Most of us start a Blog to express our views and to feel a sense of achievement on being popular. 

But Blogging can lead to Side Effects (positive, of course), some of which you never might have expected.

Your Writing Skills improve like Magic

Blogging frequently will help you notice a substantial improvement in your writing skills.  You will start learning the art of organized writing, paraphrasing content and summarizing ideas.  You never know – might end up writing a “Best Seller” some day!

Develop a Network of like minded People

You know where I find the most of like minded people on the Social Web?  Not on Twitter or Facebook, but on the comments section of my Blog. Your Blog will ultimately be the channel to earn you the acquaintance of like minded folks and the prospective relationships there after.

New Business Opportunities

The content that you write and the information you share, exposes the innate talent and skills in you.  This has the harmful(!) benefit of some new Business opportunities knocking your door.  Especially good for freelancers and another reason why should they start a Blog.

Source of Passive Income

Once your Blog gets popular and has the necessary ingredients for money making, then it slowly turns out to be a source of Passive Income.  You write what you like and get good money in return.  Sounds ideal, isn’t it?

Brand Name Association

Your Blog Name (or Brand Name) becomes an identifier for yourself.  You are innately associated with the Brand Name and become inseparable!  So, if you start a Business with this Brand Name then marketing costs come down to earth!

There are many such hidden benefits that your Blog can bring you.  Anything missing?  No problems and that is why the comments section is for.

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If you are into serious Blogging, setting up a Newsletter is definitely somewhere on your agenda.  In this post I will show you how to setup a simple and effective Newsletter using the RSS Feed of your Blog in minutes.  We will use MailChimp as our service provider.

1.  Create an Account with MailChimp

Creating an account with MailChimp is FREE.  Just get on to their site and sign up using the “good old sign up form”.  They also have an awesome demo video on the home page, which can help you to get started.

2.  Setup your Mailing List

The first thing to do after a successful signup, verification and login, is to create a Mailing List.  You can find the link to create a List, right after the login.

Mailing Lists are a group of Email recipients, who would be interested in receiving regular updates from your Web Sites or Blogs.

If you have multiple Web Sites or Blogs, then consider creating separate mailing lists for each of them. 

Wonderful thing about MailChimp, is the availability of excellent quality videos for any help you may need.  Be sure to use them, whenever you are lost!

• Associate your Mailing List with a suitable name, to easily identify when multiple Lists are created in the future
• Add only Email Addresses of those, who are really interested in receiving updates and expressed consent for the subscription
• Associate additional details like First Name, Last Name etc. to easily identify your subscribers
• Any further voluntary subscribers through your Web Site or Blog, will be automatically added to the list

3.  Customize and Style your List Forms

A List uses many forms like – Signup Forms, Confirmation Forms, Unsubscribe Form, Welcome Email, Forward to a Friend Form etc. 

MailChimp lets you customize each of the forms:

• Decide the style of each of them
• Decide what fields will go with the Forms and what are mandatory
• Decide the error and confirmation messages, etc.

Make sure to review each of your Form and their format.

4.  Create your RSS Newsletter Campaign

Once a Mailing List is created, the next step is to create a Campaign for the List. 

A Campaign can be thought of as a specific category or type of information, that would be distributed to the members of a List.

For our tutorial, we will be using the RSS Feed of your Blog, as a source for the Newsletter.  In the Create Campaign Page, make sure to choose the option as – RSS Driven Campaign.  This will take you through a wizard, before successful creation of the campaign. 

Be sure to keep your Blog’s Feed URL handy (for e.g., Feedburner powered feeds are usually like http://feeds.feedburner.com/feedname)

Here are a few tips while creating a Campaign for your RSS Feed.

• Choose Mail Message Subject and From Name to suitably distinguish your Blog or Website (otherwise they may be mistaken for Spam)
• Use Merge Tags to customize the To Name in the Email that will be sent
• Associate your Twitter Account to tweet the newsletter details, after each send
• Choose a HTML Template for your Email, that closely resembles your Blog’s Color Scheme.  If in doubt, go for the Plain Template without too many colors
• If HTML Mails cannot be displayed for some reason, the wizard gives you a Plain Text Format that will be shown instead.  Make sure you check the details that will be part of this format
• Send Test Mails to make sure that the Format and the Content come up as expected

5.  Embed Subscription Form into your Website

Now is the important step – of integrating your Newsletter subscription Form with your Website.  You can go to the Lists section from the Home Page and MailChimp provides you built-in HTML/CSS/Javascript code that can be embedded in to your Blog or Website.

Grab the appropriate Embed Code Snippet for your Blog and use it in a suitable location.  To a certain degree, the CSS can be customized to meet your Blog Design.

Voila! Done.  Now based on your Campaign schedule, the RSS Feed from your Blog will be converted into a Newsletter by MailChimp and sent to everyone in your Mailing List.

MailChimp allows up to 3000 sends/month and 500 subscribers for the FREE Account. Also, the Forms and Emails would have affiliate links/banners embedded in them.  They have flexible Pricing Options – both for Fixed Price and Pay-as-you-go Customers.

Having created a wonderful Newsletter, the onus is on you to create Quality Content that the readers will love.  Write wonderful stuff, sit back, relax and enjoy the subscribers flowing in.  I am here to help if you need something with MailChimp setup for your Blog.

Don’t mistake this to be a spammer post – just with the title!  I will share some reasonable & practical techniques to make your Blog Extremely Popular, that would work sure shot! But the only downside is they may not work – if tried too early in your Blog’s Life Cycle.

Add your Blog to Blog Communities

Blog Communities are places where “content hungry” people throng to read more and more stuff.  Some examples of Blog communities include MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Blogged and NetworkedBlogs.  Make sure to add your Blog to a few of these communities.

Following are the distinct advantages:

• Visibility of your Blog increases
• Many people start subscribing to your Blog (provided you have quality content)
• You participate in a Network…

Make sure to setup your Blog using the right Images, Banners, Tags and Description.  Also, take care to categorize your Blog under appropriate topics, so that the content reaches the relevant audience.

Create a Facebook Page and Promote it

Right away, create a Facebook Page for your Blog and start sharing it with the millions of Facebook users out there.  Also, consider setting up your Blog’s RSS Feed on the Facebook Page, so that people can read stuff, without even visiting your Blog.

There are some excellent posts around on creating nice Facebook Pages and I like this one  a lot – How To Develop A Facebook Page That Attracts Millions of Fans

You can promote the Facebook Page by:

• Placing a widget on your Blog
• Writing a Blog Post about it
• Including Page details in your Newsletter…

Write Guest Posts on Popular Blogs

Writing Guest Posts is an excellent way to drive lots of traffic to your Blog and ultimately making it extremely popular!  Keep the following points in mind when you start planning to Guest Post elsewhere:

• Guest Post in Blogs that fall under the same niche, as your Blog
• Write content that adds value to the Blog, where you are posting them
• Display a nice & brief Bio about yourself in the post (better with a photo and a link to your Blog)
• To start with – be ready to write for FREE!

Check out this post on How to get your (first) Guest Post published?

Share good content using Social Media Tools

I think a lot has been discussed on this topic.  But it is a massive technique to make your Blog and its posts popular, within a short span of time.

I recently came across this wonderful post by Darren Rowse of Problogger, on using the Social Media Tools for Blog Promotion – How to Promote a Blog

Write Tutorials and How To Posts

This is an highly underestimated but extremely effective technique to make your Blog popular.  People love to use and promote content that solves a problem or provides a better solution.  Plan for at least 5 posts per Month that can be categorized under the Tutorials or How To group.

It can be a tutorial on anything that falls in your niche.  From my personal experience, I have seen the popularity is extremely high on such posts.

Just follow these simple but powerful techniques and see your Blog’s popularity go up in no time.  What other techniques you use?  Bring those wonderful ideas out as comments here!

Photo By: takomabibelot

In this tutorial, we will see How to Setup Pagination on the Home Page of your Blog or Website running on the Thesis Theme for Wordpress.  This will replace the regular “Previous Entries” link that appears at the bottom of your Content Area, just below the Teasers (if you are using them).

What are we trying to create?

Install the WP Navigation Plugin

To setup pagination on your Wordpress Blog, we need to install the WP-Navigation Plug-in.

You can download the Plug-in from its Home Page -http://www.lesterchan.net/wordpress/readme/wp-pagenavi.html

Follow the instructions on the Plug-in page for installation.  Note there are different versions of the plug-in, for various Wordpress versions. Choose the right one based on your Wordpress install.

Default settings and options for the plug-in is sufficient to get started. If you need further changes, options are available under Settings – PageNavi in your Wordpress Admin Dashboard

Proceed further only if the plug-in is successfully installed and activated.

Add code to custom_functions.php

Add the following code to custom_functions.php file.  You can find this file in the following path – <Thesis Theme Folder>/custom/custom_functions.php

[php]
/* Pagination */
function my_thesis_pagination() {
echo "<div class=’prev_next’>";
wp_pagenavi();
echo "</div>";
}
remove_action(‘thesis_hook_after_content’,'thesis_post_navigation’);
add_action(‘thesis_hook_after_content’, ‘my_thesis_pagination’);
[/php]

Add styles to custom.css

Add the following code to custom.css file.  You can find this file in the following path – <Thesis Theme Folder>/custom/custom.css

[css]
/* Page Navigation */
.custom .full_width #content_box .wp-pagenavi .page {
margin: 2px;
padding: 2px 4px;
}
[/css]

Further Styling up the Pagination Bar

With the default installation, your pagination bar looks something like this.

If you like to try your hand at CSS, then the pagination bar can be further styled by making changes to the following file:

<Wordpress Installation folder>/wp-content/plugins/wp-pagenavi/pagenavi-css.css

Get in touch with me, if you need any help in styling the pagination bar.

Hope you found this simple tutorial useful.  Share it on social media using the tools given below, so that more Thesis folks might use it!

If you are an RSS freak and looking to get Twitter content that has links in them, into your RSS Reader, then Readtwit is the right tool for you.  Read on to know why should you definitely try Readtwit!

What is Readtwit?

Readtwit is a Twitter-based tool that parses your Twitter feed and provides it in RSS format.  It takes only those tweets with links in them, extracts the initial content (about 2000 characters) and feeds the RSS stream.  You can subscribe to this unique RSS stream created for you in the RSS Reader of choice and start reading stuff!

Why is it Good?

I find it good for a few of the reasons:

• I can see the initial content of the links shared via Twitter, without actually clicking on them
• This helps me decide whether to follow the link or skip it right away!
• If Gears is enabled with Google Reader, then Twitter content can be read even offline!
• Since I am “Google Reader Share” freak – I find it pretty damn easy to share Twitter content on Google Reader
• I can also choose to ignore certain #hashtags or @users while creating the feeds (by telling Readtwit of course!)

How does the feed look like?

As mentioned, Readtwit doesn’t parse the complete content of the target URL from the tweet.  So, the feed is partial with a link to continue reading.  Here is how the feed looks in my Google Reader:

Issues?

Since Readtwit is pretty much just starting up, there are a few problems too.  Not all shortened links are parsed for content.  For example, I noticed http://su.pr links are not parsed and instead navigation links on Stumbleupon page gets displayed.

Also, I found a few links on my Twitter home page, that are missing in the Readtwit RSS feed.

But overall, I found it pretty good to use and yet another reason to stick with my RSS Reader!

Try it out and let me know how it goes…

Thesis Theme makes life a lot simpler, if you are trying to customize your blog.  In this post, I will show you how to display your latest tweets at the top of your content column.  You can either choose to display this only on the Home page or on all pages.

What we will Create?

This is what we are trying to create in this tutorial – the latest twitter update on the top of your content column.  There is also a link to your Twitter profile home page.

How do we get this?

As with any other customization in Thesis Theme, this requires changes in the following files found under the <Wordpress Root>/<Thesis theme folder>/custom folder.

• custom_functions.php
• custom.css

Changes in custom.css

Copy the following code into your custom.css file towards the bottom.  I have suitably demarcated the code with a comment, so that you can easily identify it later.

[css]
/* Twitter widget Before content */
#twitter_div {
background:transparent url(images/twitter_verysmall.gif) no-repeat scroll 0 10px;
padding:10px 0 10px 48px; position:relative;
}
#twitter_div li {
font-family:georgia,serif;
font-size:1em;
font-size-adjust:none;
font-stretch:normal;
font-style:normal;
font-variant:normal;
font-weight:normal;
line-height:normal;
list-style-image:none;
list-style-position:outside;
list-style-type:none;
}
#twitter_div li span {
display:block;
font-size:1.1em;
font-style:italic;
}
#twitter_div ul {
margin:0 0 8px 12px;
}
#twitter_div li span a a:visited {
color:#2A69A3; text-decoration:none;
}
#twitter_link {
color:#2A69A3;
text-decoration:none;
font-size:1em;
font-style:italic;
float:right;
margin-right:25px;
}
/* Twitter widget Before content */ [/css]

I have used a very small Twitter icon that displays on the left corner.  You can download the icon from here (right click and ‘Save as’).

Copy this file into your <Wordpress Root>/<Thesis theme folder>/custom/images folder.

Changes in custom_functions.php

Now copy the following code into your custom_functions.php file.  This code uses the ‘thesis_hook_before_content’ of Thesis.  So if you are already using this Hook in your Thesis Customization, just add only the HTML portion of this code towards the end (if you have any problems, feel free to contact me).

[php]
/* Latest Tweets above Content column */
function my_thesis_before_content() {
if (is_home()) { ?>
<div class=’format_text’>
<div id=’twitter_div’>
<ul id=’twitter_update_list’>
<li>
<script type=’text/javascript’ src=’http://twitter.com/javascripts/blogger.js’></script>
<script type=’text/javascript’ src=’http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/**yourtwitter**.json?callback=twitterCallback2&amp;count=1′></script>
</li>
</ul>
<div id=’twitter_link’>
<a href=’http://twitter.com/**yourtwitter**’>Join Me on Twitter</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<?php
}
}
add_action(‘thesis_hook_before_content’, ‘my_thesis_before_content’);
[/php]

In the above code, there are a couple of points where it is mentioned as **yourtwitter**. Replace them with your Twitter username.

Current Code as is, would display the Twitter updates only on your home page. If you want this to be displayed on all other pages and posts, just remove the following

• if (is_home()) from the top
• } from the bottom

Tip: For the sake of this tutorial, I have used the thesis_hook_before_content hook. But you can easily replace with other hooks like thesis_hook_before_post_box, thesis_hook_before_post, thesis_hook_after_post, thesis_hook_after_post_box, etc., depending on where you need the Twitter updates to appear. Love the power of Thesis!

Conclusion

And, that’s it. Now just reload your page and see your latest tweet right there at the top. Contact me @tublogger or ashwin.chandrasekaran@gmail.com in case you face any issues with setting this up on your Thesis Blog. I would love to help!

Email still continues to be one of the widest used and easier to learn tool around the web.  In this post, I will show some ways to use your email with social networking tools.

1. Posterous

Posterous is a very powerful tool to post things using Email.  It is very simple to get started:

• Sign up with Posterous with your Email (you can even skip this step!)
• Setup your Posterous account which is accessible at http://yourusername.posterous.com
• Send your content as Email to post@posterous.com from your registered account
• Your content appears magically at http://yourusername.posterous.com

You can also send in an attachment with your email, that are added to your blog post.

Also, you can associate other social media accounts with your Posterous – like Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Wordpress Blog etc., – and the contents posted to Posterous are automatically pushed to these accounts.

They have a wonderful FAQ page and you will never need another documentation.

2.  NutshellMail

NutshellMail is a tool where you configure social networking accounts of your choice and it sends you a daily summary mail (you can set the frequency) with all the updates.

This is especially good, if you don’t have time to keep up with all your social networking accounts.  You can receive all the updates and key information, right into your inbox.

Check out my earlier post on NutshellMail to know more about their services.

3.  TwitterMail

I think the name says it all!  Once you register your Twitter account with TwitterMail, a secret email address gets generated just for you.  Any mails you send to this email address are posted as updates to your Twitter Account.

Other notable features of this service include:

• Send photos to Twitter (uses TwitPic)
• New replies sent to your mail, once in 2 days
• Send a message with ‘Friends’ as subject and you receive the latest 20 updates from them
• Scheduled Tweets

4.  WiseStamp

WiseStamp is essentially a way to create attractive email signatures.  The most important feature is the way to associate your Social networking accounts with your email signatures.  This is an excellent marketing tactic for all your social networks!

You can further do the following with WiseStamp:

• Attach your latest Tweet with your Signature
• Add any RSS feed (e.g., your blog) with your Signature
• Use multiple signatures
• Add your logo with the Signature
• … and so on

Check out some cool signature examples created with WiseStamp.

Do you know of any other ways to use your Email with Social Networking tools?  Shoot them as comments to this post.  I would also love to hear your feedback on this post.

I have a new Twitter Account for Thoughts Unlimited and it is – @tublogger

If you have been following me on @thotsunlimited, feel free to follow on @tublogger (No Spam!)

Why a New Account?

• I am having a few problems with my older account @thotsunlimited
• My Service Requests to Twitter are unheard of!
• I was following a lot of Spammers!

Why I feel good with the New Account?

• Feels Fresh!
• I am able to follow those I love to follow
• Starting from scratch!

So, Look for interest updates from my new @tublogger Twitter account.  Hope to hear you all!

First I thought of putting this into my Google Docs.  Then, I thought of my Personal Diary.  Finally, I decided to go with my Blog, where I tend to do most of these stuff.  I am sure this post is NOT to bore you, but to let you know, what to expect from Thoughts Unlimited over the next year.

Following are the list of items I intend to do

• Create at least 15 Pillar Content that goes with the niche of my Blog
• Release at least 3 eBooks around my Blog’s niche
• Create at least 1 fully-featured customizable Thesis Theme Skin
• Create at least 1 high quality FREE Wordpress Theme for my readers
• Weekly Newsletters to summarize and build up on the weekly updates
• Create a robust Facebook page and build a group around my Blog
• Create a group of people who not only get something out of my Blog, but are happy enough to spread the word around

I want to use this post as a Vision for Thoughts Unlimited, over the next year.  Let me come back to the same post, 1 year from now, to see where I stand then and what were my mistakes!!

All have a wonderful week ahead!

Guest Posts are one of the best ways to build your network of readers.  But how do you get started with guest blogging?  How to make sure that the Publisher says ‘Yes’ to your guest blog request, right away?  This post talks about the step-by-step process to get your (first) guest post published

Make a list of Prospective Blogs

It is essential that you make a list of blogs or sites, where you would like the guest post to appear.  This way your targets are set.  I would recommend to keep in mind the following, while choosing the prospective blogs:

• Choose Blogs or Sites in your niche
• Make sure that the Blog or Site is reasonably popular
• Make sure that the topics covered in the Blog are something you are comfortable with

Follow these Prospective Blogs

Once you know where your guest posts should appear – start following these blogs or websites.  I would recommend never to Guest Post on a Blog or Site, unless you follow them for at least a month. 

Here are some popular ways of following Blogs:

• Subscribe via RSS
• Subscribe to Newsletters
• Follow on Twitter
• Join the Facebook page or other ways of connecting

Engage in Discussions

Once you follow them for a while – the topics, kind of posts and the readers become familiar.  Now is the right time to start engaging in discussions.

Comment on posts – expressing your views, disagreements or improvements.  Understand that lame comments like Thanks for the great post! etc. never sell!  If you don’t have anything to worthy to comment on a post, silence is golden.

Promote the Blog and their Posts

People and especially Bloggers love those who promote them.  Promoting good content also makes others listen to you.  Some of the popular ways to promote content are:

• Tweet (or Retweet) posts
• Save them to Delicious
• Digg them
• Share via StumbleUpon
• … and many more

Make a Proposal for a Guest Post

Now the D-time!  Once you have done all these – chances are less that your guest post request will be rejected (or ignored).  Nevertheless, make sure that your request contains the following:

• A brief on why you would like a guest post in their blog
• An abstract of what you are planning to post
• If possible, attach links to some of the best posts from your blog

Also, using a contact form is a better way to make a request.  Because, direct emails are sometimes lost or ignored.

I am sure you are now making an offer, that the publisher cannot refuse!!  Once you have the first post published, then network with the publisher for further posts and other collaborations.  Also make sure to invite them for a guest post on your Blog (depends on the magnitude of the publisher!).

Anything missing?  Have some feedback or suggestions?  Shoot them as comments to this post.  I would love to hear them all.

Photo Credit: yumiang