To Blog or Not to Blog?

This guest post by the 1st Twitter celebrity I've known - Atul Vhale. While he is an avid social media user, he has faced some tiny issues while starting to blog. Read on and let him know if you have experienced the same.

To Blog or not to Blog?

You know what I dislike intensely? When one of my colleagues comes and pats me on back and says "Bro! When you'll write a blog post, I'll announce a grand party in office."

Trust me, there have been billion dollar ideas in my mind but all disappear while watching.........

The moment I sit down to write and some cheap yet hot model pops up in my mind, the whole situation gets nasty!

I often visit cafés during weekends with the intent of writing but end up with having a couple of coffees with some hot legs. Hate it!

I may have announced on Twitter that "I'm gonna write a kick ass blog post tonight" but have woken up next morning at friend's house watching Hangover IV. I didn't like that movie though.

One night, in my dream, I wrote a blog post on Indian Economy. If only one of my jealous room mates wouldn't have woken me up before I hit 'Publish', that post would have gone viral!

Does it happen to you too or is it just me? Tell me your scene!

image Courtesy: Google Images

All You Wanted to Know About WriteUp Cafe...

Binoy Karan - founder of WriteUpCafe

This post is about the blog sharing platform many bloggers are aware of - WriteUp Cafe. Most of us merely use the website to share our posts and links. But this platform offers so much more than we know. This article is to make us bloggers (and aspiring ones too) aware of the very purpose that drives WriteupCafe (WUC).

The founder and owner, Binoy Karan, designed and launched the website in 2009. He tirelessly and selflessly toils at developing this not-for-profit venture to boost bloggers' reach. I am enthralled by many ideas he has for improving not only the reach of us bloggers but also our quality of writing.

I won't spoil things further. Here is a tête-à-tête with Binoy about the past, present and future of WUC:

Vishal Kataria (VK). What is WriteUpCafe all about?

Binoy Karan (BK). WriteUpCafe.com is a social network of writers offering a wide range of features for the users like posting writeups directly on the site, submiting links to blog posts, showcasing their personal blogs as well as provide a platform for them to interact with each other.

VK. When did you launch the site?

BK. The site was launched in March, 2009.

VK. Why did you think of launching WUC?

BK. I was introduced into the world of blogging sometime in 2006. But soon realized that writing alone is not enough, I need to get people to read what I write. I also realized there were thousands like me writing millions of things under the sun on their blogs but not being able to reach out to fellow readers. I came to know many fellow bloggers who were trying hard to get genuine readers. Back then every time we published a new article we posted the links on the several blogging communities on Orkut. It was then I thought why not create a site where people can directly write and comment and interact with each other. In the beginning there were just a few of us who regularly wrote, read and commented on each other's writeups. But soon it picked up and there were many others who joined in and today we have a community of thousands of members.

WriteUpCafe - A Social Network of Writers

VK. What differentiates WriteUpCafe from other blog sharing platforms?

BK. WriteUpCafe caters to anybody who has a desire to write and is not restricted to people who have their own blogs. We have introduced several features keeping in mind the requirements of the different category of members - bloggers and non bloggers. Members can post writeups directly on the site or submit links to their blog posts. We have regular contests which are purely based on creativity. Though commercialization is necessary and important for sustenance , we are trying to come up with a model wherein the creativity is not sacrificed in the name of commercialization. Our primary target will always be to foster the spirit of writing and to provide a literary environment to budding writers.

VK. What does WUC help bloggers achieve?

BK. WriteUpCafe like any other site provides a platform to reach out to readers. Every writeup or link posted on the site is automatically submitted to our facebook page having more than 11000 members. But traffic is not the be all and end all for a writer. Here you get a chance to know other writers, add them as friends, interact and learn from them, make your own groups and have your own internal contests.

VK. What are your future plans for the website?

BK. We would like to hold as many literary events as possible on WriteUpCafe. Recently, we successfully concluded the second season of the Indian Bloggers' League (IBL) and would like to come up with more such contests  which would help the writers in discovering their own talents and at the same time get to know fellow writers from around the country. In future we also plan to hold regular workshops for budding writers where participating members can collaborate and learn from each other.

So there we are! Thanks, Binoy, for all that you are doing for us. It must be quite difficult to handle this liability (responsibility wise and monetary wise) along with your family (including your new born daughter).

We use WUC for posting our articles and for IBL. With our collective involvement, Binoy will be able to achieve his dreams of making WUC one of the best sites which bloggers will use for improving not only their rankings but their quality also. We wish Binoy all the best and hope he can achieve all his goals.

Follow WriteUpCafe on Google+ and on Twitter

6 Ways to Increase Traffic To Your Blog

Which blogger doesn't want more traffic directed to his blog? A rookie blogger can get about 20-30 hits daily while a pro blogger can get anywhere between 600 – 6000. We promote our blog posts on Facebook and Twitter, submit our posts on Bloggers, Digg & more and comment on others’ blog posts –all in attempts to direct traffic to our sites. While these methods are 100% correct, there are other sites which we can leverage to increase traffic on ours. Some of those suggestions (tried and tested by me) are listed below:

1. Pinterest: Most of Pinterest’s visitors are women. Most pins are about cats, fashion, jewelry, cars and recipes. But that doesn't mean Pinterest can’t drive traffic to your website. Create a board containing pictures of the ones in your posts, and provide links to the specific articles. If your blog has a theme, even better. Create a board according to the theme and post pictures from your articles with links. This will ensure it doesn't appear as blatant advertising of your blog while you reap the benefits of at least a 20 – 30% traffic spike.
2. SlideShare: Yes! SlideShare. The site which lets you upload PowerPoint presentations. Make PPTs of your posts and upload them. Remember to add links (clickable) to your articles in the last slide. This offers two benefits –readers will be enticed to read your articles if your presentations are interesting, thus increasing traffic. And you will improve your presentation skills. But make sure you prepare presentations out of your post and not publish the whole article in slides. No one will read your blog then.

   

   Get the Traffic You Deserve

3. StumbleUpon: Most of you must already be submitting your links on this site. But those don’t, please start immediately. StumbleUpon is a discovery engine that finds and recommends web content to its users. Your posts will show up in categories which you have classified the articles under. This means your content will be made available to a vast number of relevant and interested readers. This will not only increase traffic on your site but also reach out to relevant readers.
4. Blogadda: There are numerous websites which allow you to submit your posts. But not many of them can lure readers to click on your links as Blogadda can. Through its Tangy Tuesday and Spicy Saturday picks, this site shares the choicest of submissions with its readers. And people read those posts – intently. So if your post is good enough to have been picked by them, rest assured, traffic and comments on your posts will shoot up. I've witnessed about 100% increase in visits on posts which featured in Tangy Tuesday on Blogadda.
5. WriteUp Cafe (WUC): This site is relatively lesser known as compared to the internet giants. But it is a great platform to share your links and connect with equally enthusiastic bloggers. Present partial write ups of your posts and provide links to your blog for the remaining article. Thus, readers who find your write up interesting will visit your blog to read the rest (and comment on it). Also, WUC tweets the links which have been submitted on it to its 600 odd (and growing) followers, increasing your article’s visibility.
6. Google+: A lot of us have forgotten about Google+. Or we’re disillusioned – we were told it’s going to be the best social networking site ever, right? Wrong! Google+ as a social network was a Trojan Horse to introduce the ‘+1’ button and that matters a lot! Every time your article is +1-ed, Google’s advertising search engine is fed, allowing them to match more targeted ads. Plus, it tremendously improves your rankings. Won’t Google want to promote its platform more? So every time you get a +1, or your circle expands, your search results on Google+ improve. After all, that’s what everyone is gunning for, right?
7. Bonus tip: Use the e-mail feature on the Blogger and Wordpress platforms smartly to reach out to a wider audience. I’m not talking about those who have subscribed to your blog by e-mail. You definitely have a list of 300+ e-mail contacts, right? Using the e-mail feature, you can let these contacts know that you've posted a new article. A 10% conversion means a minimum of 30 hits to your site. And that’s a lot of traffic (unless you average 600+ hits per day).

Notice that nothing has been spoken about SEO per say here. That’s because Google has started rewarding quality content with Panda & Penguin – its latest algorithms. Remember, you can use tricks to increase traffic on your website, but the best traffic is the one that keeps returning. Steady traffic can only be achieved once you've got enough readers visiting your blog repeatedly, wanting to read what you have to share. So before you indulge in SEO tricks, meta tags and keyword research, focus on improving your content. Everything else will gradually fall into place.

These were my suggestions. Why don’t you share your tips to increase traffic? They will help a lot of readers (including me).


image Courtesy: Google Images

The Flipside of Blogging...

Why do we blog? To make our voices heard, to connect with people and of course, for the feeling of satisfaction when others read what we write. The final write up makes us feel proud of our work; we love publishing our articles and publicizing them on Facebook and Twitter. And someday, someday we will have 20-30 genuine comments on our articles (this is strictly for men. Many women bloggers end up with 50-60 comments on their blogs).

The flipside is the pressure – the pressure of writing articles which people enjoy reading... constantly coming up with new topics. See I’m no poet or story teller. I don’t often write on conventional topics. I relate incidents that catch our eye to daily life. Sometimes this leads to a problem that I’m currently facing – Writer’s Block! I’m sure most bloggers face it. It’s that phase when a writer can’t think of what to write; he feels like he’s staring at a brick wall. No inspiration, no ideas, nothing. Yet, the pressure to keep writing so that his blog doesn’t stagnate.

But that’s ok I guess. It’s all part of the package. You can’t always write good articles. Some will be average, others crappy. So I keep writing, like we keep moving in life even if we have bad days.

I keep reading articles and books. The brain isn’t pressurized to come up with inspiration. Ideas are allowed to crop up anytime – in sleep, while driving, cooking or reading. The important thing is that one keeps writing. Too often we’re guilty of wanting to do something so well that we skip deadlines. The same happens in blogging. It’s not necessary that each article be a masterpiece. So keep writing. Traffic, visits, comments and followers will follow. Cheers!

Your turn now. What do you do when you suffer from Writer’s Block?

5 Great Online & Social Media Tools For Everyday Use!

This post featured on Social Samosa and We Speak News .


You have (or are looking for) a good presence on social media. But, you also have a social life. You’re looking to balance both. Also, you’re looking to share good content with your friends and followers; you don’t want to pepper your social media contacts with stuff like you’re spamming them; you’re looking to reduce manual work on Facebook and Twitter, etc.

These two sites (and others) are great ways to direct traffic to your blog and ensuring the right content is posted at the right time. Using appropriate social media tools is key to achieve that goal.

I haven’t spent too long researching social media, but have come across 5 great tools which make life much easier for you in the online world. Some people already know about these, but those who don’t can experiment and see which one works best for them.

1.     Instapaper:  We’re all familiar with the concept of bookmarks in our browsers. Sometimes, however, we have bookmarks stored in different browsers (home computer, office laptop, mobile browser, etc.) and it’s hard to access them from different places. That’s what Instapaper fixes. All you have to do is create an account, install the ‘Read Later’ option on your most used browsers and you’re all set. Read anything interesting online? Simply click on the ‘Read Later’ option in your browser and it automatically gets saved into your account. You can log into Instapaper from anywhere and access the link. You can even share it on Twitter, FB, Pinstorm, Tumblr or Evernote at your convenience. Robert Clay introduced me to this tool, and it works like a dream.

Some tools to make you a Social Media Rockstar

5 Ways To Get Better At Blogging & Twitter...

How many of us want to have good presence in the social media world? Well, I’m sure most of us. But how many are successful are achieving the targets set? Compared to the number of social media users out there, they’re very few. We don’t quite get the hang of Twitter, comment on others’ blogs and wait for some of them to return the favour... But there are more concrete ways to power up one’s followers online (be it blogs, Twitter, Facebook and even on Youtube).

Purvesh (His Blog & Twitter handle @PureWaste) is one personality who knows how to leverage the power of social media to work for him. His 500 followers on Twitter may not be similar to the 3 – 5000 others have. However, considering that he spends more time offline than on the internet, he’s built a good base for himself on social media. The quality of his followers on Twitter is excellent. Plus he gets more hits and comments on his blog in a day than I get in a week. Let’s take 5 tips each on how to build our blog and Twitter networks from Purvesh:

"BLOGGING: Blogging is a passion. I look at blogs as a mode to rest and recuperate. Being an occasional blogger, I prefer to maintain a personal blog, although I have a speciality blog as well. A few tips from my side purely based on my blogging experience:

1.) Categorise your blog: When you start to blog, be clear as to what you want the blog to communicate and who would be the target audience.  In other words, categorize your blog. It could be something like a personal blog, or a speciality blog.

2.) Maintain your style: Every writer has his own style of writing. Some use long sentences. Some use short. Some use complicated language. Whatever be the case, stick to your style. With this, the reader knows what to expect from you.  But if you are new and want to establish yourself first, then keep your language simple. Use short sentences and simple language. Maintain a flow too.

3.) Blog at regular intervals: Do leave your blog unattended for longer period of times. There is no right regular period, but as a general rule, blog at least once a month. If you are a professional blogger, the frequency may be higher then.

4.) Publicize your blog: Your blog doesn’t exist if people don’t read it. Use other forms of social media to publicize your blog. Use Facebook, Twitter and blogging networks to publicize your blogs and generate traffic. I generally also use blogadda and indie blogger too.

5.) You get what you give: To get something, you first have to give something! This here means that read what others are blogging about and comment on it. And in no time, will you see that the traffic on your blog too increases multi folds.