Writers who just sit around reading tips on how to write, but never actually write themselves can never learn to become good writers.

You cannot learn to swim just by reading how to swim; if you don’t even touch the water, you can never learn to swim.

It’s the same with everything. You can read on how to do something, but unless you actually do it yourself, you cannot learn! A good chef doesn’t spend all day going over cookbooks; she puts her newly acquired knowledge to use: application.

It’s The Same With Blogging

Sure, you can sit and read hundreds of “blogging about blogging” blogs all day. Read thousands of recycled blogging tips and SEO advice and so on. But, if you don’t put it into practice, it won’t do you any good. Believe me. It’s the same as with swimming, writing and cooking. You have to put what you learn into practice!

That is the only way you can be successful. Believe me: to success, there is no black hat method or shortcut. It’s hard work. Ask your nearest millionaire

What You Should Do, Instead Of What You Do

Instead of reading multitudes of meta-blogging blogs everyday, why not try to stop doing so? Blogging about blogging blogs (like the one you’re reading right now) can only take you so far. In fact, every authority blog in every niche can only take you so far. The final step is to be taken by you. And that’s why you need to put into practice what you learn. As they say, practice makes perfect

So, my suggestion to you is this: stop reading so many SEO and blogging tips. You have your own blog: try out what you learnt. Experiment with different solutions, and find the perfect one.

Note: This doesn’t mean you should stop reading authority blogs in your niche altogether. These blogs are your guides. But they are merely a means to an end. These blog tell you the correct route to travel. You have to make the journey yourself

In this second part of this series [here's Part 1], we will look at some useful and easy tricks for Blogger blogs. By default, the Blogger platform provides countless widgets, gadgets and services that are great add-ons for our blog. Still, sometimes we want to show custom data and statistics on our blog. With some simple coding and tweaking some settings we can add these little gems to our blog to make it look more professional and a better experience for our readers.

Show Total Posts and Comments On Blogger Blog

If you want to show the total number of posts and comments on your blog, this simple JavaScript code can do the work.

The result looks like this:

To show these stats in the sidebar, simply create and new ‘JavaScript/HTML’ gadget from ‘Layout’ section and paste the above code. You can also beautify it using CSS to gel it well with your blog’s theme.

Disable Comments On Any Post

Although this option is easily accessible, but a large number of Blogger users are unaware of it. To disable comments on any post, go to post editor and click the ‘Post Options’ link at bottom right of the editor:

Choose the ‘Don’t Allow’ for ‘Readers Comments’ option and that’s it. You can again enable or disable the comments of any old Blogger post without any restrictions. You can use this option to disable comments on the About, Contact, Advertise and similar pages too.

Disable Ads On Archive Pages

If you want your AdSense ads to be displayed only on individual post pages, wrap your ad code around the following code:

The if condition checks whether the page is a post page or not. In case it’s not a post page, the conditions evaluates to false and the ad code is not executed.

In next part of this series we will see how to display different set of ads on home page and on individual post pages.

Your Thoughts?

How do you think the series is going on so far? Is it helpful? Please do share your opinion with us

Rajeev Edmonds blogs at MintBlogger, a blog about social media and blogging tips

It’s officially 2009, and 2008 has come to an end. Through out the course of last year, I learnt several valuable lessons and principles from blogging, some of which I want to share with you, in this post. It’s always a good idea to review how the last year has been for you, and to improve yourself. So, enjoy, and a Happy New Year!

Please do not be shy to express your own opinions and lessons that your blogging has taught you, this year. And oh, please do bear with me, if I sound boring or overly didactic

1. Tolerance

The internet is a huge place. There are people of different religions, nationalities, opinions here. Each has the right to express his or her own opinion (that’s why blogs exist, in the first place!). Over the course of this year, I have interacted with people from all around the world and people belonging to different religions. Blogging has taught me tolerance. I have learned to respect others’ opinions, and not to attack or belittle their beliefs. And tolerance is a very important lesson, at least in real life.

Moreover, I have learned to accept criticism,for it is criticism (both positive and negative) that helps me improve.

2. Knowledge

Good content is well researched. In my quest to write good, valuable content, and in the process of researching, I have learned many new things that I would probably have learnt way later (or maybe even never) if I had not been blogging.

Here’s an example: All my blogs are based on the WordPress platform (which I love). In order for this blog to be unique, it had to have a unique theme. So, I learnt how to design for WordPress, and I designed the current PuttingBlogsFirst theme. I learnt how to develop for WordPress, and that led to a series of tutorials on the WordPress platform.

The thing is, I learnt something new, and it benefited me. Similarly, I gained a boatload of other valuable information about different subjects. And, it was fun too.

3. The Importance of Social Networking

I didn’t realize the importance of social networking, during my first few months of blogging. I didn’t know how valuable a tool this is to market your blog and find new readers and friends.

I joined some reputable blogging forums, and became active on Twitter. And I made great friends too. I also got to attend a bloggers’ meetup, which was great fun. I became social.

So the thing is, you have to establish a good social profile. You have to be active on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed and so on, and participate in the community. Because, only if you give to the community can you even think about getting anything back

4. The Value of Time

Blogging requires one to regularly produce content, day in and day out. You have to have posts on the ready. This taught me the value of time.

I knew that I had to write a post for the next day. There is only so much time available, and I have to make full use of it. Time management is essential for any blogger. Blogging has taught me that: I have to get things done, and get them done ASAP.

As they say, time is money

5. Being Myself

Let’s admit it. There are hundreds of “blogging about blogging” blogs around (this one included). No doubt, some of these blogs give outstanding and excellent advice, but then, there are simply too many!

I started this blog way back (more than a year ago). As soon as I stepped into meta-blogging waters, my “uniqueness” disappeared. Poof! I mean, I was just one of the hundreds already there. I wasn’t “I“. I was “We“.

Over the course of the last few months, I’ve been trying to make myself “I“, instead of “We“. I’ve been searching for my unique place. I’ve been working on slowly shifting this blog’s focus: from something cliché [all the other blogs] to something new, unique [me]. Readers have had enough of how to blog this and not blog that; they want and deserve a fresh perspective: something different, for crying out loud!

I’ve tried to look through the murky waters to find the light, if you will. And the process is still not over. It will never be over, as I think of it. Things keep changing, don’t they?

To pin the nail on the donkey’s tail, I am trying to be unique. And it’s not easy. Being unique isn’t easy. Suppose you have a brilliant idea that you think no one else could even have fathomed. You do a quick Google search, and BAM! Right in your face. Believe me: been there, done that. There are simply too many blogs and too many people: being unique is like reaching the stars [literally speaking]. It.is.hard. But, not impossible

6. Persistence/Patience/Strength

Blogging is not easy work. At least if you want to succeed. There are millions of blogs on the internet. Hundreds or thousands of blogs in your niche: competitors. If you’re serious about your blog, you better pack for a long journey.

As I said above, I’ve been running this blog for over a year now. Why?. This first year hasn’t exactly been a money bloomer for me. Why am I still continuing? Because I know: success needs time and hard work.

Success also needs passion. And passion is the main reason I’m still blogging. I love what I blog about. And if you love what you blog about, everything else is secondary. Even the fact that there is loads of competition breathing down your neck

Also, blogging has given me encouragement and self-confidence. It has taught me to be patient. Success comes to those who wait for it.

What About You?

So, what has blogging taught you in the year 2008? Huw did it turn out for you? Did you glean anything valuable? Please do share it with us

This is the second post (first post) in our series on free WordPress themes. Enjoy this list of themes

1. StudioPress Green

StudioPress is a clean, AdSense-ready WordPress theme by DailyBlogTips. It supports widgets and it comes with alternate comments styling and a customizable “Welcome” section on the sidebar. There is also a blue version of this theme.

2. Miscellany

A 3 Column, widget-ready fixed width theme featuring an extended footer, author info page, Gravatars and highlighted author comments in the comments section. Compatible up to Wordpress 2.7. Download Miscellany

3. Plainscape

A VERY minimalist theme: simple and clean. I use this theme for Listfied. It is very lightweight, and easy on the eyes too. highly recommended! Download Plainscape.

4. Bytetips

Bytetips is a 3 column WordPress theme with 2.7 support. Looks clean and Web 2.0-ish. Download Bytetips

5. Aeros

Refreshing, Web 2.0 WordPress theme. Looks beautiful, and is very lightweight. Download Aeros

6. Wasteland

Wasteland is a 5 column (or “magazine style”), formal WordPress theme. Supports WordPress 2.7, and is Gravatar ready. Download Wasteland.

A Book

If you’re interested in WordPress theme design, I recommend you this book: WordPress Theme Design: A Complete Guide To Creating Professional WordPress Themes (aff) . This book, as the name says, has it all. It will take you through the very basics, up the ladder, and make you a WordPress theme guru. Highly Recommended.

There You Have It

So, there you have it. Six free WordPress themes you can use today. I know there are loads out there, and I’ll be looking out for them. If you have suggestions, drop em in the comments, or get in touch. Enjoy the themes, and stay tuned for next week’s list

The Blogger platform is used by thousands of bloggers around the globe. These bloggers have developed many tweaks and hacks to make their Blogger blog a better browsing experience for their visitors. In this first part of a new series on Blogger tips and tricks, I will present some basic tweaks that can be easily implemented even by a newbie, which can help them in rectifying some common shortcomings in their Blogger blog.

Hide Top Blogger NavBar

The top navigation bar on blogger blogs distracts the attention of the readers. If you are publishing on custom domain, the presence of this bar is very annoying. Here is a simple trick to get rid of this navigation bar.

From your blog’s dashboard, go to ‘Layout -> Edit HTML’. Keep the Expand Widget Templates option unchecked. Paste the following code just before ]]></b:skin> this line.

Tweaking Title Tags

By default, Blogger displays the same title in the title bar on every single page. Whether its an individual post, archive page, search result page or home page, Blogger will always display the same blog title in the title bar. From the SEO perspective, this is not what we want.

Every post page should have its post title as the title tag and this post headline should be displayed in the title bar, instead of the blog title. To correct this, find the following line in your blog template.

Replace it with the following code:

After implementing this code, your post pages will have post title as title tag, and your home page will have regular blog title.

Use Custom Favicon

By default, Blogger displays an orange favicon on every Blogger blog. If you want to use your own favicon, you can do it in two simple steps:

Upload your favicon on a file server

Create you own favicon and host it on any free file hosting service. There are many free favicon generating services on the Internet that make the favicon creating process easy.

Update the blog template

Once your favicon is uploaded on the file server, simply add the following code in your template just before </head> tag.

In next part of this series, I will present some template modification hacks that will enable you to change the appearance and layout of your blog template in easy steps. Do tell us your opinion too

Rajeev Edmonds blogs at MintBlogger, a blog about social media and blogging tips

Note: WordPress was recently upgraded to version 2.7; therefore, here, I will be mentioning themes that are WordPress 2.7+ compatible only. (Although some of these might be backwards compatible too)

1. Holiday WordPress Theme

‘Tis the season to be merry. And what better an idea to celebrate Christmas than to embellish your blog with a Christmas theme? The Holiday WordPress theme is a flexible, two-column theme, with a magazine style layout. It’s compatible with WordPress 2.7+

2. Open Air

Open Air is “a theme for both beginner and medium users alike; very easy to use; nice, pleasant colours and look”. This theme is Gravatar-ready, widget-ready, and SEO-friendly. It is a two column theme. It is compatible with WordPress 2.7 and WordPress 2.6.3, so you’re covered if you have not still upgraded.

3. Journey Theme

The Journey WordPress theme is a classic three column theme. It is simplistic and clean, and WordPress 2.7+ compatible. Should work for lower versions too.

4. Google Chrome Theme

For fans of Google’s web browser. This theme is as lightweight as the browser itself, and is user friendly, and clean. WordPress 2.5+ compatible (including v2.7)

5. Blue Grace

Blue Grace is a clean and stylish WordPress theme. It has three columns and a beautiful, clean header.

6. Scrapbook

It’s just that: a scrapbook. A single column theme with no sidebar and an attractive header, this WordPress 2.7 compatible theme is perfect if you just want to scream your heart out. Also works on WordPress 2.5 and above and is Gravatar ready.

A Book

If you’re interested in WordPress theme design, I recommend you this book: WordPress Theme Design: A Complete Guide To Creating Professional WordPress Themes (aff) . This book, as the name says, has it all. It will take you through the very basics, up the ladder, and make you a WordPress theme guru. Highly Recommended.

There You Have It

So, there you have it. Six free WordPress themes you can use today. I know there are loads out there, and I’ll be looking out for them. If you have suggestions, drop em in the comments, or get in touch. Enjoy the themes, and stay tuned for next week’s list

2009 just around the corner. Lists of people’s goals for this year have already started appearing around. Sadly, I made no goals for 2008 at the end of 2007, but I have made my internet goals for 2009, which I’m going to share with you.

My Internet Goals

Note that internet involves all things internet such as Twitter, blogging, social networking, and so on. Here are my internet goals:

1. Have a Twitter network of at least 2000 followers (follow me on Twitter)
2. Become highly active on at least ten social media sites (currently about 3)
3. Have an RSS subscriber base of atleast 3000 readers, for this blog as well as for a new one(Listfied)
4. Earn at least a $1000 of revenue per month (from both PBF and Listfied
5. Have at least 500,000 page views per month, and at least 10,000 uniques per day [both Listfied and PBF].
6. Have so many IM contacts that there are at least a hundred people online at any given time

Just six, I guess.

Making Your Own Goals List

Have you made your own “goals for 2009″ list? If so, please do share it with us

Here are some tips:

Think it over

Sit down with pen and paper, and carefully think about what you want done. This is not something you should create right off the bat. This is what you’re going to be following for one whole yearso it should be well thought out.

Don’t be Afraid to Aim High

You shouldn’t be afraid to aim high. If you don’t aim high, how will you get there? If you aim high, you will find that the required encouragement, courage, and determination will come themselves, once you get to work on your goals. I had this teacher who gave me this timeless piece of advice:

If you aim that high, you’ll reach a point lower than that. If you want to reach 100%, you must aim for 120%.

So, even the craziest of goals can be fine, as long as they are fine for you

So, what are your internet goals for 2009?

This post is part of the Group Writing Project over at DailyBlogTips

That’s not the best way to do it. Here’s a secret to writing great blog posts:

Why?

Several reasons.

Priority

The content is a very important part of a post (this is what represents you on the whole web). Therefore it needs prime attention. You have ideas that you really need to put down in writing. That’s why you should write your main content first, with utmost concentration and focus. If you focus on the title and introduction first, your concentration deviates from what needs it the most at that time: the content.

This is what often makes you forget ideas, resulting in you-could-have-done-better type of content. So when you write the content first, you make sure you’ve written every idea that you have, without having to worry about forgetting anything.

Quality

When you’re writing the title and the introduction first, you usually want to get to the main content quickly. You often, therefore, splat on a (often random) title and a quick introduction, and get to the juice. You neglect these other important parts of your post. You’ve got so many ideas you need to write down that you don’t care to think over the title and introduction properly.

The thing is, if you’re done with the main content of the post first, you’ve got all the time in the world to think up a great and catchy title, a smashing introduction, and a killer conclusion. So, holistically speaking, you get a great post, one which is more than satisfactory in every way.

The Best of All Worlds

Perhaps the best advantage of writing the content first is that you become more familiar with the subject matter of your post, and this familiarity works on your side when you set down to write a title and introduction for your post. You get a better grasp of what you’re writing, why not use this to your advantage?

A Last Word

Sure, writing the title first can be beneficial, but only when you have got a solid outline of the content you are going to write. Writing the title first means that you have to spend quite some time to get it perfectly right, and you want to make sure that in this time, you don’t lose ideas that you have for your content.

Don’t forget that your titles (and the introductions) deserve as much time and thought as you can give them. That’s why it’s better to get done with the content first, and then think up a relevant, good title

So, what works for you the best? Do you find writing the titlesh first is better for you? Please do share your views and ideas with the rest of us

Cover photo by *christopher*

Celebrate this festive season by decorating your Blogger blog with some awesome Christmas themes. Get into festive mood and spice up your blog’s sidebar with Christmas widgets and feed icons. How about giving a snowfall effect in your Blogger blog? Well, here are the best Christmas templates, widgets and add-ons for your Blogger blogs.

Christmas Blogger Templates

1. Amazon Christmas Blogger Template by Amazing-Present-Ideas

Demo Download

2. Snowman Blogger Template by SkinCorner

Demo Download

3. Winnie in Christmas Blogger Template by SkinCorner

Demo Download

4. Christmas Blogger Template by Vermilion

Demo Download

5. Birdie’s Enchanted Christmas Blogger Template by Gisele Jaquenod

Demo Download

6. Navideño Blogger Template by Blog and Web

Demo Download

Christmas Feed Icons

Xmas Feed Icons by Dirceu Veiga

Christmas Feed Icons by Webfruits

Christmas RSS Feed Icons by Garcya

Christmas Widgets

Christmas Snow Effect Widget by BloggerBuster

This excellent snow effect widget is created by Amanda Fazani from BloggerBuster. This widget adds snowfall effect in blogger template, making it ready for the festive season.

Christmas Tree Mini Widget by SpringWidgets

Another great Christmas add-on for your blog. This glittering Christmas tree is perfect for your blog sidebar to welcome your readers in festive mood.

Your Picks?

What are you doing on your blog to show your enthusiasm for Christmas? Please do share it with us!

Please spread the word by Stumbling or saving this post to Delicious
This post was written by Rajeev Edmonds from Mint Blogger.

The path to success is long and hard… Image: ARG ?????

Many years ago, at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, the Jesse Jackson ended his speech with the following timeless words, that set the convention on fire:
“Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive! Keep hope alive! On tomorrow night and beyond, keep hope alive!”

Why did I tell you this story? To give you the encouragement, courage and spirit you need to not give up and to keep working hard on your blog, no matter what.

Blogging Is Just Like Any Other Profession

Doctors in some fields like neurosurgery have to literally study for half their life before they’re officially certified to practise. That’s a long period of time. They cannot just give up halfway and say they are fed up, can they? They have picked something they want to do, and they have to stick to it.

Blogging is just like any other profession. You don’t become an expert or an authority over night. It takes hard work, time, patience and a lot of grunt to become successful. You just have to keep doing what you do, and there will surely come a turning point, when all your hard work finally pays off.

My Point

If you are a blogger struggling to establish yourself, I have this piece of advice: don’t give up; keep blogging; keep writing great content. There will come a turning point, sooner or later, rest assured. Think of that turning point as a destination. All the hard work and patience and time is the journey. Sure there will be obstacles (failures, let-downs, lack of motivation…) but you have to jump over those and keep going.

Who knows, the turning point might be footsteps away! Your next article could get on the frontpage of Digg. You cannot just give up at this point can you?

Things That May Help

There’s no way you cannot be successful if you’re doing everything right. You could be doing everything right, but if you’re still worried that you’re doing something wrong, here’s a small checklist to go through (You never know, you might be missing out on something):

The Content - Is your content read-worthy? Is it on topic and something people will want to read? Is it presented impartially? Have you researched your stuff well enough? Are your ideas new and fresh?
The content is what represents you online. Well researched and well presented content goes a far way in helping your cause than does mediocre content. The time you spend researching is well worth it. Remember, nothing you spend time on goes to waste, for it will all help your cause in one way or another :).

Your Promotion Strategy - Are your marketing strategies sound and ethical? Do you employ black hat tactics? (such as gaming social media sites). Do you have a strong presence at social media networks? Do you actively take part in the community or just keep submitting your own articles? Are you exploring other mediums of marketing? Are you unique in your approach?

You need to make sure that you’re using the correct marketing and promotion (and ethical) strategies. It’s no use promoting a tech blog on a environmental social media network. You also need to make sure you’re not using black hat techniques: that you’re not gaming the social media sites, or spamming the search engines.

Become active on social media networks: find new friends and interact with them. Don’t make friends just for asking them for Stumbles or Diggs. Offer to share and spread their posts: they’ll appreciate it. Develop strong friendships. A big, loyal following will be willing to help you in many ways.

Your Design - If your blog design usable? Is it easy to navigate? Can the user simply go from point A to point B without having to first go through point C? Is your design simple enough for an eighty year old to read with ease? Is it splattered with ads? Does it have proper structure? Is it free of technical errors?

The design of your blog is very important. This may sound an obvious thing to say, but is important nonetheless. You need to ensure that your design is user friendly, as much as possible. It needs to be easy to navigate also; for people don’t like to have to journey from to there all over the place, just to get from Point X to Point Y. Come on, you knew that!

You Yourself - This is the most important thing. Do you love what you blog about or are you in just for the money (which you’ll never be able to earn, this way)? Is this a half-hearted effort?

Finally

Blogging is arduous work. You need to be ready to continuously produce articles day in and day out for years. Therefore, your blog should not be about something that’s just a fad - something that will pass go away soon. You need to find a definite, specific niche; something you’re comfortable with and are knowledgeable about. It could be anything: sport, politics, money, celebrities, and what not. So, you have to choose your niche carefully…

Your Thoughts?

Do you believe that persistence and hard work is important for someone to be successful? Please do share your views with us