10 Things Every Blogger Needs

Being a professional blogger isn’t as simple as waking up one morning and stating, “I am a blogger, look out world!” Like any other discipline or endeavor, being a successful blogger means that you have to take the job seriously. That means working with dedication, planning and forethought. Having the right tools is an essential part of being a blogger, as you need the right tools in order to get the job done.

1. Computer or Laptop: There is no doubt one of the key tools of the modern journalist and the pro blogger is the computer. After all, the computer has become the informational link to the world. Blogging is all about information and staying current with what is happening in the world around us. This means that your computer is an essential tool in your blogging toolkit. While it is not necessary to have a top of the line gaming computer, you should have one that can get the job done or you will lose hours and hours on productivity. Making sure that you have a quality anti-virus program and firewall might be savvy addition as well.

2. Top-Notch Monitor: A reasonably large high quality monitor is an essential tool not just for bloggers, but also for anyone spending a lot of time at the computer. Eyestrain can greatly impair your productivity and make working nothing short of unpleasant. Spending a little extra money for a quality monitor is a savvy move.

3. Broadband Access: It should come as no surprise that access to a broadband connection is essential for blogging. While some people do still use dial-up Internet, you will experience major setbacks if you don’t have access to a fast connection. If you are using a laptop computer, be sure that you have a 3G dongle device for your mobile broadband access.

4. The Smartphone: A good smartphone is an absolute essential for the blogger. This is particularly true if you have one with a good deal of functionality and apps. A smartphone can function something like a modern Swiss army knife and may include GPS, recording capability, note taking capability, as well as essential features such as a camera and video capability. Also a smartphone allows you to connect to the Internet whenever you like from virtually wherever you like. This can prove invaluable for any number of important reasons. Of course, your trusted smartphone also functions as a phone too! All of these factors combine to make the smartphone a simply essential tool.

5. The Notebook or Notepad: Sure a notebook or notepad might be a bit “old school,” but you never have to worry about the battery on your notepad running out! This makes the time honored, battled tested notepad something of a practical real world essential. It is something that you should not be without for quickly jotting down ideas on good old-fashioned paper.

6. Pens, Pens and More Pens: Pens are always a must for the blogger. Not all note taking is digital... at least not yet.

6. A Good Desk: Having a good desk might seem like a no-brainer, but if you are going to be spending hours upon hours writing, you need to keep the importance of a good desk in mind. A good desk will also help keep you organized and enhance your productivity.

7. The Chair: A comfortable chair, one that you can spend hours in, is probably even more important than having a good desk. After all, back problems will quickly end your workday.

9. A Bookcase: You never know when you might want to include a reference to a book in your blogging endeavors. A bookcase is important for staying organized. Don’t skip this inexpensive item that is essential for keeping books in order.

10. A Quality Keyboard: Lots of blogging means lots of typing. This makes an investment in a comfortable keyboard a must. Don’t just assume that the keyboard you received with your computer is adequate.

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Three Quick Tips for Attracting Traffic to Your Blog

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been the hot topic in all areas of the blogosphere for years now. Now that creating and maintaining a blog has become fairly simple, bloggers and wannabe bloggers are all about getting readers and creating traffic. While there are dozens and dozens of tips and tricks to mastering SEO available on the web, these three tips are simple and often overlooked.

One of the most important aspects of optimizing your blog is learning to link intelligently. This is an area that people have significant trouble with (and for good reason). Linking in a way that appears both natural and unobtrusive can be tricky. When you link out in your blog posts, you should always be aware of how the links are related to the content you provide. Not everything that you discuss in you blog will warrant a link. You must determine where it is appropriate to use convention to link and where a little more creativity is necessary. The biggest deterrent in a blog is over-linking, however it is also important to realize that under-linking can have very dire consequences as well. If you mention Wikipedia in a blog post, it is obviously not necessary to link to Wikipedia in general because everyone on the internet knows what it is. However, if you mention a specific page from Wikipedia it is not only good that you link to that page, in fact it is necessary.

Another great tip for optimizing your blog is launching your blog posts without comments enabled initially. Unfortunately, many readers will base what they read on how many other people have read it. We've all done it. You click on a post that has an interesting looking title, scan the page, see that there are no comments, and decide that it's not worth reading. Obviously, this doesn’t always happen, but there is something kind of sad about a blog with 0 comments on every single post. The site looks dead and unpopular. The simple solution turn off the commenting option. This way no one can see that there are 0 comments on your blog. After you submit a post, pay close attention to the number of RSS subscribers you have and the number of unique visitors you have each day. Once your RSS subscribers tops 100 or you get more than 300 unique visits a day open up the comments. Using this technique keeps particularly tech-savvy visitors from judging your blog based on popularity.

Finally, many bloggers underestimate the value of guest bloggers for their site. Having already established bloggers write content for your site will help attract their readers to your page and will strengthen your SEO. Of course, it is important that you choose your guest posts and guest posters carefully. The guest posts that you choose should be relevant to your blog's interests and aims. However, it may also be useful to support guest posts that counter something that you have discussed previously. This way you are catering to all spectrums of the general audience and you demonstrate that you are open to discussion. Fostering varied discussion in your blog can be important to generating more interest in it. Another important thing to look for in guest blogs is links or direct references to other posts from your page. If a guest blogger discusses other blog posts you have written, it will encourage readers to read more of your work and it establishes that that guest writer is familiar with your blog.

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