Top things to know when blogging using Blogger

When it comes to blogging, people get confused about whether to use Blogger or WordPress. Then they go to biased reviews. Some favour Blogger other favour WordPress. Next, when bloggers learn or start learning about SEO they again get stuck whether to take WordPress or blogger.

WordPress maybe great in terms of SEO, but that doesn't mean SEO cannot be achieved by Blogger.



I use Blogger, and implementing SEO could make things go better. The only problem is that you have to jump into some coding.

Top things to know when blogging using Blogger

This is a list of all the article that I have done previously and now you can utilize all of them to be better blogger since day one.

1. Meta Description Tag - When crawling and indexing, description meta tags are paid attention to, by all major search engines. Description meta tags are used to add small description about your blog post or article. This description maybe used by Google and displayed as excerpt. Meta description for blogger
   
   
2. Custom Permalink - Blogger added this functionality in 2012. Now, users can throw-in a custom URL for each post. Previously URL were made automatically, by taking some words from the post title, which caused keyword loss if title has main keywords as last words of the title. Adding custom permalink
   
   
3. Custom 404 Page - Sometimes you have to remove some article causing users to land on not found error. You can create a custom 404 page with list of your top articles or search bar so that all readers landing on that page won't wander away.
   
   
4. Auto publish your feeds on Twitter - Traffic through social media is important. But to get that traffic you must share your own content online. But lack of time or attention may keep you from doing so. Using a FeedBurner tool that let you auto publish your feeds to twitter, you can check those "Oh! I forgot to tweet".
   
   
5. Auto publish your Facebook page status on Twitter - Bonus point. You already have published you Feed on twitter. But you can tweet same thing a hundred time. Don't make your followers feel spammed. So lets add only one more auto tweet, by tweeting Facebook fan page update to twitter.
   
   
6. Scheduling article - Let's say hypothetically you got a news, that was supposed to get published in tomorrow's news paper. Well, you had your Confidential sources. So, you can type your article today and schedule it to get published when you were fast asleep.
   

   It's better to be late then never.

   Similarly, you can also post article with past date.
   
   
7. Auto Publish on Google+ - Blogger blog have this build in functionality. As soon as you publish an article on Blogger it gets posted as an update on your Google+ profile or Google+ page. Your call. Go to, Google+ tab in Blogger to set auto publish.

Domain

• Blogger allow users to get a custom domain name and set it very easily. But Blogger does not allow users to publish their blog on naked or non-www version of domain. So, after setting up custom domain you need to redirect from non-www to www version.

Crawling and Indexing

When it comes to crawling and indexing, there are some major seach engine you must take care of. On top there is Google, then Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex, etc.

So every body knows about Google. So, lets jump to Bing and Yahoo. Working with Bing is divided into 3 steps,

1. Verification - Before you can do anything you need to tell Bing webmaster that you own the site. Bing Webmaster site verification process takes seconds.
   
   
2. Indexing - To get indexed you are required to submit your sitemap to Bing Webmaster tool. NOTE - Submitting sitemap doesn't mean that you'll get indexed, sitemaps just help search engine in crawling.
   
   
3. SEO Analyzer - A tool offered by Bing Webmaster that gives suggestion about how you can improve your page in terms of SEO.

You are done with Bing. Now Yahoo, Yahoo uses Bing. So, you are done with Yahoo as soon as you are done with Bing.

Fun stuff - Access robots.txt file of your blog. Robots.txt is used by robots to determine what should be accessed and what must be left.

www.sectortechno.com/robots.txt

Russian Search Engine Yandex

• Russia have their own local search engine. So, you can also submit your site to Yandex.

Fun thing to do

1. Just a fun thing to do. When going through other blogs, doesn't matter if they rank higher or lower you might want to know if the website runs on Blogger or on WordPress. There are other platforms too, by the way.

FeedBurner

Publishers who use Blogger use FeedBurner too. FeedBurner allows publishers to collect subscribers or regular reader. Every post that you will publish will get emailed to your subscriber's inbox.

1. Get More subscribers - To subscribe a user has to input email address into your FeedBurner subscription form. So, place a beautiful FeedBurner subscription form on your blog.
   
   
2. FeedBurner Branding - If you are using custom domain name on you Blogger blog, then you should also brand your feedburner with custom domain name.
   
   
3. Custom new subscriber email - When a user puts email address and hit submit, they are never added to your subscribers list automatically. Instead, they will first receive an email to verify subscription. You can use  FeedBurner customize verification email.

Create your eBook

• Create eBook download system with download stats. But don't unnecessarily do it. Don't piss off your loyal readers who are wasting time in downloading your content.
  
  Let me tell you, the person downloading your eBook is a fan or is in need.

Ubuntu for Bloggers

Number of Companies are adopting Ubuntu, and selling laptop units packaged with Ubuntu OS. This one is my personal experience -

Consumers want Windows OS, so laptop sellers (the middle mens) at store Format new out-of-the-box unit and install pirated version of Windows OS.

You can track this, if your laptop is running on Windows and Windows sticker is not on your unit. Also, look for Ubuntu sticker on your system's body.

So, if your system is packed with Ubuntu. There you need to know what apps blogger require on Ubuntu.