Blogs That Make The Cut

Once again it’s that time of the week and I have got some really juicy articles for you to get stuck into this week.

ProBlogger

The first two posts for this week come from Darren’s guest bloggers over at ProBlogger - If your looking for ways to monetize your blog then this article on Making your Blog more Attractive to Advertisers should come in very handy.

There are also some good tips on Using FeedBurner Stats to Improve your Blog. There are some pretty good advice in the article and although they are simple points, I think a lot of people, myself included, probably often overlook.

BloggingPro - Theme Release

I don’t normally do theme releases within the Blog Round Up but BloggingPro.com have released their theme for free download.

I don’t quite understand their reasoning behind this (I guess they probably have a new design in the works) but it is a rather nice theme so I suggest going on over and taking a look.

Blog Hosting

If your thinking of starting your own independent blog and are in the market for hosting then head on over to wpThemesPlugin and read their article on how to choose a good web host for your blog.

Staying with the hosting theme, this isn’t a blog or a blog post but if your an experienced blogger and often find yourself on the front page of digg you will know there is nothing worse than your host going down due to the influx of traffic (and it does often happen).

If this has ever happened to you then I highly recommend visiting SurviveDigg who can offer a great service for digg users, basically they guarantee that your site will stay online no matter how often you hit the front page of Digg. The average blogger wont need this service but if you have hit the front page of Digg before you’ll know how important a service like this could be.

Well thats it for this week, remember if you want your blog or blog post to be featured in the BlogCut Round Up then make sure you let me know about it!

10 Things That Make A Great Blog

Recently we took a look at 5 reasons blogs fail so now, instead of looking at the down side of blogging, it’s time to look at the positives and look at the things that make a great blog.

The first step is to visit your favorite blogs and ask yourself a simple question. Why do I visit this blog? - The first reason you will probably come up with is that you enjoy the content, maybe it’s informative, it could be fun it could just be genuinely interesting. So, what else?

Well perhaps there is a blog you visit simply because you like the idea behind the blog, it could be approaching the blog world with whole new outlook, something new and innovating, something thats never been done before. I’m sure you all will have at least one blog you visit simply because you ‘know’, or ‘know of’, that person be it through a forum, their reputation or you may just feel a need to visit their blog simply because you know their name (it happens). Is there a blog you visit because it keeps well updated? does it always have the latest most up to date news first? Maybe you visit a blog simply because you just like it’s design.

There are many reasons people visit blogs, if you ask yourself why you visit your favorite blogs you’ll soon see what makes those blogs great and you’ll come to realize, it’s actually not that hard to achieve and in fact it all boils down to the rather obvious!

So anyway, lets not stand on ceremony. Here’s a list of 10 things that make a blog great:

1. Quality Content - Nothing better than a blog that provides helpful, fun or just plain interesting articles. We all know the phrase, content is king!
2. Keeping Updated - Keep your blog updated, post as frequently as needed don’t go over the top but at the same time don’t leave huge gaps between posts. If your posting about something new get it posted as quickly as you can, be the first to produce the goods!
3. Be Unique - It’s easier said than done but being different really can help. If you have a great idea that you don’t think has been done before don’t be afraid to try it!
4. Get Known - This isn’t hard to do but a lot of bloggers still don’t seem to bother. Find forums or other blogs that are in the same niche as your blog and post/comment on them, get your name “out there!
5. Readership Interaction - Get your readers involved, readers love being able to have their say and they love being acknowledge by a blogger so let them know they are appreciated!
6. A Good Design - A good first impression is a lasting impression, when someone visits your blog for the first time you want them to be impressed. Make sure your blog looks good.
7. Speedlinking/Shout outs - Provide your readers with links to articles, sites, resources and other things they find interesting. Your readers will appreciate it and so will the places you link to, it’s just another little handy service you can provide your readers.
8. Variation - Blogs can get stale, it’s natural. Add some variation for your readers, a guest blogger is a great way to this or maybe introduce a new feature, talk about a new topic, do something new every once in a while.
9. Share Real Life Experiances - If you have a real life experience thats relevant to your blog post it! People love hearing about real world situations as they can often relate and it also shows a more personal side which leads right on to point 10
10. Be Personal, Be Friendly - Keep your blog as personal as it needs to be. People like to know your name, they want to feel as though they know you. Be polite and friendly too, answer e-mails and comments when you can and try to be nice you’ll be surprised how well it works!

Well thats it for now, take not of these 10 points and you’ll be well on to your way to creating a great blog! If you have any other thoughts on what makes a great blog I’m interested in hearing them so feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me!

Softly Softly Pink Theme Added

I promised that BlogCut.com would be releasing a new free WordPress theme today and here it is!

Softly Softly - Pink is, as the name suggests, a soft pink theme that is clean, clear and easy on the eye. This theme is easy on the eye and will give your readers a very pleasurable experience while visiting your blog.

I will be releasing a few different versions of the theme over the coming week, including a blue for boys version and other colour variations so don’t worry if your not into pink, there will be other colours coming soon!

You can download the theme from our free themes page. You can also view a live preview of the theme here.

The SoftlySoftly themes are kindly sponsered by: Business Directory - Wamchu and Mobile Phone Deals

Softly Softly - Pink Preview:

Softly Softly - Pink Theme _ Prev

Blogs That Make The Cut

Well it’s Thursday again and time for another look at blogs that have made the cut. Remember if you have a blog or a blog post that you think should be featured here at BlogCut don’t forget to send me an e-mail to make sure I check it out and who knows, this time next week your blog might just make the cut!

Net Business Blog

What, again? Yes again! - This week I want to start off with netbusinessblog.com just as I did last week. They just have so much going on over there and it really is good thought-provoking stuff so well worth the read.

This week Matt looked at paid posts/reviews with the view that payment is simply an incentive (sometimes a very nice incentive too Matt!). He then followed up on that with a review on Sponsored Reviews. Both posts are definately worth looking at if you are considering taking your blog in that direction.

He also made another interesting post “Is More Actually Better”, I’ll let you be the judge on that one.

Jakowenko and The Daily Dose

Speaking of paid reviews, Dave of Jakowenko.com is offering a free link and a chance to win $35 to anyone who posts up a review of his blog.

Bryan Le, owner of The Daily Dose, has wrote an interesting post Zookoda: A Cool New Tool For Bloggers - May be worth a look for some of our more experienced readers who are looking for new things to experiment with.

John Chow

John Chow has some advice on monetizing your blog, his advice is if your going to monetize your blog then really monetize it. The more money-hungry amoung us will no doubt find this post a very good read.

Well thats about it for this week I think, there’s quite a bit of reading for you all to do on those links so I hope you enjoy them. If you find any of them useful let me know or if you think they are all just wasting your time, then again, make sure to let me know!

Blogs That Make The Cut

Each week at BlogCut I will be doing a round-up of interesting blogs and posts that make the cut and deserve our full attention. I will also be doing some quick speed-linking to any blogs that post about BlogCut. If you feel your blog can make the cut, or if you made a post about BlogCut and want to be linked to, send me and e-mail using the contact form and you could be featured in next weeks Blog Round Up! Blogs that make the cut will then be added to the Blogs We Like section on BlogCut and on the soon to be set-up links page!

Net Business Blog

This week I would like to quickly talk about Net Business Blog which is a blog ran by Matt Coddington.

Net Business Blog is a blog I find myself visiting time and time again and I think you will agree, it’s a great resource for bloggers as well as anyone who is trying to make money online. Matt offers some great advice that I believe we should all take note of. Not only does Matt provide some really helpful tips but his blog will also keep you right up to date with goings on around the web and what the biggest movers and shakers are getting up to.

If you haven’t already I highly recommend heading on over and taking a look!

Pro Blogger

If I can get through a single round up without mentioning Pro Blogger I will be highly suprised.

Darren Rowse, author of Pro Blogger, offers some of the best advice to bloggers that you will ever come across. This week Darren looked at Seasonal Blogging and how to get back into the swing of things when your finding blogging tough. He also talked about a question I often get asked by bloggers; How Many Blog Posts Are Too Many? - both are well worth a read.

Thats it for this weeks Blog Round Up - I will be doing a more thorough round up next Thursday so don’t forget to drop me an e-mail if you think your blog can make the cut.

I would also like to once again quickly apologize for the lack of activity on BlogCut over the past week. Things WILL be picking up again soon. I’ve been talking to a lot of bloggers recently and I may soon even have a special guest blogger making an appearance, make sure to watch out for that!

Juts a quick post to let you know about some activity over at our good friends WPThemesPlugin.

I was recently approached by WPThemesPlugin to see if I’d be interested in a quick Q & A session, which of course I was more than happy to do. It’s just a couple of quick questions based around WordPress if your interested you can take a look here. - I’m always more than happy to take part in an interview or Q&A session so if anybody has any questions for me don’t hesitate in asking.

They have also released a new free WordPress theme, you can see a screen shot of it at the bottom of this post. It’s a pretty nice looking theme so go check out the live demo.

Speaking of free themes BlogCut have a new free WordPress theme in the works which I know you are all going to love. It’ll be released tomorrow afternoon so don’t forget to pop back and take a look as this one really is nice.

WPThemesPlugin Theme:
WPTP2

Why Do Blogs Fail?

With so many blogs on the internet it now seems that with each new blog created another 3 die, I think the reason being is because a lot of people immediately assume that as soon as a blog is created it will be a success which unfortunately isn’t always true. Lets take a look at the reasons why so many blogs fail, this is by no means a definitive list but each of these points really need to be taken into account by all bloggers.

1. Low Quality Writing

Fair enough, nobody is perfect and we all make the odd spelling and grammar mistakes (I do it all the time) but it’s a fact, if your writing style is poor it will put people off. If your posts are hard to follow, hard to read or every other word is spelled wrong then people simply wont read it. WordPress has a spell checker, FireFox has a spell checker if you have to you can even write out your posts in MS Word - if you know your posts are hard to read do something about it!

2. Posts/Topics Are Boring

Ok so different people find different subjects interesting, you may find quantum physics really interesting while I may find it incredibly boring thats fine, thats not what this about - as long as you target the right audience you can blog about anything. The point I’m trying to make here is that you have to make your posts intriguing.

If you have read my other articles you will know I’ve said this time and time again and I will continue to keep saying it, if someone is reading your blog it’s because they are interested in hearing your opinion so give them it! Don’t be afraid to say what you think, let them know what you think and give them a reason as to why you think it, then try to invoke them, ask them what they think, keep your readers interested.

3. Poor Blog Design/Layout

This is an important aspect of a blog, not so much in terms of your blog needing to look absolutely amazing but the fact that your blog needs to be readable, it needs to be easy on the eye, it needs to attract the reader in. You want your visitors to spend a lot of time on your blog reading what you have written, for them to be able to do this your blog design needs to take that into account. Don’t use dark text on dark backgrounds or light text on light backgrounds, don’t use really tiny text or really huge text, don’t have everything crammed together really messily.

Not everyone is a web designer, again thats fair enough but with thousands of free themes, and even some top quality premium themes, about there is no reason to have a poorly designed blog.

4. Poor Planning

It may seem tedious, it may even seem pointless but a lot of blogs do fail due to poor planning. You don’t need to plan things out to the last detail but you should at least set some goals, set some objectives, know what you want to achieve from your blog even if it’s just something basic like getting 50 readers a day - If you don’t have any goals and don’t set objectives how are you going to know if your blog is a failure or a success? Even if you don’t care you should still have goals, you don’t want to spend hours writing good quality posts if no one is reading them.

There are other things you need to plan as well such as how you are going to market your blog as well as how your going run it. Once your blog is up and running it doesn’t end there, continue to set objectives that will help you to reach your long term goals. Not every blogger needs to have goals and objectives but depending on the type of person you are you may find it helpful especially if you need something to motivate you and keep you going.

5. Giving Up

This point follows on from point 4, people often tend to just give up. A lot of the time it’s probably because they didn’t know what they wanted to achieve in the first place. Sometimes people see that their blog isn’t taking off as quickly as they thought and when a new blogger realizes that building a good readership can take a lot of time they can be really discouraged. There isn’t really any advice I can give on this point other than don’t give in too easily, keep at it! It can take a long time to for your blog to become really popular so don’t worry about - give it a chance before moving on to something new

Thats it for now, if you disagree with any of the points or want to add in your own point then leave a comment to let me know!

BlogCut.com finally open!

Today marks the “official” launch of BlogCut, as you may notice there is still a fair amount of work to do around the site so please if you notice something that you think is not quite right let us know.

We are currently in the process of adding the sites content, at the moment we have a few articles along with 3 premium WordPress themes and 2 free WordPress themes, these will be getting added to greatly over the coming weeks and new tips and resources will be added almost daily so don’t forget to keep an eye out for those!

Just to let everyone know what exactly BlogCut is all about, BlogCut is a site where you will find all your blogging needs, from free themes for your blog to higher quality more unique premium themes. We will also offer blogging tips and resources as well as free icons for your to use on your blogs.

For more information about BlogCut visit the about us page. If there is anything you are unsure of, or you would like to contact us for any reason at all please feel free to leave a comment or, as mentioned, visit the contact us page.

Can Your Blog Make The Cut?

If you run an active blog and would like us to link to it contact us and we will be more than happy to exchange links and feature your blog in the Blogs We Like section. However, to make the cut your blog will need to be active (updated regularly) and make use of a good design (not the standard WP theme) - we will also read your blog to make sure the content is of good quality and to check that our readers, the people who will be visiting your site, will be interested in it.

Thanks for stopping by!

ReviewMe.com Affiliate Program Launched

I’m sure by now you all with have heard about ReviewMe, a division of Text Link Ads, but just in case you haven’t reviewme is basically a service for providing sponsored blog posts. As an advertiser you can pay to have your site or service reviewed by bloggers, as a blogger you can be paid to write a post reviewing the advertisers site or product.

Well, ReviewMe recently launched an affiliate program which can allow bloggers to earn $25 for each advertiser they send to ReviewMe. Whats great about this affiliate program is that you can place an affiliate button on your blog that will advertise your own blogs listing while using your referral ID so you can advertise your reviewing service and get paid for doing it!

As you can see BlogCut isn’t using ReviewMe, this is because I don’t believe BlogCut is the type of blog that should be doing paid reviews. So what type of blogs should be using ReviewMe? Personally I wouldn’t recommend any personal blogs join up to this program, if however you run a blog that provides information about a specific niche or market and often review sites and services in your posts anyway then this could be a great way for you to earn some extra money especially with the new affiliate scheme.

If you have used ReviewMe either as a blogger or an advertiser and would like to share your success/failure stories with other bloggers we would love to hear from you so get in touch either by leaving a comment or by sending an e-mail, if I get enough responses I’ll be doing a round up what you all think of the service later in the month.

On another note you may have noticed this is the first post in a little while on BlogCut, I apologize for that and can assure you that I will be back to posting regularly starting from this week.