div.shr-bookmarks ul.shr-socials a,div.shr-bookmarks ul.shr-socials a:hover{display:block !important;width:60px !important;height:29px !important;text-indent:-9999px !important;background-color:transparent !important;text-decoration:none !important;border:0 none !important}div.shr-bookmarks ul.shr-socials a:hover,div.shr-bookmarks ul.shr-socials li:hover{background-color:transparent !important;border:0 none !important;outline:0 none !important}.shareaholic-show-on-load{display: block !important;}div.shr-bookmarks div.shr-getshr{line-height:20px !important;padding-left:8px !important;float:left !important;}div.shr-bookmarks div.shr-getshr a{width:auto !important;font-size:10px !important; text-indent:0px !important;text-decoration:none !important;}div.shr-count{font:12px bold,arial !important;position: relative !important;}div.shr-count-outline{position: absolute !important;color: white !important;}div.shr-count-center{position: absolute !important;color: blue !important;}li.shr-2{background-position:-120px bottom !important}li.shr-2:hover{background-position:-120px top !important}li.shr-3{background-position:-180px bottom !important}li.shr-3:hover{background-position:-180px top !important}li.shr-5{background-position:-300px bottom !important}li.shr-5:hover{background-position:-300px top !important}li.shr-7{background-position:-420px bottom !important}li.shr-7:hover{background-position:-420px top !important}li.shr-10{background-position:-600px bottom !important}li.shr-10:hover{background-position:-600px top !important}li.shr-38{background-position:-2280px bottom !important}li.shr-38:hover{background-position:-2280px top !important}li.shr-40{background-position:-2400px bottom !important}li.shr-40:hover{background-position:-2400px top !important}li.shr-43{background-position:-2580px bottom !important}li.shr-43:hover{background-position:-2580px top !important}li.shr-52{background-position:-3120px bottom !important}li.shr-52:hover{background-position:-3120px top !important}li.shr-74{background-position:-4440px bottom !important}li.shr-74:hover{background-position:-4440px top !important}li.shr-88{background-position:-5280px bottom !important}li.shr-88:hover{background-position:-5280px top !important}li.shr-106{background-position:-6360px bottom !important}li.shr-106:hover{background-position:-6360px top !important}li.shr-201{background-position:-12060px bottom !important}li.shr-201:hover{background-position:-12060px top !important}li.shr-219{background-position:-13140px bottom !important}li.shr-219:hover{background-position:-13140px top !important}

Step 4. Find the following piece of code in your blogs Html : (Click Ctrl and F for a search bar to help find the code 

<div class='post-footer'>

Step 5. Now Copy And Paste This Code Directly Below / After <div class='post-footer'>

<!--Start Ssocial Bookmarks from http://www.spiceupyourblog.com -->

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>

<div class='shr_class shareaholic-show-on-load'>
</div>
<script type='text/javascript'>
var SHRSB_Settings = {&quot;shr_class&quot;:{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;http://www.shareaholic.com/media/css/styles/sb&quot;,&quot;link&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;service&quot;:&quot;5,7,2,38,3,219,43,52,201,88,74,10,106,45,40,210,78,39&quot;,&quot;apikey&quot;:&quot;6ffe2cbf142c45bd4cd03b01ec46b8658&quot;,&quot;localize&quot;:true,&quot;shortener&quot;:&quot;google&quot;,&quot;shortener_key&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;designer_toolTips&quot;:true,&quot;twitter_template&quot;:&quot;Some fancy post title - http://goo.gl/dbqlx via @paulcrowepro&quot;}};
</script>

<script type='text/javascript'>
(function() {
var sb = document.createElement(&quot;script&quot;); sb.type = &quot;text/javascript&quot;;sb.async = true;
sb.src = (&quot;https:&quot; == document.location.protocol ? &quot;https://dtym7iokkjlif.cloudfront.net&quot; : &quot;http://cdn.shareaholic.com&quot;) + &quot;/media/js/jquery.shareaholic-publishers-sb.min.js&quot;;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(&quot;script&quot;)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(sb, s);
})();
</script><a href='http://www.spiceupyourblog.com/' target='_blank'>Blogger Social Bookmark Gadget</a></b:if>
<!-- End Social Bookmarks from http://www.spiceupyourblog.com -->

Important :

Change paulcrowepro in red with your twitter username, if you dont have a twitter username please remove paulcrowepro and leave it blank.

The two sections of code in yellow make the gadget only appear below your posts on the post pages not the home page.If you want the gadget to appear on your home page remove the two snippets.

Step 6. That's it save your template and check out your cool new gadget.

Credit for the original version of this goes to Shareaholic.

Drop Your Comments And Questions Below.

 

Guest Blogging has become hugely popular over the last few years.It is also hugely beneficial for both the guest submitting the post and the blogger publishing the post.The main benefit for the guest blogger lies in their work being shown to a new and often larger audience and of course those ever so valuable backlinks in the author bio section at the foot of their post.Indeed many articles have been written on the benefit of becoming a guest author and strategies in writing and submitting guest posts.

But what about the other side of the coin, the blogger looking to publish guest posts.Here i want to look at my personal experience as a blogger going from wondering if the link to submit guest posts on my blog was working to receiving up to 50 posts and enquires weekly.While it's fantastic having such an interest from bloggers all over the world in contributing, not all submissions have your blogs best interests in mind.I have probably only actually published between ten or twenty percent of posts submitted.

As the number of guest post submissions increased i realised i needed a system to deal them.I also realised i needed a strict policy and set of rules.

First i have 4 basic Guest Post rules.

1. Post must be on topic with your blog - On my blog that covers blogging tips and tutorials i have received posts on topics as far afield as Picking a cellphone to buying a used car.While you may think its easier to just ignore emails with such posts you may end up wasting time opening follow up emails, i reply with simply "No Thanks post is totally off topic".In one case a blogger has accidentally sent me the wrong post and the post that was written for my blog was subsequently published so do reply.

2. Post must have no links in the body - The accepted rule in guest posts is two Do-Follow links for the author in the foot of the post.However i have received countless posts stuffed with links to the authors sites.Of course there are exceptions, some posts use references that will require a link.In such cases links advance the post and are not an author looking to benefit.Recently i have been contacted by writers for SEO company's that submit

3. Quality - I know when i started to receive guest posts it was exciting in the same way as the first few comments you receive as a new blogger.This can lead you to perhaps letting your standards drop in an effort to publish those first few guest posts.However i feel you need to be strict when it comes to quality right from the start.If I'm unsure of a post i will delay replying and take a second look the following day, i find on a second read i usually know if it's up to scratch or not.

4. Exclusive - Every guest post much be original and not published anywhere else.Posts should be written for your blog and your audience.One post sticks in my mind when it comes to this.I read a post submitted for my blog and was extremely impressed but i had a feeling i had seen it before.I copied a few of the main phrases from the post and popped them into Google and sure enough when i searched i found the post published previously numerous times.

In Search Of Backlinks

One of the trends i have seen recently is SEO company's hiring writers to submit guest posts to blogs.Webmasters and Bloggers hire SEO company's to help their sites performance on search engines.One of the best ways for an SEO to do this is by building backlinks to their clients site.We all know building backlinks is not easy, even for experienced SEO's.With this in mind SEO's have taken advantage of the Guest Post.Writers create and submit posts with the sole purpose of linking to the clients website.

I guess this would not necessarily be a bad thing if the posts were quality and did not break any of the 4 rules above.But i have found these posts are written with the sole purpose of building links, not providing information to my readers.The posts are often off topic, stuffed with keywords connected to the site they link to and contain links in the main content.Indeed many posts submitted by these writers will have an external link in the first paragraph and no author bio, a real indication of the posts purpose.

Don't Be Afraid To Edit

Once you have received a post you are happy to publish it does not need to be a direct copy and paste, remember you have the final say on how it's published.Don't be afraid to make changes to the title or content if you think it will improve the finished article.

Saving Time

As mentioned i receive many Emails from potential guest writers.Replying to each individually can become very time consuming.With that in mind i have a collection of messages ready to copy and paste into my reply.Then all i have to do is add the name of the recipient and extra info if needed.

These include :

• A reply message to original enquires.
• A reply message accepting a guest post.
• A reply message declining a guest post.

This is an example of a reply message to original enquires :

Hi Name,

Thanks for getting in contact.

I'm always looking for quality guest posts so feel free to submit a post in the format your most comfortable with.

You will receive 2 links in the author bio section, but links (Unless necessary to the post) can not be added to the main content.

Further details can be found here - Link To Your Guidelines Page .

Regards,

Name.

Guest Posts can be a fantastic content resource, But don't lower your standards or let your blog become a link farm for cunning SEO's.

Drop Your Comments And Questions Below.

Till now many social bookmarking widgets has been released for Blogger. Simply, social bookmarking buttons and icons helps you to make your blog socialize and get more traffic. Adding social bookmarking buttons is cool way to get more readers and targeted audience.

Before using social bookmarking option, you must be aware of icons design how much clickable is it. Your readers are likely to click social bookmarking button containing in your blog if they find the buttons really cool. If you haven't such buttons, so here is something special for you.

Social bookmarking buttons with spinning hover effect. Buttons are cool itself and when your reader hover the mouse over it, it spins a round.

Check the demo yourself!

Here is how to add these cool buttons to your Blogger blog:

Login to Blogger > Design > Edit HTML > Expand widget templates. Find the following code in your template:

<data:post.body/>

Just below that add the following group of codes:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<div class='spinning_icons'>
<a class='twitter' expr:data-text='data:post.title' expr:data-url='data:post.url' href='http://twitter.com/share' rel='nofollow' target='_blank' title='Twitter'>Twitter</a>
<a class='delicious' expr:href='&quot;http://del.icio.us/post?url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank' title='Delicious'>Delicious</a>
<a class='digg' expr:href='&quot;http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&amp;url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank' title='Digg'>Digg</a>
<a class='facebook' expr:href='&quot;http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank' title='Facebook'>Facebook</a>
<a class='stumbleupon' expr:href='&quot;http://www.stumbleupon.com/refer.php?url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank' title='Stumbleupon'>Stumbleupon</a>
<a class='rss' href='http://feeds.feedburner.com/hacktutors' target='_blank' title='RSS'>RSS</a>
</div>
</b:if>

Replace hacktutors with your feedburner username. Again, find the following code:

]]></b:skin>

Just above that code, past the following:

.spinning_icons a{
    width:48px;
    height:48px;
    display:inline-block;
    text-indent:-9999em;
    background-position:0 0;
    background-repeat:no-repeat;
    z-index:2000;
    overflow:hidden;
}
.twitter{ background:url('https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK1CWLy9SVhmEc_d0mTBPnp0aSe5qnipfm3FWSNQaQltJC_1xhG6bjxMwnmAB5JO6MjuWnMtJ-hyoL6BFrQsT4Xsa4s0S5kwJcwAxaEGnQYBKqEvGno6Ny3asBzWjxI2KdCiQuw5kr2XI/s1600/twitter_32.png'); }
.delicious{ background:url('https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV9IW7uyC9Lw6xc9vgNnMf_jCUTpDa4grVYy1zkjlHENrfck_-Sxn_qqPL_xV759Br1Cj-i7QVusiVtARYTUCWJCJF6vw-bjrgNF6-OqRuNvLO8D-oDoZurB708cP9bdmwpqhnsrTxl8c/s1600/delicious_32.png'); }
.digg{ background:url('https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguvA9dx7XCbYq0-aNp1oopssUsaE7KMzBXiDEZPKDESJpcJvKXsKTfAwjpQrse5Z8DxooX5hyphenhyphenHbiaCJQwRopcQ-0tJ6kURhWos0Uulg3_G8mCeZxSi_9y_87fd-4uf4Fjb2o-9qwPq9VE/s1600/digg_32.png'); }
.facebook{ background:url('https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ORQgtNUhwDon6f1-wWEWYdHlEDvxhcMqqGU025XMc75p4VSyg71Mianlkf6zwaAdAAUcF_XZioyRPNEGz0CR2QhPAdHQ4NFf1wNCq96ve3D6QtVAPm7P65ds77OODM7s0wZTGg0jt9s/s1600/facebook_32.png'); }
.rss{ background:url('https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnouivnK8IW6crU12gF6mTR6ZDsVvBcclEdHKFD4nmQqfb8NXQihfP-aglSnRr3lBbFTls9YG6ASIgVd7mttBnH9cE39hWQJLHteYFoHemkYXnh2THBKnEqLCAoN1tJrEbCbKP4NbLkKE/s1600/rss_32.png'); }
.stumbleupon{ background:url('https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhek9k4ySmsM4IB8-SdAL6NPCPtK7ttXlPAShW-_OIG51aY3huKhH10HsyDoC8KGHDWePQrvJBtSgYKFYNi08h7jUBqTv09JZybCRncRQ5mO3ccbb_lE5WOcLL7SJXc-9afHRzt2nOjMp4/s1600/stumbleupon_32.png'); }
.spinning_icons a:hover{
    transform: rotate(360deg);
    -webkit-transform: rotate(360deg);
        -moz-transform: rotate(360deg);
    transition: transform 0.2s ease-out;
    -webkit-transition: -webkit-transform 0.2s ease-out;
        -moz-transition: -moz-transform 0.2s ease-out;
}

Now save the template and your are done! Have a look at your cool new bookmarking button that appears at the bottom of your post.