Blogging

Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts

Join The Blogging and Social Media In Nigeria at 56 Conversation

Social media plays a very vital role in the development of a country. Over the years, use of social media in Nigeria has been really effective but we can still strive to make it better.

So as Nigeria turns 56 tomorrow, we are taking to twitter tomorrow (October 1, 2016) to interact with Nigerians on what they think about blogging and social media in Nigeria and how to improve it. If you are a Nigerian blogger, aspiring blogger or netpreneur, you can join the interactive session tagged #BloggingInNigeriaAt56.

Everyone is invited to contribute. All ideas and suggestions on how to improve blogging and use of social media in Nigeria are welcome. Feel free to ask your questions as there are bloggers ready to attend to all your questions. All you just have to do is participate by adding the #BloggingInNigeriaAt56 hashtag to your tweets. Seize this opportunity to interact with fellow bloggers across Nigeria.

Date: October 1, 2016
Time: Throughout the day

An Initiative of Bloggers Helping Bloggers (BHB).

Vlogging: An Untapped Goldmine

In this age, online income is gradually taking over all forms of offline business, and every one wants to put the internet to work for them. Over the years in Nigeria, We've had most people venture into Blogging, Digital Marketing, e-Commerce setup and lots of other online business with the sole aim of making money. It is no news that on the internet there are a thousand and one ways to make money so that is why i am sharing with you today, one of the best but underestimated ways to make money online.

Have you thought of VLOGGING? Yes video blogging. Video blogging is a form of blogging by which information is passed on the internet through videos. It could be tutorials, reviews, comedy & entertainment, sports, gaming and lots more. With vlogging all you need do is sit down in front of camera, make a video, share it with the world, and earn your money its as easy as that.
With social media like Youtube, Facebook, Instagram etc vlogging has been made so much easier that you can share your videos online for free and monetize them.

How to start a video blog

1: Decide what kind of videos you want to share like i stated above, it could be comedy skits, tutorials, reviews etc. There are lots of niche to tap into.

2: Get a camera and shoot your videos. We have smartphones these days which posses quality camera so if you own one i guess you are a step ahead then.

3: Pick a platform you will use to share your videos like Youtube which is one of the best platforms for now all you need do is create a channel and start uploading your videos.

4: Get an internet enabled device to upload and share your videos with the world.

6: Optimize your videos so viewers can easily discover you.

How to make money from your video blog

Google Adsense: With youtube you can monetize videos uploaded on your channel with Adsense. This will let google display ads to people viewing your videos and you earn money from the ads being displayed.

Sponsored Videos: You can shoot videos for brands, Do a review on their product or advertise a particular service for them and share with your viewers and the brand pays you for this. This aspect of monetization is common amongst most video bloggers that write tech reviews and also fashion products.
These are just some of the ways to make money from your video blog as there are lots of ways.

Conclusion:

Video blogging in Nigeria is Underestimated, Most of the leading video bloggers we have these days are not Nigerians although we have some Nigerians doing well in the vlog sphere but i still believe we can have more of Nigerians tap into any Niche from video blogging and make the best out of it. You can try video blogging today and put the internet to work for you.

Adsterra - Another Google Adsense Alternative

Bloggers and webmasters are always looking for new ways to monetize their blogs. Display advertising is one of the most effective ways to make money from your blog if you are getting quality traffic. An example is Google Adsense which is one of the highest paying means of monetization used by bloggers these days but getting your Google adsense application approved seems to be a high hurdle to cross for some bloggers so they seek for other alternatives. I will be sharing with you in this post another Google adsense alternative "Adsterra".

Adsterra Network is a display advertising network that serves optimized ads across their network to their publisher. With their advanced technology, Adsterra can show ads that relates best with with their audience based on their geographic locations and previous advertising results. Adsterra offers publishers a wide range of ad formats ranging from pushups, pop-unders, banners and mobile ads.

Adsterra is partnered with GeoEdge a premium verification software for insuring ad security and ensure ads are served at all time. Adsterra pay on a CPM and CPC basis. To start making money with Adsterra you will need to start serving their ads on your site. This is very simple all you need do is follow the steps given below.

Steps:

1. Sign up for for a publishers account on Adsterra's Website

2. Create an ad unit

3. Place the Ad code on your blog and start serving ads.

So if you don't have a means of monetizing your website or blog or got disapproved by google adsense, you can give Adsterra a try and start earning more on your website.

Negative Effects Of Using Microsoft Word To Compose Blog Posts

Recently, i had problems with my blog. I noticed i had just one post appearing on my blog's homepage when i had set it to show 10 posts on my homepage. I went back to my blog layout settings and checked it but it was still set to 10 posts. I noticed this problem after publishing a post i had composed with microsoft word. Now the question is what could the problem be?

You might also like: The New Jumia Market Affiliate Program Pays You N300 Per Affiliate You Refer.

Microsoft word generates some very mysterious and complex HTML "MsoNormal". This HTML affects the blogs pagination. This is why you notice some big blogs with lots of articles suffer from segmentation. This mysterious HTML could also cause the blog to load slowly both in blogspot and wordpress blogs.

So if you have have been copy-pasting from ms word to your blog i will advice you stop using it. Notepad is a preferable text editor which you can use to compose your blog posts and paste it to your blog. But still if you like using microsoft word you can use (CTRL+Shift+V) to paste content to your blog without the "MsoNormal" formatting.

How To Redirect 1and1 Domain To Blogger Blog

Of recent i have been receiving emails and request from blogger and webmasters on how they can park their 1and1 domain to their blogger blogs. Although i wouldn't recommend 1and1 to my clients or other bloggers because of the reviews i have about them but you can decide what is best for you. If you have bought a domain from 1and1 and don't know how to park it to your blog then this post is for you.

Steps:
1. Login to Blogger, go to Settings > Publishing > Blog Address. Click on Add a Custom Domain Name.

2. Add Custom Domain Name, add in your new domain name www.your-domain.com and click save.

3. You should now get an error message. This error shows you the details you need to properly set up your new domain so keep this page open for the next step. The first CNAME is the same for everyone. The second is a specific CNAME for your blog.

4. Login to your 1and1 control panel, scroll down until you see the heading “Domains” and click Domain Centre.

5. Click the checkbox beside your domain and select Domain Settings > Edit DNS Settings.

6. Under Basic DNS Settings choose 1&1 name servers, under Advanced DNS Settings choose Other IP address and in the space for IPv4 Address enter 216.239.32.21 and save.

7. Go back to Domain Overview Dashboard, click Add Domain > Create Subdomain. Enter the first Name/Host/Label field from Blogger, which is www

8. Click on the subdomain and click DNS Settings. Under Advanced DNS Settings choose CNAME and enter the first Destination/Target/Points To from Blogger, which is ghs.google.com

9. Go back to Domain Overview Dashboard, click Add Domain > Create Subdomain. Enter the second Name/Host/Label field from Blogger, which is unique to you and will look like 00AA0AAAAA

10. Click on the subdomain and click DNS Settings. Under Advanced DNS Settings choose CNAME and enter the second Destination/Target/Points To from Blogger, which is unique to you and will look like gv-a0aaaa0aaaaaa.dv.googlehosted.com

11. On your domain settings for your custom domain you should now see the URL you bought and two subdomains.

12. Go back onto Blogger > Settings > Publishing > Blog Address and enter your domain name and hit save. This time there shouldn’t be an error. Make sure to tick the option of redirecting from domain-name.com to www.your-domain.com.

After performing the above steps you should have successfully parked your 1and1 domain to your blog.

Reasons Why Your Blog And Google Adsense Pageviews May Differ

Recently, i got a question on Facebook from one of my blog readers complaining of the discrepancies between his blog pageviews and google adsense pageviews. If you are also experiencing same thing just relax as there is no cause for alarm.

This difference may be caused by some of the factors stated below.

1. Javascript Not Enabled On Your Visitors Browser:

Firs thing you need to know is Google ads are served using javascript codes and most browser don't have javascript enabled on them so anyone accessing your website on such browser will not have Google ads on your blog served to them so there is no how Google adsense will count it as a pageview for you although your blog will count it.

2. Use of Adblocker by Visitors:

Secondly, some of your visitors access your blog with adblockers enabled on their browser. The primary aim of adblocker is to disable ads not to show on a website when accessing it. So when a visitor visits your website with adblocker enabled on his browser your Google ads wont be displayed to such visitor and hence Google adsense won't credit it as a pageview.

3. Spam Visits:

Stats may also differ because adsense filter out many visit that it thinks they are spam.

There are also some other reasons while both stats will differ but this are the 3 major reasons. If you have other ideas you can share with us through your comments.

Domainking.NG: Cheap Web Hosting Plan & Price Review

Choosing a reliable web hosting company to host your website is a very challenging task. There are lots of thing to put into consideration before choosing one. Things like your website Uptime, timely customer support services etc should be carefully put into consideration. In this article, i am going to be sharing with you a reliable, tested and trusted web hosting company Domainking,NG and their web hosting price review.

DomainKing.NG is a global government accredited domain registrar & web hosting provider that has been providing Nigerian bloggers an webmasters with quality web hosting services and domain registration services. Domainking is a very reliable web hosting provider and with them you should have no bothers. Your website uptime is guaranteed. This company also offer timely support service to assist their customers with whatever issues they are encountering with their service. With Domainking you can host your website for as low as N93/month so you can see that their quality services go as a very low cost.

Domainking.NG Web Hosting Amazing Features

1) Free .com or .com.ng domain with their hosting plans for the 1st year.

2) No Server Overloading which makes the websites hosted on their servers load faster & with better reliability.

3) Industry standard cPanel that makes it is very easy to manage your websites at DomainKing.

4) Create Unlimited Sub Domains & Unlimited emails from the cPanel with every plan.

5) Softaculous One Click Installer App for installing all basic CMS Softwares like Wordpress, Joomla, SMF etc using a single click.

6) Uptime Guarantee with all their hosting plans.

7) Best 24/7 Support that replies to all your questions with definite solutions within a few hours max.

Domainking offers varieties of web hosting plan so you can chose which plan will suit the scale of your website. Below is a quick price review on Domainking's web hosting plans and their prices.

Civillian Plan

Disk space: 500 MB Space
Bandwidth limit: 5 GB Bandwidth
Domains allowed: 1 Domain Allowed
Email accounts: Unlimited Email Accounts
Free domain: Free Domain Not Available
Control panel: cPanel Control Panel
Monthly cost: N93/month
Yearly Cost: N1600/year

Soldier Plan
Disk space: 1 GB Space
Bandwidth limit: 10 GB Bandwidth
Domains allowed: 2 Domain Allowed
Email accounts: Unlimited Email Accounts
Free domain: 1 Free .COM.NG domain
Control panel: cPanel Control Panel
Monthly cost: N266/month
Yearly Cost: N3200/year

Commander Plan
Disk space: 2 GB Space
Bandwidth limit: 20 GB Bandwidth
Domains allowed: 4 Domain Allowed
Email accounts: Unlimited Email Accounts
Free domain: 1 Free .COM.NG domain
Control panel: cPanel Control Panel
Monthly cost: N375/month
Yearly Cost: N4500/year

Minister Plan
Disk space: 4 GB Space
Bandwidth limit: 40 GB Bandwidth
Domains allowed: 6 Domain Allowed
Email accounts: Unlimited Email Accounts
Free domain: 1 Free .COM.NG domain
Control panel: cPanel Control Panel
Monthly cost: N499/month
Yearly Cost: N6000/year

King Plan

Disk space: 10 GB Space

Bandwidth limit: 100 GB Bandwidth

Domains allowed: 10 Domain Allowed

Email accounts: Unlimited Email Accounts

Free domain: 1 Free .COM.NG domain

Control panel: cPanel Control Panel

Monthly cost: N1199/month

Yearly Cost: N14,400/year

You can currently get their Limited Period Upto 30% OFF promo available on their Web Hosting. So Hurry and go to Domainking.NG Web Hosting Plan Now.

How To Use A Button As Read More Link On Your Blogger Blog

Recently i shared a tutorial on How i added auto read more with thumbnail to my blogger blog. If you were able to successfully integrate it into your blog template then here is another tutorial on how to style your read more link by using a button as the link.
If you check my blog home page then you will see i am already using a button as my read more link. You can also see it in a screen capture of my blog in the image below.

How to Use a Button as your read more link:

=> Login to your blogger dashboard

=> Navigate to your template section and click Edit Html

=> Use ctrl + F to locate this code in your template html section

=> When you find the code it will look like the below code

=> Replace The Read More » in blue colour with the code below

=> Click save template.

Note: You can also replace the link of the button with the link of any button which you chose to use.

Now you can go and view your blog. You should have the read more link showing as a button.

I hope this tutorial was helpful. You can share your contributions using the comment box.

How To Add Auto Read More With Thumbnail To Your Blogger Blog

The auto read more script helps you to make your blog homepage look neat by summarizing post content and adding a thumbnail. Then, there will be a Read more or Continue Reading link which when clicked will take you to the entire post.

How To Add Auto Read more:

Note: Before trying out this tutorial make sure you backup your blog template.

Step 1. Login to your blogger dashboard and navigate to Template section;

Step 2. Click on Edit HTML

Step 3. Click anywhere inside the code area then press ctrl + F to find this code

<data:post.body/>

Step 4. Hit Enter Key. You will fin this code more than once but you have to stop at the third one.

Step 5. Replace the above code with the line of code below

If you did not notice any changes after applying the above code, kindly replace the second <data:post.body/> tag too with the code above

Step 6: Now search for the </head> tag in the template and paste the line of code below immediately above it.

var summary = imgtag + '<div>
' + removeHtmlTag(div.innerHTML,summ) + '</div>
';
div.innerHTML = summary;
}
//]]>
</script>

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "static_page"'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>
<style type='text/css'>
.post-footer {display: none;}
.post {margin-bottom: 10px; border-bottom: 1px dotted #E6E6E6; padding-bottom: 20px;}
 .readmore a {text-decoration: none; }
</style>
</b:if>
</b:if>

Note:

-to change the number of characters shown on the homepage there is no thumbnail (photo) modify the 490 value in red.

-to change the number of characters shown on the home page when there is a thumbnail or photo in the post, modify the 400 value in red and if you want larger or smaller thumbnails.

Step 7: Click on save template button to save the modifications you just made.

I hope this tutorial helps you successfully add this script to your template.

An Aid To Help You Succeed In Content Marketing

Content advertising is a strategic showcasing system that is based on creating and publishing helpful, proper, and regular content material to speak to a target audience. It helps you sell something. It gives you power and credibility which are all add to prospects needing to purchase from you.

A successful content marketing strategy is more than just publishing irregular blog entries or articles. Here are the a few guides to help you succeed.

1. Purpose: You are writing for a particular purpose which could be either to drive traffic to a particular sales page, boost your affiliate income, or creating awareness. To satisfy your purpose you need to add a Call-to-action to your content. Examples are Learn More, Buy Now etc.

2. Mode of Writing: Your mode of writing could be a hindrance to effective content marketing. Make your content easy to read and use simple formatting. Always write in a friendly and informal tone, as this could be very compelling for the reader.

3. Content: Ensure your content is explanatory enough and contains all to be known about the product you are marketing. Also make sure to include in your content why the person reading needs to try out the product you are marketing. Always remember that content is king.

4. Planning: Arranging your content marketing helps you make the most out of your writing. What ever way you arrange your content, ensure you have an arrangement. Decide your keywords and the subject. Choose when you're going to publish it and where. Integrate your content into your traffic generation, Search engine optimization, sales and advertising strategies.

Accomplishment in business is generally about advertising, particularly on the web. Awesome promoting can sell an average product but poor advertising can't sell a great product.

Intel Hosts Bloggers Hangout Session in Nigeria

The Intel’s ambassador for Intel “She Will Connect” programme, Titilope Sonuga hosted a bloggers hangout session recently In Lagos, Nigeria to enlighten and interact with bloggers about the programme.

The Intel “She Will Connect” programme is an empowerment programme for females. This programme will help them connect to opportunities using technology and also reduce the internet gender gap through an innovative combination of digital literacy training. With the Intel “She Will Connect” programme women acquire digital literacy skills and expand their understating on the use of technology.

The Intel Bloggers Hangout Bloggers hangout session took place at Protea Hotel Leadway in Lagos Nigeria. It was a very interactive session between the bloggers that were present and the Intel She Will Connect ambassador as it gave the opportunity to discuss the latest additions to the program.

Titilope Sonuga- Intel She will connect ambassador

The Intel ambassador, Titilope Sonuga stated that So far, Over 30,000 girls and women have been trained and Intel is committed to a continued and sustainable impact on the lives of these girls and women.
Titilope Sonuga also took the bloggers through a poetry exercise session and challenged them to create a She Will connect poem within five minutes.

I was present at the She Will Connect bloggers hangout and it was really awesome and gave me the opportunity to meet some other bloggers I have been longing to meet.

Get Huge Traffic On Your Website Using Socialmarker (Video)

Driving traffic to website and blogs have been a major problem faced by bloggers and netpreneurs these days. Some people go extra miles to get traffic, some pay huge amounts to get traffic ,but the question is are you relly getting the traffic you need despite your efforts? If no then this video tutorial is for you.

With this tutorial you can learn how to drive traffic to your website with a web tool "Socialmarker" .
Social marker is actually a semi automated marketing software which help you to automate your bookmarking efforts. It is one time effort to create accounts on all the bookmarking sites then it is just a matter of drag and drop. Social marker is a browser based tool which will allow you to submit bookmarks to 50 social bookmarking sites.

If this video was helpful kindly share with other bloggers and dont forget to subscribe to my youtube channel.

Bloggers.ng: Nigerian Bloggers Directory

The bloggers.ng Nigerian bloggers directory is a website setup with the sole aim of connecting bloggers across Nigeria. This directory serves as a medium to help bloggers in Nigeria in different ways.

This bloggers directory started from a Facebook group "Bloggers Lab" founded by Jide Ogunsanya (editor-in-chief of ogbongeblog.com) and has grown into a full community to connect bloggers to bloggers and also bloggers to sponsors or advertisers.

On bloggers.ng bloggers can seek consultation from top blogger on issues that affect their blog and also ways to improve their blog and make the best out of their blogs. This directory help bloggers learn from each other and promote better relationship between bloggers across Nigeria. You can search for a blogger using his name, niche or state.

Most bloggers strive hard to find sponsorship on their blog but joining this directory will helps advertiser to quickly locate you as a blogger.

It is not only open to bloggers only but if you will like to learn blogging then you can also join and follow up with bloggers.

Joining bloggers.ng has lots of benefits and will help you grow to be a professional blogger.

How to join bloggers.ng

To join bloggers.ng simply visit www.bloggers.ng on your web browser and click "get listed now".

Fill in your correct details and click register and you are ready to go.

I am already signed up for bloggers.ng so you can reach me there, my username is kaesynwosu.

Dangers Of Using A Free Web Host

Using a free web host may seem very attractive and entising in the aspect of economy but taking a closer look at it, it is very dangerous and can cost your business a lot.

Most webmasters and netpreneurs this days don't think of the dangers of a free web host, the just look at the aspect of it being free and they don't have to pay annualy or upgrade hosting plan without knowing that there is more to a free host than it just being free.

Disadvantages of free web host:

•Uptime Is Not Guaranteed:
When Using a free web host your site possess the tendency to go off at any point in time due to congested server, this Minute your site is on and within a jiffy it is off.
This mess could turn off your visitors and you discover you begin to lose visitors. An in this case you have no say because you are not paying for the service.

•No Support Service:
When you begin to face various technical problem like in the issue of uptime there is no one to contact. No customer service, No submission of support ticket etc. You just have to face your problem alone without knowing when the problem will be resolved or if it will ever be resolved.

•Irrelevant Adverts:
A fre web host is also a commercial site with which the owner wants to use to make his/her money so in this case they setup irrelevant ads on your site as a form of monetization for their gain. And this ads can crumble your brand or take away most of your customers. For Example: Imagine a free webhost placing ads of another bulk SMS site on Naira for SMS, this is definitely going to take away most of its customers and you don't have control over the ads that is being displayed and much pop up and adverts to contribute in turning off visitors/ customers.

•Business Presentation:
It will definitely look awful if you present a business site on a subdomain. Take for example (kaesynwosu.freewebhost.com). It doesn't speak well of your business. A free web host is never going to provide you a custom domain rather they will prefer you stay on their subdomain and at times if you try to park a custom domain to it you begin to see a custom error page. And you may also experience problem with SEO because when you try to submit your site to directories you may be rejected because you are on a subdomain.

•Feature Limits
A free web host has limits to the service it can offer you. For example a free webhost doesn't have softaculous for installing CMS. You just have an auto installer section where you have limited number of installs.

•Bandwith Limit
Free web host can Never offer you unlimited bandwith and diskspace. Some may claim to offer unlimed bandwith but that's a big NO they just say that to entise you and make you start using their service. So it may get to a point where you exceed the limit and your site may be put offline.

The only benefit of a free web host is just its being FREE so you see you cannot compare the advantage to the disadvantages. The disadvantages out number the advantage. So it is advisable for you to go for a paid hosting plan if you want to enlarge your blog or commercial website or you have the aim of one day turning your website to your future job.

Recommeded Paid Hosting Companies:
In conclusion I will recommend some paid hosting companies that are tested and trusted and offer best of services including proper support service.
#1. iPage
#2. Godaddy
#3. BlueHost
#4. NameCheap
#5. Domainking

So which would you prefer To pay and get all features or stay free and get limited features?

Free Ebook: Ogbonge Bloggers Guide

Content

==> Where to get a free blog (Blogger.com)
==> How to set up your blog
==> How to generate the address for your free blog
==> How to choose template for your blog
==> How to write, preview, save and publish a blog post
==> How to add labels (categories) to your blog posts
==> How to schedule blog posts
==> How to insert links inside blog posts
==> How to change font size, colour, style of blog posts
==> How to add image to your blog posts
==> How to configure basic settings for your blog
==> How to configure "posts and comments" settings of your blog
==> Understanding Blogger layout
==> List of Blogger gadgets you can add to your blog
==> How to add HTML codes to your blog using HTML/Javascript gadget
==> How to add "Recent comments", "Recent Posts" to your blog
==> How to customize Blogger template with Template Designer
==> How to adjust width, change background and change layout of your template
==> How to make HTML changes to your blog
==> How to find a specific code in your blog HTML
==> How to back up and restore your blog template
==> How to activate Blogger mobile template
==> How to create navigation tabs e.g "About Us", "Contact Us" tabs etc
==> How to link navigation tabs to labels(categories)
==> How to register for Google Adsense
==> How to log out of Blogger dashboard
==> Ways you can monetize a blog
==> How to get traffic for your blog
==> Resources and recommendations for bloggers

You can view and download the ebook online here via Google Docs.

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