It’s been said that you do not have to be a decent writer to run a decent blog. I can agree 100% with that statement. I do not feel that blogging is about grammar as much as it is about getting the message out there and making a positive connection with your audience. That is the most important thing and I don’t think anything will change that.

That being said, grammar does play a role in the success of your readership. If you have numerous grammar mistakes and run-on sentences it becomes harder for people to read and enjoy your body of posts. What you say might very well be of use or importance to someone, but without smooth flowing grammar they aren’t going to be able to get through your post to find that out.

Let me give you an example. I have only done basic editing on what I’ve written above. I ran it through Word and read it aloud to make sure nothing sounded awkward. Now let’s look at what you’ve just read sans grammar rules.

It’s been said that you do not have to be a decent writer to run a decent blog, I can agree 100% with that statement, I do not feel that blogging is about grammar as much as it is getting the message out there and making a positive connection with your audience, that is the most important thing and I don’t think anything will change that.

That being said grammar does play a role in the success of your readership if you have numerous grammar mistakes and run-on sentences it becomes harder for people to read and enjoy your body of posts. What you say might very well be of use or importance to someone but without at least some grammar they aren’t going to be able to get through it to find that out.

Let me give you an example I have only done basic editing on what I’ve written above I ran it through Word and read it aloud to make sure nothing sounded awkward Now let’s look at what you’ve just read sans grammar rules.

I didn’t do too much to the above post. In fact, funnily enough it still checks out as fine in Word, even though it’s not. I put commas in the place of some periods and removed periods altogether in other areas. I refrained from the misspellings of some words, though adding those in with bad punctuation would have just continued to make things worse (and prove my point a little more).

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Before I begin, I have a confession to make. This article is not going to be about hos and why they need deodorant (though I am sure it’s good for them to use it!) I got the title from a discussion on Twitter that @DominickEvans had with someone concerning the legalization (and the possible tax deductions) of prostitution. I used the title because I needed something that would grab your attention, and really, what is better able to do that than hos and deodorant?

The real topic has to do with writing a title that is going to get attention and cause people to click on/read your post. I don’t recommend going as far as I have here, but we will get into all of that in a minute. The reason I decided to talk about this today has to do with the stats on one of my smaller blogs.

My personal blog doesn’t get very many visitors/page views currently, though that is because I haven’t put enough time into it. However, the other day I wrote some posts and apparently they had the right headlines because my visitors/page views more than tripled in one day! The posts weren’t anything that I thought would get much attention. I thought some people would notice them, but I wasn’t expecting more than three times the amount of people I normally get. It’s amazing what a title can do.

Are your titles larger than life? You want something that catches a person’s eye and really convinces them to click. If you’re writing something about turtles and you name the title “The History of Turtles” that may be what the post is about, but it doesn’t guarantee someone will click unless they are looking for the history of turtles. However, if you take a fact or something interesting from your article and build the title off of that then it will catch the interest of more people.

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When we decided to write a post about plugins we were just going to pick ten and leave it at that. We quickly learned that ten wasn’t going to be enough. There were just too many good plugins that we use and it didn’t seem fair to leave out all of the other great plugins that need some attention. So in the next few posts, you should see a list of plugins recommended for review sites, monetization, and social networking. This post is dedicated to new bloggers and unlike the other posts you will find, this list will have ten plugins rather than five.

Without further ado, here are the top ten plugins that could help new bloggers to succeed in the blogosphere. Don’t see an important or useful plugin listed? Feel free to leave a comment and let us know what we missed or forgot!

Adsense-Deluxe
Why it’s important: Whether you’re using it as your sole means of monetization or not (I’d hope not) Adsense is used by the majority of blogs and bloggers in the sphere. Adsense Deluxe makes it easy to pop an adsense ad into your post or sidebar. You can set up different sizes with channels in your admin panel and then use a small code wherever you want the adsense banner/link to appear. It doesn’t get easier than this.

All in One SEO Pack
Why it’s important: If you’re writing a new blog and want it to succeed then having some readers (any readers) would be a good thing. SEO is important if you want on search engines such as Google. Unfortunately, most blogs aren’t set up for individual SEO on every post/article you write. All in One SEO allows you to write specific titles, descriptions, and keywords (among other things) for each blog post. This can help you to get indexed on the search engines faster and gives you a competitive edge over the blogs in your niche not using this method of SEO enhancement.

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I received a Twitter a few days ago, from a woman who needed help making her URLs SEO friendly. She was making a plea to those on her list to help her figure out how to do this. After giving her step by step instructions, I was able to help her figure out the process.

This woman was sent a few different websites with tutorials on how to change her URL, but none of them were complete, concise and comprehensive. None of them had full instructions on how to accomplish what she wanted. This is why I decided to make this tutorial.

First, I should probably explain why this tutorial is not only necessary, but why it is also important. When Search Engines crawl a website, they don’t just crawl for content. They also identify terms in the title, description, other meta tags and in the URL. When you first set up a Wordpress blog, each article/post you write is assigned a numerical value. This is to separate one post from another.

So, let’s say you have a post. The URL for that post might be: http://www.YourUrl.com/?p=12345

That URL isn’t going to help you when it comes to the Search Engines. If your article/post is on making money online, and someone uses the phrase ‘making money online’ in a search on Google or Yahoo, you might be noticed because your article title and meta tags include the term, making money online. However, the more examples you have of said term in your search entry, can help to determine where and/or how you rank on the search engines. You can slip the phrase into your listing once more by making it a part of your URL.

A Search Engine friendly version of:
http://www.YourUrl.com/?p=12345

would be:
http://www.YourUrl.com/making-money-online

You can’t just change your URL though. You have to set up your Wordpress blog to allow you to make the end of your article’s/post’s URL whatever you want. This is where this tutorial comes in. I’m going to explain step by step, how to make your URLs more SEO friendly.

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I’m going to be writing a regular series specifically targeting bloggers, freelancers, professionals and entrepreneurs with disabilities. With over 43 million Americans with disabilities/impairments (that’s nearly 1 out of 5 Americans) this series is a necessity. Of course, able-bodied individuals can take something from every article I write, as well, since the themes I cover will be (in some ways) universal to those who aspire to become self-sufficient through use of the Internet.

I make it no secret that I am in a wheelchair. For just a brief snapshot of who I am, let me tell you that I have a progressive muscle disease, Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type III. I walked until I was 16, when I went into a wheelchair, full time. I was in college for Theatre (I was quite the performer and singer back in the day) with a minor in Political Science when tragedy struck. During a routine transfer from wheelchair to shower chair, I fell and fractured my tibia. My life was changed in an instant.

I moved, with my girlfriend and our son, from our apartment at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio to a house she owned with her mother in mid-Michigan. This served two purposes. Her mother had been recently laid off by a company now stationed in Mexico. For the first time in her life, she was unemployed. For us, this gave us time for my leg to heal, which took more than a year. In the meantime, we had to find a way to put food on the table. The only thing we had luxury wise was the Internet and this gave Ashtyn (said girlfriend) the idea to find a job online.

We made a list of our skills. Ashtyn has always been a prolific writer. I wrote excellent, well written papers in college. I also can be anal retentive when it comes to grammar. So, writing and editing were at the top of our list. Add in slightly above basic HTML skills on my part, and a desire to teach myself graphic design. You have our basic plan to finding a job. While it wasn’t an easy road, within a year, we were on our way to becoming successful freelance writers. It was our hard work, perseverance, and ability to work our way up to high paying freelance jobs that made us successful.

Now that you know a little bit more about me and where I am coming from, let me throw another statistic out at you. A year ago, I read a study by the government that said 77% of disabled Americans are unemployed. I’d wager to say that due to the job and financial crisis’, that number has risen to somewhere around 85%. This means all disabilities, ranging from physical to mental or emotional disabilities such as Autism, Downs Syndrome and even Bi-Polar Disorder. For some, they simply can’t work. Others have faced workplace discrimination.

What’s surprising is that over half of those who have disabilities and also college degrees, are still unemployed. This is absolutely staggering! The issue is so big that disability rights organizations have turned to lawmakers/politicians for help. This includes finding out proposed plans for the disability unemployment rate by presidential contenders John McCain and Barack Obama. While Obama has outlined his plan, as of recently, McCain hasn’t had a thing to say on the issue. This issue isn’t going to be easily solved nor is it going to go away. That is unless we, as disabled individuals, take it upon ourselves to better our lives!

I’m 27 years old. This was not the career path I had in mind when I went to college, but I’ve made it work. I love what I do and I love all of the people I’ve met through blogging, writing and designing online. Along the way, I’ve met many other disabled entrepreneurs. Many of them had similar disabilities to my own.

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Motivation can be a funny thing when you work on the internet. There are a million things waiting to distract you. From casual games to that television show you missed, you have a number of ways to distract yourself from whatever your goals are when you come online.

Blogging can be especially tough because it’s easy to get lost in Stumble Upon or to spend hours networking on other sites. While these things are equally as important, if you don’t spend time writing blog posts your blog will only get so far.

Some days, I stay on task incredibly well. Other days, I convince myself that being a reviewer means I can spend the day playing games. It is true I can do that, but in reality I need to do more than that to make any of the sites I write on successful.

Staying on task sounds easy, but with so many ways to lose your concentration what do you do to keep it?

Keep a Blog Schedule
As much as I hate schedules (and I seriously hate schedules), I find that they do offer a huge benefit. If you run multiple blogs, scheduling time for post writing, networking, and research can be a huge help to you. This will stop you from spending too much time on one blog and not enough on another. It will also make you try harder to stay on track. Having a structured day gives you a reason to get done whatever you need to do.

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When you’ve built a website or a blog you’ve most likely done it because you want it to succeed. That also probably means you have spent a good deal of time on it. Maybe you had a personalized design made or you found a template that was nice and seemed rarely used. You took the time to write out some posts, fill in all the pages with the proper information, made sure your contact form was working and your ads were in place. In other words, you were ready to settle into the groove of being an internet entrepreneur.

So, now what?

All of the pieces to the puzzle are complete and you’re adding posts by the dozen, so why aren’t people visiting your website? Like the title suggests, you might love your website but you find yourself wondering why you’re the only one that does.

The good news is that if you’re site is as good as you think it is, you’re probably just suffering from new site blues. When people start out with their first blog they rarely (and I mean rarely) are lucky enough to see substantial numbers come out of the woodwork. Most people have to plug away at building a site and a community. They have to network, work the social networking sites, and hope for a couple of breaks. It doesn’t come easy and the number one mistake that failing bloggers make, especially new failing bloggers, is thinking that it should come easy.

The truth is, there could be a number of reasons why you aren’t getting a maximum amount of exposure. Finding out what those reasons are and doing something about them is what is going to set the professional bloggers apart from the failed bunch that have to go back to 9 to 5.

So, what do I do to get visitors?

Social Networking
One of the best free methods of advertising you have is known as social networking. Sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, and even Myspace or Facebook can be invaluable to a blogger. Sure, you will have to spend some time working on these sites. You will need to make friends, digg articles, and promote yourself, but if you do these things you won’t have any problems getting visitors out of the deal. In fact, in most cases, you will end up with visitors that comment and come back to your site. Just make sure you aren’t spamming people in the process because that will do just the opposite of what you want. It’s great that you love your site, but don’t be obnoxious about it. There is nothing wrong with mentioning your blog or your new articles, but if you’re begging for people to digg your articles you might want to re-evaluate your methods.

Twitter
If you’ve been living under a rock you might not know what Twitter is. Otherwise, you’re likely well aware that it is a type of up-to-the-minute mini-blog that explains what you are doing, where you’re at, or what’s going on in your life. In addition to posting these things, you can use Twitterfeed to add your RSS and send your updated blog posts to your twitter list. Like other social networking sites people can follow you to see what you’re up to. This allows them current information about your blog, so they can decide whether they should subscribe to it or not. This is great because people will click on links that they are interested in and could have missed out on.

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