Everything You Need To Know About Becoming A Successful Blogger

If you are into blogosphere then you must have heard this saying that , "Behind every Successful Blogger there is lots of ...... " (obviously!)

So today I am going to tell you how to Become A Successful Blogger, well that title itself seems like a joke but really it is a honest question that almost everyone new to blogging or blogosphere have in their mind.

Becoming successful is not a one night work, you have to put yourself to fire and and invest a lot of time in this field to become successful. Do you know that all these successful bloggers you hear about now started blogging earlier when there is not much craze about this thing and today they are famous because of the articles they wrote back then. Here it is important to note that Investing Time is the key factor and you are no exception.

Check the infographic below by TWBG to know about tips and tricks to follow and get on the path of becoming a successful blogger.

And yes, now can you fill in the blank of that saying above?

Don't forget to share the article on social media as well as share your views in comments!

THE INFOGRAPHIC

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How To Fix XML Parsing Errors In Blogger and Wordpress?

Most often when you insert a Facebook JavaScript or AdSense JavaScript in your blogger template editor, you often come across XML Parsing errors that prompts and says "The reference to entity "version" must end with the ';' delimiter." Blogger blogs are coded in XHTML and  XML is quite strict in following correct syntax formatting than HTML. XML is surely unforgiving in this case. Blogger interprets all your document as XML rather than as HTML. XML is PCDATA (Parsed Character Data) by default which means that XML parsers will normally parse all the text in a document. As a result when we insert JavaScript inside blogspot templates, all script inside the JavaScript tags is treated as a text and due to the presence of some illegal special characters like "<" , ">" and "&" , you often face the following error:

Error parsing XML, line 1458, column 64: The reference to entity "version" must end with the ';' delimiter.

What are the special characters in XML that causes error?

XML is a human readable form of textual data. It parses all the text in a document and gives errors for the following 5 special characters:

1. (<)  - less than
2. (&) - ampersand
3. (>) - greater than
4. (")  - double-quote
5. (')  - apostrophe or single-quote

The following three are more crucial:

• "<" will generate an error because the parser interprets it as the start of a new element.
• ">" will generate an error because the parser interprets it as the end of a start-tag or an end-tag
• "&" will generate an error because the parser interprets it as the start of a character entity.

Two ways to fix XML errors in Blogger

XML errors can be avoided by using two methods:

1. Use CDATA
2. Escape HTML entities

1. Use CDATA
The term CDATA refers to (Unparsed) Character Data which is used about text data that should not be parsed by the XML parser. To avoid errors, all script code is enclosed inside a CDATA section. Everything inside a CDATA section including the 5 special characters is ignored by the parser.
A CDATA section starts with "<![CDATA[" and ends with "]]>":
Next time when you add your Facebook code, enclose it inside CDATA as shown below:

 
<script>      
//<![CDATA[
(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/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3&appId=";       
  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);       
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); 

//]]>          
</script>

All your script code will exists inside the CDATA and blogger editor will not parse the script code and thus wont give any errors.
The reason why Facebook script gives errors in blogger is due to the presence of a special character (&) that is used before the variable "version" as highlighted in the code above. "&" will generate an error because the XML parser interprets it as the start of a character entity and thus it prompts an error that says:

The reference to entity "version" must end with the ';' delimiter.

2. Escape HTML entities
Another simple method is to escape all 5 special characters and instead use the legal characters as alternatives to the above 5.

• Replace < with &lt;
• Replace  > with &gt;
• Replace  "  with &quot;
• Replace  '  with &#039;
• Replace  & with &amp;

PS: Note how every alternative character set ends with a delimiter (;)
This method will help you encode your AdSense code and paste it inside your template without errors. It will also help you paste HTML code inside blogger comments!
This method is also called as HTML encoding and we have built a Special tool for this purpose to help you encode HTML characters with ease.To use the tool simply scroll down to comment box and click conversion, a box will appear paste all your code there and click convert. Your code will be converted.

Need Help?

I hope now you will be able to add social media plugins and third party scripts inside your blogger templates without any errors. Do let me know if you need any further assistance or clarification on any point. Would love to give a hand buddies! =)

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[Fixed] Wrong Page Ranking For An Important Keyword?

Let’s assume that your site has ranked for a keyword you’ve aiming. This is brilliant news, right?  Of course, it is!  But what if the page that is ranking finishes up being unrelated.

You certainly met something like this when you googled something – the first few outcomes that came up looked feasible, but for other reason, one of the top labels didn’t look like a good fit. If the page doesn’t reply to your query, that means the wrong page is ranking for that particular keywords, and it is generally not intentional.

This is not a good sign, because if the page presented does not effectively represent the query, then

1. It can adversely affect your click-through rate and conversion rate and traffic because of an unsuitable title or description.

2. Receiving the wrong page and not finding relevant things, your newly-arrived persons are likely to jump out from your site without converting.

So, what should you do? Here’s the thorough process to analyse, recognise and fix the issues as soon as they arise.

Recognising the wrong ranking pages

Sometimes it’s impossible to regulate each and every of your site’s ranking pages. And at times you just don’t have any information about the site. So, to initiate, you need to analyse if there are any wrong page issues to be fixed.

Just choose how many keywords you’d like to review. Analysing all pages ranking for your 1500 keyword queries are something you maybe can’t afford and also don’t need. So, we’ll choose only the inquiries those are vital and the ones that can drive you the most traffic.

• Detect your most valuable Google queries.
• Check which pages rank for your most important queries.
• Analysis the ranking pages to see if they are the ideal pick for the queries.
• Detecting the fundamental issue
  Now from where to improve, let’s grasp how you can do that. And meanwhile there can be a number of reasons that cause the problem, you need to go through them step by step.
  1. Are there any technical/quality problems that inhibit the preferred page from ranking high?
  You have a proper page to match the query but it still doesn’t rank may be because:
  • The page is blocked from search engine bots.
  • The page has insufficient/low quality/poorly optimized content.
  • The page has not enough external links.
  • The page has not enough internal links.
  
  
  2. Do you even have a page that exactly matches the given keywords?
  If you don’t have an enhanced page to rank for the keyword, Google will rank the most appropriate selection it could find. Hence, you probably know for sure if there is a proper web page on your site.
  3. Are the page rankings being cannibalized by another page of yours?
  This can be the possible issue, in Google’s senses, a sum of your sites pages are related to the same query and most probably the ranking capability of the right page is overcome by another, less appropriate but more influential page of yours. Now that we’ve spotted the case of page and to avoid cannibalization here are the some possibilities you have:
  • Re-point internal links
  • Request some external link deviations
  • Re-point redirects
  • Take away keywords and related terms

  Maintain safe future of your website

  Now, all of the above practices will help you detect and correct the page ranking issues. Now your next step would be to consider an appropriate keyword planning for your site and get into the routine of observing not only rankings but your ranking pages also.
  1. Keep on monitoring
  However optimizing your pages according to a well-organized keyword map will decrease the probabilities of a wrong ranking page encountered in Google but, sometimes things just don’t go as considered. Though now that you have your keyword map set up, you can easily distinguish the wrong page issues.
  2. Construct a keyword map
  Keyword mapping is the method where you choose which pages will be optimized for each of your keywords.
  On the one side, a keyword map helps you escape from more cases of cannibalization and confirm that the keywords are used steadily, and all your landing pages rank for the relevant keywords. On another side, it also makes it easier to notice page-specific issues.
  3. Quality Backlinks using Social Media
  For many years, link building was crucial for search-engine position. With integral authority, social media sites are the flawless platform to create the high-quality link-backs your website essentials for particular keywords.
  Content that’s shared through links across social media helps search engines understand how to rank your website for exact keyword phrases. So, you should aware of how to use Social Media to improve your online presence.
• 
• Thus, this is the procedure you can use to make the most of your current Google rankings, increase your website traffic and conversions rate. Do let me know if you have any follow up question on this.

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Free Blogging Apps For Offline Blogging

As an offline weblog client, BlogDesk lets you comfortably write and effortlessly publish new entries to your blog.

No need to use those annoying HTML Tags in the WYSIWYG editor. Images can be directly inserted and are automatically uploaded. Even publishing simultaneously to multiple blogs is a matter of a click.

Blogging from your desktop is significantly easier if you manage multiple blogs, write for others, or want to compose your posts locally. A desktop app can offer added security, reliability and organization of your entire body of work, which is a necessity if you are a prolific writer or love to collect snippets and articles from around the web. This list offers a look at some of the best free tools for blog writing and management in Windows based on usability and features.

Blog Desk

Qumana

Blogjet

Raven

Windows Live Editor

Post2blog

Click on headings for download & view more detail about Apps. Keep up to date with new features and opportunities by subscribing to this blog via email Notification, or like us our page on facebook. Thanks for reading our posts and don't forget to comment. Till then Happy Blogging!!

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Tutorial On Optimizing Images For Better SER And SEO

When search engines start indexing the pages on your site, they don't just focus on the writing. Web crawlers employed by services like Google and Bing shuffle through your site's structural code looking for any relevant information that they might offer to their customers. Some of the information includes things like backlinks, tags and even images.



Images make up a big part of any website. They help to excite the visual senses of readers and offer a little extra entertainment value. What most blog owners don't realize is that all of the photos that they upload to their site aren't confined to their site alone. Crawlers make sure that these images also show up within their respective search engines sites.



Image searches can have the effect of drawing in large numbers of new readers that were just looking through content in Google images. You can benefit from this traffic and increase your average subscriber by practicing image optimization.

Image Optimization Tip #1: Alt Tags & File Names

Visitors may love images, but computers don't. Computers are designed to do what you tell them without violating any of the parameters. When web crawlers come across images on a website, they really don't know what to do with it because they are made to collect information, not interpret it. The solution to this problem is to optimize images and appropriately label your alt tags so that they display the correct content when someone goes to look for it.



For example, let's say you upload a picture of your dog, and label the "alt" tag by the dog's name, 'Frank'. The web crawler is going to read the alt tag without ever realizing it's a picture of a dog; therefore, the crawler will come to the conclusion that it needs to display the image when someone run a search for 'Frank'.



The minor word choice mistakes may not affect the operations of your website, or how your image is displayed, but it will affect the search results of others and the traffic that comes into your website. Whereas you may have been able to attract the dog lovers in the world using image optimization of your dog tagged 'dog', you are now drawing in crowds searching for their uncle "Frank".



To include the alt tag, simply add alt="this is your alt text" to your image tag. Here's an example:

<img src="pug-dog.jpg" alt="frank dog" />

But you don't have to touch the html code of the image. Once the picture is uploaded, click on it and you will see the "Properties" setting. Add the alt text inside the box and hit OK:

This goes the same for file names on a website. You need to optimize images and file names on everything that you decide to save to your website directory so that this information can be appropriately indexed and be used as a search term. You could name the file of your dog Frank, "pug-dog.jpg", which would encourage the search engine to add Frank into searches being performed with the phrase 'pug dog'. Alt tags and file names play an important interpretation role between you and the machine that makes your blog possible.

Image Optimization Tip #2: Add A Caption

After uploading your images, you should always add a caption to the image, so that average browser understands what they're looking at. This gives your website a more professional appearance and will help to keep people on your page.



Not everyone that comes across your picture using a Google Image search is looking for your blog. Maybe they just want to download the image, and that's all you'll ever get from them. The important thing is that they found your photo relevant to their search, and decided to navigate to your site in order to save it for their own use.



The longer those users stay on the site, the better it looks for you because it plays a role in the "bounce rate". Bounce rate refers to when someone clicks on a link, realizes it's not what they're looking for, and then immediately goes back to the search engine. If you can reduce the number of times that this happens by providing captions and intriguing content that will make people want to stick around, your SEO ranking will improve.

Image caption and SEO

Image Optimization Tip #3: File Size

Improving your bounce rate can be tough because the attention span of the everyday Internet user is incredibly short. It may be as short as 8 seconds. High bounce back rates and slow loading sites can be the death of most blogs because no one wants to wait for the content to load. By the time your website finally loads with the content that you need, they could have easily visited two or more sites and found what they need from someone who was better prepared to handle their traffic.



Optimize images so that you are able to keep the file size as small as possible while retaining the quality of the photo. Images taken from DSLR camera - although they may look great - can be up to 1.4 MB in size if you take them directly off your camera and upload them on your blog. This type of space is massive for any everyday blog, and will hurt your SEO ratings.



Use Photoshop or one of many online services like Google Picasa to rescale your images or reduce the file size. Two services that can perform this ability for free and do a great job are Yahoo's Smushit and Kraken. When you access either site, they will allow you to upload the picture on the site and download the new image optimization versions for use on your Blogger site.

Putting It All Together

At the end of the day, the quality of your site and overall SEO ranking isn't just about what you have to say. It's the entire package of what you have to offer. Optimize images every chance you get and use the strategies discussed above. Now that you know that you might have been neglecting images all along, you can make necessary adjustments and start to see even better results from all your hard work.

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