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	<title>Your Blog Tools &#187; Essentials</title>
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	<description>Maximise Your Blog</description>
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		<title>Does Your Blog Pass the Stop-By Test?</title>
		<link>http://yourblogtools.com/does-your-blog-pass-the-stop-by-test/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=does-your-blog-pass-the-stop-by-test</link>
		<comments>http://yourblogtools.com/does-your-blog-pass-the-stop-by-test/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:44:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Lufadeju</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Essentials]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blogging]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://yourblogtools.com/?p=106</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Imagine you’ve just checked-in to a hotel, reception have handed you your room key, You open the door, only to find your room in a complete state &#8211; bed unmade, towels on the floor e.t.c.<br />
I guarantee you would turn &#8230;</p>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Imagine you’ve just checked-in to a hotel, reception have handed you your room key, You open the door, only to find your room in a complete state &#8211; bed unmade, towels on the floor e.t.c.<br />
I guarantee you would turn back and find somewhere else.</p>
<p>The same principle applies to a blog. When visitors stop by and find your blog a complete eye sore or of no value, they would simply turn back and go elsewhere.</p>
<h3>Let’s ponder on a few things</h3>
<h4><span style="color: #800000;"><strong><br />
(1) Is your blog clutter-free and presentable?</strong></span></h4>
<p>Do you have a good theme installed?<br />
How many side bar widgets do you have installed? &#8211; Must you really have all that?<br />
Do you really need all those social bookmarking icons? Are your text font / size readable by all?<br />
All these factors constitute to the overall appearance of a blog.</p>
<p>Let’s go back to our hotel analogy – although a blog/hotel may have something of value to offer, if first impressions are negative, chances are, the visitor will not return.</p>
<p>Remember first impressions counts, so take time to plan your blog&#8217;s structure.</p>
<h4><span style="color: #800000;"><strong>(2) Is your blog offering something of value?</strong></span></h4>
<p>Once that first impression bridge has been crossed, content is your No.1 product of value.<br />
Either you have a news or an entertainment blog visitors are reading your stuff because you have something of value to offer.</p>
<p>Bare in mind, in most cases, visitors on your blog are there simply for their own interests.</p>
<p><strong>What are your thoughts on this?<br />
Have you recently done a stop-by test?<br />
What would you suggest? </strong></p>
<div id="seo_alrp_related"><h2>If you enjoyed Does Your Blog Pass the Stop-By Test?, you may also like...</h2><ul><li><div class="seo_alrp_rl_content"><h3><a href="http://yourblogtools.com/start-building-your-list-from-day-one/" rel="bookmark">Start Building Your List from Day One</a></h3><p>We all know how important mailing lists are, but for the benefit of new bloggers it is very essential to start building mailing lists from ...</p></div></li><li><div class="seo_alrp_rl_content"><h3><a href="http://yourblogtools.com/are-non-blog-owners-also-bloggers/" rel="bookmark">Are non blog owners also bloggers?</a></h3><p>This is a guest post by my lovely wife Yemi', of MsLuffa After reading Build a Superstar Blog ebook, my wife and I got into ...</p></div></li><li><div class="seo_alrp_rl_content"><h3><a href="http://yourblogtools.com/5-essential-plugins-for-a-new-wordpress-blog/" rel="bookmark">5 Essential Plugins For A New WordPress Blog</a></h3><p>These are exciting times guys... As we enter the beginning stages of YourBlogTools.com, I will be documenting series of action steps taken to get this ...</p></div></li><li><div class="seo_alrp_rl_content"><h3><a href="http://yourblogtools.com/blog-today-gone-tomorrow/" rel="bookmark">Blog Today, Gone Tomorrow</a></h3><p>I saw on one of those breakfast TV shows, a teenager called Dion introduced as Amy Winehouse's god daughter and described as a new singing ...</p></div></li><li><div class="seo_alrp_rl_content"><h3><a href="http://yourblogtools.com/more-traffic/" rel="bookmark">4 Simple Ways To Get More Traffic To Your Blog</a></h3><p>How do I get more traffic? Probably the most asked question on the blogoshere. If you are a beginner blogger, you've probably written a few ...</p></div></li></ul></div>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>24</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Does Your New Blog Have Traits of A Loner</title>
		<link>http://yourblogtools.com/does-your-new-blog-have-traits-of-a-loner/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=does-your-new-blog-have-traits-of-a-loner</link>
		<comments>http://yourblogtools.com/does-your-new-blog-have-traits-of-a-loner/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:50:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Lufadeju</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Essentials]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Plugins]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://yourblogtools.com/?p=45</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Imagine starting a new blog with no plan of making friends &#8211; It&#8217;s a bit like drafting a post but never hitting the publish button.<br />
Visitors and potential friends don&#8217;t just magically appear, we have to actively find them.</p>
<h3><strong>Let&#8217;s </strong>&#8230;</h3>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Imagine starting a new blog with no plan of making friends &#8211; It&#8217;s a bit like drafting a post but never hitting the publish button.<br />
Visitors and potential friends don&#8217;t just magically appear, we have to actively find them.</p>
<h3><strong>Let&#8217;s Interact</strong></h3>
<p>Let&#8217;s check out some tools that would brag about your blog as well as interact with others.</p>
<p>To continue with our series on &#8220;<strong><em>Essentials tools for a new blog</em></strong>&#8220;,  Engaging your blog with community is a good thing.</p>
<p>Your blog is always going to be in a world of its own without communication channels or means of reaching out.</p>
<p>There are several ways to create these channels,<br />
however, in this post I shall focus on four social media ones. Some of which have been applied to this very blog.</p>
<h4><strong><span style="color: #800000;">Twitter (widget)</span></strong></h4>
<h4><strong><span style="color: #800000;"> </span></strong></h4>
<p><strong><span style="color: #800000;"> </span></strong>Let&#8217;s face it, as of the time of me writing this post Twitter is the biggest thing out there.  A social networking service that enables you to send and read messages &#8211; also known as tweets.<br />
If don&#8217;t already have an account &#8211; get involved <a href="http://twitter.com">here</a><br />
And of course there are several third party Twitter applications that would give you a nice tweeting experience.<br />
You can also decide to incorporate your Twitter conversation on your blog in a form of a widget. On this blog I am using <em>Twitter for WordPress</em></p>
<p><em><strong>Benefits:</strong></em></p>
<ul>
<li> Freedom of self expression in 140 characters.</li>
<li> Ability to build a group of targeted followers.</li>
<li>Ability to update your followers with new activities on your blog.</li>
<li>Incorporate your Twitter conversation on your blog</li>
</ul>
<h4><strong><span style="color: #800000;">Twitter Feed</span></strong></h4>
<h4><strong><span style="color: #800000;"> </span></strong></h4>
<p><strong><span style="color: #800000;"> </span></strong>With Twitter Feed, you can auto-schedule your blog post to distribute to Twitter.<br />
Meaning your followers on Twitter would instantly know when you have a new post.</p>
<p><em><strong><span style="color: #000000;">Benefits:</span></strong><br />
</em></p>
<ul>
<li>Easy way to notify the Twitter world of your blog postings.</li>
<li> One-time setup</li>
</ul>
<h4><span style="color: #800000;"><strong>Tweetmeme Button<br />
</strong></span></h4>
<h4><span style="color: #800000;"> </span></h4>
<p><span style="color: #800000;"><strong> </strong></span>The TweetMeme retweet button is designed to encourage visitors to tweet your blog post.<br />
This would actually be my first time using this widget.<br />
I am keen to see the effectiveness of it.</p>
<p><em><strong><span style="color: #000000;">Benefits:</span></strong><br />
</em></p>
<ul>
<li>Re-tweeting a post<span style="color: #800000;"><span style="color: #000000;"> </span></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #800000;"><span style="color: #000000;">Displays the number of tweets</span></span></li>
</ul>
<h4><span style="color: #800000;"> <strong>Share Button</strong></span></h4>
<p>It essentially does what it says.<br />
The Share This or Share/Save button encourages visitors to add your posts to social bookmarking sites.<br />
There are tonnes of <strong>share this</strong> application around. The Share button used here is by <em>Add to Any</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Which tools do you use?</strong></p>
<div id="_mcePaste" style="overflow: hidden; position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 375px; width: 1px; height: 1px;"><a href="file:///F:/Documents%20and%20Settings/john/Desktop/twitter-for-wordpress/">file:///F:/Documents%20and%20Settings/john/Desktop/twitter-for-wordpress/</a></div>
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