3 Essential Pages Your Blog Needs

Here's 3 essential pages to include amongst your earliest blog posts/entries. If you're just starting out it's a good idea to start your blog with these and make sure you have them linked to on all of your blog pages, posts or entries (in the top navbar, the sidebar or wherever you may choose).

The 3 Essential pages to have in your blog:

1) About Me Page - This basically could and should be your first ever blog post/entry. It is where you define and set the topic, theme and tone for your blog. Establish its overall theme or topic so that readers can easily discern what you will be blogging about. Tell the reader who you are and what you have to offer here. You may want to list interesting facts about yourself and your background as well as how you became interested in the topic of your blog. Make it creative or humorous. Feel free to use a 10 question Myspace survey as part of it, if that helps give readers insight and ideas about you. The "About Me" helps readers connect with the blog and get to know you more. Pretty much any and every blog has it.

2) Contact Me Page - Make a separate page where you list off your email so readers can contact you with questions, feedback and possibly link exchanges. If you want to get fancy, research how to put a scripted Email form on your contact page, making it easier for someone to message you (works best with a blog you're hosting). Also list off any social media sites, bookmarking sites or blog networks you might belong to that are relevant. Examples include Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Myspace, Squidoo, Facebook, MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog and anywhere else associated with blog where you want to network. This may help new people who find your blog join your network on these sites and spread the word!

3) RSS Explained - This one makes sense too, although it really is the most optional of the 3 pages here. On this page you want to put into your own words what RSS means exactly and then include the links for people to subscribe to your blog. Best advice is to drop by the Wikipedia on RSS and put the definition into your own words. Not everyone (self included) had or have the slightest clue as to what RSS means and how it can be beneficial. After the explanation, provide links to subscribe to your feed in a reader or via email. Feedburner provides you with copy & paste code for the "Subscribe to RSS feed" and the "Sign up for Email Updates". Having this page can clue people in to the benefits of subscribing to RSS.

Do you currently have the 3 pages above as part of your blog? If not you should strongly consider adding them into the mix. Try to make the posts dated around the time your blog started. This will serve to make it look like you had them since the start and people have benefited from them, so you won't look like too much of a rookie.. :)

Since this is an experimental blog, The Monetizer has added #2 and #3 in recently. Feel free to check out any of the them above to get an idea what they can look like and then make sure you have them on your blog!

Make Friends at BlogCatalog!

The Monetizer found a great tip on the very cool blog dayjobnuker.com which is helpful to those rookie and startup bloggers looking to get some instant traffic, new readers and subscribers. Monetizer mentioned joining mybloglog.com and blogcatalog.com in an earlier post, and dayjobnuker has also recommended it. The cool thing is you can add friends on both of these nice little blog sites daily. MyBlogLog allows a max of 15 friends to be added each day. However, BlogCatalog allows UNLIMITED friend adds on a daily basis. So basically you can head over and join BlogCatalog if you haven't yet. Submit your blog(s) and await their approval because you want them visible when people stop by your profile. While you wait on that, make sure to fill out the profile, including relevant details about you or what your blog's about, as well as the other social sites that you belong to (Digg, BlogLog, etc).

Once you've had your blog(s) approved and they show on your profile, it's time to go click crazy and get a bunch of new friends. Add as many peeps as you can on a daily basis. If you want to make it targeted traffic (relative to your blog topic), look up groups which relate to your topic or keywords and add the people you find in those communities. Many of them should swing by your profile and perhaps your blog, giving you new traffic and possible fans! It makes sense to use this free little tool, which takes a bit of your time. You can also join groups, neighborhoods and communities on the site. Try looking up those that are relevant to your blog topic(s) and join as many as you can. The idea here is the become visible on community pages and to new blogcatalog readers/friends.

Another subject came up while Monetizer was over there at BlogCatalog. On your blogs that you submit, BlogCatalog will display your blog's latest entries or posts based on your RSS feed. This only works if you have the autodiscovery tags in your blog's template code. Make sure you have this code in your blog's template now!

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title=”Blog Title RSS” href=”http://your_rssfeed_here">

You'll need to change 2 things for the above, the "Blog Title" and "http://your_rssfeed_here". Add your unique blog title and RSS feed URL in those spots and put that line of code in the < head > section of your blog's template. You can also consult Feedburner on how to add the code in for your feed to be autodiscovered. (Note: you may already have it setup if you're using Blogger). The idea here is that someone might click on one of your blogs on BlogCatalog and see a headline or blog entry they want to go read on your blog. Autodiscovery will also help other services, directories and readers find your RSS feed easier as well, so it pays to have that piece of code in your blog template.

So head over to BlogCatalog today, sign up, follow the instructions to add your blog(s), and start making friends!

Navigating the Blogosphere

A few points to cover here today for all bloggers and site owners. The main theme here (related to the recent Columbus Day holiday) is navigating the rough waters of blogging and blogs in general.

First off, Monetizer mentioned 5 favorite blogs here which deal with Money Making, PPC, affiliate programs, marketing and better blogging. They are inspirational, but shouldn't be consider the ultimate blogs or moneymaking law. There's a ton of blogs out there on the subject of blogging better, SEO, making money, affiliate programs, advertising, etc etc. There's plenty of people out there who are creative and have great unique ideas for you to consider. So don't stop at just a few blogs who may be considered "top in the game", because you may very well find some of the hidden gems on lesser known blogs. Most likely if you blog, you also enjoy reading others' work. Get familiar with as many related blogs as you possibly can, and engage in discussions and comments with the blogs and their authors. This can help yours grow by either receiving link love, comments back, featured posts or new network connections.

Now in terms of your blog's navigation, is your blog up to par? Can you easily find your way around your various categories, various posts, blog topics, contact page, home page, about page and other important spots? Most of the time the answer here is "no" or you could make things easier or better to navigate. Monetizer knows it firsthand. You make blog entry posts and you decide "hmmm.. this one needs another new category". You end up with 100's of categories making it tougher to organize them into concise ways for a reader to find their way around. All is not lost though.

Keep in mind when planning a blog you need to keep it as organized as possible. You want readers to find other posts you've written, so don't keep them hidden. You also want some of your best areas and entries on display. John Chow even discusses why you need a "top posts" or "popular posts" area prominently displayed on your blog. In fact, take a look at the organization of his blog or Darren Rowse's Problogger.net sometime. They've ensured that you're "attacked" from all sides of he blog, top, right side and bottom, with different and popular spots to check out on their blogs.

Put yourself in the reader's chair, assuming if you really enjoyed one post on a blog site, you'll want to poke around for more cool stuff there. One of my favorite ways to provide this is to create a drop down menu on the sidebar. Use it to list out your topics as linked options, list specific pages and more. You can use the EchoEcho.com's link there to create customized code after you input your links and titles for the menu options. The site will give you a piece of Java code and HTML code to use in your template. This will make for a nice, neat way of getting around your blog, and could earn you more page impressions, subscribers, ad money or referral signups.

Another idea I recently thought of implementing is "Last 25 Posts" or "Last 50" or even "Last 100 Posts" section. You could do this by creating a single blog entry page and then adding Feedburner RSS Buzzboost code onto it. Set it up to display 25, 50 or 100 RSS fed headlines on that page by altering the Feedburner code. The "How to" for modifying that Buzzboost feed display is found on the Buzzboost page of your Feedburner account. Make the "Last 25, 50 or 100 Posts" page one of your earlier blog entries, and have it linked to somewhere prominent on all your blog pages. That way you won't have to update the page yourself, and a reader could easily click on this page and select from what they may be interested in and continue to return back to that section for more.

Keep the navigation of your blog always in the forefront of your mind. It's an essential part of blog/site design. A reader may unexpectedly show up and not really like the post they just found. It happens. However, what if another blog entry title captures their eye? You may just gain a new fan from implementing a strategic way of attracting their attention elsewhere, causing them to navigate to a new area.

Don't Spread Yourself Too Thin

A valuable lesson from The Monetizer today about managing your time and projects. Last night was spent updating a blog that has received little to no attention from the Monetizer, because honestly it doesn't receive the traffic or make the money other projects do. In fact, the Monetizer tries to keep up with 6 blogs, which can be quite a task! The noticeable thing in doing this is that you may start to give more attention to one blog or site you run instead of others, losing RSS subscribers and potential fans. You'll also neglect doing the things necessary to build your blog up into a solid brand and could eventually self-destruct in your money making campaign!

The best practice is to have a game plan, and make sure you're giving the necessary attention to each of your projects, whether it be separate blogs, sites or money making ventures. The term "project management" fits well, because you really need to prioritize and decide which of your campaigns and efforts should get the most care. For example, if one blog is doing exceptionally better than others, it's definitely worth your time to give it the most attention and posts. Or if you really believe another blog can do a better job, then maybe devote more passion and time to making it better. For blogs, many experts recommend doing 3-5 posts per week at least. You can imagine how tough that is to do with multiple blogs.

This creates another question, do I need to do more than one blog? Not really, however it does make good sense if you have several interests to get a few going or even if you can branch out your current blog topic into subtopic blogs. The great thing about it, is maybe you do neglect a blog and while it might not get a fanbase or regular readers, someone might StumbleUpon or Digg an older entry you wrote. Once the traffic follows, you could be making money from a monetized blog you just have sitting around, which is the definition of true "passive income". You might also bore of the blog you've been doing, and going back to another project will keep you interested, and posting fresh new material. So having a few blogs in your pocket can't really hurt too much either. Just make sure to not spread yourself way too thin because it will definitely end up showing in your work product.