So you’re going to launch that blog and get the best out of it, but are you going to create a smash, or a whimper? These tips will help you launch the blog with pizzazz to grab readers attention, and reap the rewards that it brings.

There are some blogs that will not really be suitable to hype, and this is a decision that you will have to make.

For the rest though, get everyone talking about that blog.

Prepare content before going live. If you have prepared quality content for your blog in advance, you can then market it at its intended audience. If you first article gets a mixed response, then save it for later, and try one that’s honed to your audience. If you can amaze ten people with your blog, you will soon be amazing one hundred.

This is key to make money with your blog through advertising. The key to make money through advertising is high subscribers and readerships. So ensure that the content is good, and you have good content prior to launch date, and this will set you up nicely in the long run.

Twitter is an excellent way to get your message out there, and if you run a viral twitter campaign, then you could see your visitor rate rise. The key here is to make sure that the prize you give away is good enough to get your average twitter users attention.

If you do not have an ipod Nano, then a few cold calls and emails should be enough to get you a few prizes from companies, that need some exposure.

In a similar vein, by giving away something for free to subscribers is also a good way of increasing traffic to the blog. e-Books and icon sets seem to work particularly well. It is important to make sure that you have something to give away, and also it is relevant to your blog.

Again another giveaway, but this time hold a contest. It should not be about bribery but offer a challenge to your readers, and the trick is to get the difficulty level just right. A good prize like a macairbook is always a good crowd puller.

Depending on your resources, or if you prefer a big budget, why not run a large advertising campaign? So instead of running one ad on another blog, why not run ten ads, on ten different blogs. You will not get instant results, but that is not the idea. What will happen is that your blog will help establish your brand.

Always remote your posts on social media, and update them as you update your blog as a matter of course. This is an excellent way to get people to come to your blog, and if it is good enough word will spread.

If you can guest post on a popular blog take the opportunity. If you can get it published within the same week as the launch date then so much the better. At the end of your guest post, you can mention the new blog that you are writing, what a winner!

Interacting with your readers is vitally important to keep your blog ticking over. Ask your readers what they would like to see in your blog, and try and implement this as best you can. This shows that you value your readership, and this helps promote loyalty to your blog.

Hopefully, your blog will soon be taking off, as the blog itself will soon prove popular. These tips to get your blog to rock, are very easily implemented if you are using a WordPress content management system, so have fun, and don’t be afraid to experiment.

As WordPress gains in popularity as a blogging tool across the web, it is essential that to draw in the reader. This is much easier if the website is running to the best efficiency possible. If it is running slowly, or links do not work, then no matter how interesting, informative, or humorous the content, people will avoid it.
There could be several reasons for this, many of which are easy to fix, and once you have fixed them, the website should work smoothly, or if you prefer, like a dream.
Here are some quick fixes, that can be a big help.

1. Plugins

Plugins are essential to wordpress, and it is important that you are using the most current ones, and old ones are deactivated, and are physically deleted off the web server. WordPress checks all the plugins to see if they are active or not upon page load, and this can be a timely process, enough to drive traffic away. Developers upgrade plugins to improve them and look to minimise their coding to optimise their speed. Keep them current!

2. Minimise stress on the server

The load time of a page can be reduced if the page loads from static html files rather than the more complex PHP scripts. The beauty of the WP super cache plugin, is that it generates static html files from your dynamic wp blog, therefore every time the page loads, it does so from the static html files rather than loading content from the database, which takes the time.

3. Keep up with the admin!

By optimising your database every week or so, and therefore increasing efficiency, can save a lot of disk space. Select the optimise tables option and repair after logging into your myphpadmin. This can make all the difference.

4. Shrink O’matic could be a winner?

If you have trouble resizing images, then try this tool. It will resize and shrink images as you wish, and works with formats such as GIF,PNG and JPEG. Just drag and drop.

5. Relieve stress when using CSS files.

If you need to use @import files to a CSS file, but are wondering what’s happening for the user, then the WP CSS plugin could well be the answer. The plugin automatically strips whitespace and GZIPs CSS files. So when you use an @import file you no longer need to be thinking about what is going on at the user side of things, as it puts any @import files, into you’re your style.css file. It also allows the cache expiry time to be set.
6. Convert PHP database queries to HTML.

This is a lot like the earlier point and has the same principle. By converting all PHP queries to static HTML files, like dynamic wp blog pages, the load time is greatly reduced. Another one to implement.

7. Keep it optimised.

Another way to keep things running as they should do, is to use the plugin Optimise DB. This nifty tool, effectively defragments your wordpress tables. The advantages for frequently used tables are clear. When you click the optimise now button, the tool tells you how much space you are saving, as well as starting the defragment process.

8. Use the latest version of WordPress

Goes without saying to really, but make sure you use the latest version of wordpress. Keep an eye out for the latest releases.

This is just a few hints that can make all the difference to your wordpress blogs and websites. There are many more, but these basics are good rules to follow to ensure efficiency and that you are fully optimising your site.

WordPress is a great tool, and if used properly, can enhance your writing, and get be a great help to get your message out there.

Though the phrase “content is King” is arguably the golden rule for web design, and especially blogging, having a bulging blogroll, or a sidebar jammed with links for competitions and advertisements, is not very easy on the eye.

This can make reading your blog less appealing, as it can make it harder reading for your readership, and as the blogsphere is vast, it is easy for a reader to go elsewhere, even if you have connected with them through the course of your blog.

So here are some tips for de-cluttering your sidebar, and the reasons behind the thinking.

Often, material has become outdated, or obsolete, and so it must be removed. Check that all advertisements of any kind are still work, and if they do work, check that what is on offer is still valid. Ditch what you do not need as this is now redundant. Remember once this is done, you can replace with it a valid advertisement.

It is essential that your blogroll does not take up the whole screen. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little, but if your blogroll is massive, the chances are that you have been blogging for several months or years. This being the case it is highly likely that quite a few of your blogs are now defunct. Whiz through your work and remove anything that is no longer relevant from your blogroll.

On the same theme, you can always create a helpful links page, and put many of your blogroll links on it. This way, they can be easily structured to make it easy for a reader to see and find the blog that they want to read. It also helps to de-clutter the sidebar, which is always a winner on the main page, as this is the business end of your blog.

By tweaking your WordPress theme you can easily reduce the links shown on the main page, by replacing your regular links display code with this one:

wp_list_bookmarks(‘orderby=rand&limit=10′)

This will limit the amount of links to ten, and therefore de-clutters the sidebar quite nicely. If you want any further information on this tip, see the WordPress codex.

Please note, this will not work if you are using widgets, but there is a links management widget that will more or less do the same thing, that you can download.

Another tip for de-cluttering the sidebar, is to prioritize what is important, and make it more noticeable to your readers than the less important items. This may sound obvious, but as time goes on the sidebar is just jammed full of everything, and this makes sifting through it hard work. Try and make sure that the sidebar is ordered, and presentable.

Something you might want to consider, is that the sidebar has a purpose, and that if you have something in it because it is “cute”, then it should go. No reader is going to want to see something “cute”, and will be looking for more relevant information.

It is good practice to ask yourself what purpose does this serve before putting something on your sidebar. Remember that blogs are essentially for your readers, and it is with this view point in mind that you should approach the appearance of your blog.

It is a good idea to look at de-cluttering your sidebar every few months, or at the very least once a year. Remember the cluttering doesn’t happen straight away, but over a period of time in which, you have probably got at least thirty percent irrelevant content jammed into your sidebar.

If you follow these tips for de-cluttering your sidebar, you will have a more presentable blog, and happier readers.