How you can make your Blog successful?

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Starting a Blog become easy and common now, every one making a Blog with ease and writing on it. Building a Blog is not a problem but, making a 'Successful Blog' might become a problem. Today I have some tips for you to make your Blog successful. You might already know some of them, then you should apply them properly in your blog.

Content

If you offer well written, original, easy to understand information, spiced up with good imagery then the chances of getting quality links, social media exposure and high spots in SERPs are bigger. Content is the King! you know.

Basic SEO

You don't have to be a SEO expert to rank your site high on Google search. Just several things to remember here:

 - Include meta title tags

 - Optimal and natural usage of keywords

 - Provide good article titles

 - Proper usage of Heading tags

 - Include sitemap

 - Use Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to gain insight on what works for you and what's not

 - Always avoid duplicate contents

 * Read the Google SEO Starter Guide

Design

You want more and more visitors on your website, and you want them to stick with it more often. Except offering quality content you'll need some good looking unique design for your Blog. If you're serious about your Blog, Pay someone to design your Blog for you. It doesn't need to be very expensive, a simple, pretty enough, and unique look would be good for you.

Competitors

What ever you do, you have to be more innovative, original, have a better design, better content than your competitors. Simply try to beat the competition. Use them to learn what works for them, and what doesn’t.

Promotion

Promote your site whenever you have a chance to do it, but do not exaggerate (don't be a spammer). Also several things to remember here:

 - Use Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or any other social platform popular at the moment

 - Comment on other blogs related to your niche

 - Guest post frequently on well established blogs

 - Pay for ads if you really have to

This will certainly lead to significant exposure of your site.

Speed

Make your site load fast as much as possible. This is important from two aspects: user experience and a SEO factor. Several things to remember:

 - Use good server

 - Optimize your codes

 - Optimize the images

 - Use Image sprites

 - Use tools such as Google Speed, YSlow, Web Page Test, Pingdom

 - Avoid redirects

Read in details what Google and Yahoo have to say about it.

Subscribers

Capture e-mail addresses and get people to subscribe to your Blog feed early. Two-three years from now (if you're good) you might have 50k email list and 50k RSS Subcribers. And that will become a big valuable asset. Trust me.

Monetization

It is time to gather the fruits of your labor. I'll suggest don't do it early. Wait some time until your blog get on the track. There are basically three main methods to get money out of your Blog:

 - Placing ADS (CPC, CPM, CPA, CPV). Basically you need click, page view, action or video view in order to get paid.

 - Promoting affiliate products.

 - Selling you own products (ebooks, membership websites, services - design, coding, coaching, etc).

From the Editor

The most important tip would be that you do your experiments with everything I said above and come to your own conclusions about what works for you. Smile :)

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Pure CSS Lavalamp Menu for Blogger

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I think that you have already seen animated menus with the LavaLamp effect based on the jQuery plugin. Today I would like to tell and show you how to repeat same behavior, only with CSS3 without any JavaScript. I will use CSS3 transitions in our menu to animate elements.

Features

 - Simple but Stylish
 - Faster loading
 - Less usage of coding
 - Auto adjust with almost every blogger templates
 - Tested and runs with every latest Browsers
 - And more...............

 So, if you are ready, let's start.

DEMO

Add This Menu To Blogger

To add this Menu to your blogger blog follow below steps:
1. Go to Blogger Dashboard > Layout > Add a HTML/Javascript widget
2. Change the links and titles as your need and paste the below codes, Save and Drag the widget right below the header.

<style type="text/css">
.nav {
margin:auto;
overflow:hidden;
position:relative;
text-align:center;
width:500px
}
.nav a {
-moz-transition:.7s;
-ms-transition:.7s;
-o-transition:.7s;
-webkit-transition:.7s;
color:#393939;
display:block;
float:left;
font:25px Impact;
padding:1em 0 2em;
position:relative;
text-decoration:none;
transition:.7s;
width:25%
}
.nav a:hover {
color:#c6342e
}
.effect {
-moz-transition:.7s ease-in-out;
-ms-transition:.7s ease-in-out;
-o-transition:.7s ease-in-out;
-webkit-transition:.7s ease-in-out;
left:-12.5%;
position:absolute;
transition:.7s ease-in-out
}
.nav a:nth-child(1):hover ~ .effect {
left:12.5%
}
.nav a:nth-child(2):hover ~ .effect {
left:37.5%
}
.nav a:nth-child(3):hover ~ .effect {
left:62.5%
}
.nav a:nth-child(4):hover ~ .effect {
left:87.5%
}
.aslava-dot-nav:after {
background:#c6342e;
bottom:40px;
content:"";
display:block;
height:1px;
position:absolute;
width:100%
}
.aslava-dot-nav a:after {
background:#c6342e;
border-radius:100%;
bottom:38px;
content:"";
height:4px;
left:50%;
margin-left:-2px;
position:absolute;
width:4px
}
.aslava-dot-nav .effect {
background:#c6342e;
border-radius:100%;
bottom:36px;
height:10px;
margin-left:-5px;
width:10px
}
</style>

<div class="aslava-dot-nav nav">
<a href="#">Home</a>
<a href="#">About</a>
<a href="#">Gallery</a>
<a href="#">Contact</a>
<div class="effect"></div>
</div>

Compressed Edition

Here is the compressed edition of this Lavalamp menu for more faster loading perform-

<style type="text/css">
.nav{margin:auto;overflow:hidden;position:relative;text-align:center;width:500px}.nav a{-moz-transition:.7s;-ms-transition:.7s;-o-transition:.7s;-webkit-transition:.7s;color:#393939;display:block;float:left;font:25px Impact;padding:1em 0 2em;position:relative;text-decoration:none;transition:.7s;width:25%}.nav a:hover{color:#c6342e}.effect{-moz-transition:.7s ease-in-out;-ms-transition:.7s ease-in-out;-o-transition:.7s ease-in-out;-webkit-transition:.7s ease-in-out;left:-12.5%;position:absolute;transition:.7s ease-in-out}.nav a:nth-child(1):hover ~ .effect{left:12.5%}.nav a:nth-child(2):hover ~ .effect{left:37.5%}.nav a:nth-child(3):hover ~ .effect{left:62.5%}.nav a:nth-child(4):hover ~ .effect{left:87.5%}.aslava-dot-nav:after{background:#c6342e;bottom:40px;content:"";display:block;height:1px;position:absolute;width:100%}.aslava-dot-nav a:after{background:#c6342e;border-radius:100%;bottom:38px;content:"";height:4px;left:50%;margin-left:-2px;position:absolute;width:4px}.aslava-dot-nav .effect{background:#c6342e;border-radius:100%;bottom:36px;height:10px;margin-left:-5px;width:10px}
</style>
<div class="aslava-dot-nav nav">
<a href="#">Home</a>
<a href="#">About</a>
<a href="#">Gallery</a>
<a href="#">Contact</a>
<div class="effect"></div>
</div>

In this menu you can not add more than four links, but if you are advanced in CSS coding them you can modify this menu for adding as much link as you want.

Hope you enjoyed with our new CSS Lavalamp menu. Don't forget to offer thanks and leave a comment.  Smile :)

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Smart Blogging for Your Online Success!

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The typography of your blog can be particularly important if you are running a blog that appeals to a specific audience. If that audience typically has difficulty reading text on a screen, which is probably more common than you think, you can utilize the typography settings to make life easier on them and to get better readership for your content.

Increasing Font Size

There are some blogs out there that make a stylistic decision to go with a very small font size. It's important to remember that, when you make this choice, you are limiting your readership. A certain number of people are going to have so much difficulty reading a blog post that is in a small font size that they're just going to skip over your blog altogether and go somewhere else.

If you know someone who does have a difficult time reading off of a screen, go ahead and have them take a look at your blog and see if it's difficult for them to take in the content. Be particularly wary of problems that arise from words that have strings of the same or similar letters.

Color

Color is more than an aesthetic decision where blogs are concerned. Professional WordPress themes generally allow you to change the color of your background and of your text very easily. Pick colors that are easy to read. For example, it might seem like black on white is very easy to read, but dulling the background color to make it a bit more gray is a bit easier on people's eyes. This may make it easier for them to hang around for a while and read more of your content. Be wary of color combinations that are unfriendly to people with colorblindness. Blue on yellow or red on green would be examples.

Ask Your Readers

If you decide to try something different with your typography, be sure to ask your readers about it. Not only is it a good way to figure out whether or not you made a good decision, it's a great excuse to encourage some interaction on your blog. Be responsive to your visitor's opinions, but also stick to your instincts if you feel like you've made a good decision. Remember, there's always somebody on the Internet who has a complaint, so take the majority opinion into consideration more than the very vehement opinion of one particularly motivated individual.

About author
Anny Solway is a creative writer at ThemeFuse.com – a top provider of Premium WordPress Themes. She is passionate about studying online marketing industry and sharing informative tips.

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Best of Free Softwares for Web Designer and Blogger

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In this post I have put together this guide with just a few examples of some great softwares. Each example is totally free to download and install for your own personal use. Designing websites is a very difficult job and requires the right set of tools. This article may not contain everything you need, but I’m hoping to share these resources as a starting point for web designers on a budget.

Lots of freeware is available on the Internet for download. You can find programs for Linux, OSX and Windows for designing and coding websites. Unfortunately not everybody has the money for premium software or the time to learn the interfaces.

Notepad ++

I think a lot of you know about Notepad++ since it has been mentioned in so many articles. This is a fantastic piece of open source software which supports a number of programming languages. Even aside from backend web development you can build full software applications in Java or C++, the list of syntax features is enormous. This software is an excellent alternative to Dreamweaver or some other higher-end IDEs.

Smultron

The Smultron text editor is a program built for Mac OS X and mobile iOS devices. The software has syntax highlighting features which include over 90 different languages. You can also create new documents stored in your iCloud account to retrieve from any computer. This is one rich IDE to grab right off the Mac App Store and it’s great for perfect coding.

FileZilla

Web designers and Bloggers will both need to use FTP access at some point. You can’t publish a website without pushing the files onto a server. Luckily there are a couple open source FTP programs which most webmasters can follow, and FileZilla is the big choice for Windows users.

Cyberduck

On the Mac OS X Cyberduck is definitely the best free FTP software. You can grab the app right from the Mac App Store on your computer. It is also available for Windows users as well, if you feel that FileZilla just isn’t enough.

Inkscape

This is a very good graphics editors which is perfect for upcoming web designers. Inkscape is an open source project for working with vector graphics. You could think of this as the free alternative to Adobe Illustrator supported on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

GIMP

GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. This software interface and all the typical tools involved with image editing. GIMP can do every things as like as Photoshop with out spending a panny! GIMP runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac. I personally use and recommend GIMP.

From the Editor

I am hoping this guide can offer a division for both designers and Bloggers. After all, to create any good website you will need both pieces of the puzzle. Smile :)

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Tools to Optimize Images for the Web

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This time I have some tools for you to reduce your image size for the web. Since images can be pretty heavy, this is certainly an issue to keep an eye on. And this is why today we gathered some links here to show you some tools that will help you with this 'Image Size' issue. Even if you are a pro at 'saving as better quality jpg' it is always nice to check out some tools (old or new) to have you covered when it is time to optimize images.

List of Useful Tools

TinyPNG
TinyPNG uses smart lossy compression techniques to reduce the file size of your PNG files.

Smush.it
Smush.it uses loseless optimization techniques specific to image format to remove unnecessary bytes from image files.

OptiPNG
OptiPNG is a PNG optimizer that recompresses image files to a smaller size, without losing any information of file.

ImageOptim
ImageOptim optimizes images- so they take up less disk space and load faster- by finding best compression parameters and by removing unnecessary comments and color profiles. It handles PNG, JPEG and GIF animations.

Usefull Plugins

jQuery Lazyload
Lazy Load delays loading of images in long web pages. Images outside of viewport wont be loaded before user scrolls to them. This is opposite of image preloading.

Using Lazy Load on long web pages containing many large images makes the page load faster. Browser will be in ready state after loading visible images. In some cases it can also help to reduce server load.

From the Editor

I hope you like this Article and enjoyed. Now you might have some useful tools to optimize your Image and make it load faster. Smile :)

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