This is a guest post by Tony Hue. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

… produce amazing content.

… use images to enrich their posts.

… understand the importance of beautiful web typography.

… know how to appeal to large audiences.

… utilize social media effectively.

… practice good SEO.

… visit other blogs and write comments.

… can effectively express their personality into writing and not sound like a robot.

… have an Archives or Sitemap on their blogs.

… incorporate rich media into their content.

… blog about something they are passionate about.

… know how to attract relevant backlinks.

… cite their sources whenever necessary.

… create helpful 404 pages.

… make it easy for readers to subscribe to new posts via RSS or email.

… minimize advertisements to reduce distractions.

… allow readers to easily share their latest posts via Twitter, Facebook, and social bookmarking sites.

… separate themselves from the competition by using a custom design.

… create an About and a Contact page.

… encourage readers to engage in conversation.

… write interesting headlines.

… guest post on other blogs.

… include a search function on their blogs.

… know how to optimize the speed of their blogs.

… know how to make their blogs look exactly the same across all browsers, even on IE 6.

… respond to readers’ questions.

… backup their blogs regularly.

Say what?! Your blog doesn’t fit any of these descriptions?! Shucks. Well, better start working on it.

Inspiration by CSS-Tricks.

About the Author: Tony Hue is a broke college student mired hopelessly in mountains of debt. Send him a check by visiting his blog LonePlacebo, where he writes about social media, technology, and his hilariously sad life. He’s also on Twitter @loneplacebo.

This is a guest post by Adesoji Adegbulu. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

I started blogging by reading a lot of blogs. Among all the blogs I still read are Mashable and TechCrunch. I never skip them on my RSS reader, and I feel that other people do the same.

The question then becomes: how did TechCrunch and Mashable managed to become the most popular blogs in a saturated niche like the tech one? They followed some basic but powerful steps, and I will talk about them below.

1. Narrow your niche but make sure it is not too small. Visitors of your blog must have a common interest. Just make sure that many people share that interest, else you won’t be able to make money with advertising and similar monetization methods. If Mashable only talked about “social networks for senior citizens” they would not be half as successful.

2. Stay focused on your niche no matter what. The worst thing you can do is to start jumping from one niche to the other, starting one blog after the other. TechCrunch and Mashable always had the single purpose of bringing you tech news, and they stuck with it.

3. Simplify things. TechCrunch and Mashable talk about tech, but they always try to make the content as simple and clear as possible. The result is that even non-techie people visit their sites regularly.

4. Fill a vacuum with your blog. Don’t be a copy-cat that copies a competitors post and re-edit it for posting on your blog. Generate original content. This is a must to stand out from the crowd. That is why people often times visit TechCrunch before visiting the tech section of the NY Times.

5. Lots of content. Quality certainly comes first. But if you want to have a profitable blog, you need both quality AND quantity. Take a look at how many posts TechCrunch and Mashable publish every day. You don’t need to do the same, but posting regularly is a must.

6. Build a community around your blog. Part of the success of popular blogs is the community of readers that they have. These are not mere visitors that come from Google. There are people who visit the site every day, tell their friends about it, tweet about it and so on.

7. Be transparent. You’ll notice that both of these blogs are completely transparent with their content. If they are not sure about a piece of news, they mention it. Another day TechCrunch even wrote a post admitting that one of their interns was bribed by a company to write a review about then (they gave him a Macbook in exchange…). So make sure to be transparent if you want the trust of your readers.

8. Persist. Do you think that TechCrunch became this giant in 6 months? Perhaps one year? Two years at maximum? Well, try again. In june of this year TechCrunch will become 5 years old. That is right. I am sure that on their first year or so it was a relatively small blog and the money was not flowing like a river. Yet Mike Arrington persisted, because he had a vision.

Adesoji Adegbulu is a consultant whose interest is on blogging, inspirations, entrepreneurship, Internet marketing and social media. You can find him on his blog, and ontwitter.

This is a guest post by Andrew Rondeau. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

As many of you know, this time last year I gave up the 9-5 corporate world and started working full time online. It was a move I had been planning for the last 3 years and it came to fruition a year ago.

But the bad news is… over the last year while working from home, I’ve added approx 14kg in weight. I’ve been fairly active with my ballroom and Latin dancing, playing badminton and my daily walks. But it wasn’t enough to burn off all the calories from the daily chocolate biscuits!

This year, I decided to do something about my weight problem and have joined a gym (again!).

This time it is different, though. For one, I have paid the year’s membership in full and I cannot get my money back. Two, I am focused to lose some weight no matter what. And three, I have a personal adviser/trainer.

I met with the personal trainer in the first week of January, and she showed me exactly what to do and how to do it. Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve been in the gym at 6.30am, 3 days a week.

I thought I’d be alone at that time.

I’m not.

There are about 50 others all exercising. I’m sure many are on their New Years Resolutions and some will drop out. I won’t. I’m determined.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about my weight loss plan and gym work and how they can actually be applied to a blogging business.

Here are my thoughts:

1. It Takes Time And Effort To Lose Weight and To Build A Blogging Business

To see any significant weight loss, I know I am going to have to work hard, get advice and have a plan I can follow. I’ve been going to the gym 3 times a week for the past 2 weeks and so far, I’ve lost 2kg, so it’s working.

Building your own successful blogging business is a huge challenge.

The only way for you to be successful is to work hard (don’t believe the hype that running a blogging business it’s easy, it’s not). Get advice from a small number of people who have been successful. Write yourself a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly plan.

2. There Is Far Too Much Information Available

Over the years, I’ve always struggled with my weight – mainly because I love cakes, biscuits and puddings or should I just say “food in general”!

Just go to your local bookstore or library and you will see hundreds of resources on the subject of weight loss and healthy eating.

I’ve purchased many of them. Different products like “Eat for your blood type”, “Body For Life”, and “Healthy Eating” plus loads of home training equipment. You can invest thousands and get nowhere.

It’s so overwhelming.

Plus many contradict each other in what is the best way to lose weight and eat right.

This year, I finally said to myself, “I’m going to get someone to help me. I’m going to listen to one person and follow their advice.”

I know it’s early stages but using the plan given to me along with my hard work and commitment, things are looking good and I am making good progress.

With Blogging and Internet Marketing, there are just as many products and resources available to choose from. It’s easy to be overwhelmed and confused.

I recently completed some research on “How many Internet related products people had purchased” and the results were staggering.

You may not believe the results but 32% of those who responded had purchased over 20 ‘make money on the Internet’ type products.

That’s almost 1 in 3 had purchased over 20 products.

One guy actually said, “I ticked the more than 20 box in the vote, only because there isn’t one that says more than 50!”

I’m sure he’s not alone.

I’ve purchased numerous Internet related products as well. Some great, some good, some rubbish.

But the biggest turning point for me was…

What I did for my Internet Marketing business was find an Internet mentor and join their monthly mentoring club. That’s what works for me and it may work for you. Find a blogging course or mentor or both and follow their plan.

3. Good Advice Is Useless Without A Plan

All the resources I’ve purchased to try and lose some weight have never helped me. Why? Because I never took the advice and acted upon it. I often didn’t implement the advice.

Hence why I’ve now paid up front for the gym membership and got a personal trainer. She worked with me to create a personal plan and now provides advice as I go.

I know exactly what I am going to do each day I enter that gym door. It’s planned out. I know what I am doing today, next week and next month. And she’s there for any advice I need.

It’s the same with Internet related products.

I bet you have purchased some and they just sit on the shelf collecting dust or clogging up your PC disc space.

You have to take the advice and implement it. I know that is hard when you have no plan to follow or no one to ask but you do have to take action.

You have to have a plan. A daily plan. A weekly plan. A monthly and an overall yearly plan of what you want to achieve for your Internet business.

Many people start and quit. I don’t know the exact numbers but something like 95% of all blogs started are closed down within 3 months.

But the combination of great advice, hard work and an implementation plan can produce big rewards.

4. The Hardest Part Is Not Quitting

Back in the year 2000, I ran a local half-marathon. Not very fast, but I completed it. It was something like 1 hour 50 minutes but I have the medal and the newspaper cutting proving I completed it.

It was the furthest I had ever run. I trained for it. Up and down the hills. Through the countryside. Through rain and strong hot sun.

And, yes there were days when I didn’t want to train. I wanted to quit. There were days my feet were sore and I wanted to quit. There were days when my muscles ached and I wanted to quit.

But I didn’t. I was determined to do it.

And the same goes for my Internet business and perhaps you have thought about quitting sometimes, as well.

When I first started out, I thought I was going to become a millionaire overnight. The adverts promised it! I quickly created my first product, thought I would retire in a few weeks, sipping champagne while overlooking the harbour from my brand new apartment in the South of France.

Of course, it was the complete opposite. I sold very few. I wanted to give up. I nearly did. I was so disappointed. So angry. All that hard work and that’s when I changed my mind and found a mentor. He told me the truth. He managed my expectations. He told me it would take 6 months before you will see any income. He was right.

I know many people (not just those starting out) struggle to get their Internet business to make some income. I received an email yesterday and she said, “I’ve been on the Internet trying to make a living now for nearly 5 years”

5 years!

She added, “Today, I’ve expended all my savings on purchasing Internet products and, if it wasn’t for a friend, I’d be a street person right now. “

And she is not alone.

But she hasn’t given up, like 99% of us have would.

Building an Internet Business does get hard. It can be frustrating.

But if you really want it and follow great advice, you will be successful.

Don’t be defeated. Don’t give up. Don’t quit.

5. Measuring and tracking your progress is vital

As part of my gym membership, I have targets in place. Targets for:

• Weight loss
• Running times and distances
• How far I can row before I collapse
• Amount of weight lifted

These measures spur me on and make me work harder.

Do you have targets and measures in place for your Internet business?

I don’t just mean income related. Income might be your overall end result target but what about your targets and measures to get there.

You could target/measure:

• Visitors
• Backlinks
• Guest posts
• Opt-ins
• Blog posts
• Comments

Targets focus you. I have a simple one of commenting on 10 different blogs each day. I don’t go to bed until I do and when I do got to bed I feel great because I’ve achieved everything I wanted to.

In summary…

If you are just starting out on your Blogging or Internet journey… go for it but be warned it’s not an easy ride.

If you are two or more years into your Blogging journey and it’s just not working, see if these lessons can help.

Wherever you are, I encourage you to work hard, be committed and follow the best advice you can get.

Andrew Rondeau is the author of the free guide “The Income Blogging Guide Blueprint”. You can grab your complimentary copy at WeBuildYourBlog.com today.

This is a guest post by Tony Hue. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Over a week ago, we welcomed the arrival of 2010 with much anticipation. 2009 was a year many people simply wanted to forget and move on from. For bloggers everywhere, the beginning of a new year is a reinvigorating time to reflect on the past year and look forward to the promise of the future ahead.

So, how did your blog fare in 2009? Regardless of the level of success you achieved there is always room to improve. Let’s take a look at 18 timeless blogging tips on how to improve your blog and stand above the competition.

1. Judge a blog by its cover – If it doesn’t look pretty, people have a hard time focusing on what you have to say. Take a look at the home page of your blog, focusing on the uppermost region (without scrolling down). Would you want to take a look around after arriving on the home page as a new visitor?

2. Comment smartly and consistently – Bloggers are tired of seeing the overused “Nice post!” or “This is really interesting!” Stand out by trying to put some thought into your comments and, most importantly, make it sound like you actually read the article.

3. Get a Gravatar- Before you start commenting on blogs, it’s a good idea to register your own gravatar. If you follow step 2, readers and blog owners will become familiar with you for better or for worse.

4. Show your personality in your writing – Establishing a voice in your writing is a crucial element is producing content that people will want to keep coming back over and over again for more. Don’t be that Average Joe in a sea of Average Joes.

5. Use plenty of pictures in your blog posts – No one wants to see endless blocks of text, especially while reading online. The moment your readers’ mind wanders off, they’ll be jumping to another site before you know it. Here are some great sources for finding images: Flickr, Photobucket, picapp, Google Image Search.

6. Study SEO like your life depended on it - Driving traffic to your blog through search engines is what you call “organic traffic.” Other types include referral sites, and direct traffic. Of the three mentioned, organic traffic is what you need to be able to sustain long-term visibility of your blog. To help you get started, take a look at this comprehensive guide on SEO: The Definitive Guide to Higher Rankings For Your Blog.

7. Start with a WordPress.com blog and then switch over to a self-hosted WordPress blog - Three reasons to use WordPress: 1) Lots of people use it 2) Recognition and reputation 3) Strong support. If you are just started blogging, I recommend you get a free WordPress.com blog to get your feet wet. It can’t hurt you to do so and besides, what’s the rush?

8. Avoid grammar mistakes by proofreading – One thing that really annoys me about a blog is poor grammar. If you were listening to your teacher lecture about quantum physics and his grammar is dreadful, you would want to leave that class in a heartbeat. Same thing with blogs. You came looking for value but it’s all mixed up with a misplaced “has” and “their” and terrible spelling. Would you want to keep reading? Probably not.

9. Make you blog content rich in media – In my Studio Art class last quarter, we studied about human culture and psychology (Shrug). It would’ve been the most boring class in my entire schedule if my professor had not included numerous videos and other media into out 1- 1/2 hour long lectures. It kept me attentive and engaged. and helped me connect topics more cohesively. In other words, utilize the power of Youtube and other media sources and incorporate them accordingly into your blog content.

10. Figure out your niche and stick to it – If someone asked you what your blog was about, would you be able to answer without hesitation? If not, write down in 140 characters or less(no pun intended) a succinct and clear definition of what your blog is about. E.g: Pet Food Blog- The Blog where Pet Owners can Learn How to Better Feed Their Beloved Pets. The second important thing is “to keep the main the main thing.” If you feel like writing a post about electron polarization and its effect on our ecosystem (shrug), do you really think that readers to your Pet Food Blog would appreciate it?

11. Blog on a set schedule – There is no right answer to how often one should blog. Whatever schedule you start out with, make sure you stick with it every week. Take for example, Mashable. After visiting the site a couple of times, you can safely expect to see a new article every single day. The important thing is that they stick with that routine.

12. Reply to comments on your blog – Replying to questions or comments from readers is your way of letting people know that your blog is “alive.” It gives readers the opportunity to interact and engage in conversation. Best thing of all? It artificially inflates the true number of people who comment on your blog. Very sweeeeeet.

13. Make it easy for readers to navigate your blog – If it takes more than 3 seconds to look for a search bar or category list on your blog, than your site’s navigation needs to be improved. No one likes the feeling of being in an unfamiliar place with no directions to their destination. They feel desperate, unhappy, and hopeless. The thing with being lost in an unfamiliar site as opposed to being lost in a shopping mall is that readers can easily exit with a single click of a button. This will definitely not help your blog traffic.

14. Put an author section in your blog posts – No one wants to read material written by a face-less author, let alone by one without a name. Check out this article by Chris Spooner on how you to create your own author section.

15. Forget about the stats – How much time do you spend checking the stats of traffic to your blog? You’ll be amazed by how much more productive you will be if you focus on maximizing the time you spend writing new blog posts instead. One method to fight off your debilitating addiction for numbers is to disconnect your computer from the internet. Say what?! Yep, that’s right. If you can’t get online, you can’t get look at your stats. Pull out Microsoft Word and start writing your next blog post there. It’ll work out. Trust me.

16. Don’t think about making money…at first – If making money from your blog is your primary goal, I will not argue against that. The problem with focusing solely on money in the beginning is that you lose sight of the far more significant goal every new blog must reach first: quality content. What good will you provide your readers if you only post hundreds of affiliate links and self-promotional articles in the hope of winning people’s credit card numbers? Don’t be greedy. Money is great but don’t let it destroy your blog.

17. Write killer headlines - With eye-catching headlines, you have effectively completed over 50% of your blog’s advertising. Tell me, would you rather read an article titled, “How to Cook Delicious Spaghetti Sauce” or “How to Make Your Spaghetti Sauce Taste Orgasmic” ? (I apologize if you were eating) Anyways, the point is to avoid the overused and generic blog titles and strive for ones that are unique and thought-provoking.

18. Guest post – Don’t let the thought of submitting your written articles to other reputable blogs intimidate you. Remember, if you don’t try, how can you possibly succeed?

So what are you waiting for? 2010 is almost over! Time waits for nobody!

Tony Hue is a broke college student mired hopelessly in mountains of debt. Send him a check by visiting his blog LonePlacebo, where he writes about social media, technology, and his hilariously sad life. He’s also on Twitter @loneplacebo.

This is a guest post by Kevin. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Growing a blog to a successful, monetizable state is a long journey that requires a great deal of effort and dedication. Most bloggers fail to realize their initial goal of developing an income producing blog. I believe there are four stages of growth that a blog must pass through in order to achieve this goal. These stages can be described as follows:

Stage 1: Getting Established

The first stage of growing a blog is simply getting established. The focus during this stage is primarily content and blog setup. Most of your effort will go into creating a sufficient quantity of quality content for a sustainable blog launch. I believe a good way to do this is to actually write anywhere from 10 to 50 articles prior to launching the blog.

Basic blog setup tasks like SEO and plugin setup is also a part of this stage, although this takes much less time than creating the actual content. You also want to make sure that you get a handful of backlinks simply so that your blog gets indexed by the search engines. I typically like to do this the natural way of getting a backlink and letting the search engine “naturally discover” your blog versus submitting your blog to be added to the search engine. I’ve noticed a more quality indexing of your content through this more natural process.

Most people fail in this initial stage by focusing on monetization. You’re not going to make any money in the early stages, so you may as well ignore it.

Time to complete stage 1: 3 – 6 months

Stage 2: Traffic Growth

You’re ready to enter the growth stage if you have an established blog with quality content. You’re starting to get a handful of comments and maybe even some regular readers. You’re also getting some traffic from search engines based on your indexed content.

The growth stage is marked by traffic growth, subscriber growth, and the start of some income produced by the blog. Even at this point, traffic growth is still more important than income growth so it is there where we will focus. The growth of traffic is created by continuous quality content plus the addition of quality backlinks.

The best ways to get the backlinks are not the easy ways. I think it is good to assume that Google is smarter than we think they are and know how to weigh hard-to-get backlinks versus easy-to-get backlinks. As such, I don’t place much emphasis on backlinks in comments, forums and social media. The better backlinks will come from guest posts and natural backlinks (when someone decides to link to your site because they like what you have to say). Establishing relationships with other bloggers can help develop backlinks, since building a relationship with someone will make him or her aware of your existence.

The backlinks serve two purposes. First, it actually drives traffic to your blog and hopefully, some of this traffic turns into regular visitors. Second, these backlinks help your search engine status which is crucial.

Make a goal for yourself to write two guest posts per month on quality blogs with established readerships and preferably solid Page Rank numbers. Of course, part of this process of getting guest posts on blogs is convincing the blog owner to publish your stuff and a link to your blog.

Stage 2 is a long process that can go on for months, even years. The growth will be slow, but the goal is for it to be consistent. Some blogs based on some helpful circumstances and maybe even a little luck will get through this stage rapidly, but for most of us, you’re looking at a longer process.

Time to complete stage 2: 6 months – 2 years

Stage 3: Maturity & Monetization

The maturity stage in most business cycles usually refers to a leveling off of growth. In blogging, maturity doesn’t necessarily mean the slowing of growth. In my opinion, it simply means that achieving the same growth rate doesn’t require as much effort. I repeat, this stage still represents significant growth in traffic.

Because this stage does not require the same level of effort in producing quality content for your blog as well as other blogs (guest posts), you should now put effort into refining the monetization of your blog. This can include signing advertisement deal, optimizing Adsense performance and possibly trying out some affiliate programs. With that said, quality content still must be continuously produced during this stage.

In addition to continued growth in traffic during this stage, you should definitely see significant growth in income. It is during this stage, that you can begin enjoying some of the fruits of your hard work of the previous months and years.

Time to complete stage 3: 6 months – 1 year

Stage 4: Maintenance

This stage is very interesting because there are several big blogs that do very well that have let their blogs deteriorate with regards to quality and perhaps quantity of content. The reason for this is usually because they no longer have to produce the same quality of content in order to continue growing and driving significant income. Could they grow even more and make even more money if they didn’t let their quality slip? Probably, but it is probably a natural tendency of bloggers at this stage.

With that said, not everyone falls into that trap, but the point is that the level of effort required to maintain a blog that has successfully reached this stage is significantly less than the effort required during the previous stages. Once blogs reach this level, it has almost reached a self-sustaining point where the readers continue to grow and spread the word without your encouragement to do so. Content is still required but it is not nearly as important as it was in previous growth stages.

In this stage, there is significant income potential. Possibly career replacing income potential. Most blogs don’t reach this level. In fact, it’s probably a tiny percentage of the blogosphere.

Tips To Get Through The Stages

1. Blog about a topic that you are either really interested in or are already involved in professionally. This will help you continue to produce content when it becomes difficult to continue to do so.

2. Approach growing your blog like growing a business. It takes time and requires work. There are few short cuts.

3. Understand ahead of time that growth will take time, and you are likely to become discouraged at times. Be persistent.

Kevin owns and operates 20smoney.com, which is a blog focused on developing income streams and taking a business-like approach to blogging.