Before I begin my review let me highlight a point made on the blog’s about me page.  Blogriffic.com is written by Salwa and Salwa is a woman so if you decide to contact her don’t star off “Dear Sir”.   I will break the review down in to several categories: Appearance/Design, Navigation, Content, Ideas For Improvement.

Appearance/Design

The first impression of the site, which all new visitors will look at before starting to browse around, isn’t bad.  The site is very clean, there aren’t an over abundance of ads, and navigation is clear cut.  The color scheme works nicely with the blue, grey, black, and red on a white background.  Two points worth looking at to change would be the default header with plain text and the two blank Advertise Here boxes on the right.  Use that space for two ads of your choosing and create an advertising page where you explain your rates, site information, traffic details, etc..  Seeing empty ad space can actually turn potential advertisers off.  The header wouldn’t be a big deal, but the site actually offers free Wordpress themes and the author states she is into art and design.  I would like to see something a bit more appealing on top of the page.

Navigation

This is a strong part of the site. The header links give you the most important pages of the site.  You can easily find out how to contact the site owner, subscribe to the RSS feed, learn about the author, see a sitemap, and download free themes (worth a look).  The sidebars look solid and are except for one thing which I will discuss in a moment.  The 6 ad blocks are fine, but could be reduced to 4 until more advertisers come on board.  The tabbed block is a nice feature and allows you to have a nice amount of content that is easy to find without sacrificing a lot of premium site real estate.  The issue with it is the Profile tab is still in a default state.  I know it doesn’t seem major, but sometimes that little detail can look unprofessional.  Aside form that the navigation works very nice.

Content

We now come to serious stuff on the site. The content is very strong.  Nicely written articles, relevant topics that are nicely laid out, and custom themes give visitors an incentive for coming back.  The about me page describes the blog as follows:

BlogRiffic.Com founded on 13 June 2008 by me. BR is all about search engine optimization, art, design, Wordpress, and blogging in general. Also even though I will be talking about random topic and tips on how to make money online please note that this is not one of the many making money blogs out there!

The content meets what her statement says the blog is.  It is not a high level resource to get detailed configuration settings, serious money making tips, tricks to get around the system, or ways to generate a huge money making site, but it does provide a nice place for new and novice bloggers to gain the information needed to get to the next level.  There are a lot of high level sites out there that tend to talk over people starting out and Blogriffic fills a nice niche in the blog information market.

Improvement Ideas

At the point with the blog only being a couple of months old you have to be careful not to change to quickly, but a couple of little things would be nice to see.  An original header that shows off your artistic and design skills would be a nice way to market your themes a bit more. Getting your themes on other blogs is a nice easy way to drive traffic back to your sites.  Cross link with your posts in order to increase readability and page views.  You have posts that are based on similar topics and certain posts can  benefit from linking to another complimentary post within your site.

For a young site you are off to a good start and have the potential to grow and develop into a very nice site.  You have to stick with it as traffic will develop over time and that is when you will see the rewards for your hard work.

Good Luck!

The biggest problem most sites run in to is trying to gain the respect of readers and other blogs in their niche.  Knowing that in order to build up traffic, PR, and links you need to reach out to similar sites, but how do you go about getting them to care about you?  This is tricky because if you hit up sites while you are in your infancy most will just ignore you because you don’t offer any real benefit in return, but how to you get to a point where you can offer something if you can’t get any traffic from them?  I must have e-mail TMZ 20 times before they added me to their blogroll so you have to be willing to handle rejection.

1. Message Boards

Starting out you should look to message boards to find similar sites willing to do some link exchanges.  You will find a lot of the users have new sites that they are trying to build up.  This is usually an easy way to gain some simple link exchanges.Make sure you review the sites you are linking to for original content, how often it is updated, and to see how it fits your site.  Remember that links on your site should provide your users a benefit in some way.

Some sites worth checking out are:

• Site Point
• Name Pros
• Digital Point

2. Social Bookmarking Sites

Sometimes getting traffic is as easy as putting your stuff out there to find.  I am a big believer in obtaining traffic from search since organic traffic is usually more stable, but that doesn’t happen overnight. So until it does make sure you hard work is recognized by using social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, Fark, MyBlogLog, and many other out on the web to drive some visits to your site.  This should help drive some traffic and get you some stats you can show when building link exchanges.

3. Show Link Love

Even before a site decides to add your link to their site don’t be afraid to show some love by linking to some of their content.  A lot of web site owners will look at the logs to see who is referring them traffic and if you show up a few times it might gain you some props.  Links of the Day posts or referencing them in a post is always a nice way to show another site that you respect what they are doing and in return you will get some respect back.

4. Content is Critical

All the linking, begging, pleading, bookmarking, and whatever else you can think of won’t matter if your content is garbage.  You have to make your site something that people will want to link up with.  Focus on making your content solid from beginning to end.  Make it something that other site owners want their readers to see.  Once you get linked with one solid site it gets much easier to get the blog roll rolling.

When starting a new blog the question will eventually arise as to when is the proper time to shell out some money and invest in a custom theme.  No a custom theme is an investment and it can be critical in taking your site from a hobby to something more serious.  The most important thing to do is to study your site, find it’s strengths and weaknesses, look at other site for inspiration, and find a solid designer.

1. Study your site

This may seem simple since, after all, it is your site.  The easiest way to do some in depth research is using Google Analytics.  Take a look at the site overlay to see where people are clicking or is you want to get a bit more serious there are some excellent heat map applications that will use a visual map to shot hot spots on your site.  Investigate bounce rate – how fast are people leaving your site – on specific pages.  Does your site lack the ability to draw and keep reader exploring?  When looking at a theme make sure it has good flow and easy navigation.

2. Research other sites

This can be tricky because you never want to come off as copying another site.  However, looking at sites that are successful can give you ideas as to how to incorporate certain features into your theme.  Don’t limit yourself to sites in your niche since blog themes are usually universal they can all provide solid sources of inspiration.

3. Research your designer

The most critical piece of getting a theme done is finding the right person.  You can find people to do a theme for as little as $100 and up to thousands of dollars.  You have to decide which price range is best for you.  When I was researching a redesign for my celebrity site I went to popular blogs and contacted their designers, I posted on message boards, and I ran a contest.  My entire redesign cost me under $600.  It broke down pretty much like this:

Theme Coding/Design $500
Header Image – $25
Custom Video/Image Page $60

4. What to expect from a custom theme

The question you should all want the answer to before you start dropping your cash.  If you had a clean theme with strong navigation you will notice some nice improvements.  Most people, when hitting a new theme, will explore around a bit more which will give you a nice page view increase.  A new theme should also create a better user experience which in turn will have the potential of generating more user interaction in he form of comments.  My theme created specific prime ad locations which enabled me to double earning in the first month and easily pay for the theme.

Hopefully, these few little points will get you started in the right direction when trying to move on to a new unique theme.  If you would like my designers contact please use the contact page to drop me a line and I will be happy to help you out.

• Influential books for bloggers – Pro Blogger
• Is site flipping the right call? – Tyler Cruz
• Make Money Blogs – Good or Bad? – Money Bites
• Backlinking to internal pages - Link Building Bible
• Embed an ad into a post – John Chow

Have a post you think should be a Hot Link?  Contact Us and let us know!

Social Bookmarking sites like DIGG, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and many similar sites are the life blood of many websites.  They can create a new influx of visitors, an exciting surge in traffic, and make you feel like you are achieving new levels with your site.  There are certain things you have to remember when dealing with these sites in order to gain something from them without wasting your time.   This took me time to learn and when I did I noticed great returns.

 1. Remain Focused

With so many social bookmarking sites on the web try and find the ones that will fit your niche best.  Don’t haphazardly submit your links to a hundred random sites hoping you will see a return. Staying focused on a few sites will work out better for you in the long run. 

2. Make Friends and Build a Reputation

You have to remember that most of these sites are like high school.  If you aren’t hanging with he right crowd you will have a lousy time. Make an effort to find users submitting similar stories in your niche and drop them a line.  Make friends with other members of the community in order to build some backers for your submissions.  Make sure you stay active on sites by commenting, voting, and helping other members get their stories seen.  This will take a little time, but is critical if you want to see results.

3. DIGG can be fickle

DIGG was once the greatest site in the world for me to gain massive traffic overnight, but the site has changed  a bit.  Certain niches no longer have an easy time gaining popularity and making it to the front page or the front page of a specific category.  I find DIGG takes the most effort to obtain traffic from for my sites, but it is worth trying since it can result in a huge influx of visits.  With DIGG you have to make friends and share your stories – no more than 200 though or you can’t shout your stories all at once. Make sure you reach out to people before adding them as a friend or you end up with wasted spots.

4. Be ready for the traffic

The biggest issues most small sites face once they have a story that gains popularity on a social bookmarking site is their sites aren’t capable of handling the traffic.  Most web hosts grant you nearly unlimited bandwidth, but what is important is blogs use server resources that are tightly monitored.  Look into plugins such as WP-Cache or WP-SuperCache for wordpress to help alleviate server load.

5. Real World Example

Well you heard me talk about Social Bookmarking, but that doesn’t mean I can put it into practice myself. Today I submitted a story to Reddit and after it was voted up it reached the first page.  The first page of Reddit can can generate a huge fast influx of visitors.  Today’s burst lasted for a few hours and since my site is hosted on a dedicated server running WP-Supercache it handled the added traffic without a blip.  Looking at the graph below you can see the traffic spike and slow fade as the story drifted off the first page.

Social Bookmarking should be looked on as a tool to generate additional traffic, but try to avoid having it be your sole source.  The key source should be search engine traffic, link exchanges, and direct hits.  In order for your site to be self sufficient those point are key, but there is nothing wrong with helping it along with some self promotion. 

With blogs growing at an incredible rate everyday you have to ask yourself if blogging is the best choice for you before you get started. The reason you see so many blogs hitting the net is because the cost of entry is anywhere from nothing to a few bucks a month, the software is free, and the content can be created easily. Too many people read sites and see stories of people getting rich online logging about random stuff and think it is a no brainer. Well what they fail to tell you is that the rate of success is extremely low and the failure rate of blogs is just the opposite.

Most blogs are often left for dead after a few weeks or months when money doesn’t start rolling in. You have to realize that in order to make money online you have to be willing to take some steps and devote time to building an online presence. Some thing to consider when deciding if starting a blog is right for you will be discussed in this post.

1.What are your goals for starting a blog for the short and long term?

• Remember that in order to make any sort of income online takes time and effort.  This amount of time it takes to see a financial return on your site will vary from person to person and site to site, but assume that with hard work you can start to see some sort of revenue within 6 months.  This will take into account your effort to build your site, network with other site owners, get your site known, generate traffic, play with various advertisers, and eventually make enough money to receive a check.

2. Do you have the time to dedicate to a site?

• A blog starting out can die as quickly as you bring it to life.  A new site needs to be cared for and nurtured like a baby and if you don’t have the time to do that you should hold off until you do.  In order to accomplish the things laid out in the first question you have to keep your site growing or other sites won’t be bothers with you, you won’t gain traffic, and without traffic you will make no money.

3. I am not a coder, but I understand computers

• Luckily for you blogging does not require for you to be a programmer.  You can learn enough basic PHP, CSS, and HTML to get around as you play with most free software packages.  If you don’t want to learn that there are enough forums and free tips out there that will walk you through anything you might need.  Being a bit IT savvy does help eliminate some headaches that will creep up from time to time running a site.

4. My interest is in an obscure topic can i Blog about it?

• No topic is to obscure for a blog.  The whole purpose of creating a blog is to cover the stuff you might not see covered in the main stream media.  Sometimes the best sites on the web are about weird or unusual topics that you just don’t find great content on.  It will always surprise you how many other people have the same interests you do.

5. I need money fast

• Don’t bother blogging!

A new feature I will be starting up at Perfect Blogging will be Hot Links of the Day.  I want to feature your stories and sites  that relate to blogging, online marketing, web design, or anything you think might be of interest  to the masses.  Use the contact form to send over your story links and I will do my best to get a few up every day.

A problem some bloggers have is thinking small when it comes to their content.  You have to remember that just because you think a topic might not be what people want to read doesn’t mean it still can’t be a big hit.

I will take another story from my entertainment site as a point of reference.  I posted a story about Dorota Rabczewska.  She is a popular singer in Poland and I only posted it because she had some sexy pictures.   I figured none of my readers would care all that much, but I might gain some page views.  To my surprise a large site in Poland picked up the story and it generated over 20,000 hits and sent me traffic for weeks.

Looking at that little story you can see how a post that you might think is alright can lead to great returns.  As a blogger you have to remember that you aren’t just writing for your friends, your state, or your country because the web is everywhere.  Staying on the topic of seeing the world as your user community don’t be afraid to reach out to sites in other countries for link exchanges or story proposals. In order to be successful on the web you have to be willing to think big.  Part of thinking big is seeing the world as your target audience and generating a global presence.

It is true that when it comes to blogging content is king, but what if you have great content and no one cares? How often have you stumbled across a site and left without even checking anything out because nothing jumped at you? I know I have done it more times than i can remember because most people are very visual. People are easily distracted and if you can’t pull a reader in to your site you can forget about a strong return from those that do actually read something.

How do you go about separating yourself from the pack and creating a site that offer both strong content and an enjoyable experience for the reader? Some of these tips are common sense, but you would be surprised how quickly people drift away from the basics and need some reminding. I will try to provide you with some new ideas or tricks that might help increase page views, readership, and return visits.

1. People Love Pictures

I know it sounds silly, but people will stop to check out pictures before they read a word. Granted that on some sites this is more critical than others. My celebrity site is heavy on the images because people love to look at celebrities, but every site can use visual aids to draw people in to a post. Even if you say that your site doesn’t really lend itself to pictures you can always find something that is relative. Use images to draw people to a particular post to a critical section of a story. Use images to lead people to continue reading on another page or to take some action on your site. Images are simple to add and can pay off with great rewards.

2. Lists

This is an oldie but a goodie. People love lists! Television, magazines, and radio are full of lists they get people hooked because you need to see how a list ends and if you don’t you feel like you missed something. A list within your post makes it easy to skim over and find points of interest. It will get visitors looking through your posts since it won’t require a lot of effort to find the meat of a story. Most people are going to be somewhat lazy when it comes to getting information and if you can make it as easy as possible for them to find what they want you might find a loyal visitor.

3. Rewards/Contests

Who doesn’t like getting free stuff? This can be a great way to gain readers, but it has its dangers. Running a contest or offering some form of reward system for loyal visitors has to potential to bring in a solid influx of traffic. The dangers with this method is that once the contest ends you usually end up with an inflated RSS base since most contests require subscribing to a sites e-mail feed, your traffic will usually drop off, some people will doubt your honesty with running the contest, and unless you find sponsors it will cost you some money. When you weigh the good and bad about this method you have to do your homework and decide if a contest is for you.

By the way i will be putting a contest together on PerfectBlogging.com to officially kick off my ownership. i am just waiting for a new theme to be completed so stay tuned!!

4. Find some friends

This goes beyond simple link building and getting on some site’s friend list with 100 other random sites.  Sometimes getting your posts noticed is done by having other sites link directly to them for you.  I use “Links Of The Day” posts to build a relationship with other blogs in my niche.  They in return do the same back for me.  Remember that the Net is big enough to allow for many sites in the same niche to be successful so working with other similar sites is not a bad thing.  Find out what sites are at the top of your blog topics and reach out to them.  The worse thing that can happen is they never write you back.  Most people are very easy to deal with and can be used as a great resource.

5. Post a series

This one is easier said than done because a series post is difficult.  For those that aren’t sure what I am talking about when I say series I mean a post that is split into several different parts that would go live on different days.  the theory behind this method is that readers who enjoy Part 1 will have to come back to find out what you will say in the upcoming parts not yet published.  This is a great method, but you have to take your time.  You need to select a topic that lends itself to a multi-part series, a topic you have a broad understanding of, and a topic that you can create solid content for.  Pick the wrong topic and you have a post that will waste three days of your time and valuable site space.  Pick the right topic and you will see a nice bump in readership.

This topic always seems to come up when you talk to a new blogger or a blogger trying to get to the next level.  Most people will start out a blog with one of a few theories on how to best create their site.  Some people will write for themselves and their friends with no thought of the outside world.  Others try to write for everyone else and lose the personal touch a blog should have.  The trick is to find a balance that allows you to be yourself, but also allows readers to connect with you.  The question is how do you accomplish this?

I believe when you look at the ways to create your voice you have to first investigate what you are trying to accomplish with your site, who you believe your readers will be, how you can draw them in and make them return, and finally how do you create user interaction on your site.  If your site doesn’t offer anything to visitors why will they stick around or spread the word of what you are saying?

1. Be Knowledgeable Within Your Niche

This step is critical if you are going to be taken seriously with your site.  Your topic has to fit your skill set or it will come off as a waste of time to serious readers. If you are creating a site about financial advice make sure you have a strong financial background.  If you are starting a cooking site be sure to have a solid knowledge of the subject. If you do not have sufficient knowledge your site will lose steam quickly and become a lost cause. Remember that wanting to do something can only take you so far without knowing how to do it properly.

2. Make Your Writing Fit Your Topic

Aside from having knowledge of your topic your writing style has to fit also. Creating content to match what you believe readers are expecting is crucial.  If you want to be taken as a leading expert within a niche make sure you are able to back that up with your writing.  If your site is designed to be carefree and loose try to avoid being overly critical or serious.  i find people frequent sites that they believe will provide consistent content.  Look at the sites you frequent most often and ask yourself why?  In my case I hit sites where I know i will get the information i want or sites I enjoy reading.  Where does your site fit?

3. Be Consistent

Once you have decided you have a niche you have a passion for, are knowledgeable enough to generate content, and have decided the feel of your site make sure you remain consistent.  This is very important if you decide to incorporate guest writers, paid reviews, or you expand.  Once you have gained an audience don’t alienate them by becoming something that your readers don’t want.  I am not saying to be afraid to take some chances or drift a bit, but just remember that there are a lot of sites covering the same topics and losing readers is easier to do than gaining them.

4. Listen

A big advantage of the blog is the user interaction it is able to generate.  Don’t be afraid of criticism you might get because that is sometimes the most useful information you can receive.  Also users tend to make suggestions on way to improve a site or make it more interesting. A lot of times they will bring up thing you never thought of or overlooked in your zest to get content on to your site.  Interact with people and you will find it beneficial to you in the long run.  On my Celebrity site I contacted people that commented and found many owned similar sites which led to link exchanges, story ideas, and in the end increased traffic.

5. Above All Be Yourself!

Read that again!  If you can’t be yourself when you are writing your content your site is doomed to fail.  if you trying to create an original, entertaining, informative site you have to make sure to stay true to who you are and not what you think you have to be.  If you are able to do be yourself while providing quality content that peolpe will care about you are well on your way to creating a successful site.