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Blogging, Technology

The Best Tips To Make Blogging Easier

By Timothy Hernandez One Comment

Blogs and the people who write them are an essential fixture of the Internet today. Just about everyone wants to broadcast their thoughts and opinions over the internet. There are many different motivations for starting a blog, and it can be hard to know how to help yours succeed. Here you will find some tips that can help as you venture into the world of blogging.

Never copy anything you write in your blog. Plagiarism is a grave offense, and being fingered as a plagiarist can destroy your reputation. Just keep in mind that in the natural world of blogging, passion and originality are more important than flawless writing skills.

When you are creating your blog, consider purchasing your domain name, rather than using a free site. It’s inexpensive and will make your blog look more professional. People will be able to remember it more efficiently, mainly if the title includes your business name or other words that relate to the subject.

Your blog should stand out from the masses of other blogs. Stick with interesting, unique content. Providing information that is difficult for people to find will also draw readers. Talk about unusual and exciting events and experiences. Give details of how widgets are made. If you can give the reader the motivation to visit your blog, they will visit it when they are looking for information.

It is imperative that you are authentic. Come off as a regular person and not as an unapproachable expert. Honesty, transparency, and openness are critical qualities to convey. Do this always. A blog is seen as the ultimate expression of one’s individuality. Strive for improvement, not perfection. It’s okay to be wrong about something, even in your blog. You are unique, and no one is like you.

Your blog entries should be concise. While depth and details are essential for certain subjects, posts that are too lengthy or wordy may turn off your readers. Apart from certain literature blogs, people don’t want things described with the level of detail that a famous author might use. They are looking for the information they seek, not the frilly decorations.

Always keep up with the feedback that your blog receives, and respond when it is appropriate. Never let yourself get overly emotional about this process. Whatever the subject is, there will always be people who criticize. Use any constructive criticisms to help improve your blog. With adverse or negative comments, respond politely and leave it at that. This shows maturity and helps to increase your readership.

Feature social media links on your blog that readers can use to follow you. Social media networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are beneficial for the success of your business. The more social media sites you use, the more channels of communication you open between you and potential readers. This helps readers connect with you and lets new readers know about your blog.

Stay patient and eventually, your readership will grow on its own. It takes time for online viewers to come across your blog. Additionally, since you are just starting, there will not be much content available for people to see right away. The older your blog and the more significant amount of material you have, the more readers will see it and visit regularly.

You should be passionate about your blog topic. Your content will be more interesting to your readers if it is about something that you care about. That way, you will be in tune with your readership and achieve real blogging success.

It is worth keeping in mind that your blog is an informal mode of communication, and your writing should reflect that. Blogging is a format for entertainment and allows others to create a personal connection with the blogger. Consider it this way when writing. It is essential to establish an enjoyable, friendly connection to readers so that they are more inclined to return.

Whenever you are dealing with longer posts on your blog, the proper construction of the article is crucial. Make good use of subheadings to organize your thoughts. When you make your jobs more comfortable to read, you’ll retain a wider readership. It is simple for you to do this, and will raise the quality of your blogging.

Avoid thinking of blogging as a simple thing. You need always to be researching, learning and working it like a business. Take your cues from experienced bloggers, still integrating new techniques and ideas. Continuously improve and learn about new blogging methods that will help you move forward.

Thoroughly research the topic of each post you are going to blog about. If you are not up to date with the subject, you might end up giving misleading and false information. It is also important to thoroughly grasp the issue so that you can reply to visitor comments.

Encourage your readers to comment on your blog. This keeps your readers active in your blog. Be sure to respond respectfully to comments – good and bad. This keeps readers coming back so they can continue discussing your topic.

Your blog should have a contact page that is easy to find. This ensures that each reader can let you know if they see something that doesn’t work, have a suggestion for content, or maybe they even want to offer you a lucrative deal. You cannot know for sure who is reading the posts you make; some of your readers may have valuable insights. You can only tap into them if you provide a way for them to get in touch with you.

Make sure the text in your blog is sufficiently large, but not too large. The most crucial aspect of your blog is written content, so the correct size font is very important. Come up with a perfect balance; it shouldn’t be so big that it overwhelms the page, and not so tiny that your viewers need to squint to see the text.

As you can see, bloggers are now blogging on the Internet from all corners of the world. The styles and reasons for blogging are many and varied. Thankfully, there is still room for new authors in the blogosphere. Take the tips in this piece and make your blog stand apart from the crowd.

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Blogging, Technology

Increase Your Online Presence With These Blogging Tips

By Timothy Hernandez One Comment

Most people these days wish to get their name out in the online world to everyone. When you create an audience, you will be able to succeed in more areas, like marketing. A great way to establish your voice is through blogging. If you desire to know how blogging could help you, then you must read through this guide.

Try to be available for your readers continually. Be consistent in the frequency of your blog and your responses to comments. If you’ve begun to connect with your visitors, they’ll expect that you’ll be around regularly. Remember that other people out there will be disappointed if you give up on your blog.

Commenting on other people’s blogs is an excellent method of raising interest in your blog. Google Reader is a unique method for organizing other interesting but related blogs. Make sure to leave comments on them regularly, whenever you have something interesting to offer.

Frequently write in your blog. It is common for bloggers to begin blogging as though they were going to a fire and then, over time, to gradually fall into blogging less and less frequently. Without updates, the readers, whose attention you grab at the beginning, will quickly tire of waiting for new content. Generally speaking, it is wise to make new blog posts each week and transmit email updates.

Make frequent updates to your blog. To increase your site traffic and maintain it correctly, you must always post new content. By not posting new content, readers will have no reason to come back to your blog. A regular, daily blog post is a good goal to give yourself.

Whatever you do, be sure that all of your content is original. You will ruin your reputation if you steal anything from anyone else, including your design elements, copy or graphics. Don’t worry about whether you are a good enough writer; if you write about subjects you love, readers will return to your blog again and again.

Ask other expert bloggers in your niche to trade guest posts with you. Such positions improve your blog’s store of original, high-quality content. Furthermore, you should get some additional traffic from the guest blogger’s blog, when the guest blogger informs his or her readers of the guest post. You do that with several bloggers so that your blog has plenty of excellent content.

Lists are great for blogging. Whether your blog is about cooking or how to overhaul an engine, records are essential. Lists allow readers to find the information they need quickly and make it easy to absorb.

Maintain your blog diligently. This means that you should perform all of the maintenance that needs to be done and change small things every once in a while. This will keep visitors interested and make sure that your blog is in good working order.

Try to develop your blog’s mailing list as quickly as you can. The sooner you get started on it, the easier it will be to expand as your blog grows. You can use a list such as this to earn more money down the road. It is a severe mistake to delay starting your mailing list.

You need to focus on choosing unique keywords that will help your blog stand out from the crowd. If you pick keywords that many other sites have, your blog will be competing with everyone else. If you hope to have a lot of visitors, be a little different.

Learn to utilize bullet lists, and an italicized text was featuring your keywords. Using these techniques will highlight the keywords, ensuring that the search engines see them as necessary to your site and therefore rank you highly on them. This will ensure that your blog succeeds.

Simple isn’t always better in the case of blogging. Instead, look at it from a business perspective and continually grow your knowledge in the field. Learn the techniques and strategies seasoned bloggers use to improve your blogging skills. If you are always learning new ways to make your blog better, it will help you move forward.

Make sure your blog posts are relevant to rise to the tops of the search engines. The easier it is for people to find your blog, the more readers you’ll attract. This fact is an incredibly important tip in blog design and maintenance.

One of the most critical aspects of having a blog of your own is to have fun with it! If your interest and passion for your topic start to flag, the people reading your blog will soon notice – and they will not be happy. Seek out a question that you enjoy, and you will feel excited when you write about it. Let those creative juices flow, and you will find that others will flock to your site!

Figure out what you want to gain from your blog before you start. Are you trying to build a business, or make your name known? Maybe your primary goal is to increase your income. Your intentions may be varied. The style of your blog should reflect these goals.

Try creating a different homepage for your blog. A custom homepage has much more flavor than a simple list of posts. This will also become very useful in terms of helping search engines finds you.

Promotions and giveaways are a great way to attract new readers. People love a freebie, so it doesn’t need to be a big deal. You should give away lots of the product to achieve the most significant result possible. Many people will return to your blog often to find out if you’re giving something new away.

The hints and tips you’ve been given should have provided you with the necessary knowledge you need about blogging and the many ways in which it can benefit you. Make sure that you apply all that you have learned, and remember patience is key; use your knowledge, and before you know it people will be eagerly waiting to see your future blog posts.

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Technology

Protection from Hackers

By Timothy Hernandez One Comment

Hackers are out there. The term black hat is used to describe a malicious hacker, as opposed to white hat which would describe a cyber security specialist. With the rise in threat vectors proliferating in the environment, corporations, banks and retail outlets online need to be careful to ensure their sites are secure.

There are many ways hackers can get in and target everyday people, be it through social engineering or targeted attacks. Some attacks are specific to individuals, others are more blasts hoping to role in innocent people and make them vulnerable to identity theft or other threats. Even with the high threat level, there are certain practices users can do when online to help protect them from some of these intrusions. Lets look at a few things you can do to protect yourself.

Social media is all pervasive these days and some people have multiple accounts on different platforms. To ensure you keep sensitive information off these sites, reveal the least amount of information, post to friends only and be careful who you friend. Social media sites can be hacked and some are prone to viruses. If you don’t know a person think carefully before accepting them as a friend. Also keep passwords for social media accounts secure and don’t share them, use strong passwords.

For other sites that hold more sensitive information ensure you us a unique username and password for these sites, which could include financial sites. Don’t share the same password across sites. Use a password that is 8 or more characters long with special symbols, numbers, letters and no repeating characters. Also use a combination of upper and lowercase letters.

If you are looking for a job through social media sites that are set up or career networking be careful what information you expose. Some of these sites allow anyone to see your information. A hacker can find out a lot about where you work, your skillset and employment status using tool hackers have access to that crawl the web. These sites are also useful for hackers who use elicitation a form of social engineering for information gathering to track a target. Sometimes hackers target people in certain positions to find ways to infiltrate companies, or gain proprietary information.

For email, phishing is an easy way to target unsuspecting people. These emails might try to get you to click on a link that will download a virus to your system. Sometimes phishing can be used to gain information and send people to malicious websites that look close to legitimate websites and will persuade the person to enter sensitive information that hackers can use to target you or gain access to your accounts. Always be wary about clicking on links in email if you do not know the sender. Look at the sender’s address as it is easy to spoof an email address. Spam domain blocker tools also exist that can block whole domains. Most email hosts have a form of these tools to help protect you.

Virus scanning systems that protect from viruses are also good tools to employ. Keep the scanning software up to date to receive the latest patches These tools can also scan your system and block malicious websites. It is also good to have a strong firewall.

Again some of these practices rely on the human equations. If you don’t know if something looks legitimate be wary.

Media sharing sites are notorious for having malicious code. If you will be using these sites ensure your virus scanning software is up to date to block sites that are trying to steal your information or download viruses.

Your internet connection can also be targeted. Be careful about using public WIFI and only use trusted connections. Your coffee shop’s WIFI may be free but there might be hackers in the vicinity with similar WIFI connections that will steal your information if you connect to them. If you have a mobile hotspot for Internet connectivity ensure it has a strong password. Hackers can hack into these connections and do. Hackers use key stroke logging systems that can log your keystrokes once in or infected and can easily get your information.

As we see in the sci fi grydscaen series which focuses on hackers, the characters use various tools to target individuals and corporations. The hackers will use social engineering to gain access to a target’s information or access to an office or lab’s systems. The next book in the series will be released in September 2014 and focuses on social engineering, intrusion, infiltration and selling data.

These are some things you can do to protect yourself from hackers. The information discussed are some simple tools that can help keep your system secure. It is always good to be on guard when online. If you use social media be careful what you share. Know your environment, hackers are out there and will use multiple means to target and try to gain access to your information. Knowing how to protect yourself can go a long way.

Natsuya Uesugi is a systems analyst and has worked in the design of aerospace, semiconductor and financial systems. He has worked for multiple large Fortune 500 technology companies as a systems tester securing systems and writing security requirements. With a Master’s Degree in International Management and certifications in project management, software development, testing and systems analysis, Natsuya knows his way around computers. Having worked as a software engineer and quality assurance tester, Natsuya has over 15 years experience in software development, cyber security and ethical hacking.