Tag: bloggers

  • How To Be Number One In Blogging?

    How To Be Number One In Blogging?

    It’s lovely Sunday here in Malaysia and I want to make this post a short one before heading off chilling with my family (wife and kid). 

    As a blogger, I often wonder how to be number one in blogging. Yes, the dream is big but at the very least, being number one in my niche is a good start.

    I tried a lot of things in recent years and realized that it is really easy to beat your competitors. So, here are some cool blogging tips to help you reach the top spot in your niche.

    Related: Want to make money online? Here’s the ultimate guide to making money online.

    How To Be Number One In Blogging

    1. Publish posts based on what others are looking for

    Don’t publish a post because you wanted to. Publish a post because your audience is looking for that.

    For example, ‘how-to’ posts always strive way better (in rankings) compared to other posts because it is simple to digest and solve problems others are facing.

    As a blogger, you are the person that shares information. Therefore, make sure the information is timely, accurate and above everything, actionable.

    2. Create impressive content

    When it comes to content creation, your content can be short but make sure it is delivered nicely. In other words, impress your website visitors and they will come back for more.

    A few examples in creating impressive content are:

    • Detailed research and analytics
    • Ultra long blog posts (like this one)
    • Use bullet points to summarize the content
    • Usage of visual builders such as Thrive Architect to mesmerize your audience (click here for demo)
    • check-circle-oEmbed videos and visuals to help deliver the information

    3. Website loading speed matters

    An average attention span of a website visitor is between 5 to 7 seconds. If your website takes over 10 seconds to loads, no one is going to stick around long enough to read the post.

    Therefore, having a fast website loading speed is critical for success. And when it comes to web hosting, avoid going for just any web hosting services.

    Partnering with reputable web hosting companies such as HostGator, WP Engine and Kinsta is going to help your website loads way much faster and ultimately, helping you to be number one in blogging.

    4. The importance of web design

    Web design is important. Using a free WordPress template is going to save you some money at first but is going to leave a bad impression in a long run. Plus, you are NOT going to be number one anytime soon if you are using free templates.

    Let’s be realistic. Do you think that you can stand out from the crowd by not having a professional website design? Absolutely not!

    If you want to be number one in blogging, consider using a premium WordPress theme for your blog.

    Premium themes such as Thrive Themes costs as low as $19 per month. Therefore, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be using it (if you are dead serious in becoming number one in blogging).

    5. Mobile first (because Google loves it)

    Again, here’s another massive problem when you use free WordPress themes. Most of them are not optimized and according to Google, mobile first is a key reason for website ranking. 

    WordPress theme that you use must be optimized for mobile and responsive. Therefore, I highly recommend you to use premium WordPress themes or at least, WordPress themes that are mobile responsive (click here for sample).

    Are you ready to be number one in blogging?

    I know that I’m ready to be number one in the blogging niche of my choice. How about you?

    Leave a comment and tell me what you think!

  • 5 Winning Blogging Tips For Beginners

    5 Winning Blogging Tips For Beginners

    Looking for the best blogging tips for beginners? You’ve come to the right place. Carry on reading and you will find the top 6 winning blogging tips for beginners.

    1. Which is the best blogging platform?

    WordPress. Make no mistake. WordPress is the best blogging platform money can buy.

    It is easy to use, flexible and extremely beginner-friendly. More importantly, it is free for life.

    WordPress.com versus WordPress.org

    WordPress.com. It is a good blogging platform that you can start a blog with. It offers all-in-one solution for beginners such as domain hosting and security under one roof, with very affordable pricing. You can also easily scale your website when there is more traffic.

    WordPress.org. Commonly known as self-hosted WordPress, this is the most popular blogging content management system (CMS) for bloggers. The core difference of WordPress.org is that you are required to have your own domain (like www.www.reginaldchan.net) and in return, you have absolute control of your blog (from monetization to the way it works).

    2. Which is the best web hosting for bloggers?

    What is the best web hosting for bloggers? Personally, HostGator is the first web hosting company I used — and I have no regret recommending this to any blogger who wants it.

    A web hosting must be able to provide you with features such as security, one-click installation for major CMS and even backups.

    Click here to read more about web hosting services.

    3. What is the best blogging frequency?

    The answer is simple. As much as possible.

    The blogging industry is competitive and only the strong ones will sustain. When you are able to constantly produce content, your readers will be kept updated with the latest content — and this will make them come back for more.

    One of the best blogging tips for success is to publish as many content as possible to beat your competitors.

    4. How to create interactive content on your blog?

    Wall of text doesn’t work and it is really boring. On the other hand, interactive content is attractive and will turn heads — indirectly keeping your visitors longer on the side.

    The trick to creating interactive content on your blog is by using visual builders. For the record, there are dozens of WordPress visual builders that you can use. My personal favorite is definitely Thrive Architect (click here for the demo or read the review).

    Using Thrive Architect, I’m able to create content based on my needs and designing them to make my visitors go “WOW!” This is what I mean.

    thrive architect customize widththrive architect attention grabbing elementsthrive architect column layoutcustomize buttons using thrive architect

    5. How to make money from blogging fast?

    Your blogging success is often measured through the amount of money you make on a daily basis. Well, it makes sense in many ways.

    The fastest way to make money is through affiliate marketing as you are able to sell high ticket affiliate products.

    BONUS: How to Make Money By Blogging: How I Make 10K+ From Home

    At the same time, always remember that selling/promoting Amazon products is also a great way to generate passive income. Of course, this works best if your website audience are primarily from United States or United Kingdom.

    Last but not least, do not forget that Google Adsense is a nice substitute when it comes to making money from your blog. The only way to make a lot of money through Google Adsense is through optimized banner location and a large number of website traffic.

    Summary: 5 winning blogging tips for beginners

    I got to admit that there are many other blogging tips you can find but these are the top 5 winning blogging tips for beginners (which I personally use all the time).

    What do you think? Leave a comment below and tell me what you think!

  • What Is The Best WordPress Hosting Site?

    What Is The Best WordPress Hosting Site?

    Best WordPress hosting site. I’m sure the answer varies and it is highly dependable to individuals. For me, I have my fair share of experiences using shared hosting, managed WordPress hosting and even virtual private servers (VPS). In this post, I’m going to share with you the best WordPress hosting sites based on price and more importantly, server performance.

    The Best WordPress Hosting Site

    Top choice: WP Engine – Excellent performance and customer support

    Plans: As low as $35 per month (25,000 visits)

    Advantages using WP Engine

    • VPS environment for speed and performance
    • Inbuilt cache feature
    • One-click automated migration
    • Bulletproof security
    • 24/7 chat support
    • Staging environment
    • Transferable installs
    • PHP 7 ready
    • LargeFS
    • Automated SSL certificates
    • Content Delivery Network (CDN) (optional and higher plans)
    • GeoTarget (higher plans)
    • Content performance (higher plans)
    • Launch readiness assessment (higher plans)
    • Multisite ready (higher plans)

    Limited Time Offer – 2 Months Free

    Disadvantages using WP Engine

    • Pricing is higher than traditional shared hosting

     

    Secondary choice: FlyWheel – Affordable pricing and unique billing feature

    Pricing: As low as $14 per month (5,000 visits)

    Advantages using FlyWheel

    • No overage charges (only automatic upgrade to next plan)
    • Free site migration
    • Free SSL certificate
    • Free staging sites
    • Transferable billing to clients
    • Content Delivery Network (CDN) (optional and higher plans only)
    • Multisite (higher plans only)
    • 24/7 support via email only

    Try FlyWheel today!

    Disadvantages using FlyWheel

    • Smallest plan only suits for really small websites
    • Pricing is higher than traditional shared hosting
    • Lack of live chat feature is a game changer

     

    Third choice: SiteGround – Excellent pricing with a scaled down performance

    Pricing: As low as $3.95 per month

    Advantages using SiteGround

    • 24/7 live chat
    • Super affordable web hosting plans
    • Scalability

    Try affordable WordPress hosting with SiteGround.

    Disadvantages using SiteGround

    • All plans are based on shared hosting
    • Server performance is based on plans you had signed up
    • Advanced support is considered ad-hoc services and chargeable

     

    New entry: Kinsta Hosting – Blazing fast servers powered with Google Cloud Platform

    Pricing: As low as $30 per month

    Advantages using Kinsta

    • Powered by Google Cloud Platform (VPS)
    • Blazing website speed
    • Scalability and powerful web hosting for both small and enterprise websites
    • Staging area
    • Inbuilt cache system
    • 24/7 live chat

    Click here to see all the benefits using Kinsta!

    Disadvantages using Kinsta hosting

    • Pricing is steep for small website owners/beginners

     

    What is the best WordPress hosting site?

    Personally, I would choose for WP Engine as my first choice. For the price of $35 a month, I can rest assured that my sites are always protected and secured. More importantly, downtime is never a problem and the support team over at WP Engine is willing to go beyond simply because they could. For me, this is definitely a deal breaker as I do not want to be charged for every support I require. Take a look at this post and you will understand why.

    If you are a web developer, FlyWheel (or GetFlyWheel) is a great choice for you because it provides easy billing features. In other words, you can transfer the charges over to your client through FlyWheel’s dashboard. There is no more mess and you can focus on the thing that you are best in … which is designing the site. The downside of FlyWheel is the plans are pretty much similar to WP Engine and therefore, you will get a better deal when using WP Engine instead. The Tiny plan from FlyWheel allows up to 5,000 visits in a month and let’s be real honest — that is really insufficient for most bloggers.

    SiteGround is the lowest in the comparison tier. While the low plans are great for starters and beginners, the servers are optimized for WordPress hosting but they are still shared web hosting. This means that it is NOT managed WordPress hosting and you will get lower performance servers when compared to WP Engine and FlyWheel.

    Last but not least, the newest entry is Kinsta hosting. Kinsta offers a simple solution for both entry level websites and business websites. With pricing starts at $30 per month, Kinsta offers top notch VPS performance (thanks to Google Cloud Platform) and inbuilt cache plugin that makes your website loads insanely fast. Plus, the support team is available 24/7 via live chat to answer all your doubts and challenges you may face in web hosting.

    What do you think? Leave a comment below and tell me which web host you are currently using!

  • 4 Steps To Build A Brand For Your New Blog

    4 Steps To Build A Brand For Your New Blog

    Do you know that branding is as important for bloggers as it is for big names? The process of building a brand is often overlooked by many bloggers, and as a result, they will lead to many ‘˜challenges’ such as infringement and trying to be different as they move along their blogging journey.

    According to Entrepreneur, the definition of branding is ‘The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products.’
    CONTINUE READING

  • 14 Ways To Prevent Your WordPress Website From Being Hacked

    14 Ways To Prevent Your WordPress Website From Being Hacked

    How to secure WordPress website from hackers?‘

    As a blogger (now, freelance writer), the above is one of the most common questions asked by new bloggers and website owners.

    My answer to them often goes into the deep conversation as I am a huge believer that securing WordPress website from hackers requires more than just one step. As a matter of fact, there are many steps you need to take to secure WordPress website from hackers.

    Two years back, I wrote an article on WordPress security, and it was a huge success. Not only that post became one of my most popular blog posts, but it was also featured on Harvard University’s blog!
    CONTINUE READING

  • WP Engine Automated Migration – A Game Changer In The Industry? #60DaysBloggingChallenge Day 2

    WP Engine Automated Migration – A Game Changer In The Industry? #60DaysBloggingChallenge Day 2

    Before we talk about the all new, WP Engine Automated Migration plugin, let’s talk about WordPress migration process.

    The process of migrating to a new host is messy. Believe me; it is not pretty and chances of error is high.

    Throughout my blogging career, I have been migrating from one host to another, to find a web host I can truly call ‘home.’ You are in the industry for some time; you would know that some web hosts will provide free migration while others provide paid migration services.
    CONTINUE READING